British Conservatives smear Labour with taxpayers’ money

This 31 December 2018 video from Britain says about itself:

The Tories and their friends in the media pulled out all the stops in 2018 to try to discredit and undermine the increasing ‘threat’ of a Jeremy Corbyn led Labour Government. In March Corbyn was accused of betraying the country and selling British secrets to communist spies. The BBC photoshopped Corbyn’s image to support the notion that he was in the pocket of Russia.

Throughout August and September the neo-liberals in his own party accused Corbyn of anti-semitism, conflating that claim with the Labour Party’s handling of complaints of anti-semitism. The media stoked the fire telling us we had reached ‘peak Corbyn’.

Then in November, the hacking syndicate Anonymous published a series of files from the Integrity Initiatve, an off-shoot of the Institute for Statecraft, a registered charity with significant Government funding, and run by ex-military intelligence officers.

Statecraft’s declared mission is ‘Defending democracy againts disinformation‘ yet, as in an Orwellian dystopia, disinformation is precisley what they were peddling, including, it emerged, against the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition. Many of these smears were earnestly challenged, including by a detractor of Corbyn‘s, Andrew Neil.

By Lamiat Sabin in Britain:

Monday, May 20, 2019

Chris Williamson calls for public inquiry into the Institute for Statecraft’s ‘integrity initiative’

CHRIS WILLIAMSON made a renewed call today for a public inquiry into the “shady” Institute for Statecraft and its “integrity initiative” smearing Jeremy Corbyn and Labour.

The Labour Derby North MP made the appeal on Twitter alongside footage showing him having had a door slammed in his face by the organisation’s co-founder Daniel Lafayeedney.

Through their 'Integrity Initiative' project, the Institute for Statecraft − a state-funded charity − conducted a number of shady activities, like smearing Jeremy Corbyn.

This requires a public inquiry. Watch what happened when I visited their London office earlier this year. pic.twitter.com/42LOIhFcDO

— Chris Williamson (@DerbyChrisW) May 20, 2019

Mr Williamson wrote an account of his own probe into the the Institute for Statecraft for the Morning Star (January 2) after it emerged in December that the government-funded “charity” had been encouraging the spread of anti-Labour propaganda.

The “charity”, registered as being located at an abandoned mill in Fife, Scotland, had shared articles online that described Mr Corbyn as a “useful idiot” for Moscow.

Mr Williamson said the reaction at the IoS’s London office had been “appalling.” He told the Star yesterday: “I tried repeatedly knocking and shouting questions through the door, but he never responded.

“The ministerial responses to my questions have been less than satisfactory.

“After initially confirming that the Foreign Office had paid around £2 million and the Ministry of Defence several hundred thousand pounds to this shady outfit, they have refused to answer my questions.”