Must watch to set context:
Part 6 describes how staff were selected for appointments in the GLU and senior posts and touches on the general culture within the upper echelons of the party (excluding the leader’s office).
It would appear that many of the staff appointed to Labour HQ were former members of “Labour Students”, an organisation historically run by people from the “right” of the party and who have a culture of calling people to their left “Trots”. Staff even discussed jobs being “stitched up” for Labour students.
January 2016
Sam Matthews enquired about a Labour vacancy (Campaigns Officer – Campaign Materials and Direct Mail). Matthews was encouraged to apply by another staff member even after he himself expressed concerns even after he admitted he wasn’t qualified… “I’m mediocre (at best) at copywriting :/ – and got rejected from that job the last time I went for it”. The staff member then assured Matthews he had a good chance of getting the job because the team “know you”
Sam Matthews: “Won’t it be a stitch up for a Labour Student though?”Unnamed staff member:“ Maybe under the Sarah regime, but now we’re under Tom management”. Sam Matthews: “As an aside, could you give me a heads up if it does end up being a stitch up for someone? I’ll probably go through with it anyway to pop back up on their radar that I want back in, but it would be useful to know.”Unnamed staff member:“I’ve not seen any evidence of it to be honest, but that might be because Tom is less blatant about such things.”
17 February 2015
Conversation between Emilie Oldknow and Emma Meehan regarding a job in the Compliance unit.
Emilie Oldknow: “Sarah tells me that your sister is looking for a job?”Emma Meehan: “Yeah she is”
Emilie Oldknow: “We have an admin role coming up in the compliance unit. It is a bit boring, helping Margaret with donation reports etc but it gets her in the door and gives her some experience? Do you think she would be interested?”
Emma Meehan: “Yes she definitely would, she’s been looking for admin work in London. shes pretty new to the party”
Emilie Oldknow: “Okay great. That means she will be completely maleable….”Emma Meehan: “but it would be really good experience for her”
Emilie Oldknow:“Mwah ha ha ha”
6 July 2015
Staff members discuss how the ex “labour students” currently working in the office all support Liz Kendall’s campaign for Labour leadership
July 2016
Ten people from “Labour Students” were recruited specifically to work on suspending and excluding Labour members and supporters prior to the 2016 leadership election.
17 May 2016
Josh Carrington hears a press officer talking about “smashing Trots” and referring to members as “mad Trots” and remarks how similar it is to Head Office where “you slowly realise that everyone else is much more right-wing and consider anyone left of brown to be a trot”. Some staff even referred to Joshua Carrington as “a trot” and would warn each other to be careful of what they said in his presence. In fact, just four days after the 2017 general election, Anna Phillips messages Ellie Miller to remind her that “josh is a trot” and remarked how “he seemed happy with the result”
Ironically, Joshua Carrington actually took part in the 2015 “Trot hunt” and referred to left-wing staff associated with the leader’s office (during the 2017 general election) as “Fucking Trots”. He would even make fun of the leadership in front of supporters. However, it’s understood that Carrington didn’t support Liz Kendall’s bid for leadership, which is probably the real reason why he also got labelled a “Trot”.
Ben Nolan on the digital team was also described as “troty”because he saw the “increase in membership as a good thing”. Some staff even referred to the digital team as “trot corner”
22 June 2015
Jo Green refers to Jack Smith as “that little Trot”, while Sarah Mulholland refers to him as “a right trot” and then remarks how “he’s pals with all the young labour trots. So we need to be really careful”
17 July 2015
Stephen Donnelly warns colleagues about Jack Smith
Stephen Donnelly: [Jack Smith] “is a big ‘ol trot and dead pally with all the Young Labour trots”.
Sarah Mullholland: “hows he been allowed to work here”Stephen Donnelly: “TULO, the Trade Union Liaison Organisation. Lovely guy, but the enemy as far as these chats are concerned”Michael Rubin:“
Annoying he’s here” – “viper in the nest”
Eager to conceal the fact that staff were working on the “Trot hunt” “ Patrick Heneghan advised that in order to keep Jack Smith from finding out they would “have to work secretly and stop broadcasting”. He then adds “I christened myself the Trot Catcher this morning, and then I remembered…” this is “operation ‘don’t let jack smith know we’re kicking out trots’”
Another target was Ben Soffa who had been working for the TSSA union and was head of Digital on the Jeremy Corbyn leadership election. After the 2017 election, Soffa got a job as head of Digital in Labour HQ but other staff had already labelled him a “Trot”
7 December 2015
Simon Jackson and Jo Green discuss Ben Soffa.
Jo Green: “getting second hand reports from the trot in digital not exactly joined up thinking.”Simon Jackson:“quite”
13 May 2016
Greg Cook and Patrick Heneghan discuss Ben Soffa.
Greg Cook: “You can see who all the Trots are in the building. They all want Ben’s postcards”
Patrick Heneghan:“too many.”
October 2015
Job applications from people assumed to be a “Trots” were frequently dismissed. Here’s an exchange between Simon Jackson and Jo Green discussing the appointment of a new “International Officer”, from a ‘thinktank’
Jo Green: “that’s good. so not a trot either presumably?”
Simon Jackson: “no, good politics”
January 2016
Greg Cook tells Stephen Pattison that the applicants he’d seen for a specific vacancy were all “Trots” and remarked “If i can get away with it, I won’t employ anyone for the [role].”
14 February 2017
Fraser Welsh talking about his tactic to filling a post for a director’s job… “it may be sensible politics to give responsibility of mobilising all the trots to someone who is a bit troty, so that when the trots don’t do anything, and we lose badly, it’s a trot that gets thrown under a bus”.
Staff also expressed an expectation that colleagues would be hostile to Corbyn supporters and would mock the idea of “chatting” with “Corbynite mates”
4 August 2015
Senior staff discuss their disgust at another staff member for supporting and defending Corbyn, which Stolliday deems a sackable offence.
Sarah Brown: “so did you just hear KS… saying a corbyn leadership will make it easier to recruit a new digital team”John Stolliday: “No? Really???”Paul Ovenden: “brilliant”John Stolliday: “she must love corbyn… She is a green after all”Paul Ovenden: “she does – I saw her on Facebook mounting a passionate defence of him.”John Stolliday: “Find me screenshots & I’ll have her sacked for breaching staff code of conduct”
5 January 2017
Hester Waterfield expresses her unhappiness over having to work with a staff member who she considers to be “a corbynite”
Hester Waterfield: “the other person i [will be] managing is def a corbynite”Hayley Sothinathan:“that is going to be so awks”
Hester Waterfield:“i am just going to have to learn to have a professional persona”
9 April 2017
Iain McNicol would also openly complain about the leader’s office (who he called “fucking twats”) attempting to appoint staff he considered “fellow trot travellers”
Iain McNicol: “The irony of them complaining about recruit process. It is actually beyond irony. Family, friends, friends of family and fellow trot travellers come get a job. No interview. Infact you don’t even need to fill an application in. Fucking twats. Don’t do the meeting next week as I want to be in it. Maybe you could start by asking loto what qualifications any of them have…. Of”
Emilie Oldknow: “Hahaha…Brilliant Iain”
In the lead up to the 2017 general election, some staff from the leaders office moved to Labour HQ to work on the election. This allowed the leader’s office to ensure that some left-wing staff could step into HQ vacancies in the press team after the election. A number of existing HQ staff would refer to the newcomers as “Trots”.
Neil Fleming and Katy Dillon labelled future press officer Sophie Nazemi as “Sophie the Trot” and “trot sophie”. Ellie Miller would refer to staff at Labour HQ as “all stupid trots” and Ben Murphy would refer to the leader’s office as a “gang of trots”. Neil Fleming once complained about, what he referred to as, “the entirety of LOTO Comms” being “in Southside today” and exclaimed how “Awful” it was and that he was “coming in to see Iain next week” and would “have a go at him about it”. Fleming felt it was “not up to the party to give them desks when parliament has already given them one.” Colette Collins-Walsh would describe her colleague Georgie Robertson from the press team as “Georgie the Trot Princess” and would complain that with Robertson, Sophie Nazemi and others joining the press office would soon be full of “trots”.
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STAFF LIST
Ali Moussavi (Economic Advisor in the Leader’s Office)
Amy Fowler (Fundraising)
Anna Hutchinson (Regional Director, Labour North West)
Anna Phillips (Shadow Cabinet Visits Assistant)Anna Wright (Press Officer)
Ben Murphy (Local Government Officer / Press Officer)
Ben Nolan (Head of Membership / Director: Membership Mobilisation & Communications)
Cameron Scott (Eastern Regional Director)
Carol Linforth (Director of Conference and Events)
Ciaran Tully (Regional Organiser)
Claire-Frances Fuller (Head of Internal Governance)
Colette Collins-Walsh (Education Policy Officer)
Dan Hogan (Policy Communications Officer / Investigations Officer in GLU)
Danny Adilypour (Campaigns Manager in the Contact Creator, Targeting & Analysis Team)
Dominic Murphy (Research Officer)
Ellie Buck (Regional Organiser, South East)
Ellie Miller (Campaign and Shadow Cabinet Visits Manager)
Emilie Oldknow (Executive Director – Governance, Membership and Party Services)
Emma Meehan (National Women’s and Equalities Officer / Stakeholder Engagement Manager / Head of Stakeholders)
Fiona Stanton (Regional Director, Labour North)
Francis Grove-White (Labour International Policy Officer)
Fraser Welsh (Deputy General Secretary for Wales)
Greg Cook (Head of Political Strategy)
Hayley Sothinathan (Development director, Fundraising Events)
Hester Waterfield (Development Coordinator / Thousand Club and Research Officer)
Hollie Ridley (Training Development and Community Organising Manager / Election Strategy Manager / Head of Elections and Campaign Support / Director, Eastern Region)
Holly Snyman (Director – Human Resources)
Iain McNicol (General Secretary)
Jack Smith (Senior Adviser on elections and platform planning at Labour HQ)
James McBride (staff at Labour’s Policy Unit leading on economy and business policy)
John Stolliday (Director, Governance and Legal)Jo Green (Head of Broadcasting)
Jo Greening (Head of International Liaison)
Josh Carrington (Campaigns Analyst)
Julie Lawrence (Director, GSO)
Karie Murphy (Chief of Staff, LOTO)
Katherine Buckingham (GLU Head of Disputes)
Katy Dillon (Press Officer / Labour’s Broadcast Manager)
Kieren Walters (Broadcasting Manager / Head of Press & Broadcasting)
Laura Repton (Regional Administrator)
Lee Gingell (Membership Services and Correspondence)
Lisa Forsyth (Policy & Political Adviser, Leader’s Office)
Louise Withers-Green (GLU Disputes Officer)
Luke Akehurst (Former member of Labours NEC, Labour First Activist, currently Director at ‘We Believe in Israel’)
Michael Rubin (Labour Students National Chair) – named as a pro-Israel activist in the Al Jazeera documentary ‘The Lobby’ Mike Creighton (Director of Audit, Risk and Property)
Neil Fleming (Acting Head of Press and Broadcasting)
Patrick Heneghan (Executive Director – Elections, Campaigns and Organisation)
Paul Ovenden (Press Officer)
Rob Sherrington (Regional Organiser)
Sam Matthews (GLU’s Head of Disputes / Acting Director of GLU)
Sarah Brown (Press Officer)
Sarah Mulholland (PLP Secretary)
Sarah Waite (Education Policy Officer / Political Advisor to the Shadow Secretary of State for Education)
Seumas Milne (Executive Director – Strategy and Communication)
Simon Jackson (Director of Policy, Political Research and Messaging, Briefing and Rebuttal)
Simon Mills (Executive Director – Finance).
Stephen Donnelly (Campaigns Officer)
Stephen Pattison (Labour & Co-operative candidate for Woodgreen, Stevenage Council Election 2011)
Teddy Ryan (Regional Organiser)
Tom Geldard (Director of Digital).
Tom Hamilton, Head of Briefing and Rebuttal
Tom Watson (Deputy Leader, Labour Party)
Tracey Allen (Manager, GSO)
