Tag Archives: Gabriel Pogrund

Latest anti-Semitism ‘revelations’ could mean criminal convictions for the Sunday Times and Margaret Hodge

Criminally offensive: Margaret Hodge.

It’s all going wrong at The Sunday Times, where its investigation – if you can call it that – into anti-Semitism at the Labour Party should soon have a nasty collision with the law of the land.

Today’s (April 14) revelation is that Labour MP Margaret Hodge took a leaf from the Jewish Labour Movement’s playbook and secretly recorded a meeting with Jeremy Corbyn.

She then passed the recording on to Sunday Times reporters Richard Kerbaj, Gabriel Pogrund (him again!) and Tim Shipman in a clear breach of s.170 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

It is a criminal offence for a person knowingly to obtain personal data without the consent of the controller, to retain it without the consent of the person who was the data controller when it was obtained, and to disclose it to another person without the consent of the controller.

Ms Hodge appears to be guilty of all three, along with the Sunday Times and its reporters.

As the recording contains no information that could be said to show wrongdoing on the part of Mr Corbyn, its creation and distribution may not be said to be in the public interest.

Wait – what? The story is about Mr Corbyn not doing enough to tackle anti-Semitism?

Don’t make me laugh.

The content of the illegal recording makes it clear that, having strengthened procedures in the wake of Jennie Formby’s accession to the position of general secretary, Mr Corbyn had become concerned that “evidence was being either mislaid, ignored or not used”.

The Sunday Times reporters have tried to imply that this is evidence of anti-Semitism by Labour Party members, but that is not what Mr Corbyn said.

He did not elaborate on the nature of the evidence in question.

It may be evidence that exonerates Labour Party members of any anti-Semitism allegations.

As a victim of the Labour Party’s bastardised and useless disciplinary procedures, I can affirm that they treat members accused of anti-Semitism on the basis that such people are guilty – and procedures are followed that do everything possible to prevent any proof of innocence being heard.

In my opinion, this would include evidence being “mislaid, ignored or not used”.

And let us not forget that the Labour Party is already a criminal organisation under the terms of the Data Protection Act, having failed to honour my Subject Access Request of February 2018, after a story falsely alleging that I was an anti-Semite appeared in the Sunday Times and other newspapers.

That evidence could have been a vital part of my defence against the charges the party was lining up against me – but Labour Party officers illegally withheld it.

Therefore it seems clear that Mr Corbyn has a strong case for believing party officers have acted wrongly.

The course of action open to the Labour leadership is clear. Legal proceedings under the Data Protection Act should be lodged against the Sunday Times and its individual reporters – Messrs Kerbaj, Pogrund and Shipman – and againt Ms Hodge. Her membership of the Labour Party must be suspended with a view to expulsion.

That is the only logical course of action in response to abuse of the law of this kind.

But, considering the Labour leadership’s record of pandering to bullies like Hodge, I won’t hold my breath waiting.

UPDATE: According to a commenter (see below), the data protection laws apply only to personal information like name, address, date of birth and so on. This does not ring true. Under the General Data Protection Regulations – and the Data Protection Act 2018, personal data is any information that is clearly about a particular person – such as, in this case, the opinions of Jeremy Corbyn. So the people and organisation named above are in a highly actionable position.

To put the cap on it, a Labour representative has contacted at least one of the reporters, stating: “The recording released by Margaret Hodge contains personal data of two individuals, neither of whom has consented to its recording, disclosure or other processing. Because of the political context, the data is special category personal data under the GDPR and DPA 2018. The Sunday Times‘ making use of the content of the recording is further processing for which the paper has no consent, nor does any relevant exception under Party 5 of Schedule 2 to the DPA apply.”


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Sunday Times reporter disgraces himself AGAIN – and Labour MPs let him lead them by the nose

The Sunday Times reporter who published ‘fake news’ claims that Jeremy Corbyn’s office had interfered in more than 100 anti-Semitism investigations and that the Labour leader had an “anti-Semite army” has put his foot in it again.

Gabriel Pogrund responded to criticism of the story he co-wrote in the April 7 edition of that “newspaper” by tweeting another leaked Labour document – a letter from general secretary Jennie Formby, discussing the coverage. Unfortunately his own commentary completely misrepresents that letter, according to another Twitter user.

Here’s Mr Pogrund’s tweet. Take screenshots quickly because it may not stay up for long!

He went on to state that “Formby also says the most extreme abuse highlighted by The Sunday Times “is being treated extremely seriously by the Party and we hope the NCC will hear it soon as a matter of urgency.” Refers to abuse of Jewish MPs Margaret Hodge and Ruth Smeeth”.

And he tweeted, “BUT Formby doesn’t say why Labour readmitted members who spread conspiracy theories re. Rothschilds controlling the world, Theresa May plotting Manchester bombing abd Jews plotting 9/11. Or why “Heil Hitler” member has not been expelled. (Labour denies none of the above.)”

His claims have been comprehensively debunked by a Twitter user going by the handle “leftworks”. Here’s the thread:

You can see that there is clear cause to doubt Mr Pogrund’s integrity in this matter (as there has been previously).

But it seems he has done his damage.

According to the Huffington Post‘s Paul Waugh (himself no friend to Mr Corbyn), the usual suspects were causing trouble over the false information in the Sunday Times at this week’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party – treating it as if it were true.

And Stella Creasy retweeted details of a motion that went before the PLP – again treating the “revelations” in the ST fiction as though they were accurate:

The motion goes far beyond what should be required at the moment.

The demand for information allowing MPs to establish for themselves whether the information in the ST story is accurate is reasonable – MPs want to put their minds at ease.

But there’s no reason to lump a demand for the party leadership to publish its response to the EHRC investigation on alleged Labour anti-Semitism. That is a separate matter from this.

There’s no reason to demand a statement of solidarity with the treacherous Jewish Labour Movement which, under the terms of Labour Party membership, should by rights have its affiliation removed and the memberships of those members of that organisation who are also members of Labour revoked, as they have made it clear, not only that they will not help get a Labour government elected – they will actively try to prevent the election of a Labour governent led by Jeremy Corbyn. That’s against party rules.

And there is no reason to “commit to a fully independent complaints process for all allegations of racism, bullying and harassment by party members”. That said, This Writer thinks it is an excellent idea, as the party’s National Constitutional Committee has proved completely incapable of acting properly in this matter – hence its nickname: “National Kangaroo Court”.

Of course, the format of this independent complaints process would be contentious, and no MP with an interest in the result of complaints would be able to contribute to the process of deciding what form it takes. That means no member of Labour Friends of Israel, the Jewish Labour Movement, or MP claiming to have been abused could decide how abuse allegations are handled.

There are ways of handling complaints that could be independent and impartial – and you should take close note of the fact that the word “impartial” was omitted from the motion – but I have serious doubts that they will be considered.

Yet again we see Labour MPs acting improperly in the wake of allegations against the party’s leadership.

And then they complain when local members call for their removal.


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My complaint to the Sunday Times about its libellous article

The accused (clockwise, from left): Jeremy Corbyn and Lee Jasper, Yours Truly, Terence Ewing, Kingsley Abrams, and Janine Booth

I’ve also complained to ITV after Robert Peston described me as “vile” in Peston on Sunday.

Last week, This Writer – Mike Sivier, for clarity – was contacted by a Sunday Times reporter named Gabriel Pogrund, saying he wanted to write about my readmission to the Labour Party after a meeting of the National Executive Committee’s disputes panel. I declined a telephone interview, fearing misrepresentation, and provided my answers by email. I then published those answers here, so readers could weigh them against the published piece and decide for themselves whether I had been treated fairly.

The Sunday Times published its article late yesterday evening (February 3) and as far as my part is concerned, it is almost entirely inaccurate. If the people mentioned in the article have been treated similarly unfairly, then the newspaper could be in considerable difficulty.

Here’s the headline and the part about me:

Labour welcomes back banned activists and Holocaust denier

Another individual who has been readmitted, Mike Sivier, was suspended by Labour only last year for comments about Jews and Zionism. On his website, Sivier, 48, said it “may be entirely justified” to say Tony Blair had been “unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers”.

He also said he was “not pretending it was a big problem” if Jews were omitted from a list of Holocaust survivors, and claimed “I’m not going to comment” on whether thousands or millions of Jews died in the Holocaust as “I don’t know”.

Sivier, who wrote a book defending Ken Livingstone’s claims about Hitler and Zionism, entitled The Livingstone Presumption, has been readmitted on the basis that he attends a workshop about anti-semitism. But he told the Sunday Times he would boycott the event. “I’m not accepting my readmission under the terms offered to me,” he said.

The NEC voted by 12 to 10 to issue Sivier a “warning” but not to expel him, suggeting the new arithmetic on the body had a decisive impact.

Long-term readers will be aware that I have already answered the false claims mentioned by Mr Pogrund; clearly he hasn’t done his research. In fact, if you check the language used, it seems likely he lifted all his information (we can’t call any of it “fact”) from the Campaign Against Antisemitism’s hate piece about me, written in April last year. I believe it was done to corruptly influence the county council elections, in which I was a candidate, to prevent me from winning.

Even those of you who may only have read yesterday’s article on This Site may be justified in wondering why Mr Pogrund chose not to mention the example of my supposed anti-Semitism that I covered, but published others without asking me about them or researching whether his claims had any foundation at all.

I considered these elements when writing my complaint. Here it is:

I am writing to demand an apology and correction of your piece entitled Labour welcomes back banned activists and Holocaust denier, published in the Sunday Times today, February 4. It contains many falsehoods about me. Am I supposed to be the “Holocaust denier” in the headline?

It won’t go without saying, so let me make this clear: I am not a Holocaust denier. In fact, I published an article only a few days ago, detailing how a Labour MP shamed one such person. My pieces on this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day are also unequivocal on this subject.

But let’s get to the substantive issues:

Your piece claims that I “was suspended by Labour only last year for comments about Jews and Zionism”. This is not true. As I explained to your reporter Gabriel Pogrund by email, “My membership of the Labour Party was suspended in early May 2017, after allegations were received that I may have been involved in a breach of Labour Party rules, ‘relating to social media posts which may be described by some as anti-Semitic and may cause offence to some members’.” So my membership was not suspended FOR any acts, but ON SUSPICION. Big difference as the first implies guilt and the second does not.

It continues: “On his website, Sivier, 48, said it ‘may be entirely justified’ to say Tony Blair had been ‘unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers’. This is a quote from a hate piece written against me last year by an organisation calling itself the Campaign Against Antisemitism, which had lifted words from my articles and (in this case, their comment columns), twisting them out of context.

I had been asked about comments that were not directly related to the subject under discussion – by a person posting under the pseudonm ‘Ben’ (my attackers very rarely reveal their real names – isn’t THAT interesting?). He wrote, “Yes of course there will always be individuals with aberrant views” and then referred to an incident in which “In 2003, Tam Dalyell suggested that Tony Blair was “unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers”.

My response was to point out that the claim had been stripped of its context, so it was impossible to comment on it: “I would point out that (without further information) concerns that Tony Blair was being ‘unduly influenced’ by ‘a cabal of Jewish advisors’ may have been entirely justified.” In other words, there’s no point in presenting a bald statement like that to anybody without information on whether there was any accuracy in the claim or not. Where was the context? Nowhere to be seen. Then the CAA leapt on my response, stripped it of the qualifying words, and presented it as proof of anti-Semitism. That is not acceptable and your reporter’s use of it is not acceptable either.

In discussion (if you can call it that) on Twitter today (February 4), I came up with an explanation which I think may be easier to understand:

It doesn’t actually matter which group is said to be over-influencing the prime minister – or indeed, which prime minister was said to be under their influence. Anyone with an interest in politics who is told the prime minister is being swayed by a single group, more than any other, may have good reason for concern, until information is provided that disproves the claim – in which case, there’s no problem – or proves it – in which case serious questions would have to be asked in the corridors of power. Agreed?

Your reporter stated: “He also said he was ‘not pretending it was a big problem’ if Jews were omitted from a list of Holocaust survivors, and claimed ‘I’m not going to comment’ on whether thousands or millions of Jews died in the Holocaust as ‘I don’t know’. This is quite a complicated lie as it not only takes my words out of context to remove their meaning, but also quotes my words out-of-sequence.

‘Ben’ (again) stated: “In 2008, the SWP issued an explanation of the Holocaust that referred to ‘thousands’ (not ‘millions’) of victims and omitted any reference to Jews. Whether this was ‘organised’ or ‘just a mistake’ seems irrelevant. See http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/08/18/has-swp-discovered-jew-free-holocaust (including, in particular, the last two BTL comments).”

There was no link to anything written by the SWP – just the article commenting on it. So I responded: “I’m not going to comment on ‘thousands’ instead of ‘millions’ because I don’t know – meaning, of course, I don’t know why the SWP had said that. I have always used the ‘high’ figure of six million Jews who were killed in the Nazi Holocaust. Perhaps your reporter should have read my recent articles on Holocaust Memorial Day before typing that reference into his piece? Or, indeed, ANY of my articles at all?

‘Ben’ pressed me, writing: “Mike, you are simply sticking your fingers in your ears, defending the indefensible, and pretending that there isn’t a problem.” This was in reference to my responses to the whole series of issues he presented to me, not just that of the SWP, so your reporter’s use of it is a distortion – as are the words he quoted as my response. I stated: “I’m not pretending there isn’t a problem, though. I’m simply not pretending it’s a big problem.”

Consider what your reporter stated – that I said I was “not pretending it was a big problem” (which is inaccurate as a quote, by the way). It makes it seem that I was saying it was not a problem at all. People do it all the time – dismissing claims by saying, “Oh, that’s not a big problem”. In this case, though, it’s not true to present me in that way. I acknowledged very clearly that there is a problem. My point – and it’s an accurate one, I think, is that it isn’t huge. There aren’t a huge amount of anti-Semites lurking in the Labour Party. The fact that people like the Campaign Against Antisemitism and your own reporter have to fabricate claims about me tends to prove that, I think.

The line about the warning and attending a workshop about anti-Semitism is accurate, and “I’m not accepting my readmission under the terms offered to me,” is ALMOST an accurate quote. I said “I’m not accepting IT under the terms offered to me”. But your reporter failed to include my reasons for rejecting the decision: “It implies guilt for an offence I have not committed.” Without that, you present a false impression of guilt.

And the line that “The NEC voted by 12 to 10 to issue Sivier a ‘warning’ but not to expel him, suggeting the new arithmetic on the body had a decisive impact” is pure fabrication. I provided detailed information to Mr Pogrund about the discussion, and it seems clear that members were split between those who accepted that I was not guilty of anti-Semitism and those who simply thought “there’s no smoke without fire” – that there must have been something in the accusations against me, simply because they had been made. I have no information on how the disputes panel was split, and it seems your reporter doesn’t have any either. There could have been more left-wingers ranged against me, for all I know.

You should be aware that I have published the information I provided to your report on my website – at https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/02/03/the-sunday-times-wanted-me-to-talk-about-labours-antisemitism-investigation-so-i-did/ – so readers can judge for themselves whether your reporter has represented me accurately.

Given the enormity of the inaccuracies I have detailed above, it is clear that your report is defamatory. You must publish an appropriate apology and correction at your earliest possible opportunity. I expect it to receive the same prominence as the original article – and would appreciate it if you included the link to my article about the information I provided, in the name of accuracy.

Fair enough? Apologies if I have laboured any of my points. Unfortunately, some readers will be determined to twist my words so I have to do what I can to make it hard for them.

While I was writing my complaint to the Sunday Times, I heard my name mentioned by Robert Peston on his show, Peston on Sunday. He was referring to the Sunday Times piece and at one point described me as “vile”.

The complaint to ITV was much shorter than that to the newspaper – because I was able to attach the complaint above and link to the other pieces I’ve mentioned. I wrote:

I was alarmed to hear myself being discussed in defamatory terms by Robert Peston on his show, Peston on Sunday, today – February 4.

Mr Peston was discussing me in relation to an inaccurate Sunday Times article,  headlined Labour welcomes back banned activists and Holocaust denier. The article’s references to me appear to be based primarily, not on my own words, but on a hate article about me, published by an organisation called the Campaign Against Antisemitism in the run-up to the county council elections last year, in which I was a candidate. I believe it was published in an attempt to corruptly influence the election result by making false statements about me in breach of s.106 of the Representation of the People Act, 1983.

You will see that, where it discusses the issues included in the Sunday Times report, the newspaper’s language is similar to that of the article, if not identical.

It does include links to my own pieces and, if you were to visit them, you would see that the CAA has “quotemined” my articles – clipping out parts of sentences in order to publish them out-of-context, to present a false impression of my character and my work.

Alternatively, you could read the article I wrote in response to the CAA smear piece.

Further information is available in the text of the email I wrote to Sunday Times reporter Gabriel Pogrund. Mr Pogrund wanted to interview me by telephone but I declined – a wise choice, it seems. I have attached it to this email; alternatively you could read my article, published late on February 3, which includes Mr Pogrund’s questions to me.

I published that piece because I was concerned that the Sunday Times might misrepresent me and wanted the public to be able to see what I had told the reporter.

I am also providing the text of my email demanding an apology and correction from the Sunday Times, as it deals with the inaccuracies in Mr Pogrund’s piece directly.

In the light of the above, I hope you will understand my distress at being described as “vile” on national television by Mr Peston.

Has nobody working on that programme considered the value of doing a little research? I’ve been a news reporter and journalist for 24 years and I distinctly recall being trained to have the facts at hand.

Given the enormity of the inaccuracies I have detailed above, it is clear that Mr Peston’s words were defamatory. Please broadcast an appropriate apology and correction on Peston on Sunday at your earliest possible opportunity – on this evening’s repeat if possible, and certainly on next week’s edition.

At the time of writing, I await a response from both the newspaper and the TV station.

In the meantime, feel free to send your own observations to the comment column. If you want to attack me, be sure you have a strong argument!


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The Sunday Times wanted me to talk about Labour’s #antisemitism investigation – so I did


The question is whether the Murdoch paper’s reporter then decided to misrepresent me.

A reporter calling himself Gabriel Pogrund contacted me with the following:

Several suspended members of the Labour party were readmitted following a recent meeting of the NEC.

I understand that:

i) you were given a warning and mandated to attend Jewish Labour Movement training, after which you will be readmitted to the party as a member of Brecon and Radnorshire CLP

ii) you were previously suspended from the party in 2017 for posting comments and material online that was interpreted to be anti-Semitic

Could you confirm that the above details are accurate?

And, if you are happy to, could you also provide a comment about your readmission and your view on the current direction of the party?

Sure. Why not?

But it occurred to me that my words might not be reproduced as I intended them.

So I decided to reproduce them here, at the same time as the Sunday Times came off the presses and was distributed to the nation. Hopefully, that way, there would be no going back and readers could check the words published in the paper against those I provided.

Paranoid? Well, you are reading an article by someone whose words were lifted and twisted to fabricate the case against me in the first place.

Here are my words. Yes, there are a lot of them. No:

My membership of the Labour Party was suspended in early May 2017, after allegations were received that I may have been involved in a breach of Labour Party rules, “relating to social media posts which may be described by some as anti-Semitic and may cause offence to some members”. The complainant had sent an article, published on the Campaign Against Antisemitism website, which had cherry-picked words from several pieces on my website, http://voxpoliticalonline.com in order to present a false impression of my work. So the description of my posts as anti-Semitic was a deliberate lie, and it seems to me that any offence caused was after reading the CAA article, not my original work.

I was running as a candidate in the Powys County Council elections at the time, and the CAA article – together with the complaint to the Labour Party – were, in my opinion, politically-motivated; an attempt to affect the election by making false statements about my personal character/behaviour, in breach of s.106 of the Representation of the People Act, 1983. Nothing in the allegation had anything to do with my political activities. The articles, from which the CAA mined its quotes, dated back to April 2016, so there had been plenty of opportunity to air any grievance before the election. It is my opinion that the only possible reason for publishing it at the end of April 2017, days before the vote, was to corruptly influence the result.

One example of my alleged anti-Semitism that has been quoted very often is this line: “This conspiracy – and it is a conspiracy, have no doubt about that,” which the CAA – and its many supporters who have been sending hate messages to me via the social media and writing blog articles about me ever since the allegations were made – demands must refer to the anti-Semitic trope about a fictitious “international Jewish conspiracy”. In fact, it refers to the very real and actual attempt at a conspiracy by former Israeli embassy official Shai Masot, as exposed in episode 4 of the Al-Jazeera documentary The Lobby. He was trying to get Tory aide Maria Strizzolo to help him remove Alan Duncan from his position as a Foreign Office minister, on the grounds that Mr Duncan’s pro-Palestine stance was considered to be against Israel’s political interests. At one point in the episode (around 23 minutes in), he actually says, “It sounds like a conspiracy” – because it was. He also claims, around 21 minutes in, to be working with Labour Friends of Israel, and this raises real questions about the influence of a foreign country on politics and political decisions here in the UK – questions that, it seems to me, are being dodged with false accusations of anti-Semitism.

At the meeting of the NEC disputes panel in January, I understand that a very one-sided report was put to members which referred to an interview I attended at Welsh Labour HQ, falsely suggesting that my answers were “vague”. I brought a witness to that meeting, and – like me – she is furious at that inaccurate claim. Several members spoke up in my defence, raising points that I made during that interview, but my understanding is that other members wanted to reject this evidence because it had been omitted from the report that had been submitted to them. The recommendation had been for my case to be referred to the National Constitutional Committee, with a recommendation for my dismissal, but the disputes panel was not happy with it. However, members were not willing to dismiss the case altogether. It seems that some of them take a “no smoke without fire” attitude to reports that are submitted to the panel, so a compromise was discussed and agreed, in which I would be given a warning and told to attend “training” by the Jewish Labour Movement.

I have rejected that. It implies guilt for an offence I have not committed.

Also, of course, it was at a “training” session run by the Jewish Labour Movement that Jackie Walker was recorded, and her words were subsequently used to support a claim of anti-Semitism against her. My understanding is that the event had been advertised as a “safe space” meeting, in which attendees were encouraged to discuss their concerns without fear of being recorded or having the concerns they raised used against them. Clearly this did not happen; the JLM either made the recording or allowed it to be made. So you will appreciate my reasons for doubting the motives behind such “training” sessions, and for referring to them in quotation marks; they are said to be training sessions but seem to be something else.

For the time being, I have been restored to full membership of the party. My case will be reconsidered after I reject an invitation to a JLM event. Personally, I think that’s just prolonging the matter – I have already made my rejection of the decision perfectly clear and I am keen to demonstrate to my fellow Labour Party members that they have based their decision on false information.

How do I feel about my readmission? As you can tell, I’m not accepting it under the terms offered to me. I don’t blame the disputes panel members; they can only act on the information that has been provided to them. I do question the procedure it has followed. Clearly the report they received was biased against me; I thought people facing accusations in the UK were deemed to be innocent until proven guilty, but there appears to have been a presumption of guilt in my case, and I had no opportunity to set the record straight. The procedure needs to be reformed to ensure fairness.

That being said, I hold no grievance against the Labour Party as a whole. I believe our policies are better for the UK than those of any other political party – obviously, as I wouldn’t be a member otherwise – and the growing list of catastrophes affecting Theresa May’s government is demonstrating that to the general public. The huge increase in membership since Jeremy Corbyn became leader has fuelled reform of internal party democracy that means Labour in Parliament is increasingly reflecting the wishes of its members. That is an ongoing, and healthy, process.

I would like to add that I consider the behaviour of the Campaign Against Antisemitism and its supporters to be a politically-motivated act of violence against me. This hate campaign was an attempt to ruin my reputation as a reliable political commentator and, in doing so, seriously harm my income. It raises serious questions about the political allegiance of an organisation which – according to Charity Commission rules – is supposed to be impartial. And it seems very strange that an organisation dedicated to the fight against hatred directed at innocent people, for no reason other than their religious/ethnic origin, should fabricate reasons to engage in a campaign of hate against me.

It’s far too much information for a news story about a wider issue – but enough to make my meaning clear.

I wonder if it tallies with Mr Pogrund’s story.


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