Marc Wadsworth

Marc Wadsworth is a British anti-racism activist and citizen journalist who for more than 30 years has been involved with anti-racist struggles, including the Anti-Racist Alliance and the campaign for justice for the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.^[1]

Early life

Born in Birmingham, England, Wadsworth spent his first six years in a children's home and was then raised in foster care for a further year. He recalls being the only black student at an all-white secondary school in Surrey. Initially bullied, he took up amateur boxing at 13, inspired by Muhammad Ali, whose politics he would later describe as Black Pride and Black Power.^[2][3]

His father George "Busha" Rowe had emigrated to Britain from Jamaica in 1944 and volunteered in the Royal Air Force in World War II.^[4] Wadsworth has said that his mother is Finnish.^[5][6] Wadsworth made a documentary film Divided by Race, United in War and Peace about his late father's fellow Caribbean war veterans and their struggles against colour prejudice and racism.^[7][8] The BBC remade the film, with Wadsworth as a producer, and, in May 2015, Fighting for King and Empire: Britain’s Caribbean Heroes was broadcast.^[9] The film was subsequently shown at the Frontline Club in September 2015.^[10] In November 2016 the film was repeated by the BBC during Remembrance Sunday week.

Career

Wadsworth was at the forefront of securing "black sections" (caucuses) within the Labour Party, first tabled in 1983, to further the cause of greater African, Caribbean and Asian political representation. All four of Britain's first minority African, Caribbean and Asian members of parliament of modern times were members.^[11][12] He was then founder of the Anti-Racist Alliance (ARA) in 1991, and helped set up the campaign for justice after the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence.^[1] The ARA succeeded in getting human rights lawyer Geoffrey Bindman to draft a groundbreaking bill to make racial harassment and racial violence specific criminal offences, which proposals actually became law years later.^[1] Wadsworth lost his position as ARA leader in 1994 following disputes with a far-left political faction in the organisation called Socialist Action and Ken Livingstone, who supported them.^[12]

In January 2006, Wadsworth became founding editor of The-Latest.com, "Britain's first dedicated citizen journalism news portal",^[13] which has been a springboard for several successful journalists, including Julie Stewart-Binks, Phil Simms of the Henley Standard, and Jonathan Brooker.^[14]

In 2008, an ill-judged comment made to Wadsworth by an Australian strategist and spin doctor, James McGrath, who worked for the then London mayor Boris Johnson, about African-Caribbean people being welcome to go back home if they did not like the capital's newly-elected Conservative leadership, led to the aide being fired.^[15][16] Press Gazette hailed The-Latest.Com's scoop that sparked the controversy with the headline: "Citizen journalism takes first UK scalp".^[17]

Media career

Wadsworth has been a reporter and presenter for BBC radio and television and for ITV's Thames News (London),^[18] at one point interviewing Margaret Thatcher, who he recalls walked out when he asked about the vote by her colleagues to effectively oust her from power.^[19]

From 2001 to 2012, Wadsworth was a lecturer in journalism at City University London.^[20][18] In 2012 he gained an MA in Contemporary British History from King's College London,^[21] passing with distinction.^[22]

As a journalist, Wadsworth has written for a range of publications, including most UK national newspapers, and has also been involved with community journalism training courses. He twice served on the National Executive Council of the National Union of Journalists.^[18] His first book, Comrade Sak, a political biography of British Indian Labour and Communist MP Shapurji Saklatvala (1874–1936), was published in 1998 by Peepal Tree Press.^[23]

In March 2016, The-Latest.com identified Wadsworth as a committee member of "Black Momentum" aka "Momentum Black ConneXions" (MBC), in reference to the pro-Corbyn campaign group Momentum.^[24]

Antisemitism and racism inquiry report launch

At a launch, to which the media were invited, on 30 June 2016 for the publication of the Chakrabarti Inquiry report into allegations of antisemitism and racism in the Labour Party, Daily Telegraph journalist Kate McCann questioned Jeremy Corbyn about a "Momentum member" handing out a "leaflet" calling for the deselection of anti-Corbyn MPs. Wadsworth had earlier given McCann a copy of his "press release" at her request. In response to the provocative question about him, Wadsworth responded by publicly stating that he saw the Telegraph journalist handing a copy of the press release to Labour MP Ruth Smeeth, and thus claimed to have spotted who was "working hand in hand", a reference to anti-Corbyn Labour MPs colluding with the right-wing press. Smeeth expressed outrage and walked out, followed by McCann, leading to a storm of media controversy and a complaint from Smeeth that Wadsworth had used an antisemitic conspiracy theory to attack her; Wadsworth stated he did not know Smeeth is Jewish.^[25][26] Shami Chakrabarti, who chaired the meeting, claimed she had firmly told Wadsworth he had misused his opportunity to ask a question, and that Corbyn had agreed.^[27] Most of Wadsworth's brief comments, captured on a minute-long widely publicised video, were about the under-representation of Africans, Caribbeans and Asians at the launch, about which Corbyn told the meeting he agreed.

Wadsworth later explained that he had been volunteering as MBC's media officer and handing out an MBC press release; that it was this same document that Smeeth had asked McCann for in front of him; that he asked her who she was and she replied "Ruth Smeeth Labour MP"; and that he did not recognise the name.^[28] Smeeth said she was "verbally attacked" and accused of being part of a media conspiracy. She added "it is beyond belief that someone could come to the launch of a report on antisemitism in the Labour Party and espouse such vile conspiracy theories about Jewish people, which were ironically highlighted as such in Ms Chakrabarti's report."^[29]

On 1 July, Wadsworth told a radio station he had been expelled from the Labour Party based solely on media reports.^[30][26] After receiving a letter from Wadsworth's lawyer, Harriet Wistrich, Labour changed this to a suspension.^[31] On 4 July, Jeremy Corbyn was quizzed about Wadsworth at several points in a Parliamentary Select Committee hearing, and called Wadsworth's comments about Smeeth wrong and inappropriate but refused to declare them racist or antisemitic without clarifying the details.^[32] On 8 July, the National Union of Journalists announced that Wadsworth had been elected as chairman of its Black Members Council (BMC), adding that the BMC fully supported him after the media had "slanderously accused him of anti-semitism".^[33]

References