Political Correspondent 'Liar' Lee Harpin inflates the pre-war membership of Poale Zion (now the JLM) by tens of thousands

It was a pretty stupid mistake but then ‘Liar’ Lee Harpin, the Jewish Chronicle’s Political Correspondent is pretty stupid. He is used to getting his information from hacking into other peoples’ phones, hence normal journalism is alien to him.  For those not aware, he was arrested by Police when working for the Daily Mirror but unfortunately he wasn't charged.

Shapurji Saklatvala - first Communist MP in England

In a puff piece in the Jewish Chronicle ‘Hundreds join Jewish Labour Movement to vote on who succeeds Jeremy Corbyn’ Liar Lee informed the Jewish Chronicle’s gullible readership that

‘While JLM once counted tens of thousands of members during the group’s pre-Second World War heyday, the 3,000-strong membership list is the highest it has been over the past decade.’

I therefore wrote a simple letter to the Editor, the far-right Islamaphobe and member of the Henry Jackson Society, Stephen Pollard, also former editor of The Express, pointing out just a few of Liar Lee’s many inaccuracies:

This article was a lie from beginning to end but no one at the Jewish Chronicle cares any longer about the truth

i.                   The JLM wasn’t in existence before the war. Poale Zion ‘the Workers of Zion’ was the name of the Israeli Labour Party’s British wing. It changed its name in 2004 as a cursory look at Wikpediawould have told LL.

ii.                 Far from its membership being in the ‘tens of thousands’ before the war, it barely reached 500! Jewish workers had contempt for Zionism.  Zionism was a movement of the reactionary middle class not workers. Even after the war it only climbed to 1,500 according to Paul Kelemn’s authoritative British  Zionism and the Left.

'Liar' Lee Harpin's previous speciality was phones - other peoples!

iii.              I could have added that if the JLM boasts a membership of 3,000 then it is its highest ever.  I doubt it had even 200 members a decade ago.  It had been defunct and was only refoundedin 2015 with the specific task of campaigning against Jeremy Corbyn. In short the JLM is an arm of the Israeli state inside the British Labour Party rather than an organisation of Labour supporting Jews. That is why it refused to support Labour in the last election.

iv.              One should take the claimed 3,000 membership with a hefty dose of salt.  As I’ve written before the majority of the JLM’s members are non-Jewish.  So much for its claim to represent Jewish labour members. If more Jewish members are joining now, as Liar Lee claims, then it is highly unlikely they are Labour Party members or even supporters of the Labour Party (you don’t need to be a Labour Party member to join the JLM).  Given the JLM’s campaign against Corbyn it is likely to attract the likes of Jonathan Hoffman and others closer to Zionism’s fascist wing.

Liar Lee Harpin - after a spell hacking phones at The Mirror Lee felt quite at home at the Jewish Chronicle

Below is my letter to the Jewish Chronicle correcting a few of their mistakes.  Unsurprisingly my letter was not published.

Phil Piratin Communist MP for Mile End 1945-50 - over half his voters were estimated to be Jewish

In my letter I too made a minor mistake. Phil Piratin was not the only Communist MP to have sat for an English constituency. In fact Shapurji Saklatvala was elected for Battersea  North in October 1922, defeated in 1923 and was elected again from 1924 to 1929.  However Saklatvala was endorsed by the then Labour Party in 1922 and de facto in 1924.  Unlike the Jewish Chronicle, I admit to even the most minor of errors!

Given the lies that Liar Lee and his Editor have told for the past 4 years about Jeremy Corbyn and ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party LL’s ‘mistake’ concerning the JLM must be considered trivial indeed.

Tony Greenstein