A small victory – I have been told the basis of my suspension!

 Labour Party is prepared to spend nearly £30K a year on a new Compliance Administrator

We can gauge New Labour’s attitude to civil liberties and the rights of the accused by the fact that it has taken two whole months before Labour’s Acting Organiser in the South of England, Harry Gregson, let me know what the basis of the charges against me are.

Labour's hapless General Secretary Iain McNicol - appointed by Miliband and sidelined thereafter

Of course 3 terse lines hardly comply with the duty of disclosure.

When the Police charged me with assaulting a violent Zionist in the course of the Sodastream protests I received full statements, documentation, film etc.  They eventually dropped charges.  That was also my experience when charged with the heinous offence of making an unauthorised collection on behalf of PSC (a collecting tin on a stall!).  In that case I was acquitted but again there was reams of paper.  Labour's Inquisition is sparse indeed.

When it comes to the instant suspensions from the Labour Party there is a point blank refusal to disclose anything, other than the practice that Blair and Alistair Campbell developed to perfection, i.e. leaking to friends in the press, in this case The Telegraph and Times.

Out go my crimes of referring to ‘Zio idiots’ and ‘Zionist scum’ as well as comparisons between the Nuremberg Laws and Israel’s marriage laws.  Preferably wiser counsels concluded that expelling me for quoting the greatest Jewish political philosopher of the last century, Hannah Arendt, was maybe not such a good idea.

Extracts from the press and their retractions

The 3 offences that I am so far charged with are:

1.         Describing the IRA attack on Thatcher as ‘obviously legitimate’.  Well the IRA were at war with the British and attempting to assassinate Thatcher, the effective commander of the British forces was obviously legitimate in the eyes of the IRA.  Let us remember that the British Army was working via its Forces Research Unit with Loyalist Death Squads who targeted completely innocent Catholics as well as people like the solicitor Demond Finucane and Sinn Fein politicians like Gerry Adams.  That was legitimate.  Given that Thatcher personally sent 750 men to their deaths on the General Belgrano, despite it steaming away from the Falklands and then her support for General Pinochet, who was responsible for the torture and murder of thousands of Chilean socialists, communists and democrats I wouldn’t have shed many tears at her demise.

2.         The second charge that Zionism is a form of Jewish anti-Semitism is a fact.  That is how Jews rightly saw it.

3.         The comment ‘'spot on re the Zionist collaboration with the Nazis.' Gives me problems as I don’t know to who I said this.  Was it in respect of Livingstone or before.   But yes the Zionist movement did indeed collaborate with the Nazis.

So although this is a step forward it is clearly not enough.

An ideal job but this fixed term contract thing seems very anti-worker to me

However given my experience at their hands I am tempted to apply for the job of Compliance Administrator.  Clearly given the number of new suspensions the    Compliance Unit is overworked and there is a need for more hands on the deck of what is, by all accounts, an extremely inefficient department.  I am sure my candidacy will be welcomed by all!  Clearly the Labour Party is in no need of extra funds if it has money to waste on jobs like this.

Harry Gregson celebrating Mrs Windsor's 90 years on state benefits - clearly no republican he!

After 2 months I've been given a glimpse of the pretext 4 my suspension

 

On 16 May 2016 at 09:24, Harry Gregson <harry_gregson@labour.org.uk> wrote:

Dear Mr Greenstein,

Thank you for your letter. You were suspended from the Labour Party as it was alleged you breached Labour Party membership rules by acting in a way that was grossly detrimental to the Party. This specifically related to the comments below that you were alleged to have made:

- 'The attack on Thatcher by the IRA was obviously legitimate. She was a military target'

- 'Zionism is a Jewish version of anti-Semitism'

- 'spot on re the Zionist collaboration with the Nazis.'

These comments were the trigger for your suspension and will form part of the interview. However you will also have the opportunity to respond to any other evidence that I have discovered throughout the investigation so far.

Please can you let me know if you are now prepared to meet for an interview? I can come to Brighton if necessary.

Best wishes

Harry

 Harry Gregson

Acting Regional Director, Labour South East

07872 417312

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On 13 May 2016 at 16:51, Harry Gregson <harry_gregson@labour.org.uk> wrote:

Dear Mr Greenstein,

I am writing to inform you that I will be carrying out the investigation on behalf of the Labour Party into the circumstances that resulted in your suspension from the Party.

I will be conducting interviews with witnesses and I will also need a time when you are available for an interview. You are entitled to bring along a 'silent friend', as am I, they must be a Party member and they cannot intervene in the interview in any way. Please provide me with the name of your ‘silent friend’ prior to the interview so I can ensure they meet these requirements. I also attach the NEC advice note on carrying out such an investigation for your information.

At the interview you can also request I interview anyone else you deem important to this investigation.

I am proposing holding this interview on Saturday 21^st May in Ergon House, Horseferry Road, SW1P 2AL.

Please can you let me know if you can make this date and if so what time works for you and I will try and accommodate it.  

Best wishes,

Harry Gregson

Acting Regional Director, Labour South East

Sent by email from the Labour Party, promoted by Iain McNicol on behalf of The Labour Party, both at Southside, 105 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6QT Website: www.labour.org.uk to join or renew call 0345 092 2299.

Sent by email from the Labour Party, promoted by Iain McNicol on behalf of The Labour Party, both at Southside, 105 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6QT Website: www.labour.org.uk to join or renew call 0345 092 2299.

16^th May 2016

Dear Mr Gregson,

At last, after nearly two months of being suspended, I have finally been given a glimmer of the reasons as to why I have been suspended.

I would now like to receive the full allegations, i.e. date, time and surrounding discussions, so that I can see when these quotations were allegedly said and what the context of these remarks were.  In other words the full body of evidence surrounding what are bare quotations.

I will receive this anyway via the Subject Access Request that I have submitted so it would make sense on your part to send me the full information now rather than waiting the statutory 40 days.  I cannot think of any reason whatsoever to continue to withhold such information from me.  If this were a court of law they would grant full disclosure without a second's thought unless you are claiming national security considerations for so doing.

I also note that the allegations of comparing Israel’s law on marriage to those of the Nuremberg Laws, as reported in the Telegraph and The Times appear to have been dropped.  I would be curious to know why.

You say that these remarks were the trigger for my suspension and that I will have the opportunity to respond to any further evidence that you have discovered.  Again I wish to be informed as to what evidence you  believe you have uncovered in advance of my interview with you and again the surrounding context.

Assuming that you agree to a full disclosure of the information I have requested I will of course be happy to meet with you at a mutually agreed time and place.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Greenstein