With voters heading to the polls today for local elections in England and national elections in Scotland and Wales, the Labour Party fear a disastrous set of results under the toxic Starmer brand.
Their campaigning has put a lot of emphasis on attacking opposition parties in recent days, with Starmer’s Housing Minister and Labour Together veteran Steve Reed accusing the Green Party of welcoming “some of the worst antisemites” previously expelled by Labour. However, I have discovered a now-deleted video in which Peter Mason, now a member of Labour’s notorious NEC, admits to being “recruited” into politics by a future press officer for the Israeli military.
https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Facebook-video-788647828395001-720p2.mp4
Peter Mason and Yair Zivan
As well as his position on the NEC, Mason serves on London Labour’s regional executive committee and is also standing for re-election as a councillor in Ealing. In the video, taken from an online meeting of former Union of Jewish Students (UJS) campaigns officers, Mason says that he was encouraged into the political sphere by:
one of [his] closest friends, in Israel now.
He was referring to Yair Zivan, his predecessor at the Union of Jewish Students. Zivan left the UJS to work as a Press Officer for the IDF. He then became a Foreign Affairs Adviser and International Media Spokesman to former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
The meeting was also attended by Izzy Lenga. As previously reported, Lenga has participated in Israeli military training. She is also standing for re-election today in Camden, where she is Labour’s Chief Whip.
‘Plugged into the McSweeney clique’
Michael Crick described Peter Mason as “plugged into [the] McSweeney clique”. Morgan McSweeney famously concealed over £700k in donations to Labour Together. One of the donors he collaborated with was Trevor Chinn, who received an Israeli Presidential Medal of Honour in 2024. Labour Friends of Israel, a lobby group that refuses to disclose its donors, nominated Chinn for the award.
Labour councillor for Cricklewood Anne Clarke accepted an LFI-funded trip in July 2023 and met with Israeli President and genocidaire Isaac Herzog. She is also standing for re-election today.
Through his position on Labour’s NEC, Peter Mason was one of the individuals reported to have blocked Andy Burnham’s candidacy bid for the Gorton and Denton by-election. Keir Starmer cannot bear a threat to his own position, even if it means driving the party into the ground.
Creepy connections
Mason was previously national secretary of the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) under alleged predator Ivor Caplin’s chairmanship and while now convicted sex offender Liron Velleman was their youth officer. The JLM specifies that one of its objectives is “to promote the centrality of Israel in Jewish life”.
Former Israeli intelligence officer Assaf Kaplan, first hired by Starmer’s Labour in December 2020, spoke at JLM’s 2024 conference at an event on “how to run a good campaign” alongside Josh Simons.
Simon is an ex-cabinet member who was forced out of a job after revelations about his hiring of private investigators, whilst serving as a director of Labour Together, to smear journalists who were looking into Morgan McSweeney’s dodgy dealings.
The other two speakers at the event were Christabel Cooper, then a Director of Research at Labour Together, and Nathan Boroda, a Labour councillor from Bury.
Attendees were promised that they would “discover the keys to running a successful campaign” with the opportunity to “join seasoned experts as they share insights, tactics, and best practices”.
But with the party taking an almost entirely negative approach in the lead-up to today’s local elections, current London councillors tell me that this campaign has been an unmitigated disaster.
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