John Lawless

Rugby League columnist for the Liverpool ECHO. BBC radio RL commentator. Biting my tongue for now to stay out of trouble

[Jonathan Cook @Jonathan_K_Cook]

Disaster after disaster has befallen Starmer over the past few months.

* Starmer’s political mentor, Peter Mandelson, has been dismissed from his post as ambassador to the US.

* Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, has been forced to resign over his role in Mandelson’s appointment.

* And seemingly separately, Starmer loyalist Josh Simons has resigned from the government after it emerged he was central to a campaign of smears against journalists scrutinising illegal activities surrounding Starmer’s rise to power.

The media are treating these episodes as individual failings rather than evidence of institutional capture of the Labour party by the Epstein class and its hangers-on. All three Starmer allies were deeply connected to a shadowy “think tank” called Labour Together.

Labour Together’s covert task, using an enormous slush fund of undeclared money from a handful of billionaire donors, was to oust Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader and then dupe Labour members into backing Keir Starmer, even as he sold the party's soul to Big Business.

Labour Together was an exercise in democracy subversion to stop a socialist gaining power. And it then continued as an exercise in democracy subversion to install permanent guardrails against the Labour party ever being led by anyone other than a placeman, like Starmer, for the billionaires.

The point was to make British politics a simulacrum of US politics: two main parties representing – and ensuring the permanent rule of – the super-rich, and mirroring minor internal differences in their perceptions of how to best safeguard their class interests.

All of this happened in full view over the past decade. But it was impossible to get it into the mainstream.

Even at this stage, the real story is not being allowed to break through. Because it would expose not just corruption at the heart of the British political system but at the heart of the British media system too.

The state and billionaire-owned media were happy to see democracy covertly subverted if it ensured Corbyn would be prevented from winning power. And the media were equally pleased to promote the Starmer cabal as gatekeepers over who would be allowed to lead the Labour party.

There was a shared interest in entrenching how the political system was rigged.

Anyone who doubts that the media has been deeply complicit in the cover-up of Labour Together’s activities should recall that there were journalists – and others – reporting on Labour’s dismantling of internal democracy to preclude the emergence of any kind of meaningful political choice. However, they were denied mainstream attention.

The internal plotting against Corbyn was first highlighted in 2017 by Al Jazeera’s three-part undercover investigation The Israel Lobby, which showed how an Israeli embassy official, Shai Masot, was covertly working with the rightwing Labour factions to use antisemitism to destroy the party leader.

Three years later, as Corbyn stepped down, a cache of internal Labour party documents were leaked showing that the party bureaucracy – loyal to the Mandelson wing – conspired to bring about Corbyn’s downfall. It even prioritized his destruction over winning the closely fought 2017 general election.

Starmer appointed a KC, Martin Forde, to investigate the leak – chiefly, it seems to identify who was responsible and punish them.

Forde would later admit that Starmer’s team had obstructed his work and tried to endlessly delay the report. But when it was finally published in summer 2022, Forde confirmed what was already obvious: that the Labour right had waged a dirty factional war against Corbyn and the left of the party, weaponising antisemitism to tar them.

Months later, Al Jazeera would air a second, four-part investigation, The Labour Files, showing how the party’s right wing – loyal to Mandelson and McSweeney – purged the party’s left wing based in most cases on false accusations, fabrications, misrepresentations and smears.

The documentary fully justified one victim of those purges describing the past few years in Labour as a “criminal conspiracy against its members”.

The revelation in The Israel Lobby documentary that Labour had been infiltrated by an Israeli spy with the active collusion of sections of its members and MPs to take down a potential prime minister provoked no political or media debate.

The follow-up disclosures in the leaked Labour internal review, the Forde Report and The Labour Files have similarly dropped off the radar, even as the story they tell is the only way to make sense of the serial falls of McSweeney, Mandelson, Simons and, soon, Starmer.

Similarly, Paul Holden’s book The Fraud, which brings the unlawful activities of Labour Together sharply into focus, is being ignored rather than mined for details of what has really happening in British politics over the past decade.

These resources have all been buried, even as the Mandelson furore fully justifies their vigorous excavation.

This is an extract from my latest article. You can find a link to it in the reply post below ⬇️

[John Lawless @johnlawlessRL]

@spongeanon102 @martyrmade The non-Neocons, both left and right, need to come together to beat the warmongering Neocons. Then we can talk.

[John Lawless @johnlawlessRL]

@MarkNewlands1 @PaulEmbery . . or bribing them!

[John Lawless @johnlawlessRL]

@MarkNewlands1 @PaulEmbery . . they started issuing them again - even though they were running a surplus. You see, it's the bond market that needs the govt, not the other way round. And their power lies not in 'funding' govts (they do not) but in influencing them to believe that's what they do . . .

[John Lawless @johnlawlessRL]

Why do we stick with an interpretation of 'contact with the head' everyone knows is nonsense? In what way will penalising Trout for his totally accidental contact on Sezer prevent future head contacts?

[BBC Sport Merseyside @bbcmerseysport]

⌛️ This afternoon

🏉 @RochdaleHornets 🆚 @WidnesRL
🏆 @TheChallengeCup 2nd Round
🏟 Crown Oil Arena
🕒 Kick-off 3pm
🎙️ @johnlawlessRL & @jdgsport
#️⃣ #ChallengeCup
💻 Online

[John Lawless @johnlawlessRL]

@LpoolCityRegion As a resident of the Liverpool City Region ('where no-one is left behind') - I live in Widnes - do I qualify for the Local 60+Travel Pass?

[John Lawless @johnlawlessRL]

@LpoolCityRegion

[BBC Sport Merseyside @bbcmerseysport]

⌛️ This afternoon

🏉 @Doncaster_RLFC 🆚 @WidnesRL
🏆 @RLChampionships
🏟 Eco-Power Stadium
🕒 Kick-off 3pm
🎙️ @johnlawlessRL & @jdgsport
#️⃣ #DONWID #TotalSport
💻 Online

[John Lawless @johnlawlessRL]

So what was Moylan meant to do there to avoid contact with the head? Short of not playing rugby league at all? #LeighWigan

[John Lawless @johnlawlessRL]

@jdgsport The red card was nonsense on stilts I'm afraid. Accidental clash of heads. We are trying to police the unpoliceable. We're also making the officials the absolute centre of the game's focus . . is that a good thing?

[Arta Moeini PhD @ArtaMoeini]

We pretend as if international law is real & intl courts have true jurisdiction.

No!

They are mere features of modern power politics & US hegemony.

And the Gaza war has exposed them as both a mirage & a double-edged sword.

My latest @carnegiecouncil https://t.co/6BRJjDQUmM

[John Lawless @johnlawlessRL]

Re-watched @RLBarrieMc10 interview with Neil Fox on Sky Sports. Still can't work out why he wasn't depicted on the RL statue at Wembley (Neil not Barrie!). Given his record and the fact there are no Yorkshiremen featured, a massive oversight surely.

[John Lawless @johnlawlessRL]

LOYAL MOONING!!! @Token100xx @LikesTheArt @fischeer_aayar @asarinadii @danyell_barry @Crypto_Coin34 @GypsyD24 @X_unjunii @Midasmoney111 @canu0205

[John Lawless @johnlawlessRL]

I love #LOYAL @FAIX1233 @Harishomam @amraskin @BowTiedNut @DagiDerese @leandrotobita @TheGene84231650 @Bcryptoprojects @XaloAlone

[John Lawless @johnlawlessRL]

Not sure I've ever seen a hat-trick from forward passes before!