The London School of Economics recently released their analysis about how Jeremy Corbyn is represented in some of Britain’s mainstream newspapers. Their analysis found that more than 50% of the news coverage of Corbyn was “critical or blatantly antagonistic” with no “distinction between comment, conjecture and fact”.

The Mail on Sunday’s latest attack on Corbyn definitely makes no “distinction between comment, conjecture and fact”.

In their pathetic attempt to undermine Corbyn, these establishment attack dogs masquerading as investigative journalists, allege that a member of the grassroots pressure group Momentum, which supports Jeremy Corbyn, is building ‘indirect links’ with MPACUK and ‘orchestrated’ support.

All the Mail gives in evidence of this are quotes supposedly from Faduma Hassan and Rob Lugg.

“I don’t know them a lot, I just deal with them whenever I need anything.” When later asked about MPAC’s support for Corbyn on its Facebook page, Faduma added: “I am glad they are doing it. I didn’t even notice. That’s fantastic, thank you for updating me.”

They also quote Rob Lugg:

“I think they’re definitely not like, ‘Oh, we shouldn’t go anywhere near them’, but I don’t know what the issues are particularly. But maybe there are issues that we should just investigate a bit – we might not be able to openly co-operate with each other, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pass each other information.”

Faduma’s surprise is abundantly clear when she heard of MPACUK’s Action Alert and Rob’s statement, at the very most, expresses mild intent to possibly work with us AFTER finding out who we are.

Both occasions actually prove there is no “orchestration” on any level at all and nor were there any links, direct or otherwise, affirming both statements of Momentum and MPACUK.

Yet the Mail remarkably used this as evidence of the complete opposite! They even have the audacity to say Momentum has ‘SECRET’ ties to MPACUK. Another barefaced lie.

The Mail on Sunday further quotes Faduma:

‘You know when you work with a group of people, and you have a meeting with them… so we orchestrate things and then we let it go’

This is used in conjunction with her previous quote. Yet there is no context provided.

Who is she referring to? Is she referring to Momentum activists, Labour-affiliated organisations, Labour local parties? Who?

The Mail just lumps two quotes together and pushes the reader to fill in the gaps. Is the Daily Mail deliberately misrepresenting and lying about what Faduma said?

The Mail also claim that Rob Lugg, a Momentum official (actually a volunteer) ‘suggested to their reporter to contact MPAC discreetly to garner support’. As it turns out it was the snivelling mole Omar Wahid that repeatedly ‘suggested’ this to the volunteer in an attempt to be able to claim our name was mentioned.

Again, the Mail is giving us all a lesson of how shoddy journalism is conducted. And in true Mail on Sunday fashion, it dedicates their joke “investigations” to push down those who in society want to address real social ills rather than the real direct links between governments and oppressive regimes it defines as “extremist”.

The other major outright lie is the claim that MPACUK is anti-Semitic. Such lies are often peddled by those that do not like our opposition to Israeli brutality and the oppression of Palestinians. We have clarified our stance on this many times and are not surprised that they would rehash that old chestnut.

Firstly, they are aware that Asghar Bukhari is no longer a member of the organisation yet despite this they plastered his images, videos and quotes out-of-context throughout their article. We informed them of this matter and yet they refused to acknowledge it and preferred to neglect their duty of allowing Asghar a right-of-reply.

Some of the accusations made against him even pre-date the existence of the group and Asghar quickly acknowledged his mistake once it was pointed out to him.

In equal desperation, they clung to a single Facebook post that was posted many years ago on our page, one we internally flagged up as anti-Semitic as it went against our editorial policy, deleted and summarily dismissed the volunteer from our organisation.

With such weak evidence, the Daily Mail still affirms this is as evidence of anti-Semitism.

When the Mail on Sunday itself has reluctantly acknowledged “mistakes” in its own deliberate racist reporting of Muslims today, and of Blacks, Asians and Jews in the past, it persists in its racism. And yet it happily lampoons individuals and organisations that make genuine mistakes and take steps to never repeat, unlike the paper.

The Mail also makes note that we have been “no-Platformed” by the NUS for “extremism”, yet we have constantly affirmed if this had any shred of credibility, we would be banned by the government who has a much harsher policy on “extremism”. It is just about political point scoring by certain NUS members in 2004 and stopping our pro-Palestinian activism.

We even shared the context for the political grandstanding nature of this NUS No-Platform policy with the Mail, but how can anyone expect a sensationalist paper to provide nuance when their goal is to delegitimise Jeremy Corbyn and anyone that dares to support him?

The anti-Semitism smears against Corbyn have been constantly used to paint him as a racist figure who is working against the interests of Britain, but there is another more insidious reason for mentioning anti-Semitism, Corbyn and support from Muslims.

One of the common narratives regularly peddled by trashy papers like the Mail on Sunday is that Muslims are an extremely anti-Semitic community and so the reason why Corbyn is so “anti-Semitic” is because it will endear him to the Muslim community. A deeply Islamophobic argument that has rarely, if ever, been scrutinised or challenged by others in the mainstream media.

And that is the real point of this article. It isn’t written to speak truth to power, to ensure the voiceless have a voice or any ethical reason for journalism. It is written to spread more intolerance, to malign anyone seen as a threat to the establishment and diverting attention from the actual issues facing us all. It is about sending a message to people that dare to think for themselves and not listen to the media and political establishment about Corbyn or any other issue.

Unfortunately, for the Mail on Sunday, many people are seeing through their attacks on Corbyn and not falling for their propaganda.

This article will go on the heap of the many other hatchet jobs that the Mail on Sunday has attempted, but have never stuck because few take this paper seriously (except for racists, but they were intolerant individuals already – especially if the Daily Mail was part of their daily dose of news). You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

This article will do little to stop the movement supporting Corbyn and those who want a real, ethical alternative to the Conservatives.

And for MPACUK this hatchet job vindicates us in our work – for the Mail on Sunday to attack us shows that they see an issue with Muslims being politically organised and that we are doing something right.

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MPACUK are seeking legal advice about this article and have contacted IPSO as well.

Here is MPACUK’s full quote that we provided to the Mail on Sunday (which they didn’t print):

“MPACUK have never contacted Momentum or been approached by any of their representatives directly or indirectly.

False smears of anti-Semitism are sadly a political tactic often used to try to silence pro-Palestinian activists and have been regularly recycled to demonise Jeremy Corbyn. MPACUK has a strong record of opposing all forms of racial and religious prejudice – it is particularly ironic that we are attacked by a newspaper infamous for its historic support for anti-Semitism and its current role in stoking hostility to Muslims and refugees.”

Here is a MPACUK rebuttal document dealing with some of the smears about us – https://www.scribd.com/document/158128875/A-Refutation-of-Smears-Against-MPACUK (Also under the ‘FAQs’ section on our website)

MPACUK have also discussed some of these allegations on the BBC Victoria Debryshire show recently. Link to the interview – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_WN0ohYM1s