Obnoxious ‘Tory enabler’ and former Labour staffer Harry Burns admits to sabotaging Corbyn

Harry Burns Labour Corbyn


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A former Labour Party staffer under Jeremy Corbyn has admitted trying to bring him down during the 2017 general election campaign. Harry Burns made the claims live on GB News with Nigel Farage – with people on Twitter branding him a “Tory enabler”.

Corbyn: an “unexpected” journey

Burns works for PR firm Crestview Strategy. However, before that his LinkedIn profile says he was a regional organiser for the Labour Party from 2014. He was then:

serving as Head of Elections and Campaign Support for the UK Labour Party for the 2017 General Election, playing an integral role in delivering one of the most unexpected election results in recent times.

“Unexpected” is an appropriate word for the 2017 general election – because far from supporting Corbyn as leader, much of the party machinery was trying to stop a Labour victory. As the Canary previously reported, Al Jazeera‘s The Labour Files documentary series revealed much of this. And as Nasim Ahmed wrote for Middle East Monitor, overall The Labour Files showed that the “British establishment” led a:

campaign against… [Corbyn]… aided by the right-wing press, as well as self-styled left-wing publications like the Guardian and, most shocking of all, the Labour party itself which, it would later be revealed, sabotaged Corbyn’s chance of becoming Prime Minister.

Now, one of the people who helped sabotage Labour’s election victory in 2017 has admitted to doing so out loud – and it’s Burns.

‘I was one of the snakes who stopped a Labour victory’

During an interview on GB News, Burns was discussing the Labour Party conference. He said of his former job:

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I was the head of elections for the 2017 general election campaign, when Labour were very far behind the Tories at the start of the campaign. My job was very clear: save as many Labour MPs as possible. Then, when it became clear that Corbyn was getting close to government, I along with a lot of my other colleagues resigned. I left the Labour Party, and then I tried to do everything I can [sic] to bring Corbyn down.

While Burns alleges he wasn’t a Labour staffer or member when he “tried… to bring Corbyn down”, the implication is clear. When he was a Labour staffer, he was doing nothing to even try to get a Labour victory.

Then after that – presumably in the lead up to the 2019 election – Burns did his best to stop the party winning again.

This is pretty obvious from his LinkedIn, as he was a founder of notorious failure Change UK – The Independent Group. Remember that party? The ragtag group of Tory and Labour centre-right (now mostly former) MPs? Well, Burns was central to it – as his LinkedIn notes:

I helped to establish the Independent Group of MPs, which included planning and managing the high profile press conferences which launched the group, before playing a leading role in setting up Change UK – The Independent Group political party.

I took on the role of Head of Campaigns and Field for the party and was a leading member of the senior staff team. I recruited and managed the party’s field organisers and oversaw the creation and delivery of the party’s campaign strategy. I also worked closely with the Director of Political Strategy and the press team to create and deliver the party’s media and communications grid.

People were predictably incensed:

Labour: a war criminal ‘nest of vipers’

There’s a lot to unpack here. It was obviously common knowledge that many people in Labour’s back office (as well as front-facing MPs) were trying to destroy the party’s chances of winning under Corbyn. However, to hear it said out loud by one of those snakes still angers people:

Some people were clear that Labour had definitely lost their vote now:

Then there’s the obvious narrative around how different things might have been if Corbyn hadn’t been sabotaged:

However, there’s also a particularly horrifying pertinence to the obnoxious Burns’s bragging about this in the context of Palestine.

This week has seen Keir Starmer, and other Labour politicians, effectively endorsing Israel committing war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza – while almost all of the corporate media followed suit.

As the West sinks further into an immoral abyss, if people like Burns hadn’t destroyed Labour’s chances in 2017 then we may have actually had a leader in the UK right now who would be speaking up for the Palestinian people – not encouraging genocide against them.

Featured image via GB News – screengrab

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    1. Britain needs a real Labour Party, not this sham Tory Lite shower led by Starmer and his Zionist backers. I do so wish that Jeremy would step up and form a new party. Nobody wants to see the corrupt Tories get a majority at the next GE but neither do we want to see the Starmerites in power either. With more parties there might be a coalition government and this time perhaps the Liberals would support the better party for Britain.

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      1. I think we might as well give up on any hopes that Corbyn is going to do that. In a way you can understand it, given his age and the inevitable barrage of media lies any such move would attract.

        A better bet would be for the Socialist Campaign Group of left-wing Labour MPs to break away – that’d create a party with a number of seats in Parliament (around 30 ?) plus excluded ex-Labour like Corbyn, Diane Abbott, Claudia Webbe, who are currently independents. They’d also probably attract trade union support.

        But they wont do that. Despite the evidence that Starmer will pick them off one by one, they ‘re either too scared or maybe just dont care.

        Also, nothing will change (for the better) without proportional representation – and both the Tories and the other Tories are dead against that ever being allowed.

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    2. I was chatting to a friend of Jeremy’s recently, one of the allegedly ‘wrong kind of Jews’ ejected by Starmer from the Labour Party. I spoke of friends of mine who had left the party, people of 25 and 30 years standing. I said I was holding on in there, to support the Left and stop a total exodus, which is exactly what Starmer wants. She was pleased and agreed with my thoughts.

      They want Labour to be ‘no alternative’, or rather, the ONLY alternative to the Tories, thus – keeping the status quo for those in power throughout the world.

      The majority of voters will alway be conservative with a small ‘c’, especially with the propaganda they are fed by our media and ‘influencers’ elswhere.

      That is why we need people to work LOCALLY, INTERNATIONALLY, AND IN PARLIAMENT! That is how AND why Jeremy came so close to power in 2017. A lifetime of hard work in ALL areas.

      It wasn’t by spouting sub-Brand vague nonsense about turning your backs on Parliament we read from an ex-army bod, whose idea of ‘making a difference’ was signing up and going off to shoot foreigners. (And apparently failing at that).

      And that is why I think WE should ALL be reaching out to ALL our fellow Left-leaning comrades, rather than telling them to ‘f-orf’ just because they don’t appear to be 400 miles to the left of Corbyn, wherever the hell that is. Maybe, turn Left at Narnia?

      To be honest, I came late to The Canary party, and wasn’t up to speed with the in-house machinations, but accepted what you wrote at face value. Reading some of the articles after the ‘coup’, I found myself wondering if The Canary was now a mouthpiece for Right-wing agent provocateurs, stirring the shit here too. (Rather like the Labour Party).

      Anyway, as people are more vote savvy these days, I believe a new Left/Socialist party could thrive, but it would need very astute and vigilant people on board. It could so easily become a one-stop-shop for the Right to sink the Left’s dreams and aspirations in one easy grouping.

      As the propaganda machines and their media foot-soldiers from daytime TV take control of the agenda once again this sad week, I think we can safely say the future is going to be tough for all of us.

      Solidarity, comrades!

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