'Like the boy who cried wolf' Morning Star April 14 2016

TONY GREENSTEIN puts the record straight on his suspension from the Labour Party for alleged anti-Semitism

In last  Thursday's Morning Star, my article (below) appeared in the Labour Movement daily, the Morning Star.  It has been a good week.  At the Brighton & Hove Momentum meeting on Monday evening, a meeting of some 30 people supported an emergency motion calling on the Labour Party to lift my suspension and immediately release all information to me concerning why I was suspended.  There was just one vote against.

The resolution included the following points:

• An urgent review of Labour Party internal disciplinary procedures that can result in members being suspended for weeks and months while being subjected

to interrogation, without representation, about unspecified allegations by anonymous complainants;

• The immediate lifting of the suspension of Mr Greenstein, pending the outcome of a full and fair investigation in accordance with the principles of natural justice.

On Saturday, at a meeting of over 100 members of the District Labour Party (which represents all 3 constituencies of Brighton Pavilion, Brighton Kemptown and Hove) the meeting approved by a large majority a motion calling on the Labour Party to lift my suspension.  Because of objections from the Regional Organiser, Harry Gregson, the motion was anonymised.  

Harry Fitch and other right-wingers, including the local Tory/New Labour MP Peter Kyle opposed the resolution.  Kyle it was who claimed that the reason why he has refused to appear on the doctors' picket line was because of an instruction from Jeremy Corbyn.  He failed to explain how John McDonnell had managed to make an appearance.  Kyle also refused to support Carolyn Lucas' 'The Reinstatement of NHS Bill' because, as he freely admits, he supports private sector involvement in creaming off revenue from the NHS.

It's not for nothing that some people joked that when he won the Hove seat last May from the Tories, the more right-wing candidate had won!  Unfortunately Brighton has an entrenched right-wing control of the District Party though on Saturday the meeting consisted of a left majority.  The task of Momentum in the months ahead is to ensure that more of the new members of the constituencies (over 3,000 new members) get to attend and vote for the new leadership of Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbot.

Tony Greenstein