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Roger Silverman is the only Jewish Anti-Zionist Candidate Standing because Jewish Voice for Labour Cowardly Accepted Momentum’s Veto and Withdrew Jo Bird

The Left has its back to the wall in the Labour Party.  The worst thing it can do is engage in wishful thinking.

As I predicted before the leadership elections, Keir Starmer is the candidate that the Deep State & the British Establishment want you to vote for. Despite Sturmer’s claim that he was the ‘Unity candidate’ ‘he is Establishment down to his manicured fingers’ and notwithstanding his youthful days of radicalism ‘Today he is the darling of the Right.’

I quoted from two Jewish members of his Holborn & St. Pancras constituency, Ruth Appleton and Amanda Sebestyen, that

Time and time again, as left-leaning members we have been subjected to hostility and abuse... Those that are close to Keir Starmer, rather than welcome involvement from the left, have actively prevented it....

Their advice was that

‘any socialist thinking about supporting Keir Starmer should think again and instead support a candidate that welcomes and supports socialist policies and encourages the active involvement of socialist members!’

Momentum was split. Half of them, including Laura Parker Lansman's right hand woman, supported Sturmer. They also supported Angela Rayner, a right-wing nonentity against Richard Burgon and on the day Sturmer’s election was announced they issued a ludicrous statement that claimed victory!

We are proud too that, in four and a half years, Jeremy Corbyn and the movement that supported him has changed our party for the better and given voice to the hopes of millions who felt unrepresented in politics.... ... This is our victory. And we should be proud.

Coming from the organisation that did more to secure Corbyn’s defeat than anyone, it is no surprise that they claimed Sturmer’s election as a victory.

My own reaction was slightly different: Mogadon Man Assumes the Leadership of the Labour Party as Lansman’s candidate is crushed ‘Starmer represents a return of the Blairite Right’ was my comment.

The Centre Left Grassroots Alliance Should Be Put Out To Grass

The Centre Left Grassroots Alliance was reconvened in order to stitch up a slate for the NEC.  The LLA was not invited. Meanwhile Momentum had held its own internal elections and Lansman’s Renewal slate was comprehensively defeatrf by the Momentum Forward group. Unfortunately there was no change of political perspective.

What Jo doesn't say is that she's standing for the Councillors' 2 seats because Lansman's successors and CLPD vetoed her candidature

Both Momentum Forward and the CLPD put a veto on Jo Bird, a Jewish anti-Zionist and member of JVL from being a candidate. Lansman had previously attacked JVL for not representing the ‘Jewish community’ which should be considered a good thing since the Jewish community is a reactionary and racist one that has voted Tory for the past half a century. Unfortunately, rather than refusing to back down and insist that Jewish anti-Zionists cannot be vetoed, JVL hauled up the white flag of surrender, suitably kosherised!

Jo Bird is now one of 2 candidates standing in the Councillors section which means she has no chance of being elected.

By way of contrast the lead candidate on the LLA slate is Roger Silverman, a Jewish anti-Zionist.  I have known Roger for over 20 years and he is a sound Marxist. For those who are interested in these things, Roger is the son of Sydney Silverman MP whose parliamentary life was devoted to the abolition of the death penalty.

I can therefore recommend, without a moment’s hesitation, that members, whoever else they vote for, put Roger at No. 1.  I would also recommend that the rest of the LLA slate be supported before you vote for any other candidates. The full slate is:

1.     Roger Silverman

2.     Chaudhry Qamer Iqbal

3.     Carol Taylor Spedding

4.     Ekua Bayunu

5.     Alec Price

6.     Steve Maggs

Even if the JVL doesn’t understand what is at stake, the Jewish Chronicle certainly does. ‘Liar’ Lee Harpin, its Political Correspondent, who was arrested in the hacking scandal, wrote a witchhunting article targeting shadow cabinet member Lyn Brown, the MP for West Ham, for supporting Roger and thus hinting to Sturmer that he should sack her for dangerous lefty tendencies.

The LLA has launched a petition which is an Open Letter to JVL calling on them to support Roger.  In view of the fake ‘anti-Semitism witchhunt continuing and even increasing there is a burning need for an anti-racist, anti-Zionist, socialist Jew on Labour’s National Executive to call out the racist stiff that goes by the name of Sturmer (for those who think I am misspelling his name Der Sturmer was the anti-Semitic paper of Nazi Julius Streicher, Gauleiter of Franconia who was hanged after the war).  Sturmer’s racist support for Israel should result in his suspension.

If Roger Silverman is the ‘wrong sort of Jew’ that is only because today most British Jews are, consciously or otherwise racists.  Anti-racists are a distinct minority in what is a very conservative community.  Ironically it was the Ultra Orthodox Union of Hebrew Congregations that dissociated themselves from the Board of Deputies attacks on Corbyn.

I recommend supporting 4 of the CLGA 6, Mish Rahman (who is a signatory of the LLA), Ann Henderson, Yasmin Dar, Gemma Bolton. Ann and Yasmin are already on the NEC and they have been good on the witchhunt.  Nadia Jama from Sheffied is a supporter of Lansman’s Renewal Momentum.  In Sheffield she supported Lansman’s coup and constitution, aimed at removing expelled members from Momentum.  She deserves absolutely no support.  I would rather see Luke Akehurst on the NEC than this treacherous Lansmanite.. 

Exactly the same goes for Laura Pidcock.  She made a name for herself early on as an MP for a number of ‘left wing’ anti-Tory soundbites but when it came to it she was as insubstantial as the rest of the Campaign Group.  Pidcock not only refused to speak out against Corbyn and Formby’s witchhunt but she personally told Chris Williamson, as co-Chair of the Campaign Group, that he should no longer attend group meetings. Chris was the only Labour MP with any guts and Pidcock not only scabbed on him but on Corbyn too, because the anti-Semitism allegations weren’t about me or Chris or Jackie but designed to remove Corbyn.

I would also recommend a vote for Cameron Mitchell and Mark MacDonald QC who, very kindly, gave me invaluable support legally in 2017 when, against the advice of all the other lawyers I consulted, he encouraged me to bring an action for an injumction against the Labour Party. The injunction succeeded  in December 2017 in delaying proceedings but not preventing them.

It really is shameful and an act of political cowardice that JVL accepted a veto on Jo Bird's candidacy.

Re Nadia Jama

There must be no return to the CLGA of old which put right-wingers like Ann Black on the NEC.  Come 2016 it was Black, as Chair of the Disputes Committee, who signed off on the suspension of Brighton & Hove and Wallasey Labour Parties.  The Leaked Labour Party Report makes it clear that both parties were stitched up.  I have twice emailed Black to ask if she regrets the decision she took to act on the allegations of lying right-wingers like Brighton Council Leader Warren Morgan.  Black has not responded!

Nadia Jama was prominent in the attempt by the Lansmanites in Sheffield Momentum to impose Lansman’s undemocratic constitution after his coup in January 2018. The first few attempts were defeated. Then Jama and her clique brought everybody and their granny to a meeting where they then had a (small) majority in favour of the constitution. Nadia Jama was a very vocal supporter of the constitution and of imposing it (which meant that 3 members of the local Momentum Steering Committee, who had been expelled by Labour, were unable to be re-elected to the SC - which was the point of the whole exercise. Everybody knew it and members debated at length how this was a witch-hunting constitution, because it barred from Momentum membership all those who had been expelled by the Labour Party. Needless to say, Sheffield Momentum imploded after that and the anti-witchhunt left went on to form Sheffield Labour Left. Local Momentum is now well and truly dead.

Nadia was briefly one of the two candidates supported by Lansman for the NEC by-election in February 2020, but he dumped her for Lauren Townsend and Leigh Brennan. She continued to stand though, but only got 13 CLP nominations.

However, she clearly remained a supporter of his (and vice versa) and was a signatory of Lansman's 'Momentum Renewal': She then apparently joined the LRC between February 2020 and August 2020, because it was the LRC who proposed her to be on the CLGA slate for this election, despite being told of what had happened the LRC nominated her.

Tony Greenstein