Labour will no longer accept donations from the privacy campaigner Max Mosley following accusations that he published a leaflet in the 1960s linking immigrants with tuberculosis and leprosy, Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman has said.
However, the party had no plans to return £500,000 that had already been handed over by the racing tycoon to the office of the deputy leader, Tom Watson, the spokesman added.
The pamphlet backed a candidate standing in a 1961 byelection for the far-right Union Movement, the party founded by Max’s father, Sir Oswald Mosley. The election leaflet states that it was “published by Max Mosley”.
The Daily Mail unearthed the pamphlet in archives in Manchester. The leaflet includes the warning: “Protect your health. There is no medical check on immigration. Tuberculosis, VD and other terrible diseases like leprosy are on the increase. Coloured immigration threatens your children’s health.”
It also states: “If enough people vote for me in this election, the government … will be sending coloured immigrants home, instead of bringing more in.” It urges voters to “let us give the coloured people a fair deal by sending them back to good jobs and good wages at home in Jamaica”.
Replying to journalists’ questions about the Mosley party donations, Corbyn’s spokesman said: “I don’t think there will be any more payments to the Labour party or Tom Watson. We have shifted away from accepting large donations from wealthy donors. We have moved away from large individual donations and they will be judged on the criteria of whether they are appropriate or ethical for the Labour party to accept.”
Asked if £500,000 received by Labour on behalf of Watson’s office would be returned to Mosley, the spokesman added: “[The donations] were made on the basis that they stood but there won’t be any further donations going forward.”
Watson’s office and parliamentary activities could be curtailed without the donation. The deputy leader and his staff have been seen as an alternative power base for many anti-Corbyn MPs. According to official parliamentary registers, Watson, the MP for West Bromwich East, has one of the best resourced offices in Westminster, with nine members of staff.
Questions have been raised about evidence that Mosley gave under oath in a high court trial when he successfully sued the News of the World in 2008. Mosley has insisted that he did not recall the leaflet, and said he would not be deterred from his campaign for reforms to protect people from press abuses.
Asked in the 2008 trial about his political activities as a young man, Mosley acknowledged that he was the election agent for the Union Movement candidate Walter Hesketh in the 1961 byelection in Moss Side. But he said it was “absolute nonsense” to suggest that he had put out leaflets alleging that coloured immigrants brought diseases with them.
Pressed on whether the literature urged voters to “send blacks home”, he replied: “Not as I recall.”
Mosley, a former head of Formula 1, campaigned for tighter press regulation after the News of the World (which closed down in 2011) falsely said he had taken part in a gathering with “Nazi-themes”. Mosley has also funded the press regulator Impress.
Asked by Channel 4 News on Tuesday about the line in the 60s pamphlet suggesting “coloured immigration threatens your children’s health”, Mosley said: “I think that probably is racist. I will concede that completely.”
Mosley also insisted on Tuesday that he would continue to give money to Labour.
Mosley’s money was given to Labour in two tranches; £200,000 in June 2016 and a further £300,000 six months later, which was given to Watson via the Labour party.
The Crown Prosecution Service is expected to receive a dossier from the Daily Mail on Wednesday after the newspaper questioned the evidence given by the privacy campaigner while under oath. It is understood that such a dossier would be referred to Scotland Yard so that police could investigate whether there had been an offence.
Theresa May added to Labour’s discomfort over the payments by questioning why Labour had accepted money from Mosley. At prime minister’s question time in parliament on Wednesday, she said: “I think some people will have been surprised to have learned of those links with leading politicians.”
