Come and Join Us in Founding a new Socialist Movement as Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour-in-Exile-Network Merge
Three weeks ago Labour-in-Exile-Network and Labour Against the Witchhuntvoted by large majorities to merge. Both organisations have worked closely together this year on a range of activities – the picketof Labour’s National Executive Committee on July 20th against Proscriptions and the Resist at the Rialto series of events in Brighton during Labour Party Conference, including the Not the Forde Inquirywith Ken Loach and Chris Williamson.
Ever since the LAW All Members Meeting on November 27 a Joint Steering Committee of LAW and LIEN members has been preparing for the merger which will formally take place this Friday evening at 6 pm.
Protest at Party Conference in September
LAW and LIEN are joining together to advance the fight for to retain socialist politics both inside and outside the Labour Party and to fight the witchhunt. The merged group will provide a rallying point for all who came together under the Labour banner of “For the Many, Not The Few,” but now find themselves under attack.
Lobby of Labour Party HQ on July 20 - Andrew Fenstein speaking
The meeting is for members of the two groups only, and if you’re a member you’ll get an email invite. If you are not a member of the newly merged group go to https://membermojo.co.uk/labouragainstthewitchhunt
Inaugural matters will cover discussing including a new name, aims and priorities and lastly the meeting will be voting in a new Steering Committee. The deadline for committee nominations and motions is midnight Wednesday December 14th.
To be eligible to register to attend and vote, please join as a member by midnight on Thursday 16 December 2021.
The Shameful Expulsion of Anne Belworthy –a member for 63 years
Last Saturday night Labour’s anonymous witchhunters were burning the midnight oil, busy expelling long-standing members of the party for things like ‘anti-Semitism’. However the real reason in all cases was speaking out against the move to the neo-liberal right by Starmer. Free Speech has been abolished in the Labour Party - that is why it is futile to believe that the main arena of struggle is inside the Labour Party.
Our main unit of organisation will be Grassroots CLPs comprising both those who were in the Labour Party, those who still are members and those who have never been in any party.
Among those who were expelled last Saturday was Anne Belworthy. She joined the Labour Party 65 years ago aged just 19. It is outrageous that Starmer, who only joined Labour recently himself, has the audacity to expel someone like Anne. This shows the depths to which the Right have sunk and the contempt for those who have given their life for the Labour Party. Julie Wassmer, Anne’s friend has written:
PLEASE BEAR WITNESS - to a NEW VICTIM OF shameful LABOUR PARTY McCarthyism: my friend and fellow campaigner, Anne Belworthy - thrown out of the party after 65 YEARS of active membership!
Anne has written to me as follows :-
"On Saturday evening I received an email saying that my membership of the Labour Party was terminated. I will hear shouts of joy from one or two members on here but I know that my many friends recognise what I have put into the Labour Party since the age of 19 which has resulted in 65 years of active membership.
None of my first submission was acknowledged and I received no acknowledgement for answering the accusations and so it goes on. I made a full submission in July, answering the accusations of "anti semitism", and with a potted history of my years of activism plus letters of support from the Branch Chair and a long term member of Herne Bay Branch. I had no response.
I answered all of the 4 accusations. I then got a further email on 17th November and replied below to G&LU: Membership A035209
I have today received a further email from the G&LU with accusations of supporting Facebook posts of LIEN (Labour in Exile).
I received a previous letter of allegation dated 26th July (Case No. CN-12705) to which I gave a full response to the accusations. I have never heard anything about my response to the accusations, even though some of today's allegations precede that date.
In response to today's email I can only say I am not a member of LIEN. There is nothing in the posts that I have supported that states I am.
All I would ask is are we now banned from looking at sites on the internet that your department has decided we must not look at? Is it not worrying that this is nothing to do with the so called driving out of anti Semitism but something entirely different. Please could my first submission be read and responded to before you put before me these further accusations? Thank you, from a member of 65 years length.
They appear not to have read any of the first submission but then looked for further "wrongs" with no reference to the first. They have never acknowledged any of my submissions.
Last evening I got an email terminating my membership only citing the LIEN accusations. All of this happens to members if they are reported by another member. Ironically I have "liked" on FB, posts by others in our party whose names appeared on the photo shots of the accusations. They posted it but were not reported, I was because someone reported me. That's how it works. Democratic? Fair?"
Elizabeth Anne Belworthy
Julie wrote that ‘Anne tells me the 4 "anti-Semitism" accusations consisted of "likes" on Facebook sites of posts in support of Palestine's struggle against the Israeli government. Anne says,
"It hurts because I have never uttered a racist remark in my life. The second letter I got, 3 months after the first, ignored my previous submission and just said my membership was suspended because I had supported Labour in Exile. A page that contains posts from LP members who have been thrown out for similar reasons. But the party leadership has proscribed that group so I am out for supporting it."
Anne also tells me that the letter she received said that she must not tell anyone - or the media. As you can see, she is defying that - and so, in my opinion, she should. The allegations are SHAMEFUL. Anne is 84 years old and has fought racism all her life - including anti-semitism.
There aren’t words to describe how disgusting how Starmer and Evans and his apparatchiks were. They talk of ‘anti-Semitism’ but if they had lived in Nazi Germany they would have been the first to sign up to the Nazi party. Starmer and Evans are nothing if not conformists to the existing system. There isn’t an anti-racist bone in any of their bodies. This is another example of racists expelling anti-racists for the crime of ‘anti-Semitism’.
As Julie said:
‘This is NOT the Labour Party. It's McCarthyism, pure and simple. Please share this post and please send your solidarity to Anne,. Thank you. Jx 
’
Starmer and Evans care nothing about racism. That is why, when Starmer addressedLabour Friends of Israel recently he described Apartheid Israel as a ‘rumbustious democracy’. He cited as his mentor on ‘anti-Semitism’ the racist David Baddiel who spent his formative years blacking up and tormentingBlack footballer Jason Lee by portraying his Afro haircut as a pineapple.
Starmer and Evans and the rest of the right-wing rubbish in the Labour Party are the true racists. They are the ones who have supported Priti Patel’s proposals to turn back refugees in the middle of the Channel regardless of how many deaths it causes. They care nothing about anti-Semitism. They are like the boy who cried wolf. They use ‘anti-Semitism’ as a means of intimidating those who object to the pogroms and violence of apartheid Israel.
That is why, as part of his promise to protect ‘all Jews’ in the Labour Party Starmer has been busy expelling dozens of Jews. If you are Jewish today in the Labour Party you are 5 times more likely to be expelled or suspended than if you are non-Jewish.
Starmer is a liar and a crook who gave away £3/4 million pounds to Labour’s racist senior staff, ‘whistleblowers’ they called themselves, in order to ensure that the EHRC on Labour ‘Anti-Semitism’ was not compromised.
Starmer’s 10 Pledges, which promised to embrace Corbynism was one long lie. As soon as he was voted in Starmer abandoned each and every one of them.
JOIN US AND HELP BUILD THE OPPOSITION TO STARMER AND EVANS