New bombshell film exposes Israel lobby role in UK Labour Party

A new cache of leaked Labour documents shows how Israel lobby operatives worked against former leader Jeremy Corbyn from within the UK’s main opposition party.

Israel lobbyist Luke Akehurst intervened to help save suspended right-wing Labour activist Luke Stanger from expulsion – despite a series of complaints of harassment and intimidation.

The leaked files also detail how Palestine solidarity activists and left-wingers were investigated, suspended and expelled from the party, while right-wing pro-Israel members were protected by senior party figures.

The documents were revealed on Thursday in the first episode of The Labour Files, a new three-part series by Al Jazeera’s investigative unit – the same team behind the 2017 series The Lobby and the censored 2018 series The Lobby – USA.

The Qatar-based satellite channel describes the trove of internal Labour Party materials as “the largest leak of documents in British political history.”

During the Corbyn years, the files show, the generally left-voting city of Brighton became a focus of clashes between the party’s left and right wings.

A leaked 2016 email shows that Palestine solidarity activist and Labour member Becky Massey was secretly reported to the party’s disciplinary unit by Labour lawmaker Peter Kyle. “I would like to direct you in the strongest terms to investigate and to remove the member from the party,” Kyle wrote, then naming Massey. In one tweet, Kyle complained, “she calls Israel a ‘sick society.’”

The lawmaker accused her of being “aggressive” to him and his staff. Massey denies this in the episode, saying “I’m not an aggressive person” and recalling that Kyle had been to her house for Labour meetings in the past.

Massey was targeted in part due to her posting of an article by The Electronic Intifada to Twitter.

Despite Kyle’s intervention, Massey avoided suspension in 2016. But as The Electronic Intifada revealed in 2020, Massey was expelled from Labour after right-winger Keir Starmer became leader, at the request of Israel lobby group the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

The files show that another Labour right-winger who secretly reported Massey was former lawmaker Ivor Caplin.

Caplin would later become chair of pro-Israel group the Jewish Labour Movement – which has close ties to the Israeli embassy in London.

Labour national executive member and Israel lobbyist Luke Akehurst, left, intervened to protect suspended right-wing activist Luke Stanger, also pictured, despite credible claims of abuse and harassment. Al Jazeera

More by Asa Winstanley (EI)