What terrifies the anti-Corbyn faction within the Labour party is the extent to which the growth of alt-left news outlets leaves them increasingly unable to influence the party’s internal discussion and deludes activists going into the general election.



One anti-Corbyn Labour aide told BuzzFeed News many of the party's MPs now felt unable to place stories or comment pieces in The Sun or the Daily Mail – where they could potentially reach floating voters – because sites such as The Canary and newcomers such as Skwawkbox will immediately launch a series of attack pieces on the politician for cooperating with enemy media, which then causes trouble with activists at a community level.

There’s also the lack of chumminess in the relationship between alt-left reporters and political staffers. Labour aides point out that even when dealing with political correspondents who work at unfriendly newspapers such as the Mail or the Telegraph it’s still possible to build up relationships and argue that a story is unfair, thereby softening the impact when it finally reaches the public. Alt-left sites are far less susceptible to such influence, since they’re almost entirely run by part-timers outside London who care little for arguing the toss over the story of the day. Instead they view it as part of their mission to criticise these relationships.

"There has to be some link to reality,” despaired the anti-Corbyn aide. "People will always read papers that reinforce their views – you're a Mirror reader or a Guardian reader. But this is a different order. This is no mechanism by which to correct.”

(Most of the sites mentioned in this article would strongly disagree, insisting they are happy to retract and correct where necessary – The Canary goes as far as to pin corrections to the top of its Facebook page, while Skwawkbox insists it gives equal prominence on its homepage to retractions.)

Multiple Labour MPs have independently told BuzzFeed News they are shocked by the influence the new wave of alt-left news sites is having on the party membership and the frequency with which stories posted on such sites – often featuring interpretations of events that many of the MPs dispute – are mentioned unprompted by local activists in constituency meetings. One staunchly anti-Corbyn Labour MP struggled to control their anger, describing these sites as “propaganda and ideological purity dressed up as news and views and beamed on the internet direct to the politically deranged”. They declined to be named, as they have been a frequent target of several of these sites.

The Labour MP suggested the sites were the modern equivalent of “the six nutters who sell the Socialist Workers Party newspaper in any town centre” but were being boosted by an online echo chamber.

“Both sides feed off each other like the drug dealer and the junkie,” they told BuzzFeed News. "Technology has given them the wider reach, though there’s no evidence that they are getting any more traction with the vast majority of normal, sensible people in this country. But the other big change has been a political one: Whereas these people used to be on the fringes of political debate in hard-left groups, now they’re all in the bloody Labour party."

The extent to which the anti-Corbyn camp fear the influence of the alt-left sites is particularly apparent when it comes to this faction’s planning for a potential leadership contest after the general election. Last summer one person who worked on Owen Smith’s failed leadership challenge told BuzzFeed News there was no way the centrists could compete with the influence of this section of the media on the party membership.

"Immediately before we even appointed anyone to do social media they had tens of thousands of people sharing bullshit from The Canary or some other half-true source,” they complained, by way of explaining why their campaign struggled online.

Ultimately these sites are filling the gap left by the fact the left-leaning mainstream media is misaligned with the increasingly radical demands of many of its readers. Matt Zarb-Cousin, who spent 10 months as Corbyn’s media spokesperson before quitting in March, said too many traditional lobby journalists are “completely out of touch” and that these new sites are “filling the void” for people who felt the public weren’t getting enough information about Corbyn.

“There is a natural scepticism in the Labour membership of how the press report things and who owns the media,” he says. “All of these negative stories – the membership doesn’t believe the narrative. What I found interesting was how Owen Smith was desperate to use the mainstream press but the membership sees through all of that.”

Zarb-Cousin suggested these sites could fulfil the need for journalistic outlets to carry Corbyn’s message to the masses, providing a vital piece of infrastructure that has been missing in Corbyn's two years of Labour leader: "When you’ve got the vast majority of the lobby against you, they’re not going to carry your message. Because the left [of the Labour party] went from 0 to 100 we didn’t have any outriders – no talking heads, no commentators.”

In short, Corbyn – like Donald Trump – needed his own media cheerleaders. Their rise has also resulted in a deep-seated distrust of supposedly Labour-supporting organisations such as the New Statesman – which was recently picketed over its anti-Corbyn stance – and the BBC, which until relatively recently was used to being under fire from the likes of the Daily Mail for being too left-wing. The broadcaster’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, is a regular target, with pictures of her often photoshopped alongside allegations of bias and posted in a bid to go viral.

“I think an awful lot of political journalists let themselves get far too close to the politicians they are supposed to be holding to account,” said Clark from Another Angry Voice, explaining why his readers distrust many mainstream political correspondents. "How else is it possible to explain the woeful lack of scrutiny? I don't take extreme absolutist positions on things, but it's easy to see how other people could come to believe that political journalists are just as much part of the elitist establishment insiders' club as the politicians.”