Richard Angell

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Richard Angell Twitter header, July 2020

Richard Angell is best known for his directorship of the Blairite group Progress.

Career

Educated at Cedars Upper School, Leighton Buzzard (1997–2002) and reading Public Policy Government and Management from the University of Birmingham (2002–5), Angell was Chair of the university's Labour Club. Following an extended stint as President of the Guild of Students, he became Membership Officer and Administrative Assistant of Progress (July 2006–July 2007) while also sitting on the executive of the National Union of Students.[1]

In his online CV, Angell admits to being the parliamentary and press officer for the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism between July 2007 and March 2009.[2] In this capacity, he 'managed the relationships of the committee with other MPs, led on government liaison and co-ordinated communications with the press to ensure the full implementation of the recommendations made by the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism'. As APPGs are unable to employ people, Angell was listed as a member of Mann's staff. At the Jewish Labour Movement's 2017 conference, Angell described Mann as his 'Wolverine', referring to the Marvel Comics character with animalistic instincts and reflexes.

The same CV suggests that, in March 2009, Angell took up the role of parliamentary and equalities manager at Community Union, which funded Mann's controversial anti-social behaviour pamphlet. However, the parliamentary register of interest shows that Angell was still being sponsored by Mann until April 2013,[3] before leaving for Australia the following month.

In May 2010, Angell became deputy director of Progress, an appointment that would last until October 2014, before becoming its director in November 2014 (formalised at Companies House the following September). For most of the time he was deputy director, Angell was being sponsored by Mann.

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Richard Angell makes his feelings known about the left leading the Labour Party via the @StayInLabour Twitter account run by Progress

Political Position

At the 2015 General Election, Angell helped to secure an increased majority for Wes Streeting in Ilford North. This, despite the fact that he claims 'I think/thought Ed Miliband was the most disastrous Labour leader'.[4] More generally, Angell has declared his love for Peter Mandelson[5] and believes that the Labour party only needed to shift very slightly to be elected.

In August 2016, Angell published in Progress magazine a piece called 'Chaos Under Corbyn', which purported to present 'a year in decline under hard-left control'. This provided a month-by-month account of what Angell perceived as errors.

Via the @StayInLabour account run by Progress, Angell made his feelings known, stating unabiguously that 'I am not giving up on 120 years of Labour history because the hard-left have 12 months in charge. Modernisers have got to up our game and bring this failed experiment to an end'.[6]

While director of Progress, Angell credits himself with playing a 'significant part in changing Labour policy on Brexit'.[7] In September 2017, he penned an article for the Guardian accusing Jeremy Corbyn of a creative fudge between hardened Eurosceptics on the left and the largely pro-European members that formed the majority of his support.

Angell was vehemently opposed to the idea of MPs being reselected by their constituency parties.[8]

Israel and Anti-Semitism

We have seen that Angell had a longstanding association with John Mann and the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism (2007–13). As such, he was an early entrant into the Labour Party's anti-Semitism debate, and he maintains a section dedicated to anti-Semitism on his blog, despite many of the entries having been deleted from ProgressOnline. Angell advocates an understanding of 'the Macpherson principle that victims define their racism'.[9]

In April 2016, Angell published a list of eight steps the party could take to tackle the problem:

1. Training for the NEC in modern antisemitism and unconscious bias

2. A vice-chair of the NEC equalities committee for the Jewish community

3. New capacity for the compliance unit

4. Time to clarify the rules – antisemitism must lead to a lifetime ban

5. Third party reporting or an independent ombudsperson

6. Self-organised groups for Jewish youth and student members

7. A modern understanding of antisemitism – victims matter

8. Join the Jewish Labour Movement[10]

Published in the Mirror and at greater length in Progress magazine, Angell argued that the party and leadership neede to 'understand antisemitism not as a political judgement, but how Jews experience antisemitism' and agreed with Jon Lansman that 'Zionist' should not be used as a term of abuse. From this polemic, we learn that Angell equates pejorative use of the term 'Zionist' with pejorative use of the term 'gay' in the school playground.

In May 2016, Angell debated Cathy Nugent of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.[11]

Interviewed by Julia Hartley-Brewer in June 2016, who claimed that Hamas and Hezbollah had been 'expressly supported by the Labour leadership', Angell said that he found this worrying and regrettable.

Grading Chakrabarti's report in July 2016, Angell seems aggrieved that she had not taken heed of his eight-point plan, particularly in relation to the Jewish Labour Movement. 'This is the big omission of the report. The Jewish Labour movement – the collective voice of Jewish party members – was a key linchpin in my action plan. JLM is not even mentioned in the body of the report, it’s [sic] only reference is as an organisation that contributed to the inquiry. I therefore reiterate my call for JLM to be on the equalities committee, for it to be able to lead or appoint the appropriate people to provide training for Labour’s NEC – as it oversees all disciplinary issues in the party – and the levels below'.

Reprising Corbyn's perceived failures during this first year of leadership, Angell noted that 'At the launch of the Chakrabarti report a Momentum Black Connexions activist posing as a journalist uses an antisemitic trope to attack a Jewish Labour MP. She walks out and Corbyn, who witnessed the incident, does nothing'. Angell elaborated on this version of events in a subsequent piece for ProgressOnline: 'In a press conference about combatting Labour’s antisemitism problem he had nothing to say about antisemitism happening before his very eyes. Shocking. Just shocking. It is fair to say Ruth Smeeth had the last word'.

In September 2017, Angell attended the Jewish Labour Movement annual conference and took part in a public conversation with John Mann.[12]

From his platform as director of Progress, Angell claimed in LabourList that 'There is a small but still substantial group of Corbyn advocates who have whipped up antisemitic hatred and victim-blamed Jews'. He went further to suggest that 'dither, delay and indecision from the leadership over Holocaust deniers and out-and-out Jew-haters signals to the perpetrators that either Corbyn does not care or secretly approves'.

Just like his mentor, John Mann, Ken Livingstone was a particular bugbear for Angell. When Livingstone resigned, Angell was quoted as saying:

Ken Livingstone should not have been allowed to resign before being kicked out. This is a failure on Labour’s part and a missed opportunity for Jeremy Corbyn to show he is serious about cleaning up Labour’s anti-Semitism problem and not just hoping it will go out of the media gaze.

Jeremy Corbyn’s response is shameful. Ken Livingstone has brough [sic] shame on Labour, alienated very many British Jews from our party and its once proud record of combating anti-Semitism. Jeremy should have shown Ken the door not be ‘sad’ at his departure.

This is one of the many reasons why members have no confidence in Labour complaints process.

Replicating the same typographical error on Twitter, he used the hashtags #LabourAntisemitism and #EnoughIsEnough.[13]

He had earlier said that Livingstone 'doesn't respect the rules of the Labour Party and how we operate' and accused him of having made a 'career of offending British Jews'.

By July 2018, Angell was branding Labour under Corbyn 'institutionally antisemitic'.[14] In the same month, he praised the Conservative peer Daniel Finkelstein for an 'exceptional piece' about Labour anti-Semitism, the 'dispassionate and frankly unpartisan'[15] content of which Angell paraphrased as being 'That the new establishment prioritises Labour as a safe space for anti-Zionism of all kinds (including racist ones) over all Jews who want a Labour govt'.[16]