Brighton and Hove's Labour Administration is Brought Down by the Fake ‘Anti-Semitism’ Campaign as 3 Councillors Resign or are Suspended

Starmer and Labour’s Racist Right hand control of a Labour Council to the Green Party

In barely a week Brighton and Hove Council has changed hands.  Labour, which previously ran the Council as the largest party, with 20 seats to the Green’s 19, has lost 3 councillors to the Zionist ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt. 

One, Ann Pissaridou was suspended and assume to have lost the whip although it seems she has been kept in the group to sustain Labour’s majority. Kate Knight was immediately suspended for a series of social media posts which defended Jeremy Corbyn and poured scorn on the fake anti-Semitism campaign.

Quite amazingly retweeting a statement by the Jewish Socialists Group counts as ‘anti-Semitism’ under Starmer’s Orwellian regime. ‘Anti-Semitism’ now means anything Israel’s supporters want it to mean.

Free Speech under Sir Keir has become one more casualty of the Zionist lobby. After being suspended Kate promptly resigned from the Labour Party.

For taking part in a picket of the Council in October 2018 against the IHRA Nikki Brennan was put under 'investigation' and removed as Vice Chair of the Housing sub-committee - 17 Brighton Black and Muslim organisations wrote opposing the IHRA but B&H Council chose to listen to the White supporters of the Israeli state - the Green Councillors voted in the same lobby as the Tories and Labour

A third councillor, Nikki Brennan, who had been under ‘investigation’ for having taken part in a lobby of the Council in October 2018 against their adoption of the IHRA, also resigned from the Labour Party. She had been subject to considerable bullying by right-wing members of the Labour group. This left the Greens as the largest party with 19 members compared to Labour’s 18.

Isaac Herzog, former leader of the Israeli Labor Party, complained of being seen as an 'Arab lover' - the National Front in Britain used to call us 'nigger lovers' - this is who Keir Starmer's bed mates are

What is outrageous is that this McCarthyite witchhunt is being led by the Jewish Labour Movement, the overseas wing of the almost extinct Israeli Labor Party. The ILP, which for 30 years controlled every Israeli government now has just 3 seats in Israel’s Knesset and is tipped to lose them at the next election.

The Israeli Labor Party is the racist party which carried out the expulsion of ¾ million Palestinian refugees in 1948 and created the structures of Israeli Apartheid that exist today. It is a party which supports the deportation of Israel’s Black African refugees, because they aren’t Jewish and supports the segregation of Jews and Arabs. Its ‘sister party’ the JLM is therefore in an ideal position to judge what is and is not ‘anti-Semitic’.

Kate Knight was suspended for posting that there was no ‘anti-Semitism’ crisis in the Labour Party. This is the view of 77% of Labour’s membership. However telling the truth doesn’t make you immune from being called an ‘anti-Semite’. Today, as we always said, the witchhunt is about criticism of Israel not hatred of Jews, the traditional definition of anti-Semitism.

These tweets got Kate Knight suspended - free speech has been abolished under Starmer

Mere denial of being anti-Semitic is itself proof of ‘anti-Semitism’. This is the kind of ‘justice’ that now operates under Keir Starmer, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, in the Labour Party. It is unfortunate that Jeremy Corbyn, being the weak leader that he was, laid the basis for what Starmer is now presiding over. One can only hope that Sir Keir doesn’t propose that in future, if someone pleads innocent in court that that is not considered proof of guilt!

For holding a placard telling the truth, Nikki Brennan was placed under investigation by Zionists and racists

Councillor Nikki Brennan, who was under ‘investigation’ for having taken part in a demonstration against the Council adopting the IHRA ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism, also chose to resign. The IHRA is a definition that anti-Semites such as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban are quite happy with. It is a ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism which redefines anti-Semitism as criticism of Israel and Zionism as opposed to hostility to Jews.

If you call Israel a racist state, which it clearly is, then you are called 'antisemitic' - in other words the assumption is that all Jews are racist supporters of Zionism and Israel

The tragedy is that Jeremy Corbyn thought he could appease the Zionist lobby, who are the outriders for western imperialism.  Pathetically he appeased and apologised never once realising that the more he apologised the more they would come after him. As Mick McGahey, the miners’ leader once said, “They’ll stop chasing you, when you stop running.” Corbyn never stopped running or throwing his friends overboard.

The 3 Councillors Should Form an Independent Socialist Group on Brighton Council

Labour’s Racist Right are quite happy to destroy left-wing Labour councils if they think it will destroy the left in the Labour Party. The Labour Right are quite happy to hand power to their political opponents, in this case the Greens. There has never been any difference between their foreign policy, such as support for NATO and imperialist wars, and that of the Tories.  It’s called bipartisanship. Zionism is the policy of the Tory and ruling class foreign policy and this is why Starmer is a self-declared 100% Zionist. As he told the Times of Israel:

“I do support Zionism. I absolutely support the right of Israel to exist as a homeland. My only concern is that Zionism can mean slightly different things to different people, and… to some extent it has been weaponized. I wouldn’t read too much into that. I said it loud and clear — and meant it — that I support Zionism without qualification.”

Tony Greenstein and Nikki Brennan standing next to each other on picket of Council meeting

The suggestion that Zionism ‘means slightly different things to different people’ demonstrates why Starmer is a 100% racist. To him the Palestinians are invisible.  The idea that Palestinians who have been expelled from their homes, tortured, tear gassed, bombed and seen their land and homes demolished see Zionism in the same way as the Zionists is obscene.

It is like saying that the Jews saw Nazism in the same way as the Nazis.  It is an absurd and ridiculous comment from the ruling class dummy who now leads the Labour Party. That Corbyn appointed Starmer as his Shadow Brexit Secretary, despite his participation in the chicken coup, is testimony to his lousy judgement.

Quoting Gideon Levy, a journalist on Israel's Ha'aretz was enough to get Anne Pissaridou suspended for 'antisemitism'

What the 3 councillors should do now is work together as an independent socialist group on Brighton and Hove Council. Given that she is suspended Anne Pissaridou would do well to resign. They have more chance of remaining councillors and being re-elected in 2023 working together than remaining separate.

3 Academy Trusts have been forced to pull out of bidding for Moulsecoomb Primary School thanks to the opposition of a local working class campaign

Kate Knight has led the Hands off Our School Campaign in Moulsecoomb - from which Daniel Yates has been absent

 Kate Knight has led the campaign in her Moulsecoomb ward against the attempt of the government to turn the local primary school into an academy. There has been fierce resistance by local working class parents against no less than 3 academy trusts who have been forced to pull out by determined resistance from parents and the National Education Union.

One Trust, the New Academy Trust, complained that

“Opposition for New Horizon’s sponsorship of Moulsecoomb from parents, staff and Brighton politicians has been strong, with protests and even a mock funeral being staged.

Daniel Yates - Racist, Zionist and Labour Councillor for Moulsecoomb

One of the 2 other Labour councillors is Daniel Yates, a fanatical non-Jewish Zionist and racist who as leader forced the Council to adopt the Zionist agenda of redefining anti-Semitism as criticism of Israel as opposed to hostility to Jews. Yates has played no part in the anti-academy campaign. Previously he chaired the local Health & Wellbeing Board which was charged by NHS England with implementing cuts to the NHS.

Moulsecoomb's Right-wing Labour Councillors Amanda Grimshaw and Daniel Yates have no principled objection to an academy - under Blair academies were foisted on schools

This is the same Daniel Yates who told the Argus that he was ‘“ashamed” after the suspension of a fellow Labour councillor.  Yates wasn’t ashamed that the Labour Party initiated the ‘hostile environment’ policy which led to the deportation of hundreds of Black British citizens or which supplied weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Nor was Yates ashamed that socialists and anti-racists are suspended by Labour at the behest of Israel, the world’s only Apartheid state. A state whose own Prime Minister declares that Israel is not a state of all of its citizens, but only those who are Jewish.  But that is, of course, what a ‘Jewish’ state is all about and what the IHRA misdefinition of ‘anti-Semitism’ is designed to protect.

The real agenda of people like Yates is demonstrated by the reaction of Keir Starmer to the news that Rachel Reeve MP, a member of his shadow cabinet, who tweeted in support of Lady Nancy Astor, an ardent Hitler supporter and a member of the pro-Nazi Cliveden set, who cheered the Nazi takeover of the Rhineland in 1936.

Astor once told MP Alan Graham "only a Jew like you would dare to be rude to me" and told US ambassador Joseph Kennedy that it would have to take much more than Hitler giving "a rough time" to "the killers of Christ" before supporting the launch of "Armageddon to save them", according to the book The Kennedys at War: 1937-1945. Strangely enough, Starmer refused to even discuss Reeve’s support of Astor on the grounds she wasn’t present at Labour’s National Executive Committee.  

Neither the Board of Deputies nor the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism were at all bothered by this genuine example of anti-Semitism as Rachel Reeves is a signed up Zionist. Zionism has never objected to genuine anti-Semitism as long as the anti-Semites supported Zionism.

Nikki Brennan, who was forced out of her position as Vice-Chair of the Housing Committee, has been a long-time campaigner over housing issues and against homelessness in the City. She too is an active campaigning councillor in her East Brighton, mainly Whitehawk, part of Brighton.

Both councillors have a chance of being re-elected in their own right as part of an independent socialist group that challenges the increasingly ineffective Labour group led by Nancy Platts, a former Corbyn supporter who is desperately trying to appease the right-wing of the group and the local Zionists. See my Open Letter to Platts.

It is likely that more Labour councillors will be subject to the ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt as the Labour Right seek to eliminate supporters of Corbyn from the Group. The Labour Right has no qualms in handing over power to the Green Party.  Brighton’s Greens when they were last in power were no different from the Tories or Lib Dems.

Last time around - the Greens came into conflict with the Refuse Workers and behaved like Green Tories

The Greens almost immediately they came into office sought a conflict with the refuse workers which they lost.

The Greens also imposed on Brighton, with the support of the Tories, the white elephant called the ‘i360’ otherwise known as ‘the eyesore’.  A tall vertical column with a pod containing people which goes up and down it has lost money from the start. It promised to make Brighton £1m a year and the Greens were gullible enough to believe it. The original £36.2 loan from the Public Sector Loan Board has now gone up to £38.9m.

Nor am I being wise after the event.  In July 2015 I wrote a column in the Argus warning that ‘the best laid plans of men and mice often go awry. What if demand is less than expected?’ I described it as ‘ill thought-out’ and ‘an overpriced elevator and nothing like the ‘heritage centre’ it describes itself as.’ £38.9m later and rising I have unfortunately been proved correct.  The £39m debt is some 5% of Brighton Council’s overall budget.

All of this is, of course, of no consequence to Daniel Yates. Having the Greens take power is a small price to pay for getting rid of socialists and anti-racists.

My advice to the remaining socialists in the Labour Group is to think very carefully about whether or not they should form an arrangement with a new Independent Socialist Group or indeed whether they should join them.

Tony Greenstein