Peter Kyle’s Contempt for Democracy as he ‘persuades’ the Brighthelm Centre to Cancel Chris Williamson Meeting

The 'Labour' MP for Hove Uses Jews to further the Labour Right’s anti-Corbyn agenda whilst Lansman gives him encouragement

Israeli soldiers cheer as they murder another Palestinian - this is what Kyle and Labour Friends of Apartheid support

UPDATE

It would appear that the signatories accompanying the McCarthyist statement on 'antisemitism' have been taken down pending an 'investigation'. 

Possibly that has something to do with the number of anti-Semites and fascists who decided to endorse the statement including the late Adolf Hitler, Pinochet, Eichmann, John Vorster as well as one very alive Donald Trump!  What did they expect? Socialists to sign?

Israeli soldiers demonstrate their joy as Palestinian buildings are blown up and Palestinians are made homeless - this is the reality of present day Israel

Peter Kyle, the MP for Hove demonstrated his contempt for freedom of speech when he ‘persuaded’ the Christian Evangelist Brighthelm Centre to cancel a public meeting on August 8^th at which Chris Williamson MP was speaking. His excuse was that

‘our city should not be a welcoming place for people who bait the Jewish community or sow seeds of division.’

Peter Kyle supports the use of private firms in the NHS - the main task of the Left in Hove is his deselection

So according to Kyle a meeting on socialist economics and a Labour government is ‘divisive’.  Such is Kyle’s contempt for democracy and freedom of speech.

Chris Williamson is someone who has been an active anti-fascist all of his life. Peter Kyle on the other hand is someone who has never spoken up about refugees or racism.  Only Israel and ‘anti-Semitism’ is his concern.

We intended to auction the original Steve Bell cartoon that was banned by the Guardian - on the grounds of 'antisemitism' of course

 The suggestion that Chris Williamson is a ‘Jew baiter’ is a despicable lie coming from someone who has supported New Labour’s racist agenda on refugees, Travellers and asylum seekers.

Kyle is also a member of Labour Friends of Israel which last year supported Israel’s shooting of unarmed demonstrators in cold blood. Kyle has refused to sign any Early Day Motion condemning Israel’s human rights abuses. That is the clue to why he sought to obtain the banning of Chris Williamson.  As a dedicated Zionist he is following a path blazed by the Israeli state itself.

My letter in the Argus

Banning meetings and persons, locking people up indefinitely without trial – this is what comes naturally to the Israeli state, just as it did to the South Africa apartheid state before it.  Israel rules over 5 million Palestinians who have neither political nor civil rights. If all those living under occupation were given a vote there would be no ‘Jewish’ state.

The meeting, organised by Brighton and Hove Labour Left Alliance for August 8^th will go on at another, undisclosed venue as planned.  We are determined to ensure that Kyle and his Zionist supporters aren’t allowed to get away with their attack on free speech in Brighton and Hove.

At the time of the Charlie Hebdo killings, free speech included the right to attack the Muslim religion but it would seem this doesn't extend to the Israeli state

The Brighthelm Centre will also be the subject of a full boycott. When they refused to allow Jackie Walker to speak two years ago Palestine Solidarity Campaign decided to hold its meetings elsewhere.  We will now call for a full boycott of the Brighthelm Centre beginning with my own trade union branch, Unite.

As the prospect of a General Election looms so the Labour Right have started mobilising around ‘anti-Semitism’. This is a somewhat easier topic than coming out in support of austerity and things like tuition fees for students, benefit cuts for claimants or attacks on asylum seekers.

Anti-Semitism is a much easier way of fooling people. However the test of their sincerity is what their take is on other forms of racism.  For these people to prioritise ‘anti-Semitism which is a marginal prejudice, when the very real racism of Windrush and Islamaphobia is ever present demonstrates the hypocrisy of these people.

It seems that Donald and Kyle agree about 'antisemitism' and why shouldn't they?

None of those who have signed their statement and there are about 30 Labour right-wingers from Brighton and Hove, have ever spoken out about other forms of racism.

Under the banner of Labour Members Together the remnants of Brighton and Hove Right have issued a dishonest statement. It is little wonder that Adolf Hitler, Augusto Pinochet and John Vorster have (posthumously) signed it along with Neville Chamberlain and (Lord) Steve Bassam.

Their statement on anti-Semitism is a farrago of lies and distortions. Point 2 seeks

‘the expulsion of anyone who is guilty of ‘sharing a platform with members suspended or expelled for anti-Semitism.’

Classic McCarthyism. In essence they are calling for the old South Africa Apartheid practice of banning people. The fact that people who are suspended are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty is irrelevant to what we used to call ‘police state democrats’.  An accusation means to this bunch of New Labour leftovers means you are guilty.

The dishonesty of the statement is evinced by Point 10 which refers to

‘the Macpherson principles, which define racist incidents as those which are perceived as such by the victim or any other person.’

The MacPherson Report says no such thing and if they lie about this then you can assume they won’t be telling the truth about anything else. As Shami Chakrabarti explained in her Report.

‘the purpose of the approach [recording incidents as racial when perceived as such by the victim] is to ensure that investigators handle a complaint with particular sensitivity towards the victim. It is to suggest the seriousness with which a complaint must be handled, but in no way to determine its outcome.’

These dishonest or stupid right-wingers deliberately omit the latter part and suggest that an accusation is in itself proof of guilt.  Indeed they add ‘any other person’ for which read ‘any other Zionist or racist’!

Given that Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and myself were expelled as part of the anti-Semitism witch-hunt, not for anti-Semitism but ‘bringing the party into disrepute’ etc. this demonstrates the hypocrisy, lack of any democratic principles and basic dishonesty of these people.

The reason why Kyle seeks to prevent Chris Williamson MP from speaking is that he knows he has no answer to the arguments of the Left. The Labour Right can only thrive through bans and prescriptions.

Tony Greenstein

Massive Pro-Corbyn Rally in Brighton & Hove as Left Sweeps to Victory in AGM

Stunning Victory Over Progress as Left Sweeps Aside the Decaying Right

I tried to set the scene in  Brighton & Hove's largest circulation newspaper, the Brighton & Hove Independent

Warren Morgan, the Progress supporter & Labour leader of Brighton and Hove Council warned in an email that 100 Momentum members were holding a rally before the AGM of Brighton and Hove Labour Party.  He was out by a factor of 8 or 9!

A packed Momentum meeting with more outside

Standing room only at Momentum meeting

Brighthelm Community Centre has a very large hall.  I have never previously seen seen it so full.  This was probably the largest meeting it has ever held.   Not only was the hall jam packed solid, as you will see from the photographs but so was the café area at its rear, so much so that people were spilling out on the streets.  At the main door to Brighthelm Centre there were another couple of hundred people.  I would estimate that there were probably between 800-1,000 people there.

Momentum Meeting at Brighthelm Community Centre

There were no national speakers but people were determined that the coup by 172 Labour MPs against the democratically elected leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn would not succeed.  Brighton & Hove Labour Party’s AGM happened to fall just as the chicken coup was in full swing with the result that the Momentum group didn’t need to do any mobilising.  The Right did our job for us.

Packed Momentum meeting

One of 3 packed halls for all of those who turned up to Brighton LP AGM

The Labour Party AGM was scheduled to start at 4 pm.  It had to be held in 3 different halls within City College because the outgoing right-wing Executive had refused to book a hall large enough.  Being suspended I was unable to attend but my wife and two of my sons, all Corbyn supporters, attended and I was left looking after my other son who is autistic.  Whilst outside waiting I encountered an old foe and squatting mate, a glum looking Lord Steve  Bassam of Brighton, who is now Leader of Labour in the House of Lords which has declared UDI from the Shadow Cabinet and it would seem the Labour Party.  Bassam used to be on the far-left before a glittering career brown nosing Blair beckoned.  Another old foe I encountered was an ex-Councillor from Queens Park Ward, which I once chaired, Jackie Lythell.

A worried look from Progress MP Peter Kyle

Warren Morgan's last minute worried email

It was only late in the day that the Right woke up to the fact that their grip on Brighton and Hove Labour Party was endangered.  When I was last suspended in 1982 along with about 30 other comrades, the Brighton Party covered both constituencies and when the Right failed to gain control the whole party was suspended by Neil Kinnock after desperate pleas by Bassam, then leader of the Labour Group.  In the interim, the Party was organised and a District Party, to which any member can turn up and vote, was established.  It covered the two Brighton constituencies and Hove.  Under New Labour it had MPs for all 3 constituencies but in 2010 Caroline Lucas gained Pavilion from Labour and the Tories regained Brighton Kemptown and Hove.  In 2015 the arch apostle of New Labour, Peter Kyle, narrowly gained Hove.  Kyle is a paid up member of Progress and his partner Ivor Caplin was the previous Hove MP and a  junior Defence Minister under Blair and thus a junior war criminal too.

Warren Morgan, ex-Lib Dem and Progress Leader of Brighton & Hove Council

On Friday (see figure) Council Leader Warren Morgan woke up to what was happening.  He and Kyle were scheduled to address a Local Government Conference but when  they saw what was happening they decided to stay in Brighton.  They feared that their useless and incompetent friends, such as John Warmington the previous Secretary, who hasn’t once got a notice of a meeting out 7 days beforehand as constitutionally required, were facing defeat.

Meeting was packed right to the cafe area at the back

Warren Morgan therefore sent a panicked last minute email round to his friends saying that the far Left was in danger of taking control of the only ‘critical friend’ that the cutters and carvers in the Labour Group had. 

Things became so desperate that even my old friend the Right Dishonourable Lord Bassam of  Brighton was wheeled out to vote

Timing in politics is everything of course and it didn’t help that the Brighton & Hove Labour AGM took place in the week of Chilcot, when the New Labour brand is not all that popular, but there is also another consideration which is probably beyond the imagination or understanding of Warren Morgan, Kyle and Bassam.  New Labour, with its devotion to market economics and its attempt to continue where the Tories have left off, is no longer attractive if it ever was. 

The ‘centre ground’ of politics has imploded.  The Lib-Dems got 8 seats at the last election, which is almost as low as the six they gained in 1964.  People want answers not compromises.  The muddled middle holds no attractions.  Six years of austerity has meant that many people are hurting badly.  They don’t want to be told that there is no alternative to laissez faire capitalism.

The irony of the chicken coup against Corbyn, which has run up against the fact that he won’t resign even after a vote of no confidence, which is in reality a vote of no confidence in the membership of the Labour Party, is that it uses the Brexit vote as its pretext.  It was New Labour politics that led to the disenchantment of many Labour voters.  In Scotland they simply led to the wholescale abandonment by the working-class of Labour for the SNP.

The Leave campaign won amongst the working-class of Northern England (and also in one of the poorest areas, Cornwall).  The reason is because these are the areas which have been devastated by first Thatcherite economics and then New Labour.  The free market has meant the destruction of industry, the privatisation of nationalised utilities,  a declining standard of living and low wages – all of which have been falsely blamed on immigration and thus the European community.

The politics of Corbyn have had greater resonance with supporters of UKIP than New Labour because it is only radical ideas of renationalisation, rent controls, taming the market, a National Investment Bank and workers rights, coupled with ousting the private sector from the NHS, which has any appeal.  The politics of the Warren Morgans and Peter Kyles are completely unattractive.

Suffice to say, although the election for the non-officership posts haven’t yet been counted, all the Officers of Brighton & Hove Labour Party were won by Momentum, meaning the grip of New Labour in Brighton and Hove is now finally over.  The post of Secretary was won by my good friend Greg Hadfield by nearly 400 to 200 votes, which bodes well for the future!

Tony Greenstein 

Brighton to Palestine with love 2015

Brighton PSC at the Brighton Festival

This year Brighton PSC held a day of events at the Brighthelm Church & Community Centre.  It consisted of an exhibition of children, stalls, films and two performances of Caryl Churchill’s brilliant play Seven Jewish Children.  Seven Jewish Children is only 10 minutes long and consists of parents and relatives discussing what to tell and what not to tell an unnamed girl relation.  The 7 Jewish children correspond to seven episodes of time starting with the Holocaust and ending with the Gaza war.  It has a refrain ‘don’t tell her… do tell her….’  Running throughout is the fear of the unseen enemy, from the Nazis to the Israeli military.  It operates on a number of different levels, with the Jews being the victim to those who wield the gun.  Fear of the known is the hidden companion.

Unsurprisingly it has been almost universally condemned by right-wing commentators as ‘anti-Semitic’ a ‘blood libel’ by those who spray words like bullets.  This is the second time I’ve seen the play and it as relevant now as when I saw it when it was first written, at the time of the attack on Gaza in 2009.  For those who haven’t seen it, it is on the Guardian website. 

After Palestinian food was served, in the evening there was a performance of music by Ahmad Al Khatib (oud) who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan.  He joined the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music and taught in the Oriental Music Department.  In 2002 his visas was not renewed by the Zionist authorities and he now lives in Sweden.

Borh in 1967, Youssef Hbeisch played on percussion and also 

taught at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music.  Mohamed Najem on clarinet was born in Jerusalem to refugee parents and grew up in Bethlehem.  He was a founder member of the Palestine National Orchestra.  Manfred Leuchter on accordion came to Ramallah in 2014 to play on Najeem’s debut CD.

Brighton PSC hopes to bring, next year, young musicians from the Gaza Music School to perform in Brighton.  Crowdfunding has already been launched to pay for the cost of so doing.  Please visit www.chuffed.org/project/gazaconcert to donate.