Unite the Union

Submission to the Forde Inquiry

Introduction

Unite is Britain and Ireland’s largest trade union and the largest affiliate to the Labour Party. We
affiliate 550,000 members nationally, and are closely involved with the Labour Party at all levels. As
well as working with the Labour Party on policy development, campaigning and many other areas,
Unite provided much of the funding for the General Election of 2017, donating around £5 million.
This constituted over 70% of total donations from affiliates.

Many Unite members are members of the Labour Party, and we also have a large number of
members who are registered as affiliated supporters of the Labour Party. This gives them certain
rights such as a vote in Leadership elections.

The leaked report made for extremely disturbing reading, and its contents caused grave concerns to
our members, who continue to raise it at every level of our union. The report has led to a deep
breach of trust between our members and those senior officials of the Labour Party in 2017, and the
behaviour contained within the report is a total betrayal of those who give their time, money and
effort to what we thought was a goal shared by all Labour Party members - securing a Labour
government.

Unite hopes that this Inquiry will fully investigate the contents of the leaked report, and that the
Inquiry requests that the Party disclose to the panel the evidence upon which the report was based.
The report includes thousands of footnotes citing emails, messages on an internal party messaging
system, WhatsApp messages and documents which are all in the Party's possession. This evidence
must be examined by the Inquiry if we are to be receive answers and justice over the racism, sexism,
abuse, factionalism and sabotage in the 2017 General Election exposed in the leaked report, as we
were promised when this Inquiry was established.

Misappropriation of funds

The leaked report contained details, evidenced by written communication between former
members of staff, of how during the 2017 General Election Labour HQ ran “a secret key seats team”,
overseen by Iain McNicol. This team operated out of Labour’s London region office, which at the
time was located in Ergon House. Without the knowledge of any of the senior leadership team, who
were working with the authority of the then twice-elected Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy
Corbyn, a parallel general election campaign was run to support sitting MPs, some of whom enjoyed
comfortable parliamentary majorities.

According to the communications cited in the report, it seems that this fund was established, that
money, (at least £175,000 is mentioned in the report) was transferred to it, and that it was operated
by Labour Party staff headed by Sam Matthews; and it is further alleged that this was done
deliberately without the knowledge of the Leader of the Party or his senior staff, of the National
Executive Committee and of the political leadership of the election campaign. This is in direct
contravention of the Labour Party Rule Book, which states that ‘The Leader shall in conjunction with
the NEC have overall responsibility for all elections and shall appoint a Campaign Coordinator and a
Campaign Committee to ensure that all Labour Party election campaigns report to the Leader and
receive the support and assistance they need.’

It is unclear who, or on what basis, beneficiaries of this fund were chosen. It is also alleged that Mr
Matthews sought extra payments from the Party over and above his salary for undertaking this
clandestine work.

It is clear from the report that a number of staff were involved in or aware of this project, and there
was also an understanding between them that the project was secret.

We would hope that the Forde Inquiry will look at the General Election spending of the Party in 2017
to see if the accounts match with the figures mentioned in the leaked report, and of course any
other relevant figures, to establish exactly how much was spent in this secret operation.

The Ergon House project represents at best an extremely serious breach of trust and democratic
accountability, and at worst a prima facie case of fraud (by representation, failure to disclose
information and/or abuse of position), and of false accounting. As the most senior member of
Labour Party staff, the General Secretary is responsible for the overall running of the Party, including
spending. Indeed, the General Secretary acts as the ‘Registered Treasurer’ under the Political Parties,
Elections and Referendums Act, and is responsible for preparing accurate financial statements. The
Labour Party job description also makes clear that the General Secretary is the ‘accounting officer’
for the Labour Party. This responsibility is particularly heightened when those in other key roles of
responsibility were not aware or informed that money was being spent on the secret Ergon House
project. Therefore, Unite expects the investigation to ensure that the then General Secretary, Iain
McNicol’s conduct in the 2017 General Election is fully investigated and that he is held to account for
any findings of wrongdoing.

As set out in the introduction, Unite provided the vast majority of affiliate funding during the 2017
General Election. This money was our members’ money, donated in good faith with the
understanding it would be used within the proper procedures, to support the campaign run by the
Leader Jeremy Corbyn and his team, and with the ultimate goal of winning a Labour government.
Any suggestion this money was misapplied, or used for secret purposes outwith proper scrutiny and
authorisation is extremely serious. Failure to uncover exactly what happened with this secret
project, and to take steps to ensure it can never happen again, will prejudice the Party’s relationship
with its affiliates and no doubts its wider fundraising capacity more generally.

There are a number of key points the Commission should be aware of. It is Unite’s understanding
that:

 At no point did the then General Secretary, Iain McNicol, seek permission for this
expenditure from the Leader of the Party or his senior campaign team. He also did not seek
permission from either of the National Campaign Coordinators, Ian Lavery MP or Andrew
Gwynne MP.
 The NEC, the ruling body of the Labour Party, was not advised of this expenditure and did
not give its authority for this fund to be set up. The Treasurer of the Labour Party, Diana
Holland, was also not consulted about this significant spending decision.
  Given most of the staff named in relation to the Ergon House project have now left the
Labour Party, had it not been for the report being put into the public domain, it is unlikely
that this unapproved use of funds would ever have come to light.

Furthermore, the following questions arise from the report to which Unite requires answers:

1. If this fund was under the management of Sam Matthews, to whom did he account for the
expenditure? Was Mr Matthews personally paid additional sums over and above his existing
salary and grade for administering this fund? Were any such payments met from the fund he
had himself administered?
2. Who made the decision to create the fund and on what date?
3. Who was responsible for directing staff to relocate to Ergon House to participate in the
running of the secret fund?
4. Which other staff were involved in working on the Ergon House project?
5. Were any of these staff breaching their employment contracts by their involvement in this
unapproved use of funds?
6. Who was responsible for devising and approving the budgets from which the Ergon House
funds were drawn, and were they aware that the funds were being used for this purpose?
7. Who was responsible for creating the bespoke budgetary instruments used in conducting
the Ergon House scheme? Were any individuals responsible for establishing or vouching for
the accuracy of the budgetary instruments used in the scheme, and did they do so know that
they were established outwith the Party’s normal structures?
8. Precisely how much was diverted, and on what dates, from the Labour Party’s budget to the
Ergon House scheme?
9. Did any participant in the Ergon House scheme knowingly create or file misleading or false
accounting records that had the effect of misleading the Labour Party as to the expenditure
of funds belonging to the party?
10. If so, did the Labour Party unwittingly make materially misleading disclosures to the
Electoral Commission as to the use of funds which it was entitled to spend?
11. To whose benefit were the Ergon House funds directed, and were any of these recipients
aware that campaigning funds were being directed to them through the Ergon House
scheme?
12. Additionally, were any of the beneficiaries of the Ergon House scheme, or their staff, aware
that the Ergon House scheme was clandestinely conceived and executed?

We would like to emphasise how seriously Unite takes this matter. Had this money been allocated
otherwise, it is entirely possible that Labour would have won sufficient seats to deprive the
Conservatives of a majority. In some seats, the votes were so close, analysis has shown that the
Labour Party were just 2,227 votes away from having the opportunity to form a minority
government. The seven constituencies won by the Conservatives over Labour with the slimmest
majorities were Southampton Itchen (majority 31); Preseli Pembrokeshire (majority 314); Hastings
and Rye (majority 346); Chipping Barnet (majority 353); Thurrock (345 majority); Norwich North
(majority 507); and Pudsey (majority 331). The political implications of this are endless and of huge
significance to not only the Party but the country as a whole.
It is imperative that affiliates to the Party should have full confidence that the funds they donate,
either via affiliation or contributions to election campaigns or otherwise, are financially managed
with integrity and transparency, and that officials will at all times follow their reporting obligations
within the Party and externally.

We note that those purportedly involved in this secret operation are no longer employed by the
Party for the most part. They are, however, still Party members in many cases, we understand. We
must insist that their conduct is properly investigated under rule and appropriate sanctions applied.
If anyone involved in the establishment or administration of this fund is still employed by the Party
this should be dealt with under agreed procedure.

Such an investigation should include the following actions:

1. Staff members with knowledge of the existing Labour Party email system should be instructed to
conduct keyword or other searches to create a dossier of relevant emails.

2. The retrieved emails should be used to construct a chronology of events that must be shared with
Unite and the National Executive Committee at the earliest possible date.

3. Should the chronology of events raise suspicion of criminal acts, the Labour Party should secure
the services of an independent forensic auditor to review the material and provide a report
answering the questions set out above, additionally providing a professional opinion as to whether
prima facie criminal cases exist.

4. Should the forensic auditor conclude that criminal charges could be sustained by the evidence,
the Labour Party should disclose this to the appropriate authorities.

5. The Labour Party should, in the interests of transparency, publicly announce that such evidence
has been provided to such authorities.

6. Should the Forde Inquiry conclude that the Ergon House project did divert members’ money by
individual officials to particular Labour candidates because they were personal friends or factional
allies, further investigation must be carried out into whether this constitutes corruption.

Unite’s General Secretary, Len McCluskey, wrote to Keir Starmer and Jennie Formby setting out
many of the above issues and queries in April of this year. A copy is attached for your reference. He
is yet to receive a reply.

Electoral Sabotage

Chapter 1, Clause 1 of the Labour Party Rule Book states that:

‘Its purpose is to organise and maintain in Parliament and in the country a political Labour Party…
The Party shall bring together members and supporters who share its values to develop policies,
make communities stronger through collective action and support, and promote the election of
Labour Party representatives at all levels of the democratic process.’

It is incumbent upon all members of the Labour Party to fight for a Labour Government, and of
course the membership would expect that commitment most of all from its elected representatives
and senior officials in charge of running the Party and its election campaigns.
During the 2017 General Election, the leaked report contained extensive evidence of staff, ranging
from junior to the most senior roles, working against the Labour leadership, and against Labour’s
success in the campaign.

As well as the secret Ergon House operation discussed above, staff refused to cooperate with LOTO
by hiding key information, set up systems where they could pretend to work without getting caught,
focussed on preparing for what they thought would be a leadership election rather than fighting the
general election, and discussed hiding their reactions to the exit poll when it turned out to be a very
successful night for Labour.

On the day the snap election was called, instead of preparing for the campaign, senior members of
staff exchanged abusive comments about their LOTO colleagues, and discussed the preparation of a
leadership election.

There are numerous examples of conversations between staff who are discussing that they want the
Labour Party, or more specifically Jeremy Corbyn, to do badly. They are appalled by Labour rising in
the polls, root for Corbyn to be ‘rip[ped] to pieces’ on one of the key political interviews of the
election, and celebrate Nia Griffith as a ‘hero’ when she ‘stabbed’ Corbyn in the media. These are
comments made by senior staff, who were paid large sums of money to help Labour to succeed.

Unite cannot stress enough how unacceptable and highly unprofessional this behaviour is. As a
membership organisation, Unite understands the commitment it has to its members, without whom
it would not exist. The same of course applies to the Labour Party. To have reached a point where a
working culture permits such flagrant disregard for its membership, who were fighting to win the
election with their own money, time and effort, is appalling.

Factionalism among non-political Labour Party staff

The report quotes many conversations from Labour officials about working to prevent Jeremy
Corbyn becoming leader in 2015 by preventing his supporters from voting, then once elected about
their efforts to remove him as leader, and about constant efforts to undermine his leadership and
obstruct his office.

Labour Party staff are employed to serve the members and to serve the organisation, not their own
individual agendas. Of course, staff will have their own personal political views, but staff must fulfil
terms of their employment contracts with their Party, and carry out the roles established in their job
description with professionalism and integrity. If a Labour Party staff member posts on social media
taking sides in internal Party factional matters or leadership elections, they can be disciplined by the
Party. If activity such as this is a breach of the conduct expected of staff, then working against the
Party's key organisational objective - winning elections - is clearly gross misconduct, involving
potential breaches of the Party's rule book, the Party's staff handbook and individual employment
contracts.

By contrast, staff in the Leader's Office have political contracts which are tied to the Leader. It is
therefore no surprise that staff in Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn and now Keir Starmer's office play
political roles. Whereas staff in Labour HQ, the offices of Labour's nations and regions, and the PLP
Office are non-political staff employed to serve the organisation as a whole.
Abusive conduct

The leaked report contains many instances of abusive conduct by members of staff. In many
instances this abusive behaviour involves the most senior members of staff. The behaviour includes
racism, sexism, ableism, the exclusion of colleagues, for example information being withheld from
‘Trots’, and the deliberate humiliation of senior MPs, when members of the press were alerted to
Diane Abbott being upset in the HQ toilets by Patrick Heneghan. Senior official Greg Cook referred to
Abbott as ‘truly repulsive’, Sarah Mulholland said that she ‘literally makes me sick’. Neil Fleming
called her a ‘very angry woman’ – a classic racist trope used against black people. All of these staff
members were in senior positions. May we remind the commission that Diane Abbott has received
more abuse than all other MPs combined. Instead of receiving the protection of her Party, the most
senior members of staff joined in on the abuse, and even sought to publicly humiliate her by
conspiring with the media.

Misogynistic abuse was also a regular occurrence among senior staff. Emilie Oldknow and Tracey
Allen in particular engaged in these attacks, drawing attention to and mocking the way female
colleagues dressed in a highly inappropriate way that drew attention to their bodies, calling women
‘fat’ and childish insults like ‘pubehead’. Oldknow, Heneghan and other staff often used abusive
language about Karie Murphy, referring to her as “Medusa”, and saying ‘fuck u Karie u silly cow’.
Julie Lawrence said her face “would make a good dartboard” and Patrick Heneghan called her a
“bitch face cow”. These are all cruel and sexist comments, and are clear evidence of persistent
bullying in the workplace. It is hard to imagine how those on the receiving end of this abuse felt
when this report came to light.

This behaviour, that is manifest throughout the report, is evidence of a toxic and bullying culture,
which sought to preserve a powerful clique at the top of the party. It excluded and denigrated all
others outside of that clique, dismissing them as ‘Trots’, even on some occasions dehumanising
them, for example when joking about setting people on fire. Anyone outside of that clique was
subjected to cruel insults, racism and sexism, as outlined above. Any sense of a duty of care towards
colleagues or members of staff they had responsibility for had completely evaporated. Furthermore,
the most senior staff set a very poor standard of behaviour, and it is of no surprise that it was
emulated by staff junior to them.

There are numerous examples of conduct in the leaked report that any responsible employer would
view as gross misconduct. Sadly the staff at the very top of the Party who were meant to be
responsible, including the General Secretary, not only failed to take action against this appalling
behaviour, but also engaged in it themselves.

The Commissioning of the Report

Unite is clear that the commissioning of the report was not only legitimate, but entirely necessary in
order for the Labour Party to comply with the requests made by the EHRC.

The General Secretary, Jennie Formby, was specifically asked by the EHRC to disclose every single
document on the Labour Party systems that were relevant to the investigation. As you will be aware,
the Labour Party had a legal duty to cooperate with these requests, and the legal responsibilities for
disclosure are for all relevant documents, not for all beneficial documents. Jennie Formby’s
responsibility as General Secretary to ensure that every relevant piece of documentation was
identified and submitted to the investigation. This of course required the General Secretary to
instruct staff to search all documents and emails on Labour Party systems.

Anything short of this would have understandably been seen by the EHRC as withholding
information, and failure to comply with the Party’s legal obligations.

The Exposure of Wrongdoing

The Government guidance on whistleblowing states that:

‘Whistleblowing is the term used when a worker passes on information concerning wrongdoing. In
this guidance, we call that “making a disclosure” or “blowing the whistle”. The wrongdoing will
typically (although not necessarily) be something they have witnessed at work.

To be covered by whistleblowing law, a worker who makes a disclosure must reasonably believe two
things. The first is that they are acting in the public interest. This means in particular that personal
grievances and complaints are not usually covered by whistleblowing law.

The second thing that a worker must reasonably believe is that the disclosure tends to show past,
present or likely future wrongdoing falling into one or more of the following categories:

• criminal offences (this may include, for example, types of financial impropriety such as fraud)

• failure to comply with an obligation set out in law

• miscarriages of justice

• endangering of someone’s health and safety

• damage to the environment

• covering up wrongdoing in the above categories

While Unite believes that it is very unfortunate that the personal data of individuals was put into the
public domain, and recognises the distress that may have been caused to those individuals, Unite
cannot condemn the leaking of the report.

According the criteria set out in the above government guidelines, the publication of the report
would clearly be defined as whistleblowing.

The first of the criteria is that the whisteblower would have to reasonably believe that they are
acting in the public interest. Given the position of the Labour Party, an organisation that takes the
membership dues of over half a million people, and its main aim is to form a government, the
disclosure of the wrongdoing that is contained in the report is very clearly in the public interest. Only
through the publication of this information has the Labour Party been made accountable for its
actions, as well as those senior individuals whose actions behaviour are so central to the
investigation of the Forde Inquiry. Had this report not been made public, it is highly unlikely that the
information contained within it would ever have come to light. Furthermore, the information
contained in the report is so widespread across the organisation, it is evidently not a personal
grievance or complaint by one individual.

Secondly, the report discloses wrongdoing as set out above in a number of ways. As we have already
discussed, it exposes what appears to be financial impropriety which may amount to fraud, failure to
comply with the Labour Party Rule Book in several instances which breaches the contract it has with
its membership, and ill treatment of its staff, elected representatives and members through a toxic
culture of bullying, and tacit permission of racism, sexism, ableism, humiliation and personal insults.
Unite also strongly believes that the behaviour contained within the report had a direct impact on
the electoral success of the Labour Party, with huge political consequences for the entire country.

If the Forde Inquiry does identify the individual(s) responsible for leaking the Report, Unite expects
them to be afforded the full legal protection available to whistleblowers.

The government guidance explicitly states that a whistleblower should contact their trade union for
more guidance if they are not satisfied with how their concerns have been dealt with. Therefore we
do expect the Forde Inquiry to view our position on this issue with the utmost seriousness.

The Forde Inquiry

Following the decision to settle the legal disputes with the former staff who took part in the
Panorama programme, Unite is very concerned about the impact this will have on the Forde Inquiry.

The leaked report contains extremely strong evidence against many former members of staff who
are named in the report, who appear to have sabotaged the complaints system for factional reasons.
A clear allegation made by those individuals in the cases they were bringing against the Party
was that they had been defamed by Labour saying they were “politically motivated” when
working in Southside. The report goes directly to proving their political motivation.

The settlement, which went against legal advice received by the Labour Party, pre-judges the
conduct of those named in the report before this Inquiry has been able to reach its conclusions.
Unite would like to seek assurances that the settlements will not affect the outcome of the Forde
Inquiry.

Additionally, Unite would like to register its concerns that candidates in the leadership context
used this litigation as part of the election positioning. Committing to settle the cases without
knowledge of the legal advice as to the merits of the cases presented meant that members’
monies were being offered up in exchange for seeking votes. It was a political decision to settle
when in fact it should have been a legal decision. Furthermore, any decision to settle should
have been that of the General Secretary, not the Leader of the Labour Party.

Conclusion

Unite’s membership remain gravely concerned about the content of the leaked report, and are
appalled by the betrayal of Labour and Unite members that happened on such a large scale. The
Labour Party has a duty to its members, and must do all it can to repair that broken trust. If this
Inquiry does not recognise the misuse of money, electoral sabotage, racism, sexism and bullying in
the report, as well as the abuse of GLU for factional reasons, the Party’s relationship with its
membership and affiliates will struggle to recover, to the detriment of the lives of those the Labour
Party seeks to represent.