That Starmer fella...

Did HQ staff stick to a defensive strategy in bad faith, because they wanted to lose the election? No. We find the HQ staff genuinely considered that a primarily defensive strategy would secure the best result for the Party, and we have not seen evidence to suggest such a strategy was advanced in bad faith. More broadly the evidence available to us did not support claims that HQ staff wanted the Party to do badly in the 2017 general election (though many expected to it to, and some had mixed feelings about what the better than anticipated result would mean for the Party’s future and for their own roles.)