 On Tisgy Sour, we spent most of April reporting on Britain's coronavirus catastrophe. However, there was one political story we just had to cover. The Labour Leaks. They were a set of documents compiled by Labour Party staff about how the former leadership in Labour Party HQ had undermined Jeremy Corbyn. This included sabotage, it included bullying, all quite shocking stuff. On the 13th of April, myself and Aaron Bestani went through the documents in detail. We can join the conversation as we discuss one particular WhatsApp chat. This was a chat between members of the party's senior leadership team just after the surprisingly positive exit polls came out in the 2017 general election. Patrick, if anyone in War Room needs some safe space time, they can come to GSO, so the General Secretary's office. Tracy Allen, more likely in need of counselling. Emily Oldnow, who as we said is Executive Director for Governance, Membership and Party Services. What's the atmosphere like there? Simon Mills, depending which side of the building. Patrick Kanigan, who is in charge of the election campaign. Awful. Help. Simon Mills. Split between you four here in shock. I don't need to read you all the names. Julie Lawrence, we are stunned and reeling. Tracy Allen, they are cheering and we are silent and grey-faced. It's probably the best line in the chat. Opposite to what I had been working towards for the last couple of years. This is a chat of people with top jobs in the Labour Party. They are explicitly saying they have been working for the last couple of years to make sure Labour never do well in a general election. Emily Oldnow, we have to be upbeat and not show it. At least we have loads of money now. Julie Lawrence, not if we go into a coalition and lose short money. Steve walking the floor. Patrick Kanigan, I'm going into Room of Death. Ian McNichol, it's going to be a long night. Aaron, what do you make of this? The people who were getting paid quite handsome salaries by the Labour Party after the exit poll results from a general election come in where the Labour Party performed surprisingly well, phenomenally well. A 10-point increase from 30% in 2015 to 40% in 2017 against all expectations. I mean, what do you make of it that this was the reactions of two Executive Directors and other people with high-powered positions in the Labour Party and the General Secretary? Yeah, the General Secretary and two Directors. These are, bear in mind, all these WhatsApp conversations are from what's called the SMT Group, the Senior Management Team Group. This should be the most senior group of people in the Labour Party, outside the Parliamentary Labour Party, of course. The two other people there that haven't, but their titles have not been given, they were working in Ian McNichol's office. What you see in those conversations is effectively a parallel structure, a party within a party revolving around Old No, Hennigan, elsewhere, John Stollarday, and also Ian McNichol and Tom Watson. This was a party within a party. If we can go back to the first bit of that conversation. Okay, you can see as Mike has already said, awful help. Tracy Allen is one of the people who works in the McNichol office. She's saying opposites what I've been working towards for the last couple of years. We have to be upbeat and not show. Now, this is critical. This is really critical. Emily Old now is now at Unison. She's an Assistant General Secretary there. She has been widely tipped as Keir Starmer's number one choice to be the Labour Party's General Secretary to replace Jenny Formby. And you can see what she says here. We have to be upbeat and not show it. There's a level of dissimulation and lies, fundamentally, which is quite remarkable. And then she looks at the upside. At least we have loads of money now. We're going to have to disagree about this, perhaps, Michael. This is the worst line for me. Julie Lawrence. Not if we go into coalition and lose short money. Julie Lawrence, who works for Ian McNichol, is explicitly stating that the worst possible thing that can now happen is for the Labour Party to enter government. Her colleague says, well, the upside is we have more money. She goes, no, well, no, we won't have more money because we'll lose the short money because we'll be in government. Why are all these people working for the Labour Party if they don't want the Labour Party to be in government? Why are MPs in Parliament for Labour if they don't want to be MPs in a governing Labour Party? Why are people canvassing on doors, knocking on doors, paying money to travel around the country, taking time off, working unpaid to get people elected to change the policies of this country? Why are we doing all of this stuff? I mean, I was canvassing for Labour in 2017. Why are people doing all of this if actually the people at the very top don't want to win? I mean, it's absolutely remarkable. We'll talk about it a little bit later on. Yeah, the media have not really picked. I mean, they're having to because it's just such a huge story. I saw some of the comments when I said it's really blown up. Not many stories in the number of our media site get around 200,000 views in about 24 hours. It's a big story. And one thing's that big, coupled with, of course, as we were talking about people sharing screen grabs and so on through WhatsApp, you can't measure how big that gets. We have no idea because it's all private channels. That is a fundamentally terrifying story of the party of opposition and the people running it not wanting to actually be the government. That is anathema to our entire democratic system. It's a huge, huge scandal. And it's so big inevitably, eventually, the people who will never want to cover these things because they're embroiled with these very same people are going to have to cover it because it's a story of fundamental national significance. Well, also, I mean, as I was saying earlier, like we, even at the time, so this is all happening in 2017, at the time during that general election, we'd be talking on the bar media about how, you know, there was internal civil war going on in the party and we're not sure if the people in HQ are really going to be working towards the party's interest. That was called a bunker mentality, conspiratorial. You know, how dare you question the motives of party staff. And we should have a look at as well how these people were covered by the media at the time. Because whilst these people, it seems, were actively working to undermine Labour's electoral chances, they were still presented as the most important people in the party who were the only ones keeping the show moving and, you know, making it electorally competent, even though they were working in the opposite direction. I just want to go to one of the worst examples of this. As this about Emmy Aldner, you've seen the quotes at the time, she left the party in 2018 to become, to work at Unison. Potentially people are saying she might come back as Keir Starmer's pick for General Secretary. I imagine these revelations will probably make that much more difficult than it would have been. But this is Kevin Scofield at Politics Home. Fresh blow for Labour as senior officials dubbed brains of the party quits. And the sub-heading, a senior Labour official job. The brains of the party has dramatically quit her job. Senior party sources said Ms Oldnose's decision to quit was a hammer blow for Labour. One told Politics Home, this is the brains and the muscles of the organisation leaving. That's it for the Labour Party. So this is someone who after the general election, when we did quite well, was saying, we have to pretend to not be incredibly miserable so that people don't have proof that we actually wanted the party to lose. That's it for the Labour Party. These people leaving the Labour Party was necessary, and I would say one of the best things that happened to it, but obviously it didn't go that well afterwards. But there were one of many things holding back the party at this point in time. Can I just say before we carry on, you're saying it didn't go well afterwards, because as we'll see, I actually feel sorry, one of the things as I was going through this report and writing the piece, I feel sorry for the People's Vote campaign, because what it became was a lifeboat. Actually, I think two people... All of these people, yeah. Patrick kind of went to the People's Vote campaign. Yeah, a couple of them. I think John Soledad as well. Maybe that may not be correct. I think it was John Soledad. It was a couple of them. You know, these are talentless, malicious, horrible people, and they actually made the People's Vote campaign inevitably about just undermining Jeremy Corbyn and destroying Labour in any general election. And I feel so sorry for people that really believed it was about a second referendum. I'm sure many people involved in it were involved because of those reasons, but it became a lifeboat for apparatchiks, effectively, who were now no longer provided with a career by the Labour Party, who wants to earn a living, and they did so by fundamentally destroying this movement. It was a movement, the movement for a second referendum. I didn't support it because I didn't think the electoral calculus added up, but look, it's a democracy. People can do what they like, but the individuals at the top of that, who were also involved in this, people like Patrick Kenegan, my God. So Patrick Kenegan went on to be director of the People's Vote campaign. John Stollarday was head of strategic communications until March 2009 when he moved to Unison. So that Phillips Gopal article also contained what was Emily Oldnow's email to all staffers. The political books and newspaper clippings rarely mention the heroic efforts of party staff who each day go to work with one simple objective, to help secure the election of a Labour government. That is not the objective you went to work with. You went to work with the objective to save a few right-wing MPs from losing and were incredibly disappointed when Labour had the chance potentially to form a government. Another party insider said, politicians may grab the headlines, but it's Emily and her team who have kept the show on the road the last few years, difficult to see where the party goes next. These were people who wanted the Labour Party to lose, difficult to see where the party goes next. Jesus Christ. Well, we know where they wanted it to go next, which was they wanted to carry on what they'd already done, except rather than pissing inside the tent, they'd have to do it outside the tent. In the case of the two gentlemen we talked about who went on to work for the People's Vote campaign. So Lucy Fisher is at the Times or Sky, is she? Times. I think Defence Correspondent. Major departure from Labour. Exec director Emily Oldnow has quit ahead of the new Gensect, likely to be Jenny Formby appointment. Senior party sources say it's a massive loss and predicts she won't be the last to go. Oldnow was key moderate who oversaw HR and compliance. This is one thing you want to take out of this entire story is that journalists on your Twitter feed with blue ticks, people that write in the newspapers, many people that go on television. I mean, there are some exceptions. Sky broke the stories I've said, but many of them are actually like Kevin Schofield. Many of them are the last people you should trust in terms of maintaining journalistic integrity. All right. Let's go to the bit about racism and bullying, because I think this is what shocked people most on Twitter, as well as obviously party staff trying to actively undermine the electoral chances. These were the most shocking. So Mulholland as PLP secretary was the main liaison between MPs and the Labour Party. In February 2017, she said, Diane Abbott literally makes me sick. In the same WhatsApp group, senior staff discussed Abbott crying in the toilets and telling Michael Crick, a Channel 4 reporter at the time where she was. And now let's go to the WhatsApp chat. Patrick Hannigan. Abbott found crying in the lose. Julie Lawrence, a sort of crying emoji. Tracy Allen. Abbott Memorial cupboard works well. Patrick Hannigan, Diane and Leon on Vic Street. Fiona Stanton. Shall we tell Michael Crick? Patrick Hannigan already have. So this is someone, he's an executive director of the Labour Party who is telling people the location of Diane Abbott when she's been crying in the toilet. Before I bring you in, Aaron, I want to show what was potentially the context of Diane Abbott crying in a toilet. Now, I mean, it's common knowledge that she received more abuse, racist, sexist, awful, awful abuse over the last four years than any other politician in Britain. Disgusting stuff. But it is worth checking the dates of when this conversation happened and what was in the news on that day or the following day, what was going on that week. So this conversation was going on on the 8th of March, 2017. I'm going to get up a Guardian article from the 9th, sorry, the 8th of February, 2017. I'm going to get up a Guardian article from the 9th of February, 2017. Headline, conservative official suspended over racist tweet aimed at Diane Abbott. The context of that tweet, you've got a local conservative official was suspended from the party for retweeting a message aimed at Diane Abbott that they say described as racist, but I think that's a bit bad from the Guardian, really. So he had tweeted, portraying Abbott, the Shadow Home Secretary, as an ape wearing lipstick and he posted, nice lips kid, but a shade too much rouge, disgusting. But anyway, this is a quote that I thought was incredibly relevant to what's going on here. So the controversy emerged as it was revealed that a female staff member in Abbott's team wrote to the Metropolitan Police about another threatening and racist message sent this week. Abbott would not comment on the police complaint which was leaked to the Guardian, but sources confirmed that it had been sent. The worker claimed that death and rape threats and offensive messages focusing on race and weight were now a daily occurrence for the Shadow Home Secretary. So that week, Diane Abbott, her team had had to write to the Metropolitan Police about another message which was threatening violence, threatening rape. And obviously, Diane Abbott is quite rightly upset about this. And what do you do as director for campaigns of the Labour Party? You tell a Channel 4 journalist where she's getting her lunch. Leon, it's a calf, it's a restaurant. So he's telling journalists to go and follow Diane Abbott who's getting more abuse than any other politician in this country to follow her when she goes for lunch and making jokes when she's upset in a toilet. It's disgusting, it's horrific. It's harassment. It's a targeted campaign of harassment not partly by Twitter trolls and the far right and so on, partly by the media. You always want a story. Oh, maybe we can break the Shadow Home Secretary as a human being. Of course, far more interesting for them because she's a black woman who has left-wing views. But then it's aided and abetted by people within her own organisation, people who are meant to have her back, people who are paid to have her back. And it's just remarkable. How dare anybody in the Labour Party say they're the party of anti-misogyny, anti-racism? How dare they? Not even a Tory would sink this low. People said, oh, Will, I saw Owen Jones make a tweet. This is what the Tories do. No, they don't. The Bullyingdon Club wouldn't do this to their own. It's absolutely despicable. Not one ounce of loyalty or integrity from these people. Disgusting, malevolent stuff. And you know, people like hyperbole. People love superlatives. How else would you like to characterise this? Somebody, and this, by the way, this gentleman has an OBE. He has an OBE, and he's a director of the Labour Party, and he's telling not just any old journalist, somebody who he knows is a very hostile political journalist, that I think Tom was political editor of Channel 4, Michael Crick, to find out where the Sherlock Holmes secretary is. This person isn't just not welcome in the Labour Party. He shouldn't just not work for them. They're an abhorrent human being. They really need to look in the mirror. When I tweeted this yesterday, Abby Wilkinson, a journalist and friend of the show, she tweeted under it like, I wouldn't do this to my worst enemy. Political enmity cannot explain this behaviour. This behaviour is sociopathic. In any way, let's go to now Dawn Butler, because obviously it wasn't just Diane Abbott. So this is from October 2016. Emily Aldo again. Dawn Butler, so this is when she's just been... I'm sorry, Neil Fleming, acting head of press and broadcasting. Yep, PLP women will go spare. Emily Aldo, good grief. Claire Francis Fuller. Did she not accuse the LP and its staff of being racist this week? Nice. Emily Aldo. Harriet White privilege Harman. That conversation would look dismissive and ridiculous enough as it is, but given the people in that conversation, in the conversation that we also now can see were pointing out where the person subject to the most racism of any politician in the country was having lunch so that a journalist can follow them, to then think that Labour Party staff, it would be ridiculous to question whether or not they're anti-racists is more than a little ironic, isn't it, Aaron? But yeah, and also look, sometimes you have to take stock and you look around the room and you go, oh wow, we're mostly middle-aged white people, white guys actually. One of the astonishing things in this report was Emily Aldo, who is a woman, is repeatedly abusive about other women. Misogyny, misogynoir isn't just limited to men. It can be internalised by women. And this is a classic example of that. But more horrific is seeing men, John Stoller Day, Hennigan, two or three men repeatedly denigrate women, Carrie Murphy was in one, Diane Abbots another, using the most violent language imaginable. Now, when a man uses violent language about women repeatedly, again, it goes beyond a political or a factional point, right? What kind of psychological mindset is it work here? You know, maybe, I don't think this is about left and right and I'm not trying to win people over to my side of the debate here, but you know, it's not ideological. Anybody that uses that kind of violent, aggressive language about women repeatedly, particularly women of colour, I think they have significant problems and they certainly shouldn't be working in a progressive party and they certainly shouldn't try and dawn themselves the mask of anti-racism. And it's just, again, it's repulsive. And yeah, I want to just bring up one more sort of show how this isn't just factional, it's just like who are these people? So this is Emily Aldno again, Graphic7a. Who is, let's remind you, Executive Director of the Labour Party for Governance. So she's the person who's, she's the top dog when it comes to dealing with complaints. She's the, you know, the buck stops with her. Emily Aldno, fuck off PewPed. I'm too busy slagging you off. Mike Creighton, can I just point out from my sick bed that there's too much disparaging talk about old folk on this timeline, salt of the earth, don't you know? Tracy Allen, who is PewPed? Emily Aldno, to talk to you about John Trickett's diary, Katie. Also they were talking, they were calling Katie Clark PewPed. Emily Aldno, Katie Clark had the exact same clothes on yesterday, smelly cow. Tracy Allen, didn't she do that at conference too? Emily Aldno, yes, same clothes, four days. Patrick Kennigan probably slept in them, disgusting. Emily Aldno, Carrie is fat too. There's a good old role in that photo. Like this is, I've heard people say, look, this is a WhatsApp chat and people chat shit on WhatsApp chats. And it's, you know, potentially, you know, sometimes I say some things on, on WhatsApp chats that are a bit politically incorrect or something. And you know, I wouldn't publish it publicly on Twitter. But what the fuck adult writes this shit? Because it's not even, you know, it's not, it's not funny. Sometimes if you've got a sort of, if you're doing some banter on a WhatsApp chat and someone says something rude about someone, you're like, oh, at least that was witty. Oh, I wouldn't say that in public. But this is just like, are these people 14? No, they're executive directors of Britain's main progressive party. I mean, I know what you're saying. And there's, this isn't us trying to, oh, this is cancel culture. This is not cancel culture. This is not about there's a distinction between what you would publish, publish, publish your privately, which like you say, Michael, is a thing. You know, on WhatsApp, I'll be saying, oh, you fancy this or that person. You know, that's what people do. But you would say the same to me. You'd say something silly. This is... I think that's making the WhatsApp chat sound a bit more innocent. You fancy this person. People might be rude about other people, but just not... No, well, we're not. Childish. No, well, we're not. I mean, we don't say anything like this. I mean, I might go, God, that guy's fucking ridiculous. I mean, okay, that's, everybody does that. But like you say, it's like... I don't call people crap and ugly, pew-ped. It's like, what, I mean, maybe I would have done when I was 14, but then I would have been like... Even then, even then people would have been like, 14-year-old Michael, that's really mean. That's really mean. Yeah, exactly. Pew-ped. I mean, like... And this was the person who was... This was the person in charge of how people should behave in the Labour Party. Yeah. Who hasn't moved on from being like a really awful 14-year-old. With an OBE. How does that happen?