Labour tried to gag Martin Forde over revelations

  • Post last modified:June 21, 2024
  • Reading time:18 mins read


The Independent just broke one of the most explosive revelations so far this election. Specifically, it exposed how Keir Starmer’s Labour Party attempted to gag barrister Martin Forde who authored the damning report into the party’s “hierarchy of racism”.

Predictably, it has been tumbleweed from the corporate media – with LabourList even deleting its article.

In reality however, this is not surprising. That’s because the corporate press already has form on this. In other words, it isn’t the first time it has tried to sweep Labour’s institutional racism under the rug, and it likely won’t be the last either.

Labour threaten Forde report author

On 19 June, the Independent’s Nadine White revealed that the Labour Party attempted to silence barrister Martin Forde for speaking out on the findings of his independent report into Labour’s toxic culture of racism. As the outlet reported:

In a letter sent by lawyers representing Labour, Martin Forde KC was warned that he was “acting against the party’s interest” after he gave an interview highlighting Labour’s failures in relation to the report.

It continued:

In March 2023, Mr Forde gave an interview to Al Jazeera in which he said that no one from Labour had been willing to discuss the recommendations further and highlighted concerns raised by ethnic minority politicians within Labour about racism in the party.

In response, it has now emerged that the Labour Party sent Mr Forde a robust legal letter, seen by The Independent, accusing him of acting against the party’s interests and advising him that it was “considering all of its options”.

Lawyers accused Mr Forde of having made “extensive negative and highly prejudicial comments” and questioned his professional conduct.

Forde is the author of the 2022 report that concluded that the Labour leadership had woefully failed to tackle racism and Islamophobia within its own ranks. Unsurprisingly, Starmer ignored the report’s findings. Crucially, Starmer’s team had shrugged it off as old news – suggesting that it was a problem of Labour past, not the party as it stands under his leadership.

Evidently however, this is clearly not the case. As one person on X highlighted, you can add Forde to a long list of minority members of the party that Starmer and his rightwing clique have sidelined, gaslit, and tried to silence:

Ironically, its treatment of Diane Abbott, Faiza Shaheen, and other Black, brown, and minority candidates in just recent months have demonstrated this very hierarchy. Ostensibly, Labour has a racist penchant for questioning and undermining the integrity of accomplished people of colour. Now, we have another glaring example of this.

And as the Canary’s HG reported, Labour’s current National Executive Committee (NEC) has selected pro-Israel and rightwing candidates and parachuted them in to stand instead of multiple minority candidates.

Hierarchy of racism in action

People on X called out Labour’s disgraceful move to gag Forde for what it really is:

Labour NEC member Nish Rahman who has been consistently calling out the Labour leadership’s perpetual racism, said:

What’s more, as one person on X underscored, this very scandal exemplifies the hierarchy of racism in action:

Silence from the corporate media

So far, not a single corporate media outlet has picked up the Independent’s story.

LabourList – a news site focused on the Labour Party is the sole news site to report on it. However, at the time of writing, the Google link was taking us to a ‘Not found’ page.

Google search results showing just the Independent's story and Labourlist's link, as well as a Labour Party page for the Forde report.Google search results showing just the Independent's story and Labourlist's link, as well as a Labour Party page for the Forde report.

Labourlist page saying: Not Found. Sorry, but the page you were trying to view does not exist. Labourlist page saying: Not Found. Sorry, but the page you were trying to view does not exist.

Fortunately, the internet has a long memory, and web-users can still view a version of the page on the internet archive from before it was suspiciously removed. The website claims to provide:

fair, fast, reliable and well-informed news coverage of all things Labour

And a “non-factional” platform for:

rigorous debate and reflective analysis on Labour’s direction, facilitating a wide range of views

So, not quite ‘all things Labour”. But then, it also calls itself a “critical friend” of the party, so what’s pulling a story for a mate in high places?

Meanwhile, Guardian journalist Owen Jones did comment on the story on social media:

However, his Starmer suck-up outlet has yet to break ranks and run the story either. Of course, it’s not the first time the corporate media has been hush-hush on Labour’s treatment of Black and brown communities – like, say, the mainstream media’s limited coverage of the scathing Forde report itself. As the Canary’s Maryam Jameela highlighted at the time, it got very little traction.

Then, when Al Jazeera exposed the Labour Party’s hierarchy of racism once again in a three-part documentary series, the majority were silent. So, it’s only natural they would bury this now too.

Suppressing a Starmer scandal and the Forde Report

The corporate media’s complete lack of coverage on the story has not gone unnoticed on social media:

Some people on X have been tagging corporate journalists, in case they somehow missed the report:

Ingeniously, a few have responded to journalist posts on other, less important stories, calling them out:

However, there’s no way these elite media commentators are unaware of the Independent’s piece. Instead, their silence reveals something those posting at them on X likely already know. That is, that the corporate media is suppressing the story deliberately.

This week alone, the Canary has reported on the client journalists shilling for Starmer’s Labour. In particular, the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason openly admitted to colluding with Labour to promote the party’s endorsement from billionaire John Caudwell.

Now, the Independent break damning revelations about Labour silencing the author of the report that uncovered the party’s pesky little problem of Islamophobia and anti-Black racism – and they ignore it. Or more to the point, they’re acting as the shameful servile government grunts they really are. In this instance, the bootlicking stenographers don’t need to push pro-government propaganda, they just have to look the other way.

Essentially, it’s client journalists protecting their own asses, or rather, the sanctity of their privileged connections to the halls of power. Some on X raised the red flag that this is how Starmer’s Labour has acted even before taking power:

Accordingly, the same applies to the corporate media. If they’re selling out to Starmer now, there’s fuck-all chance they’ll actually hold him to account for his party’s racism in government.

Feature image via Al Jazeera – Youtube





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