John Woodcock’s Dark Underbelly

Imran Mulla and Peter Oborne writes:

In July John Woodcock, a UK government adviser on political violence, wrote to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper warning of a potentially deadly new threat to MPs.

Writing on 13 July in the wake of the victory of four independent MP in that month’s general election, Woodcock (a former Labour MP who now sits as an independent peer in the House of Lords under the title Lord Walney) said there was a “concerted campaign by extremists to create a hostile atmosphere for MPs within their constituencies to compel them to cave into political demands”.

To drive home the gravity of the problem Woodcock added that the “conduct of the election campaign in many communities has underlined the gravity of the threat to our democracy”.

In an interview with The Guardian the next day Woodcock went further, identifying a particular pattern of abuse “created by aggressive pro-Palestine activists”.

Invoking the attempted murder of Donald Trump, Woodcock said the shooting was “a vivid reminder of the vulnerability of all politicians”.

He added: “We have seen the growth in the UK of US-style politics of aggressive confrontation and intimidation which is unfortunately, exactly the toxic environment that could lead to another assassination attempt on a UK politician, of which we have already tragically seen a number in recent years.”

Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered during the runup to the Brexit referendum in 2016, while Conservative MP Sir David Amess was murdered in 2019.

The peer then called on the Home Office to investigate what he called a “dark underbelly” of abuse. To give substance to his claims, Woodcock submitted a dossier containing allegations of abuse during the general election.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced the day after Woodcock’s public comments that she was launching a rapid review of harassment faced by candidates in the election.

She said there had been an “alarming rise in intimidation, harassment and abuse towards candidates, campaigners and volunteers from all parties, which simply cannot be tolerated.”

Thanks to an enterprising Freedom of Information request by the Novara Media website, the Woodcock dossier is now in the public domain.

Middle East Eye has analysed the dossier.

A close examination of its contents raises many questions about the methodology, and indeed the elementary competence, of the government adviser on political violence.

Some of Woodcock’s evidence consists of sources that upon inspection appear either partisan or unreliable.

Equally troubling, MEE found that the dossier consists of allegations made on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and in press reports, with no evidence of any attempt to independently substantiate them or even establish that they were credible.

MEE put this to Woodcock last week but did not receive a reply.

MEE asked what criteria he used to determine what counted as abuse and intimidation. No response.

MEE also asked Woodcock whether he had carried out any kind of assessment of the allegations he had passed onto the Home Office. No answer.

Partisan sources

The Woodcock dossier is a slender and threadbare document, barely two pages long, and there is no evidence of original research.

It reports allegations of abuse against eight parliamentary candidates who stood in the July general election.

Six were Labour candidates, one was Conservative and one Reform UK.

The six Labour candidates had all faced challenges from independents campaigning on pro-Palestinian platforms: Jess Phillips, Shabana Mahmood, Wes Streeting, Rushanara Ali, Stella Creasy and Jon Ashworth.

Citations in the dossier included a social media post by an anonymous account on X called “habibi”.

That account, which appears to be a partisan source, has described pro-Palestinian marchers as “haters” and a peaceful protest as a “hate march”.

Woodcock did not point out this essential background. / He has since reposted a post on 28 August by “habibi” claiming that the Green Party in 2024 “just can’t get enough extremism”. 

Another account belongs to right-wing social media commentator Chris Rose.

Rose criticised former Labour MP Jon Ashworth during the election campaign for having “accused others of ‘Islamophobia’”, saying that he now “faces the divisive extremism he often dismissed”.

He also posted in May that “seeing a Muslim councillor shout “Allahu Akbar” whilst surrounded by Palestine flags was “alarming. It’s alien to me.” The councillor, Mothin Ali, later said he had received death threats after the video in question, reported in the press, went viral.

Rose said that same month that climate activist Greta Thunburg, arrested at a pro-Palestinian demonstration wearing a keffiyeh, should be “sent to Gaza with her ridiculous tea towel on”.

In November last year ahead of Armistice Weekend, Rose posted a photo of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, with the fake satirical caption: ‘Please, if it’s not too much trouble. Could we kindly ask that you postpone your calls for Jihad, Muslim armies, Intifadas, genocide chants & anger towards anyone calling Hamas terrorists for this weekend? Apologies for bothering you, thank you.’

Once again Woodcock failed to highlight Rose’s record as a partisan commentator.

Lumping in protesters with criminals In some cases the alleged abuse and intimidation listed in the dossier was under police investigation.

For example, Labour candidate Stella Creasy’s office was damaged by vandals during the campaign. By the time the dossier was sent to Yvette Cooper, the police had launched an investigation into the incident.

Another example from the dossier is Rushanara Ali, Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Stepney, who said she received death threats and had police protection during the campaign.

Her rival independent candidate Ajmal Masroor condemned the abuse she faced, although Woodcock did not mention this.

But other cases featured in the dossier have not led to police investigations. These include Birmingham Yardley MP Jess Phillips facing “jeers and chants during her acceptance speech”.

Another case, reported by Novara Media, was a poster reading “Vote for Genocide, Vote Labour” put up in Wes Streeting’s constituency, Ilford North.

In its list of cases, Woodcock’s dossier fails to distinguish pro-Palestinian protests from criminals who abused, threatened and intimidated parliamentary candidates.

In fact, his dossier appears to muddle the two.

Crucially police action against pro-Palestinian protesters has been limited.

Open Democracy reported in early February that arrests at pro-Palestine marches were at a lower rate than at the Glastonbury music festival last year. It estimated that an average of 0.5 demonstrators at Palestine protests were arrested for every 10,000 attendees.

And a recent Home Affairs Select Committee report in February found that both police and organisers had characterised the protests as “overwhelmingly peaceful”.

Unsubstantiated allegations

The dossier records that Jon Ashworth, former MP for Leicester South “said that he had been screamed at for 45 minutes and chased down the street during the campaign, on one occasion having to seek refuge in a vicarage (where protestors continued to wait until he emerged).”

He was also “filmed and taunted by a known Islamist extremist in the street; an individual separately now being charged under terrorism offences”, according to the document.

The individual, Majid Freeman, has been charged with encouragement of terrorism and supporting a proscribed organisation in an ongoing case unrelated to the election. / But some of Ashworth’s claims since the election have been challenged.#

Ashworth claimed on 10 July that Majid Freeman was a “key campaigner” for Shockat Adam, who unseated him as MP, and demanded that Adam “condemn this individual”.

 But Ashworth deleted the post on X shortly after receiving a warning from lawyers acting on behalf of Adam.

In an interview with MEE in late August, Adam said that “I would never intimidate or condone intimidation for anybody.”

There is no evidence that Woodcock made any attempt to assess the veracity of Ashworth’s allegations and independently substantiate them.

And there is no indication that Lord Walney sought to substantiate other allegations he cited in the dossier. MEE asked him whether he did - and received no response.

Selective case

Most baffling of all, the Woodcock dossier is selective in the cases it includes. Many independent candidates credibly claim they faced abuse. The government’s political violence commissioner does not mention a single one of them.

On 15 July, Shockat Adam - who unseated Ashworth - claimed he had suffered abuse during the campaign. In late August, he told MEE that he faced significant racial abuse during the general election campaign.

“People from my team were often racially abused when they knocked on doors or on polling day," he said, "including my son, who was standing outside a polling station and was greeted with the P-word.”

Adam added that the abuse has continued after the election: “I have faced a torrent of abuse online and in real life, as have people in my family.”

MEE asked Woodcock whether he looked at these claims once they emerged - no response.

And on 3 July, during the election campaign, Palestinian-British independent candidate Tanushka Marah’s campaign office was attacked and vandalised following weeks of what her campaign claimed was orchestrated harassment by pro-Israel activists.

Marah said she had experienced “secret filming of our events and volunteers, misinformation about me and the campaign, theft of electoral materials and apparent planting of these materials in a supermarket.” (Marah has previously written for MEE.)

This case was missing from Woodcock’s dossier.

Then there is 23-year-old Leanne Mohamad, the British-Palestinian who stood as an independent against now-Health Secretary Wes Streeting and lost by 538 votes.

The dossier cites posters attacking Streeting put up in the constituency.

But it does not mention that Mohamad said on 30 June that she was receiving a “deluge of daily abuse”. / Streeting himself during the campaign highlighted and criticised Islamophobia - which he said was being levelled against Mohamad. He even mentioned it in his acceptance speech on 5 July.

Yet this was not featured in Woodcock’s dossier.

Death threats

There are more examples: In Blackburn during the election campaign, it was widely reported that Labour and independent canvassers engaged in physical scuffles.

Independent candidate Adnan Hussain’s campaign claimed that Labour supporters had threatened them and inflamed the situation.

Hussain, now an MP, said he had become “fearful” of going out to campaign, and added that “I am now left with many of those who accompanied me and my team feeling upset, traumatised and scared to be out in Blackburn alone”.

Kate Hollern, the Labour candidate, in turn accused the independents of “intimidatory behaviour”.

The situation in Blackburn received no attention in the dossier.

MEE asked Hussain about his experience during the election. Hussain told MEE on Tuesday that the “extreme level of intimidation and abuse” he faced during the campaign meant that on a handful of occasions he considered stepping down.

“I received numerous death threats, on my personal number,” he said. “There were threats of my house being burnt down, threats to rape my family members, and threats of violence.

“My friends and family were constantly concerned for my safety, to the point where my campaign manager took it upon himself to contact the Home Office to arrange guards; nothing, however, came of this.”

MEE put Hussain's comments to the Home Office, which said: “Political intimidation and abuse has no place in our society and we take reports of intimidation, harassment and abuse extremely seriously.

“We are working with the police and with Parliament to provide appropriate mitigations to ensure elected representatives are able to go about the business for which they were democratically elected.”

Physical assault

Hussain also said that there were occasions on which he was followed home after campaigning.

“On one occasion, members of my campaign team were actually physically assaulted.”

Hussain told MEE that that he expressed concerns to the relevant authorities but did not think they were being taken seriously.

This has continued since he has been elected, he said. “A few weeks ago, at 2am, my family and I were alarmed when doors to the front and back of our home were banged upon. Three white males had trespassed into my garden and come to the doors of my house, for reasons still unknown to me.”

Hussain said he thinks threats to politicians “must be taken very seriously” regardless of political orientation and background.

This, he feels, is not the case at the moment: “I have not been contacted by any authority or body wishing to discuss my experience as an Independent candidate and MP.”

MEE asked Walney what criteria he used to select which cases and election candidates to investigate for the dossier, receiving no response.

In his comments to the home secretary, Woodcock highlighted “in particular” that there was a pattern of intimidation by “aggressive pro-Palestinian protesters” - despite not having examined allegations of intimidation faced by pro-Palestinian independents.

Diane Abbott, a Labour MP and mother of the House of Commons, criticised Woodcock in a post on X, formerly Twitter, attacking his statements after the dossier was submitted as a “crude effort to demonise all those who support Palestinian rights“. 

Woodcock chaired the Labour Friends of Israel group from 2011 to 2013.

He was suspended from the Labour Party in 2018 over accusations he sent inappropriate texts and messages to a former staff member, although Woodcock denied the allegations.

After the recently elected Labour government announced it was suspending 30 out of 350 arms sales to Israel, Woodcock took to social media on 2 September to slam the decision, saying he hopes British ministers would “reflect on the depth of hurt felt” by the Israeli government.

MEE asked the Home Office when the results of the review launched by Yvette Cooper were expected to be made public.

MEE also asked whether the Home Office considers there to have been methodological flaws in Woodcock’s dossier, and whether it is investigating abuse faced by parliamentary candidates.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Political intimidation and abuse must have no place in our society and we take reports of intimidation, harassment and abuse extremely seriously.

“We are working with the police to provide appropriate mitigations to ensure locally elected representatives are able to go about the business for which they were democratically elected.”