A fortnight ago we published the transcript of famed British journalist and broadcaster Paul Mason publicly abusing a local anti-war activist. Now we are publishing another abusive outburst from Mason at the same event, this time aimed at former Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn.

At a debate organised by Kensal & Kilburn – Better 2024, titled “Is it worth voting Labour in 2024?” Mason, who was arguing that it is worth voting for the party, attacked Corbyn during the Question & Answer session when the event Chair, Melissa Benn, asked him to explain “why Keir Starmer has made the left within the party the enemy instead of working with them as Biden worked with Bernie Sanders.”

Listen to Paul Mason’s response here:

Transcript:

Paul Mason: “I think it’s more complicated than that. I would count myself on the left of the party but I think the left is profoundly split and it’s also gone down some very dark rabbit holes. I don’t want anything to do with people who tolerate anti-Semitism. I just don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t want anything to do with people who want to disarm the Ukrainian people in their struggle against fascism and yet Jeremy Corbyn has toured Europe trying to do just that.

“And so no, I don’t count myself as part of the same left. And guess what, I haven’t been purged. I may not get selected, I may not be the number one flavour of the month at Labour HQ; so I think the issue is why are we where we are.”

What did Mason mean?

Following these accusations against Corbyn, during the event’s next opportunity for Q & A, I asked Paul Mason to explain what he had meant by his words. Mason refrained from answering, instead using his time on the mic to misquote an audience member and accuse her of antisemitism.

Antisemitism

Mason’s suggestion that Jeremy Corbyn tolerates antisemitism is false, just as the widespread, mainstream claims that there was a serious antisemitism problem in Labour under Corbyn’s leadership were false, and have been debunked repeatedly. The MP for Islington North is taking legal action against Nigel Farage for similar defamatory statements, while another political commentator favoured in the mainstream media recently had to make a humiliating public apology for his baseless allegations against Corbyn.

Disarming the Ukrainians

Paul Mason’s second allegation against Corbyn, that the MP has been on a European tour aimed at disarming the Ukrainian people, is also false. Corbyn has never called for the disarming of Ukraine. The anti-war veteran who fronts the Peace & Justice Project has spoken in many European cities since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, mainly at events organised by peace campaigners. Corbyn has called for diplomacy instead of escalation, and expressed skepticism about the relentless arms sales by western companies. 

Mason’s Trajectory   

Mason has been touted in the media as a potential Labour parliamentary candidate against Corbyn in Islington, with the party having blocked its former leader from representing them. Having failed to secure candidacy in South London, Manchester, Sheffield and Wales, Mason confirmed at the Kilburn event that he had applied to be a Labour candidate “anywhere.”

Having been a prominent Corbyn ally during the veteran MP’s rise to almost becoming prime minister in the 2017 general election, Mason’s politics have since diverged from those of Corbyn.

In 2022, leaked emails obtained by the American media outlet The Grayzone showed Mason apparently pursuing relationships with British security state officials and contractors with the aim of destroying the anti-war left. In one email to a British intelligence agent Mason boasted, “we have successfully cauterised Corbyn/STW (Stop the War Coalition) – not a single Labour MP will touch them.”

Along with Corbyn, the emails reveal Mason’s targeting of activists, academics and journalists. Most bizarrely, Mason sent a diagram to one of his security state interlocutors with the message “I’ve got the whole pro-Putin left influence network mapped…what’s needed is a co-ordinate pushback with shared messaging.”

A fortnight ago Mason accused Urban Dandy of libeling him for mentioning this apparently factual reporting on his anti-left activities, but he has not outright denied The Grayzone’s central claim that he was a security state asset working to undermine anti-war activism in Britain and beyond. Instead, Mason stated that the leaked emails were “a Russian hack and leak operation that produced content that may be edited, distorted or fake. I was the victim of a serous crime. You are the victim of Russian disinformation.“

That same year, 2022, Mason was a speaker at the Byline Festival in Ladbroke Grove, using his platform to encourage the public to support Britain’s supply of weapons to Ukraine to fuel the conflict. Russia is a preoccupation of Mason’s. In the leaked emails and in his remarks at the Kilburn debate, the aspiring politician referred regularly to “the left”, identifying them as a collection of anti-war institutions and individuals. There is a contradiction in Mason’s continued references to these people as “the left” while simultaneously claiming that they are controlled (he does not identify how) or unduly influenced (again, this goes unexplained) by Vladimir Putin, whose government Mason calls “fascist” and who is rarely associated with left-wing ideology.

That the war in Ukraine has proved to be catastrophic for the Ukrainian people has not yet tempered Mason’s enthusiasm for prolonging the conflict.

The Grayzone’s exposé revealed Mason to be fearful of an emerging “left anti-imperialist identity” which he had undertaken to snuff out. Perhaps the ends justify the means for Mason, whose positioning of Britain’s “Black Community” and “Muslim Community” on his “pro-Putin influence network” (above) perhaps foreshadowed recent developments in Britain, with much of the political-media establishment performing a synchronised scaremongering campaign against those opposing Israel’s genocide in Palestine.

If determination to defeat left-wing anti-imperialism on behalf of the pro-war establishment is Mason’s driving force, it could be that his real target at the Kilburn debate was Emma Dent Coad, who used her platform to argue that it is no longer worth voting Labour. Dent Coad is another veteran anti-war campaigner and is standing in Kensington as an independent candidate having been blocked from representing Labour for no good reason. Mason was quick to try to embroil Dent Coad in his conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

Any cost

Two weeks ago Paul Mason stood by his accusation of antisemitism against the audience member in Kilburn. While still in the venue, the experienced author, journalist, broadcaster, speaker, thinker, economist, and political advisor took to X to misquote the person using double inverted commas, a journalistic no-no.

Mason did not apologise for his abuse of the audience member, and doubled down on his claim that her fact-based intervention constituted antisemitism. The journalist and author makes evidence-free accusations about respected peace campaigners being controlled by a foreign government they have no connection to. This is not the approach of a journalist but somebody lost in conceit having switched to what they think is the winning team at half-time. Mocking the left wingers in Kilburn – “guess what, I haven’t been purged” – Mason’s words were those of somebody desperate for acceptance by the right-wing establishment. At any cost to his own reputation.

by Tom Charles

@tomhcharles @urbandandyLDN