Showing posts with label Labour Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labour Party. Show all posts

Wednesday, 17 June 2020

A betrayal to remember

 

The Guardian all but ignored the leaked review showing that Labour's Blairite officials sabotaged Corbyn's chances at the 2017 general election. But it gives front page billing to a new Labour report suggesting that the party needs to swing dramatically rightwards to win in 2024.

Jonathan Cook

 

His rivals know that Corbyn's egalitarian policy proposals could easily resonate with Britons of all races, religions and ethnicities. This is why instead of attacking his ideas and policies, they are attacking him personally

Tony Greenstein


With the destruction of Jeremy Corbyn Northern European social democracy failed to re-establish itself in the UK. I find it rather troubling that Keir Starmer seems more interested in suppressing this report than acting on its alarming findings.

Craig Murray

 




 

I would like to refer you to Craig Murray’s analysis on the Labour Party report on anti-semitism complaints. Yes the report that is being buried by Sir Keir Starmer. This is an abbreviated version.

 

“With the destruction of Jeremy Corbyn Northern European social democracy failed to re-establish itself in the UK. I find it rather troubling that Keir Starmer seems more interested in suppressing this report than acting on its alarming findings. The report conclusively refutes the accusation that delays were occasioned by Jeremy Corbyn or his office, or that his office displayed any sympathy for anti-semitism. In fact, the opposite is the case. Corbyn’s office showed a proper hatred of anti-semitism, but also an alarming willingness to throw good people under the bus on very flimsy allegations of anti-semitism.


"Labour HQ was staffed by right wingers so vehemently anti-Corbyn that they actively wanted the Conservatives to win elections. Senior members of staff were messaging each other opposing any increase in corporation tax and opposing re-nationalisation of the railways as “Trot” policies. 

 

'The case of the very right wing Gen Secretary, John McTernan, is instructive. McTernan had taken to writing articles in the Daily Telegraph praising the Tories and attacking Labour, but the Governance and Legal Unit of Party HQ refused to take action against him. His abusive language on Twitter and elsewhere, included describing Labour MPs who nominated Corbyn as “morons”; tweeting that Corbyn was a “traitor”; describing “Corbynistas” as racist; calling Corbyn a “Putin-hugging, terrorist-loving, Trident-hater”; and writing in the Daily Telegraph that all of Corbyn’s supporters were “online trolls”.

 


'Meanwhile left wingers were being thrown out of the party for having advocated a Green vote years before they joined, or for calling MPs who supported the Iraq war “warmongers”. The report makes an overwhelming case that the Governance and Legal Unit of the Labour Party failed to take action on accusations of anti-semitism because it was devoting all of its energies to a factional effort to remove Corbyn supporters from the party.


'These right wing staff were hoping for Labour electoral defeats in order to get rid of Corbyn. HQ staff set up another organisation based in another building, to divert party funds and secretly channel them to the campaigns of their favoured right wing MPs.
Support for British military attacks abroad appeared to be the touchstone issue for who was “in” and who was “out” with Labour Party HQ staff.


'Corbyn correctly, stated something that had been unsayable in mainstream UK political discourse – that British invasions abroad provoke terrorism at home. Labour Party HQ staff hoped and believed this would sink Corbyn and were actively wishing Labour to fall in the polls.


"The Labour HQ staff had been inherited from the Blair years, and factional loyalty and a history of right wing political activity were much more important in employment decisions than qualifications or competence.


"The Governance and Legal Unit, which handled the complaints of anti-semitism, was staffed by vehemently anti-Corbyn right wingers and was also useless. The report hints throughout that the failure to deal with anti-semitic Labour Party members was a deliberate act by party HQ staff in order to make Corbyn look bad. The report proves conclusively that allegations of unwarranted interference from Corbyn’s office to block anti-semitism action are malicious lies.


"John Ware, a freelance journalist, was hired by the BBC to make the panorama programme “Is Labour Anti-Semitic” despite his history of anti-Muslim, and specifically anti-Palestinian, propaganda.


"Corbyn failed to be sufficiently ruthless in clearing out the quite extraordinarily right wing Blairites that he had inherited as Labour Party HQ staff. Corbyn lacked the ruthlessness required in a leader to spot enemies and be rid of them. But then, his not being a ruthless bastard is why so many people flocked to support Corbyn in the first place.


"Corbyn’s tactic of attempting to appease the media on anti-semitism was never going to work. The right wing press and TV had no genuine interest in anti-racism, other than as a tool to prevent the possible election of a European style social democratic government. Neither the media nor the Blairites were ever going to reconcile to Corbyn.


"We will never know what would have happened if he had come out and denounced the witch-hunt as an attempt to stifle supporters of the Palestinians, and spoken openly of Israel’s move to apartheid. He had the nerve to take on the establishment narrative when he stated that British military invasions cause terrorist blowback at home, and won public support. Whether a firm line on Palestine and calling out the witch-hunt would have had a better result than giving way before unfair attacks, we can never know.”

 

Craig Murray's full report is here:


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NOTE:  If only we had more Craig Murrays and Marcus Rashfords. I have known Craig ever since I read "Murder in Samarkand". As a fellow whistleblower, but one who sacrificed much less than he did as a UK Ambassador, I have followed the great work he has done to advance honest politics. I recommend following his work at ...



Wednesday, 22 January 2020

The four horsemen


This is a condensed version taken from articles I have had published in recent years. I think it addresses issues which are sadly blocking the road to a better future – perhaps any future.

In recent days US Vice President Mike Pence and Sec of State, Mike Pompeo, have been urging Trump to attack Iran. Both of them are supported by the Christian-Zionist movement who can’t wait for a Biblical Armageddon in the Middle East.

In this country we have a Prime Minister who is happy to be the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse and many in the Labour Party too ready to clamber up behind him .

The Labour Party will soon be choosing a new leader and, surprise surprise, accusations of anti-semitism are once again being used against those who dare criticise Israel and who speak out for the rights of Palestinians.

After claiming that Jeremy Corbyn scored 0 out of 10 as party leader Emily Thornberry said, “We need to get down on our hands and knees to the Jewish community and ask them for forgiveness and a fresh start.” On BBC Question time Clive Lewis ‘apologised’ for Labour’s ‘anti-semitism’.

Leading party leader contender, Rebecca Long-Bailey better be among the first to get on her knees and ask forgiveness after former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson said she was was the candidate he "would worry about" adding, “she's the continuity candidate, she stands for Corbynism in its purest sense.” He went on to criticise her for not joining Labour Friends of Israel.

And forgiveness for what?

Perhaps forgiveness for agreeing posthumously with Albert Einstein who wrote:“The (Israeli) state idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with many difficulties and a narrow-mindedness. I believe it is bad.”  Or with Sigmund Freud who said, “I concede with sorrow that the baseless fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust. I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of a Herodian wall into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives,” Perhaps also for agreeing with Erich Fromm: “The claim of the Jews to the Land of Israel cannot be a realistic political claim. If all nations would suddenly claim territories in which their forefathers lived two thousand years ago, this world would be a madhouse,” or with Primo Levi, writer and Auschwitz survivor: "Everyone has their Jews. For the Israelis they are the Palestinians." Perhaps we should also seek forgiveness on behalf of Marek Edelman, last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw uprising: who wrote a letter in support of the Palestine resistance, comparing them to ZOB, the Jewish fighters in Warsaw. He opened with, "Commanders of the Palestine military, paramilitary and partisan operations - to all the soldiers of the Palestine fighting organisations,” And there is of course Hannah Arendt who wrote, The trouble is that Zionism has often thought and said that the evil of antisemitism was necessary for the good of the Jewish people. In the words of a well-known Zionist in a letter to me discussing the original Zionist argumentation: 'The antisemites want to get rid of the Jews, the Jewish State wants to receive them, a perfect match,'” Finally a voice from the living, Noam Chomsky: “In the Occupied Territories, what Israel is doing is much worse than apartheid.”

It has now reached the level of absurdity when these giants of our political history are ignored or maligned and the rest of us must bend the knee before criticising Israel.

My father was one of the first Allied doctors to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The photos he took there, and later showed me of the skeletal prisoners, scarred my young mind. It was those haunting pictures that led me to a lifetime of anti-fascism.

At sixteen I had my first contact with real anti-semites. One Saturday morning in Bromley High Street, thugs from the British Movement, forerunners of Tommy Robinson's Britain First, and shouting “You bloody Yids”, beat me up for selling Peace News. I discovered the headquarters of the Zionist Federation and they gave me Star of David badges. The following Saturday I, and a fellow pacifist wore these badges and were beaten up again.

As a member of the Anti-Nazi League in the 70s, I helped set up a support and defence group in North West London for Asian shopkeepers attacked by the National Front.

I consider that I am in the proud tradition of anti-fascists, both Jews and non-Jews, many of whom were or, like Chomsky, are anti-Zionists.

Amongst the first Jews who opposed Zionism were those who set up the Jewish Bund in Poland and Russia. They stressed the principles of socialism, secularism, Yiddish and doyikayt or “localness.” Doyikayt was encapsulated in the Bund slogan: “There, where we live, that is our country.” “We Bundists”, wrote one of their early leaders, Viktor Alter, “wish to shatter the existing economic frameworks and show the Jewish masses how a new society can be built not by escape, but by struggle. We link the essence of the Jewish masses’ life to that of humankind.”

Their contemporaries in this country can be found in Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Jewish Voice for Labour and others.

Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, takes place in 1692 during the Salem witch trials. It tells the story of a group of women who accuse other villagers of witchcraft. The play was written as an allegory during the McCarthy years and the House of Un-American Activities trials in the 1950s. To be accused of being a member of the Communist Part then ensured that jobs, reputations and, for some, their lives, were lost.

It mattered little whether the accusations were true or not. It mattered even less that membership of the CP at that time was evidence of radical political consciousness and not criminal inclination.

Our Salem trials are an attempt to mask the real anti-semitism that has always been at the heart of the British political Establishment.

It started with poor Jeremy. “Now, within living memory of the Holocaust, and while Jews are being murdered elsewhere in Europe for being Jews, we have an anti-Semite as the leader of the Labour Party” declared the Chief Rabbi. He ommitted to add that one of those countries where anti-semitism was now rampant is Victor Orban’s Hungary. The same Orban who was an honoured guest of the Netanyahu Israeli government.

In our own country, the pro-Israel Middle East Forum funded fascist Tommy Robinson while he was in prison. In the words of their Director, Gregg Roman, who has worked in Israel’s Defence and Foreign Ministries, “we are helping Robinson in his moment of danger in three main ways ... to fund his legal defence … bringing foreign pressure on the UK government to ensure Mr. Robinson’s safety and eventual release …” NOTE: Robinson has recently joined the Tory Party!

Let us take a closer look at the ancestry of Zionism. Their founder, Theodor Herzl, an admirer of the British Empire wrote to Cecil Rhodes, who gave his name to the white settler colony Rhodesia, about his passion for a Jewish state in the Middle East, “You are being invited to help make history … it does not involve Africa but a piece of Asia Minor, not Englishmen but Jews … I turn to you … because it is something colonial ..”

Chaim Weizmann, who suceeded Herzl, wrote to the Manchester Guardian: “Should Palestine fall within the British sphere of influence and should they encourage Jewish settlement … we could develop the country, bring back civilisation and form a very effective guard for the Suez Canal.”

Back to those Chrisian Evangelicals, Iran and the Middle East. Prayers at the opening of the US Israeli Embassy in Jerusalem, were delivered by Robert Jeffries, a Dallas megachurch pastor who said Hitler was sent by God to drive the Jews to their ancestral land. A busy God who, Jeffries assures us, was also standing over the shoulder of Donald Trump and those horsemen.

A lifetime of anti-fascism and anti-racism makes me also anti-Zionist. If I was being beaten up today by those fascists in Bromley Hight Street chances are that they and not me would be wearing Star of David badges.







Wednesday, 20 February 2019

Waiting to be suspended from the Labour Party


Chris Williamson MP is suspended from the Labour Party for saying this …
The party that has done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party..I have got to say I think our party’s response has been partly responsible for that because in my opinion… we’ve backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we’ve been too apologetic… We’ve done more to actually address the scourge of anti-semitism than any other political party. And yet we are being traduced.”
As a Labour Party member I am saying this … The party that has done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party..I have got to say I think our party’s response has been partly responsible for that because in my opinion… we’ve backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we’ve been too apologetic… We’ve done more to actually address the scourge of anti-semitism than any other political party. And yet we are being traduced.
I am waiting to be suspended from the Labour Party
David Wilson
member no. 1369221
Islington North CLP

This morning I posted this ...

My first experience of fascism was as a 15-year old in south London when I was beaten up by two thugs from the British Movement when selling Peace News outside Bromley library. Their violence could be measured by a few temporary bruises, but a successful and permanent conversion on the part of the bruised to a lifetime of anti-fascism. I went on to campaign against apartheid in South Africa and racism here. I admit to having arrived at the library with foreknowledge of what I was up against. My father had been one of the first Allied doctors to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at its liberation. With sixty years of anti-racist activism I have come across racism from the British Movement, the BNP, the National Front and amongst many who can be termed 'right-wing.' Even amongst Corbyn-hating members of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Never have I witnessed it from socialist comrades. I believe Jeremy Corbyn, with his Cable Street fighting mother, would agree with me, and his leadership is one of the reasons why I have joined the Labour Party. How sad it is to witness the witch-hunt against him and the hundreds of thousands of LP members, based on their supposed racism and anti-semitism. Frightening too because behind the hunt is the attempt to stop Corbyn taking power. Any success in doing that will weaken the struggle against racism and fascism. 

Friday, 3 August 2018

Nothing changes: This is the Daily Express headline just before the 1945 general election Labour Party victory. The new government quickly introduced the National Health Service among other reforms.

Friday, 4 May 2018

Haunted by the Ghostly Ghouly

What a day. A blog I wrote at the beginning of yesterday morphed into this one by the end of the day. A bad day and three coffees ended as a good day and three glasses of wine.
I have spent most of my life believing that socialism would never come via a vote in Parliament. I will never forget the start of a march on Westminster against the 1970s anti-union laws and agreeing with the speaker who recommended we don't go there as he didn't believe in disturbing the dead.
And on the Labour Party I took Ralph Milliband's words seriously when he wrote: “Pious references to the Labour Party being a ‘broad church’ which has always incorporated many different strands of thought fail to take account of a crucial fact, namely that the ‘broad church’ of Labour only functioned effectively in the past because one side – the Right and Centre – determined the nature of the services that were to be held, and excluded or threatened with exclusion any clergy too deviant in its dissent.”
But Jeremy Corbyn changed all that for me and I have now joined the Labour Party. I am probably one of the few geriatric members of Momentum. Because of illness, I have been unable to join in party canvassing and have chosen instead to write articles which I hope can serve as ammunition in the struggle. And I have Jeremy to thank for now believing that perhaps radical change can come about with a Left social democratic party.
That process started when Jeremy won the leadership, but it is a struggle in every sense of the word.
On the morning of 4 May I woke and turned on the radio to hear the Right wing MPs, Jess Phillips and Chuka Umanna, demanding an enquiry because the Labour Part had done so badly. I am not supposed to drink coffee, but was now on my third and it was only 8 am.
Why wasn't Jeremy being interviewed or, at least, a shadow minister who would speak truth to this nonsense.
As the day went on it became obvious that Jess of the Ubershrills and Chuka Themoaner were blatantly lying. The BBC's own figures settled on the following.
Labour won 2,323 seats - up 62
Conservatives won 1,330 - down 32
Lib Dems won 536 - up 75
The Greens won 39 - up eight
UKIP won three - down 123
What in heaven's name is their definition of 'badly'.
There is no way the right wing of the Labour Party will tolerate Corbyn and his challenge to the consensual tweedle-dum, tweedle-dee politics of the last decades.
At the heart of this is the neo-liberal agenda of austerity for the many and riches for the few, privatisation and war.
Labour's right wing MPs have and will actively continue to oppose any moves to the Left in their party and seem happy to sabotage a Corbyn leadership which has gathered together ½ million members. As even the 'corporate' media have recognised, any successes from the 3 May local elections have been attributed in no small measure to the dedication of Momentum members.
The ghostly ghouly Blair sits smiling on the shoulders of Tess and Chukaa and the other right wing MPs who are ably backed by their non-recall salaries and their invitations to the front pages of the right-wing media and the comfortable sofas of BBC chat shows.
Elections and their results are important – Jess, Chuka and the BBC understand that well - which is why election results are misinterpreted, but we now need to stress that a socialist Labour Party is not just about elections. We must not return to the days of incumbency in place of insurgency, church politics in place of non-conformist dissent.
The Labour Party needs to return to the mass rallies we saw at the beginning of Corbyn's ascendancy. Be present on picket lines and demonstrations. Stand with and lead popular protests on Grenfell and Windrush. Fight for and with the disabled and the welfare-robbed poor. Defend the NHS from the privateers. Be central to the anti-war movement and alert to those in their own ranks who have taken us to war in the past and likely to do so again - and soon! Support those, often Jewish and Black 'anti-semites' driven out of the Party and shout back at those fabricating 'evidence' against them.
Meanwhile I will keep writing and be on the streets once I have stopped using my stick. Or perhaps I will continue to have it with me just in case!

Tuesday, 12 July 2016

Support Jeremy Corbyn

In 'Left Field' I wrote this: "Ambrose Bierce, the American wit, said that politics is ‘a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.’ This 'Politics' takes place in a box with shared rules of engagement. If, like me, you believe there is nothing ‘shared’ about our world, the only place for politics is on the streets, not in a debating chamber full of Right Honourables who barrack and ridicule each other, then go off to have cosy lunches together ... Despite my aversion to the ‘parliamentary road’ I supported Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party leadership campaign. I helped work the phones and databased the media. I have now joined the Labour Party. Perhaps this is because Jeremy offers an alternative to austerity and war, an alternative to the estate agents of New Labour. I have consistently voted for him as my constituency MP for these reasons and not because he belongs to the Labour Party. I write this on a Sunday afternoon in October after bumping into him on the street as he was cycling to visit his grandchild. He stopped to talk and asked me for permission to continue his journey! The next day he was addressing 7,000 people in Liverpool."

Thursday, 17 December 2015

Jeremy Corbyn

I met Jeremy Corbyn in my local pub this evening. He talked about his day in Brussels and I told him about my day at Unbound. I said 'Left Field' was being published soon and that he features in several chapters. He was involved in helping me instigate an enquiry at our local hospital when a neighbour committed suicide. In the chapter 'Ships at Sea' I explained that my politics had been summed up in a lifetime's opposition to joining any parliamentary party, but that I had now had to add a postscript. Because of him, I have joined the Labour Party. He has accepted a copy of the book and wants to attend the launch. It's not too late for you to pledge your copy and, if bought before the end of the year, your name will be printed in the book.