Why I Support George Galloway as the best placed Left Candidate to Defeat Starmer Labour on July 1st
Today the Labour Campaign for Free Speech Steering Committee unanimously issued the following statement:
The statement from a ‘senior Labour source’ during the Batley & Spen by-election that Labour was “haemorrhaging” Muslims voters, because of “what Keir has been doing on antisemitism” implies that Muslims are antisemitic – when in fact many voters oppose Starmer’s Labour, because he is bowing to the Israeli government and refuses to support the Palestinian struggle. That is not antisemitism, it is anti-Zionism.
That this statement was issued has not been denied by Angela Rayner and the suspicion must be that it emanates from Starmer’s office if not Starmer himself. In the forthcoming Batley & Spen by-election, we refuse to support the Labour candidate, an incredible apolitical and nondescript candidate who was chosen by Keir Starmer directly.
There is no doubt that Starmer and his apparatchiks have been suspending and expelling people for supporting the Boycott of Israel and anything that is seen as critical of Israel. Calling Israel a racist state is guaranteed to get you expelled even though it’s true.
In the Daily Mail of 19th June, Dan Hodges quoteda ‘senior Labour source’ as saying that:
'We're haemorrhaging votes among Muslim voters, and the reason for that is what Keir has been doing on antisemitism. Nobody really wants to talk about it, but that's the main factor. He challenged Corbyn on it, and there's been a backlash among certain sections of the community.'
The implication is clear. Muslims are anti-Semites who resent Starmer’s promise to ‘root out anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party. Except of course that Starmer has done no such thing. There is no anti-Semitism to root out. He has been ‘rooting out’ supporters of Palestine and anti-Zionists and he has been doing so at the behest of the Israeli state and its local pawns, the Board of Deputies.
If Starmer was seriously concerned about ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party he wouldn’t have suspended and expelled dozens of Jewish members of the Party or in my case welcomedmy expulsion (which was the first time that this apology for a mannequin came to my attention!). In an interviewwith the Times of Israel Starmer gave away his real motives, namely that he is a ‘Zionist without qualification’. In other words a racist without qualification.
The reasons are clear as to why Labour is going to lose another Red Wall seat. To all intents and purposes, the Labour Right acts like it is on a suicide mission. They lost working class Scottish voters under Ed Miliband, they forfeited much of the support of the Northern working class at the last election and now Starmer is determined to say goodbye to the votes of Britain’s 3.3 million Muslims.
At first glance it might seem as if Starmer is more concerned with the 300,000 Jews in Britain than a Muslim population over 10 times as big. However that would be a misreading. The Labour Right’s concern is not with the Jewish vote, not least because for 60 years (with the temporary exception of 1997 and 2001) the Jewish community has voted heavily for the Tories.
The real reason is that New Labour is wedded to slavishly following US foreign policy which is to support Israel as imperialism’s armed watchdog in the Middle East. Batley & Spen is the price they are going to pay for Starmer’s craven submission to imperialism.
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In addition, at the very beginning of his misleadership, Starmer tore up Labour’s policy to support Kashmiri independence. He preferred to cuddle up to Hindu racists who, like the Zionists, wish to colonise Kashmir and who have put it under martial law for the past two years. Starmer was more interested in supporting the communalist government of Narendra Modi of the BJP than supporting self-determination for the Kashmiris.
In the forthcoming Batley & Spen by-election, we are taking a leaf out of the Jewish Labour Movement’s book. The JLM refused to support Labour candidates who were seen to be pro-Jeremy Corbyn. They were supported in that by the Labour Right so they can’t complain now the boot is on the other foot.
Angela Rayner did not deny that the statement emanaged from the Labour Party. Indeed she all but admittedthat the comments were genuine when she said that
“I will be ensuring that the party investigates this reported comment in line with our party’s rules and processes. Anybody who has made these comments should and will be dealt with in line with our independent disciplinary procedures, which I have no role in as deputy leader.””
However there is no need for an investigation. Dan Hodges is on good terms with Starmer and the Labour leadership. A ‘senior Labour source’ is code for either Keir Starmer himself or his advisers. Perhaps the hapless Rayner could have a quiet word with Sir Keir?
As the Guardian reportedLabour’s candidate Kim Leadbeater,
received a hostile reception from voters who are unhappy with the party’s stance on foreign policy issues such as Palestine and Kashmir, amid a perception that the party takes some forms of racism more seriously than others.
The accusation “you’ve taken our votes for granted” was repeatedly levelled at Leadbeater and Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary and Wigan MP, who joined her on the campaign trail.
Perhaps the final straw was Starmer pulling out of a virtual Iftar event on the last night of Ramadan. The Jewish Chronicle had engaged in its usual Islamaphobic witchhunting. It reportedthat the CEO of the Muslim group which had organised the event, Omar Salha, supported the prisoner support group CAGE. Even worse, he had supported a boycott of Israeli dates!
In Starmer and the Board of Deputies view, boycotting Israeli Apartheid is anti-Semitic. Presumably boycotting the produce of South African Apartheid was also racist? He might be a QC but Starmer is an intellectual lightweight.
Starmer and the Labour Right simply expected Muslims to take these insults on the chin and still support the Labour Party at the ballot box. They are in for a rude shock.
When a couple of idiots shouted anti-Semitic slogans, allegedly, in North London, Starmer rushed to condemn it in a joint statement with Boris Johnson and yet he had nothing to say about the hundreds of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza, including 67 children, the pogroms against Palestinians in Israel itself and the massive Israeli Police violence in Jerusalem against worshippers. To say nothing of the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrar and East Jerusalem.
As a group of prominent Palestinians in the Labour Party wrote:
“The leader is practically treating the whole community as outcasts and is refusing to meet or even respond. We cannot separate this from the alarming shift in Labour’s approach to issues of race, or the shift in Labour’s position on Palestine.
“The message is loud and clear: I don’t care about you or your issues.”
Labour has elected not only a liar but an open racist in Starmer A man who hid the funders of his leadership election campaign until it was over. Starmer received hundreds of thousands of pounds from rich businessmen including £50,000 from Trevor Chinn, a prominent Zionist. Labour simply doesn’t deserve to be supported as and until Starmer and Rayner are removed from the leadership and the posts are occupied by socialists.
I support George Galloway but not without criticisms. George has without doubt capitulated to a backward political consciousness amongst the white working class with his attack on ‘woke’ politics. His opposition to free movement of labour and his support for Brexit is a capitulation to British chauvinism. In particular his previous supportfor Nigel Farage’s Brexit party.
Nonetheless George has been a staunch opponent of the Iraq War, US imperialism in the Middle East and above all a supporter of the Palestinians. Weighing all this in the balance I have no doubt that George Galloway, who let it not be forgot was expelled by Tony Blair, would make a good MP in comparison with the appalling Leadbetter. I also share his detestation of identity politics which alienate working class voters.
I have no hesitation in supporting George Galloway and I hope anyone living in Batley & Spen reading this does likewise.
Tony Greenstein