In April 2020, someone leaked an internal British Labour Party report to journalists. Party officials had produced the report at the request of Jennie Formby, Labour’s general secretary from 2018 to 2020. It had been intended to serve as part of Labour’s submission to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The new party leader, Keir Starmer, decided not to send the report to the EHRC.

The EHRC opened an investigation into Labour at the request of two groups that accused the party of “institutional antisemitism.” In contrast, the government-funded body has repeatedly refused to investigate the Conservative Party for racism, despite having received a lengthy dossier from the Muslim Council of Britain documenting the party’s track record. The leaked Labour report sought to demonstrate that several other party officials who were hostile to Jeremy Corbyn had been negligent in their handling of antisemitism complaints. Those officials had appeared in a BBC documentary in July 2019, where they were presented as “whistleblowers,” accusing Corbyn’s leadership team of frustrating their efforts to combat discrimination.

As well as the specific issue of antisemitism, the report sheds light on Labour’s wider organizational culture during the first three years of Corbyn’s leadership. Jennie Formby’s predecessor, Iain McNicol, remained in his post until March 2018, along with many other staffers who effectively controlled the party’s considerable resources. The report reproduces WhatsApp conversations between those staffers, where they discussed their work for Labour.