Conservative Party Pirated Labour Leader Supporter’s Video

A controversial UK Conservative party video portraying the Labour party's new leader in a negative light has been taken down by YouTube. The advert, which attacked incoming Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, contained copyrighted content not authorized for use by the Tories. In fact, the footage is owned by a staunch Corbyn supporter.

Last weekend the Labour party elected a new leader, an appointment that has really stirred up politics in the UK.

Now Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn is considered to be a hard left, anti-establishment, anti-austerity, anti-war politician, and one that’s keen to scrap Britain’s nuclear arsenal and NATO. He won in a landslide victory taking almost 60% of the vote.

The ruling Conservative party were quick to take advantage of the decision by Labour to place Corbyn in charge, with Prime Minister David Cameron warning that the country would be in severe danger if somehow the opposition leader got into power. In fact, the Conservatives were so concerned they launched a new advert video which warned the public about the potential doom that lay ahead.

In monochrome and set to ominous music, “Labour: a threat to our national security” featured various videos of Corbyn in between clips of ISIS fighters.

“It starts with a clip of President Barack Obama announcing the death of Osama bin Laden, then cuts to Corbyn describing the killing of the man who masterminded 9/11 as a ‘tragedy’. (It’s edited to exclude the fuller context of his remark),” the Guardian explained yesterday.

But after stirring up all sorts of controversy (although not nearly as much as the appointment of Corbyn himself), the video is now gone from YouTube. According to the Google-owned company the video was the subject of a copyright complaint so has been removed.

While copyright complaints are nothing new, this particular takedown is something special.

As can be seen from the screenshot above, the person making the copyright complaint is listed as Adrian Cousins. So who is this mysterious character taming the political right? Only the founder and editor of socialist movement website Counterfire.org.

“Just had the Tory Jeremy Corbyn attack video removed from Youtube for copyright infringement,” Cousins confirmed on Facebook this afternoon.

Given the Conservatives’ strong support for the rights of copyright holders in recent years, the fact they would use ‘stolen’ video footage for a campaign is surprising enough. But to go one further and use footage filmed by an opposition supporter really is something else.

Adrian Cousins did not immediately respond to a request for comment.