by James Mendelsohn
Following the official ban on him standing for Labour at the next General Election, Jeremy Corbyn’s direct influence on British politics may be at an end. However, he will leave an enduring impact on our national political discourse. His embittered followers will remain vocal. And, in my case, one of them is pursuing me through the courts.
In a Kafkaesque universe, I am being sued by a Corbyn supporter over nine tweets which I didn’t post. I am one of three defendants in a case against myself, Edward Cantor and the late Dr Pete Newbon. I am being sued for libel, invasion of privacy, and breach of data protection law – even though I didn’t post a single tweet. As if that were not mad enough, I am also being sued for harassment. I sometimes feel as if I am an actor in a film about someone else.
This started when Pete Newbon campaigned against antisemitism in the UK Labour Party and got into a typical Twitter spat with an account called @per_incuriam – a legal term which, ironically, means a legal decision made in ignorance of legal authority. This was the Twitter handle for a non-practising solicitor, law lecturer and Corbyn supporter named James Wilson. Wilson and I were once colleagues in a university law department, and it is fair to say that we did not get on.
When Pete Newbon indicated that he was at loggerheads with someone, I sent him a private message making him aware that, if his opponent was James Wilson, this was a person who got into unpleasant arguments. This was shown by a Facebook post written by a mother with whom Wilson had quarrelled about parking near a school. I thought nothing more of it, but, a few weeks later, Pete Newbon used a screenshot of that post in a Twitter thread which Wilson saw.
Wilson went apoplectic, threatening to sue me and Pete. Edward Cantor tweeted one further copy of the Facebook post. Edward’s tweet was not retweeted and was ‘liked’ only once. I never tweeted at all – but Wilson says I am responsible for Pete Newbon’s actions. Pete’s tweets themselves had very few republications, and were all deleted within 24 hours.
Wilson said that the Facebook post was a factual statement which meant that he was a paedophile. In a preliminary trial last year, a High Court judge said otherwise and rejected Wilson’s argument. The judge ruled that the words used were an expression of an opinion that Wilson is a weirdo who harasses people. Still Wilson carried on, and now we face a full trial.
