Gabriel Podgrund, a Times Journalist has been shown a letter sent by Carter-Ruck to Sam Matthews, once Labour’s Head of Disputes and acting Director of Legal & Governance who have written to him pointing out his duties of confidentiality and asking him to ‘fess up and tell the Party what he’s said to journalists and what else he has. The rest of this article, below/overleaf, shares the letter and I comment that leaking is not whistle blowing but that maybe the Party should have dismissed him and others who were permitted to leave with compromise agreements and in one case, a peerage. I also remind Wes Streeting and Tom Watson about what whistle blowing is, and how frequently the Labour Party goes to court to defend its rules. …
EXCLUSIVE: Labour has launched a crackdown on whistleblowers ahead of bombshell BBC Panorama doc on antisemitism. Carter Ruck, their lawyers, have written to Sam Matthews, ex head of investigations, saying the party "will not tolerate" ex employees "wantonly disregarding" NDAs pic.twitter.com/0koCyPNnMB
— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) 6 July 2019
I am glad they’ve got him in their sites.
Some argue that he is a whistle blower, exposing Labour’s anti-semitism and deserves protection and that Labour has policies against both NDAs and the pursuit of whistle blowers. As the letter makes clear, releasing information to journalists is not an act of whistle blowing and doing so in a partial and misleading fashion is a clear breach of any settlement agreement and any standards of decency. Doing so in way that breaches the privacy and damages the reputation of other members of staff is also either a crime or a civil tort.
Personally I question whether these acts void the agreement and similar ones i.e. if you break the agreement, then the money should be returned. Those who argue that compromise agreements should not be permitted will create a choice for employers of dismissing staff or not, and it’s my view that some of those who left over the summer have a disciplinary case to answer. Some were permitted to work their notice, how stupid are we.
Wes Streeting has promised to repeat any legally suppressed blown whistles in Parliament, (although I can’t find the tweet now); I hope he recognises the difference between that and malicious leaking. Tom Watson MP also criticises the use of Lawyers which is a change, since he vehemently defended the NEC’s right to appeal the High Court judgement voiding his and McNicol’s attempt to steal the 2nd leadership election.
ooOOOoo
I have tagged this “compromise agreements” as I have written previously about them.
Anti-semitism is important and Labour is right to try and expunge it from itself, but we build laws to define both the crime and the means by which crime fighters may gather evidence. It’s important that these rules/laws are kept to.