A former Labour investigations officer who claimed he left the party to whistleblow about failures to investigate “anti-Semitism, racism, and bullying” argued against the suspension of a local party chair who tweeted that Emily Thornberry was “too old for ISIS”, according to a leaked Labour report.  

Former Lewisham East Constituency Labour Party (CLP) chairman Ian McKenzie caused outrage online in May 2018 after tweets emerged about the then shadow foreign secretary being gang-raped and beheaded by the Islamic State. 

The tweets included: “Emily Thornberry is too old for ISIS. They won’t make a sex slave of her. They’ll behead her and dump her in a mass grave.”  

“Maybe she’d agree sex slavery to one man only, provided he didn’t sell her on or insist on gang rape.”  

“Islam/Islamism learned the trick from Israel: to criticise Israel is anti-semitic. No, religion is propositional.” 

McKenzie was an activist and organsier of the ‘old right’ Labour First, who delivered training on how to beat Momentum and the left in the party, according to the report.  

Investigations officer Dan Hogan, who defied a gagging order to feature in a BBC Panaroma on Labour antisemitism last year, was one of the investigators into Mr McKenzie’s tweets.  

According to the leaked document, released just over a week ago, Mr Hogan, a fellow activist in Labour First, had previously described McKenzie as a “top guy”.  

Despite senior officers arguing that the only option was to suspend Mr McKenzie, Mr Hogan argued he should only be given a notice of investigation (NOI), it claims.  

Sam Matthews, head of disputes between 2016 and 2018, who also featured in the Panorama episode, also disagreed with the suspension. 

According to the report: “That afternoon, Matthews had prepared a suspension letter – but at 6pm he emailed disagreeing with the proposal from two women members of staff that McKenzie should be suspended: 

“[He said] ‘I don’t think that two tweets, both from over two years ago would ordinarily warrant an administrative suspension’.” 

Despite their objections, the suspension went ahead.  

Following this, Mr Matthews assigned Mr Hogan as investigating officer into Mr McKenzie’s case, which included other allegations about his role locally.  

But according to the report, before interviewing Mr McKenzie, Mr Hogan is said to have told him that “he would be dismissing most of those complaints and not asking him about them”. 

According to the report: “On June 18 Hogan interviewed McKenzie, together with disputes officer Megan McCann.  

“After the interview, McCann emailed Ben Jameson, Safeguarding Manager, that she had “[taken] notes throughout” the interview, and “my overwhelming thought throughout the whole interview was that this man was displaying signs that I have seen in other careers, namely signs of deteriorating mental health”. 

But the report also suggests Mr Hogan exaggerated Mr McKenzie’s mental health issues to safeguarding during the investigation, and claimed Mr McKenzie was a “victim of a political vendetta”.  

It claims Mr Hogan had also objected to being “patronised” after being asked by Nareser Osei, the recently appointed head of disputes, to type up minutes from his interview with Mr McKenzie, saying “we don’t need to be told that, we’re experienced investigations officers”.  

The report states that Ms Osei asked Mr Hogan to finish typing up his notes separately from Ms McCann but he was allegedly caught editing her notes. 

“Osei asked Hogan to finish typing up his notes from the interview, separately from McCann.  

“Opening Megan McCann’s interview notes on the shared drive that afternoon, however, Osei discovered that they were currently ‘locked for editing by ‘Dan Hogan’’.  

“She alerted Gardiner that Hogan was currently editing McCann’s notes – “with no document in front of him to reference”,” according to the report.  

The following day, Dan Hogan went on “long-term sick leave”. 

The report concluded: “This example clearly shows Matthews and Hogan acting in a faction manner to try to protect a figure from the right of the Labour Party.” 

Mr Hogan declined to comment on the report, but his lawyer Mark Lewis said he was taking legal action as a result of its contents.  

Mr Matthews, also represented by Mr Lewis, also plans to take legal action.