The NEC's decision that those seeking office must undergo ‘anti-Semitsism training’ by the JLM is like asking Tommy Robinson for advice on race relations
Although it only came together at the last minute, the joint demonstration outside Labour’s Party in Victoria Street, London organised by Labour Against the Witchhunt, Labour in Exile Network, Jewish Voices for Labour and the Labour Representation Committee, was an unqualified success. It was a demonstration that people want an end to Starmer and Evan’s dictatorship and to see a return of democracy, free speech and justice in the Labour Party.
Up and down the country there are reports of rigged elections of conference delegates, suspensions and expulsions coupled with false accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’. The desperation of Starmer to expel and exclude the left is obvious to anyone with eyes to see.
Esther Giles of LIEN and friend
It was also reported that the Labour Party is facing a financial crisis as a result of Starmer’s decision to destroy Labour Party democracy and expel and exclude members, resulting in a loss of over 100,000 members since his election. This was of course exacerbated by Starmer’s decision to pay £700,000 to John Ware and the ‘Whistleblowers’ of the infamous Panorama programme ‘Is Labour Anti-Semitic’.
As Corbyn remarkedthis was a political not legal decision. It was taken in order that the EHRC could produce a damaging report about Labour ‘anti-Semitism’. This was despite advice that Labour would win the court case. Starmer literally threw away £700K.
I understand that the party only has money for next month’s salaries. Yesterday the NEC also approved plans to sack 90 staff, one quarter of its total staff.
Picket of Regional Labour HQ in Bristol last month
Under Corbyn thanks to an unprecedented membership growth, party finances were healthy. Under Starmer they are dire. As Andrew Fisher, a former Executive Director of Policy under Corbyn wrote:
Starmer is running out of other people to blame. By inspiring no one, he has plunged the party into financial crisis and damaged the party’s electoral prospects.
There was real energy today amongst the 200+ people who attended and there was no sense of demoralisation. Tina Werkman was the first speaker from Labour Against the Witchhunt and then I spoke. I made a number of comments about the situation as I see it.
Starmer has nowhere to go and nothing to say which is why he is attacking the membership. Starmer is not Blair and the times are completely different between now and 1997. Starmer is a particularly wooden representative of capitalism within the Labour Party.
Although he was not there in person, Starmer was represented by a cardboard cut-out. As many people observed, the cardboard version had more of a personality than the living version!
There was the usual lying and distorted report in the Jewish Chronicle, a propaganda rag that seems to take pleasure in providing false news. For example it is true some anti-vax/covid conspiracists turned up with Piers Corbyn. We were unaware they would come and they brought their own PA, though in fairness they didn’t disrupt proceedings. We weren’t working together in some conspiratorial fashion even though the Jewish Chronicle would love us to do so.
Momentum statement on proscriptions
All groups at the demonstration, from LAW to JVL expressed their disappointment at the weak and flaccid statement from Momentum. Their appeals for unity with Starmer are frankly pathetic given Starmer’s attacks on the left and his inability to lay a glove on Johnson. Momentum offered no solidarity in their statement, did not suggest actually doing anything and failed to support yesterday’s demonstration. Despite the change in leadership there has been no real change in Momentum’s politics. It is simply refusing to face up to the crisis caused by Starmer’s leadership.
I posted a statementlast night criticising Momentum’s statement. One typical response from John Brown said:
An EXCELLENT reply Tony - I can't be with you in London but you all have my TOTAL solidarity - I cancelled my membership of Momentum 3 months ago after hoping for a change but it is clearly beyond repair !!
I'm not disillusioned or giving up - the exact opposite is true - I been through defeats and partial victory before as we all have BUT I finally gave in to HOPE only to see it yet again cut down - Lansman was the warning sign but I held on - now this begging for acceptance approval and accommodation of OUR views is a step to far for me !! So I resigned - but I will NEVER abandon my principles - they've kept me sane for over 55 years !!
It is clear that we have a lot of work to do. There is the Rialto Resist Event from September 26-28, during Labour Party Conference in Brighton where we will be hosting a series of alternative social and political events that are immune to Zionist attempts to close down.
We need to follow up yesterday’s demonstrations with a series of pickets of the regional mafia that the Labour Party employs to police its membership. Assuming that there will be many of them left after Starmer’s purges.
Employing Racists to Conduct ‘Anti-Semitism’ Training is like asking Tommy Robinson to lecture on racial harmony
Perhaps the most disturbing decisionby Labour’s NEC, was to make all candidates standing for public office or office in the party undergo ‘anti-Semitism’ training by the https://www.jewishlabour.uk/
The JLM is affiliatedto the World Zionist Organisation. It describesthe Israeli Labor Party as its ‘sister party in Israel.’ The ILP supports the separation of Jew and Arab. It has drawn up a separation plan. Separate development was what Apartheid in South Africa was.
What the ILP envisage is South Africa’s bantustanisation. As Ben White noted, when the ILP’s previous leader Isaac Herzog (now the President) ran for prime minister Labour had an advertboasting about how he “understands the Arab mentality”. On another occasion, Herzog declared: “I want to keep a Jewish state with a Jewish majority...I don’t want a Palestinian prime minister in Israel”.
Herzog also toldhis MKs that Labor needed to stop giving the impression that they were ‘Arab lovers’ and that “a false impression exists that we take the needs of Palestinians into account before the needs of the State of Israel.”
Greg Hadfield from Brighton
As +972 Magazine put it, the ILP’s “glory days included the Nakba [the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948]”, as well as “conquering and settling the West Bank and East Jerusalem”.
The World Zionist Organisation has what Ha’aretz describedas a ‘land theft division’. This is who the JLM works with.
In other words the group that is going to lecture on ‘anti-Semitism’ is itself racist. It is like asking Tommy Robinson to run a training course on Islamaphobia. Or asking Dr Harold Shipman for advice on care for the elderly. The decision is an affront to Palestinians since according to the JLM, calling Israel racist is anti-Semitic.
It is as if Starmer and his clones hadn’t heard of the report by B’Tselem, Israel’s largest human rights organisation in January of this year describingIsrael as ‘A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid’.
Human Rights Watch followed this up with their own report‘A Threshold Crossed - Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution’.
It is as if, in the days of Apartheid in South Africa, the Labour Party had asked supporters of Apartheid to run a training session on combating racism. The decision by Labour’s NEC is racist and yet Momentum still refuse to call out the fake ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign despite 70%of Labour Party members refusing to believe the lies of the Israel lobby that Labour had an anti-Semitism problem.
One of those pushing for the JLM on the NEC is another racist, Luke Akehurst, who works for We Believe in Israel. When Israeli snipers were mowing down unarmed demonstrators in Gaza, children and medics included, he supportedthe murderers.
Andrew Feinstein
We now have open racists running the Labour Party and still Momentum sits on its hands as their co-chairs Andrew Scattergood and Gaya Sriskanthan pretend that they can unite with Starmer, a racist ‘without qualification’.
The guest speaker was Andrew Feinstein, the Jewish former ANC MP under Nelson Mandela, who gave a powerful speech in our support.
Mad Mel Gharial, Tommy Robinson supporter with friend
There were a handful of Zionists present of the fascist variety led by Mad Melanie Gharial. They were sporting ‘For the Many not the FewJew which I explained to them was anti-Semitic as it implied that British Jews are all part of the wealthy few. Mad Mel also told me that she has ‘two beautiful children’. My response was that it was fortunate that they didn’t resemble their mother! Melanie always looks as if she was unhappy. Supporting war crimes all day must take its toll, even on this supporter of Tommy Robinson!
Tony Greenstein