Labour activist Bex Bailey, then 25 years old. Bailey stated that she was seriously sexually assaulted at an event as a teenager but was advised not to come forward as it could potentially “damage” her chances of future political success. In the aftermath, thenleader Jeremy Corbyn called on those who had experienced sexual assault in the party to come forward. Large numbers of women spoke openly about their experiences of sexual abuse in local Labour organisations, but direct, on-the-record accusations only fell on one Labour MP: Kelvin Hopkins, Corbyn’s close ally, whose indecent behaviour had been widely known and discussed in Westminster for years. Ava Etemadzadeh was an undergraduate at the University of Essex when Hopkins sexually assaulted her. She invited him to an event at her society for Labour students after which he hugged her “very tightly” and “rubbed himself against [her]”. Hopkins then brought her to London for lunch where he told her that, had his staff had been away, he would have taken her into his office. Two weeks later she received a text from Hopkins saying he would have liked her to be his girlfriend and lover “were [he] to be young”. Etemadzadeh kept her exchange with Hopkins private for over a year, but was furious watching Corbyn promote him to the shadow cabinet in 2016 despite knowing about the accusations against him. The situation was worsened by accusations levied against
Etemadzadeh which maintained she was conspiring against the party’s left. In response to her interview with the BBC, one commenter called her an “obvious liar”, another a “Blairite femme fatale”, asserting that “Kelvin Hopkins was framed…because he is a close associate of Jeremy Corbyn.” Here, the pejorative “Blairite” not only means a supporter of the former Labour leader Tony Blair, but a betrayer of the left. To another viewer, she’s “a young woman manipulated by The Daily Telegraph.” On Twitter, she’s praised for “daring to accuse one of Jeremy Corbyn’s leftie mates.” It is impossible for women in the Labour party to speak up about sexual assault without being used by