As Pastor Niemoller Observed, When
You Allow Them to Pick off Everyone Else Then There is Noone Left ‘To speak out for me’
Getting to Know Starmer
No-one was happier than me when, in June 2017, Lloyd
Russell-Moyle gained Brighton Kemptown for Labour with a majority of
nearly 10,000.
In happier times
I had canvassed and delivered leaflets for Moyle throughout
the campaign despite the fact that in March 2016, I had been suspended from the
Labour Party as part of the ‘anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt. It was despite the
fact that Moyle had secretly
written to the Labour Party’s
witchhunters urging that my expulsion be sped up. And not withstanding the fact that the local Labour Party, which
Moyle chaired, had urged my reinstatement.
When I received evidence, via a Subject Access
Request, that Moyle had been writing to the Labour Party nationally, secretly
and without telling anyone he wrote back on 23 August 2016 informing me that:
I am of a firm belief that one should say things
publicly which are kind, and if you are unable to say that then one must be
quite [sic] and say nothing on blogs and
social media, esp about members. This is relevant when it comes to other
members. I believe that attacking other members for taking (what you might
believe is the wrong view) publicly brings the party into disrepute and it is
an attempt to intimidate people from not saying anything.
Admirable sentiments to be sure, but not quite at one with his subsequent
actions! Nonetheless I accepted his ‘half apology’. I later discovered that Lloyd had posted abusive
comments about me on Facebook!
UK Lawyers 4 Israel Attacking a
Barrister's Right to Free Speech
I
was the first Jewish member of the Labour Party to be suspended and then
expelled as part of the false‘anti-Semitism’ campaign orchestrated by the genocide
supporters of the Jewish Labour Movement.
Although I was the first Jewish member to be expelled I was by no means the
last. Today if you are Jewish you are 5+ times more likely to be expelled
for ‘anti-Semitism’ from the Labour Party than if you are not Jewish.
Lloyd’s
suspension as a candidate clearly came as a surprise to him. Just last week he
wrote to me, as one of his constituents, saying that now the election has been
called he ‘will become the Labour
and Co‑operative Parliamentary Candidate for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven.’
But it was not to be.
The
claims by Starmer’s apparatchiks that Lloyd was suspended because of an 8 year
old complaint are risible. If the complaint has taken so long to be submitted
it clearly must be suspect. There was nothing to stop the Labour Party allowing
Lloyd to stand whilst at the same time investigating
this complaint.
50 people turned up to a rally in support of LRM
A personal statement. pic.twitter.com/UaL2Y6WeMW
— Lloyd Russell-Moyle 🌹🏳️🌈 (@lloyd_rm) May 29, 2024
Yet
what was Moyle’s reaction to his removal as Parliamentary Candidate? Unbelievably he issued a statement
in which he said:
I wish Keir
Starmer, Angela Rayner, and the Labour team the best of luck and hope to be
celebrating Labour wins across Sussex and beyond on election night.
One can imagine Moyle advising his executioner about how best to chop off his head and at the same time suggesting he put in for a payrise. Uriah Heep has nothing on Moyle.
Of course when it comes to members of the Labour Right Starmer has been extremely tolerant. Only this week Elaine Cohen, a Jewish member in Birmingham, resigned because Starmer had allowed Khalid Mahmood to be a member of the Shadow Cabinet despite him having covered for his lover and office manager’s sadistic abuse of domestic violence victims.
The
evidence of domestic violence and abuse was not challenged at Cohen’s
employment tribunal case against Mahmood. Starmer also had no difficult in
allowing two Shadow Cabinet members to remain in post despite allegations of sexual
harassment against them.
Former
Black Councillor on Starmer Labour Racism
Starmer had even less difficulty reinstating Neil Coyle MP who was suspended by Parliament for
racial abuse of a British-Chinese journalist Henry Dyer, as well as genuinely
anti-Semitic comments and bullying.
Clearly
if Moyle had
been a genuine racist as opposed to an ‘anti-Semite’, then he would have been
waived through the selection process given that Starmer has a fondness for genuine
racists like Coyle. The problem for Moyle was that he came from the left
and then spent his parliamentary career in a headlong retreat
from socialism.
Moyle’s
last radical speeches – Labour Party Conference 2021
What
probably did for Moyle’s parliamentary career was the last radical speech which he made,
at the 2021 Labour Party Conference in Brighton when he declared that Starmer
wasn’t fit to be leader of the Labour Party and his facial approval of his
audience’s disdain, when he said that Starmer was a ‘nice man’.
Inexplicably Starmer's chief genocidaire blocked me!
Yet,
as I wrote,
no sooner had Moyle apologised for supporting the purge of socialists from the
Labour Party than he recanted! With Moyle it was a
case of one step forward and a gallop backwards.
In
2020 the JLM attacked
Moyle for comments he made in 2009, when he chaired the Woodcraft Folk, remarking
that Zionism was a ‘dangerous nationalist
idea.’ A perfectly innocuous remark you might think but the Labour left, including Corbyn and McDonnell, refused to
recognise that Zionism was not some form of fluffy Jewish identity. It was an
ideology and movement of ethnic cleansing and now genocide.
In
response to the attack by the JLM, Moyle declared:
“I am completely and unreservedly committed to supporting
[Labour leader] Keir Starmer and [deputy leader] Angela Rayner’s pledge to rid
the party of antisemitism. I have met previously with the Jewish Labour
Movement and will be reaching out to them again now,”
It was on Palestine that Moyle capitulated. In 2018 he
attended a solidarity party intended as a send off to the heroes of the Gaza
Freedom Flotilla. It included Divina Levrini,
a principled Swedish musician - the complete opposite of Moyle. Despite being
seriously ill Divina took part in the flotilla, being savagely beaten and
deprived of her medicines by the sadists who form the backbone of Israel’s
military police state. Soon after Divina died.
In subsequent years Moyle rowed back on his previous support for the Palestinians, denying that Israel was an apartheid state, opposing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions as well as supporting Starmer’s ‘antisemitism’ witchhunt of which he too is now a victim.
Irish MP Speech
I mention all of this because a friend
in Brighton PSC, David Rogers, wrote to Moyle in June
2020 after being suspended from the Labour Party, asking for his support. In
response his secretary wrote on 17 June telling David that
‘Lloyd believes that anti-semitism has
no place in the Labour Party and is pleased to see Keir acting so proactively
to demonstrate this.’
The implication being that David was
anti-Semitic. David respondedon 21st June telling Moyle that he found his response
‘chilling and sadly confirmatory of my
fears that ambition and career advancement have overtaken principle and ethics.’
It was an abject surrender to the false and defamatory 'antisemitism' charge that he is now a victim of. Lloyd had long since abandoned all principles and ethics in a vain attempt to mollify Starmer and his cronies. All to no avail.
On
5 January 2024 Moyle’s PA, Chloe Farrant, wrote to David expressing Moyle's opposition to the Boycott of Israel.
Lloyd is
opposed to a policy of adopting BDS against individual nations and always have
been. It wrongly singles out nations and is counterproductive to the prospect
of peace.
There is a
difference between applying consistent ethical principles in legitimate
criticism of foreign governments and what, in recent years, some individuals
and organisations have tried to do: seek to target Israel alone; hold it to
different standards from other countries; question its right to exist; and
equate the actions of the Israeli Government to Jewish people and in doing so,
create hate and hostility against Jewish people here in the UK. That is
completely wrong.
Irish politician Thomas Gould delivers one of the greatest speeches in modern history…
— Pelham (@Resist_05) May 31, 2024
“I hope you burn in hell Netanyahu”…🔥 pic.twitter.com/aVKiR4WEku
Presumably
Moyle would have opposed sanctions against Apartheid South Africa for similar
reasons and 90 years ago he would have opposed the Boycott of Nazi Germany alongside
the Tories.
Note
how Moyle equated sanctions against Israel with ‘hate and hostility against Jewish people here in the UK.’ Some
would say equating British Jews with Israeli apartheid was anti-Semitic! But
Moyle denied that Israel was an apartheid state despite copious evidence including
reports from 3 human rights organisation – Amnesty
International, B’tselem
and Human
Rights Watch.
When
Netanyahu declared
that Israel was “not a state of all its
citizens” but solely its Jewish citizens, after the 2018 Jewish Nation State Law
was passed, he was declaring that officially Israel was an apartheid state. Moyle
however was having none of it.
Those
miserable politicians who, despite all the evidence, refuse to call out Israel
for what it is, deserve our contempt. Moyle was one such creature. He refused
to accept that Israel was an Apartheid and now genocidal state, because it
didn’t suit his career. A state where different laws apply to different ethnic
groups is the quintessential definition of apartheid.
In
the course of 7 years as an MP I have posted a number of blogs in respect of
Moyle (see below). But despite this I would, albeit reluctantly, have supported
his bid for re-election if he had stood as a socialist independent, because in
my eyes a defeat for Starmer is the most important task in this election. The
Tories are sunk but a hung parliament would be the best result of all. Yet such
has been Moyle’s retreat that he is incapable of breaking free of his embrace
of Starmer.
The issue on which I broke with Moyle and when I told him that I would not vote for him was over Julian Assange whom he refused to support. Although he refused to provide any reasons it is clear that they were related to the false allegations of rape that had been made.
A
statement
from the former candidate for Brighton Kemptown, Nancy Platts, who was given an
online interview in a bid to replace Moyle, revealed that during her interview Michael
Crick tweeted
that Chris Ward, a former adviser to Starmer, had already been selected by an
NEC panel.
Clearly
the whole ‘selection’ process, from which Kemptown members were excluded, was a
charade. Platts had agreed to take on all Moyle’s employees thus avoiding
redundancies. Starmer had other ideas.
Step
forward Chris Ward of Hanbury Strategy, a group that lobbies for the gambling
and fossil fuel industries. Ward was parachuted in
as candidate over the objections of local members. This is the contempt that
Starmer has for members. Before becoming leader Liar Starmer pledged to respect
local democracy but like the rest of his pledges
they have gone with the wind.
*sigh of relief* https://t.co/JU7z30HvlN
— Faiza Shaheen (@faizashaheen) February 27, 2019
Faiza Shaheen
The other shock was the decision of Starmer’s Stormtroopers to deselect Faiza Shaheen in Chingford and Woodgreen. Unlike Moyle she has made it clear that she is prepared to stand independently and she has gone onto the political offensive, unlike Moyle. Contrast Moyle with Faiza. She has resigned from the Labour Party.
Also
unlike Moyle it is clear that Faiza was dropped because of her support for
Palestine. Her ‘crimes’ were based on 15 tweets
from 2014.
One
of the more recent posts she liked, and which was flagged by the NEC, was from
12 May 2024, where Philip Lemoine, a PhD candidate and writer at the Center for
the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI), said:
"Every
time you say something even mildly critical of Israel, you're immediately
assailed by scores of hysterical people who explain to you why you're
completely wrong, how you’re biased against Israel.”
“Honestly I’m so shocked right now, to be treated this badly”
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) May 29, 2024
Faiza Shaheen, who was set to stand for Labour, describes hearing that her candidacy had been pulled over liking a series of Tweets which she claims Labour said would frustrate its campaign#Newsnightpic.twitter.com/JtMIywDz2N
Faiza poured her heart out in no uncertain terms and made it clear
how callous and cruel was the decision to move her and the way it was done,
whilst she was out canvassing.
However
Faiza is no anti-Zionist. She is on the soft left. When confronted with ‘liking’
a tweet by a US academic who referred to the “Israel lobby” in a sketch on Jon
Stewart’s The Daily Show Shaheen’s
“like” prompted a complaint from the JLM.
NEW: @faizashaheen tells me she's considering standing in Chingford as an independent. She says she wants to do it "for the right reasons."
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) June 2, 2024
When asked whether she could see why the tweet was offensive, she said: “It plays into a trope and I absolutely don’t
agree with that and I’m sorry about that.” What she should have said was
that the Israel Lobby was a fact and there’s nothing wrong in pointing out
facts.
When news broke on February 27 2019
that the staunch Palestinian supporter and opponent of the witch-hunt,
Chris Williamson MP, had been suspended by the Labour Party Shaheen tweeted“*sigh of relief*”. One can only hope that now she has
been subject to a similar injustice that she disowns that tweet and recognises what this minute scrutiny of social media for any disloyalty to Israel is really about.
Diane Abbott
A
word should also be said about Dianne Abbott. She has been treated abysmally by
Starmer but she has done herself no favours for demeaning herself. Abbot is not
the heroine that many make out.
Politically she has rarely said anything about Palestine. I can remember
a conversation with her at the beginning of her parliamentary career when she
was extremely cagy about supporting their struggle.
Granted
she is ill but the way to respond to Starmer’s racist treatment
of her was to go tell him to go screw himself. Instead she begged and pleaded
to be readmitted to the PLP. She even went on the JLM’s ‘anti-Semitism
training’ which is nothing more than a course designed to equate anti-Semitism
and anti-Zionism. Diane should have refused on principle to go on a Zionist ‘training
course’.
It
would have been all to the good for Diane to have stood as a socialist
independent and defeated the imposed Labour candidate.
Dianne
Abbott has never recognised Zionism for what it is. A racist ideology in which
ethnic cleansing is integral to its desire for a racially pure ‘Jewish’ state.
Unfortunately her friend Jeremy Corbyn has also never bothered to understand
what Zionism is about.
The
Morning Star is right to call
for the unions to call a halt to the purge. They have the numbers on the
National Executive Committee but with racist scabs like Sharon Graham of Unite
and Gary Smith of the GMB to say nothing of UNISON’s Blairite General Secretary
Christine McAnea, this is highly unlikely. We need to replace the utterly
useless scabs and war mongers in charge of our trade unions.
Owen Jones on
Faiza Shaheen’s Defenestration