After Guido reported last week on the latest Ashworth household plot to take down the Labour Corbyn establishment, Emilie Oldknow – former Labour staffer and shadow health secretary’s wife – today lost her case in the High Court. Oldknow had been trying to force the Labour Party to identify the leakers of the internal antisemitism report, however the judge said the case “smacks of a fishing expedition”. Oldknow had asked Labour to identify who it “reasonably believes” was responsible for the leak that embarrassed her, rather than anyone they knew for certain was the culprit…
While Labour has an idea who was behind the leak, with “no smoking gun” it can’t prove the suspect beyond reasonable doubt. Oldknow has been refused application for permission to appeal and has been ordered to pay Labour’s costs…
A Guardian article yesterday reported “ex-Labour staffer” Emilie Oldknow is going to court to demand the names of accused leakers of the unredacted internal Labour antisemitism report. Oldknow – at the time Labour’s executive director for governance – was repeatedly named in the leaked report, alongside embarrassing, unredacted WhatsApp messages from her attacking Corbyn and Abbott, and floating preparations for a post-2017 leadership election. She is detested by the Corbynites…
This morning, LabourList’s Sienna Rodgers reported they’d expected a decision from the judge of the Oldknow v Evans hearing this morning, though that now isn’t going to come out due to “a number of concerns in relations to the claimant’s application”. The hearing will now resume on Friday…
What the Guardian failed to point out to readers is that Emilie Oldknow is Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth’s wife, constituting New Labour royalty after Gordon Brown attended their wedding in 2010. A Labour Shadow Cabinet members wife taking the party to court is a little awkward. Only in the Ashworth household could taking the Labour Party to court not be the most treacherous anti-Corbyn act of the last couple of years…
Ahead of the appointment of Jennie Formby as the Labour Party’s general-secretary, some long-standing HQ staff are jumping before they are pushed out. Exitism from the party by long-standing moderate activists is also on the rise as the once entryist crypto-commies and toytown trots are welcomed into the party by Corbyn…
John Stolliday, Director of Governance and Legal is off, as the ‘compliance unit’ boss he will be quitting before he inevitably gets pushed out. The PLP secretary Dan Simpson is also quitting. Along with the outgoing general secretary Iain McNicol; Patrick Heneghan,Tracey Allen, Julie Lawrence, Neil Fleming and Emilie Oldknow are going.
Most will be gone after the May local elections. If Chuka is going to launch his centre party he’ll have some experienced operators available to hire…
UPDATE: Simon Jackson, Labour’s Director of Policy And Research, has quit today.
