Desperate Manoeuvres as Brighton & Hove’s Lansmanite Steering Committee Tries to Keep its Supporters at Bay

With the AGM 3 months overdue the Steering Committee of B&H Momentum is trying to do locally what Lansman has done nationally

Update

See Letter from over 100 Jews Supporting Chris Williamson - unfortunately Momentum now supports Tom Watson

Before the Labour Party AGM on July 9th 2016, BH Momentum organised a monster rally at the Brighthelm Centre - today's Lansmanite Steering Committee is running scared of its own supporters

With just one week to go I have received a copy of the AGM agenda for Brighton and Hove Momentum. It is clear that the Lansmanite majority on the Steering Committee [SC] is trying to retain its position through the use of bureaucratic and highly undemocratic procedures such as trying to ensure that the AGM doesn’t have control of its own proceedings.

Let us be clear. It is for the meeting itself to decide its own agenda. The Steering Committee can propose but it is for the meeting to dispose. For example previous practice is that people can be nominated for the SC from the floor.  There is no explanation why that is no longer acceptable and to try and slip it through in this way is nothing other than a sleight of hand.

The suggestion that ‘candidates for positions on the steering committee will be expected to demonstrate some ability to carry out some of them in a responsible and reliable fashion’ is an interesting one.  To whom are they expected to demonstrate these things?  The current SC?

The only thing that any candidate needs to do is to obtain the support of the meeting. My suggestion is that we revert back to the practice at the founding meeting that the SC is elected as a block of 12 or 18 and then allocates responsibilities.  The most obvious task is to once again ensure that BH Momentum is an active and democratic group.

An article I wrote in Brighton & Hove Independent at the time of the last coup attempt

The Agenda proposed is the height of unreality.  It is as if the world outside doesn’t exist.  We are in the midst of a major attempt ruling class attempt to remove the Corbyn leadership of the Labour Party. The SC doesn’t appear to have noticed. Tom Watson is on manoeuvres and unfortunately his partner-in-crime is none other than the unelected head of Momentum, Jon Lansman.

Tomorrow some of us are going up to a lobby of Labour’s Disputes Committee/NEC and taking the Momentum banner with us. Although the agenda makes no mention of the suspension of Chris Williamson at the behest of Tom Watson and Lansman, that is what will be on the agenda of the NEC. There is no mention of the witchhunting of a fine socialist MP by the right-wing of the PLP in conjunction with Momentum nationally.

On Wednesday we will have a hatchet job by Panorama about the fake anti-Semitism campaign. The programme will not, of course, examine the bogus nature of the allegations but it will focus on process alone and who lost what.

The only indication in the agenda that this is happening is a tangential mention of the fact that members expelled from Momentum, i.e. myself, will not be allowed in the AGM, even though the present Committee are aware that I was expelled by the same forces that are using the State, in the form of the Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC] to attack the Corbyn leadership.

I refer to the Jewish Labour Movement which is effectively the Israeli state inside the British Labour Party. Despite the fact that we last year criticised the democratic deficit in Momentum and hosted Chris Williamson the present SC is now intent on implementing the witchhunt locally. They have no mandate.

It is abundantly clear that there is a massive campaign nationally by the State to remove Corbyn. This is being undertaken in conjunction with the Right of the Labour Party. The SC is oblivious to all this.  As far as they are concerned socialism is confined to the municipal boundaries of Brighton and Hove. We are in the midst of a political crisis in the Tory Party over Brexit and the imminent election of Boris Johnson has made Corbyn’s removal even more urgent. 

The EHRC, which is not an anti-racist body, will almost certainly provide the fuel for a further attack on Corbyn.  Yet there is nothing whatsoever on the agenda about this or other matters. 

The proposed agenda is just that.  A proposal from those who have failed to organise any public meetings of Momentum in the past year.  Nothing on the witchhunt, nothing on Brexit, nothing on anything. It is as if the election of Brighton and Hove Council was the limit of their socialist ambitions.

Tony Greenstein (Steering Committee member 2016-2018)

Brighton and Hove Momentum AGM Agenda Tuesday July 16^th 7.30 Community Base

Brighton and Hove 'Many-festo' results

Many Momentum members were involved in Brighton & Hove Labour's 'Many-festo' consultation process. The findings and policy recommendations arising from that process can be found here, along with the published manifesto, as formulated by the outgoing Labour Group of councillors.

Brighton & Hove Momentum Member Survey

As Brighton & Hove Momentum looks forward and outward, we want to ensure that all members' voices are heard, not just the small number who attend and speak at Momentum meetings. Please take a few minutes to participate in our members' survey.

Brighton & Hove Momentum Annual General Meeting, 2019

As previously announced, this will take place at

7.30pm, Tuesday 16 July 2019

Community Base, 113 Queens Rd, Brighton BN1 3XG

Agenda

1. 7:30pm Steering committee statements, reports & announcements

2. 7:40pm Q&A with: Cllr Nancy Platts, Leader of Brighton & Hove City Council and Cllr Noah Tucker of Haringey Borough Council.

3. 8:30pm Elections for steering committee posts - please read carefully

The steering committee consists of the administrative officers (Secretary, Data Protection Administrator/joint secretary, Treasurer) plus a further six members. 

The officer positions carry with them specific legal duties of trust and confidentiality.

The other six positions have during the current session been defined by functional role. Many of these roles were inevitably sidelined by the successful campaign to select and elect Corbyn-supporting councillors.

Labour Party Liaison - this role has to a large degree been shared among active members of the steering committee on an ad-hoc basis. Trade union liaison has not occurred in any formal sense

External Liaison (vacant) - this role was intended to involve forming connections with other Momentum groups. This was not done.

Social Media (vacant) - in practice this role was shared among different members of the steering committee.

Political Education - in practice this role was subsumed in the campaigns role

Campaigns coordinator x 2 (1 vacant) - this role was carried out to a significant degree and needs to be a key focus in the next year

While the committee as a whole will still need to carry out these functions, and candidates for positions on the steering committee will be expected to demonstrate some ability to carry out some of them in a responsible and reliable fashion, the needs of the organisation are for an expanded campaigning capacity, and for the other named functions to be shared between members of the committee or co-optees to it. The exact recommendations for these positions will be dependent on the outcome of the member survey.

Procedure for candidates and elections

Candidates for steering committee positions must be members of the Labour party. This helps to ensure that Momentum remains, and is seen to remain, a legitimate group within the Labour party.

Candidates must be nominated, with their knowledge and assent, by a Momentum member. Nominations must be sent from the email address to which this email has been sent, to team@brightonhovemomentum.org to arrive by 8pm, Monday 15 July.

Nominated candidates should submit a statement in support of their candidacy, of no more than 200 words, also to  to team@brightonhovemomentum.org and also to arrive by 8pm, Monday 15 July. Statements in support of applications for officer posts should explain the candidate's capacity to carry out the administrative duties involved, and fitness for trusted office. Statements in support of applications for other positions on the steering committee should describe how the candidate can help reach out into the wider local community and become involved in local campaigns.

The steering committee will be subject to a gender representation requirement - at least four members must be female. In addition, ethnic minority members if applying in sufficient numbers will be expected to comprise at least 20% of the committee. Momentum's constitution also contains a commitment to youth representation, and it is vital that it connects with younger generations. Accordingly, and again subject to sufficient applications being received, the committee recommends that the committee consist of at least 50% members aged under 35.

4. General discussion 

Please send any topics or proposals you would like to see discussed to team@brightonhovemomentum.org by 8pm, Monday 15 July. If you have already sent a proposal to this address, there is no need to re-send it. 

Please note that like any other membership organisation, Brighton & Hove Momentum branch invites only members to the AGM. 

If you have received this email, you are recorded as a member of Momentum. If you know of anyone who believes they are a member but has not received the email, please ask them to contact us at team@brightonhovemomentum.org to check their membership status. Supporters who join Momentum in good time for the AGM will be able to attend: no-one therefore need be excluded unless expelled from Momentum.

We hope to see you on the 16th.

Momentum Local
http://momentum.nationbuilder.com/

Momentum is funded entirely by membership fees and donations from thousands of supporters across the UK.

How to Cure the Labour Party of anti-Semitism – Expel a few Jews!

Reflections on my Expulsion from the Labour Party

The Morning Star 20.2.18. Editorial

After spending a relaxing day in London yesterday before dining with a friend in the evening. I went for lunch with an old friend today before attending a public meeting of Brighton and Hove Momentum in the evening.  The meeting at the Friends Meeting House was packed and Chris Williamson, the Derbyshire MP had got out of a sick bed to attend.  Greg Hadfield (who had also got out of a sick bed!) and Becky Massey co-chaired the meeting and held it together very well.

George Galloway making the most obvious of points

Chris Williamson MP speaking

The speakers were all excellent from the newly elected councillor, Nancy Platts to Bob from the anti-HDV campaign in Haringey to Paul of Acorn Renters Group.  There were a number of speakers from the floor starting with Riad who had been ‘auto excluded’ from the Labour Party quite outrageously owing to a minor criminal conviction.  I spoke last of all from the floor about my recent expulsion to thunderous applause.  Whatever the right-wing cranks and misfits of the Right may spin, most people understand very well that if there were a real problem of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party then you don’t solve it by expelling Jewish anti-Zionists!  That was why last night Kemptown CLP passed overwhelmingly a motion supporting Greg Hadfield against his suspension.

Tonight's packed Brighton & Hove Momentum meeting at which Chris Williamson MP spoke - I was given a rapturous reception by those present

 I’m overwhelmed with peoples' kindness whether it is wanting to take me out for meals or just sending good wishes.  People seem to feel I deserve some compensation for my expulsion and the Labour Party’s anti-Semitic treatment of me.  Most decent people feel anger that the racists and hacks of Labour's officialdom, combined with the Zionists who dominate the hierarchy of the Labour Party have expelled a Jewish anti-fascist and anti-racist.  Even worse Jackie Walker, a Black-Jewish anti-racist and Marc Wadsworth, another Black anti-racist and anti-fascist are up for the chop.

Brighton Argus 20.2.18.

People also feel disgust with @EminaIbrahim who is supposed to be on the left who voted with the Right on the NCC to expel me.  She seemed to be absorbed by the Right without displaying any independence.

Asking the most obvious of questions - who leaked the expulsion verdict before it had been announced - the answer is Sam Matthews, the scumbag who heads Labour's Disputes Department

It is very kind but I need to get back into a routine!  However it was good to take time out after the ordeal of my expulsion meeting, which was tedious in the extreme, not least because it is difficult getting across political concepts to people who seem to take pride in being thick.  The amount of support I have received has been extremely gratifying even if sections of the press [Huff Post/Breitbart] have of course distorted what has happened.  The Morning Star had an excellent editorial today making the obvious point that it was inevitable that the false ‘anti-Semitism’ witch hunt would begin by expelling a Jew.

Of course there have been the usual malcontents and what John Prescott calls the bitterites on social media - the sinister Euan Philipps and Emma Picken of @labourAgainstAS who take pride in their attacks on anti-racists as 'anti-semites'.  LAS has all the hallmarks of a state driven operation intent on political destabilisation.  Not leaving out the super narcissist himself Gary Spedding who confesses to having broken down in tears at my expulsion (of joy poor thing).  See Greg Hadfield’s excellent article The Labour Party outsources its duty of care to betting billionaires — with help from Capita!

Despite a few racist trolls around @LabourAgainstAS most people recognise that the 'anti-semitism' witch-hunt is a racist witch-hunt

There has been a Twitter blizzard.  Fortunately, apart from the few sad cases like @Euan Philipps the non-Jewish head of the troll group Labour Against AntiSemitism, most people have got the message, which is:

1.             If you want to oppose anti-Semitism then expelling Jews isn’t a good way to go about it

2.             That the false ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign in the Labour Party is about Israel not Jews.

3.             That the pretext for my expulsion, abuse of Zios, is a one way street since the activities of Philipps and his trolls and the abuse they regularly engage in never merit the attention of McNicol.  Indeed there must be a strong suspicion that McNicol’s henchmen, Sam Matthews in particular, are up to their eyes in Labour’s dirty tricks.

4.             The nature of the disciplinary process itself

Zionist trolls thought they'd back up their usual accusations of 'anti-semitism' by forging the 'evidence' by engaging in artistic creativity and photoshopping my name onto an anti-semitic tweet

Zionism, Jews and Anti-Semitism

It is no accident that Jews have been one of the major targets of the ‘anti-Semitism campaign because it is integral to Zionism’s claim to be a national movement that it represents all Jews.  Those who don’t are called ‘self-haters’ the same term that the Nazis used against anti-fascist Germans, who literally hated their race and nation.

The irony of course is that it is Zionism, a vicious racial doctrine that had no problem in opposing the rescue of Jews in the War if their destination wasn’t Palestine, that has most in common with anti-Semitism.

How most people see my expulsion

As the Chairman of the Jewish Agency and the first Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion said just after Krystalnacht when the British Kindertransport program was being arranged and which would eventually save 10,000 German Jewish children:

If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel.’ [Ben Gurion at the Mapai Central Committee 7.12.38]

Zionism starts from the basis that Jews do not belong in the diaspora.  That their home is Israel.  Although most people are unaware of this Israel claims to be a state, not of its own citizens but of all Jews, its Jewish citizens included.  Its non-Jewish citizens are mere guests in someone else’s countries.

This is what Blairite MP Louise Ellman supports - apparently it is an offence to say that Ellman supports child abuse

It is this belief that Jews outside Israel are aliens in other peoples’ lands which is responsible for the alliance between Israel, Zionism and the anti-Semitic Right.  In the USA it is the magazine Breitbart, under its former CEO Steve Bannon which has distinguished itself by a mixture of White Supremacy, overt support for Zionism and vicious anti-feminism.

If Breitbart is the magazine of the alt-Right then the founder of this movement is Richard Spencer, an open neo-Nazi who has declared that he wants nothing more than to create in the USA a mirror image of Israel as an ethno nationalist state.  Just as Israel is based on one single ethnic group, the Jews, so Spencer wants to do the same in the USA with Whites.  Hence why Spencer calls himself a White Zionist.

The love affair in American between the far-Right and the Zionist movement led to Steve Bannon, Trump’s former Strategic Advisor, being a guest of honour at the Zionist Organisation of America’s annual dinner. See Bannon Addresses ZOA, Urges Jews to Join 'Insurgency' Against anti-Trump Republicans.  So alarming was this to many Jews that articles such as Naomi Zeveloff’s How Steve Bannon and Breitbart News Can Be Pro-Israel — and Anti-Semitic at the Same Time began appearing. Liberal Zionists who had been fed the nonsense about how it was opponents of Zionism who were anti-Semitic were wide eyed as the scales fell from their eyes.

Admiral Horthy Hungary's pro-Nazi wartime leader who Prime Minister Viktor Orban is now rehabilitating - Netanyahu's closest friend in Europe is the antisemitic leader of Hungary

In Europe Israel’s closes allies are the most anti-Semitic regimes such as Hungary and Poland.  A particularly awful example was when Netanyahu instructed the Israeli Ambassador in Hungary, shortly before his visit last July, to retract mild criticisms of the Prime Minister’s anti-Semitic campaign against George Soros.  Netanyahu also didn’t like Soros because he has funded Israeli human rights groups.  Orban portrayed Soros as the archetypal Jewish financier. What makes this even worse is that Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban was also in the middle of a campaign to rehabilitate Hungary’s pro-Nazi war-time leader Admiral Horthy, who had deported nearly ½m Hungary Jews to Auschwitz.

Yet no one who understands anything about Zionist relations with anti-Semitism should be at all surprised.  Historically Zionism has always welcomed anti-Semitism as a method of ‘helping’ Jews to emigrate to Palestine. 

As the founder of Political Zionism, Theodor Herzl wrote in his Diaries, at the time of the Dreyfuss Affair:

‘In Paris... I achieved a freer attitude towards anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognise the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism. [Diaries of Theodore Herzl, Gollancz, London 1958 p.6, May 1895]

That is why I have always emphasised that the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign in the Labour Party has nothing to do with anti-Semitism.  Anti-Semitism is marginal in the Labour Party.  In so far as a few people have made anti-Semitic comments, it is almost entirely a reaction to the claim that Israel’s war crimes are committed in the name of Jewish people.

Why the False ‘Anti-Semitism’ Campaign?

This is probably the easiest question to answer.  Why is there such a campaign?  Is there really anti-Semitism in the Labour Party?  The best answer is by Avi Shlaim, Professor of International Relations at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford:

‘Anti-Semitism is not a real phenomenon within the Labour Party or any of the other major political parties. There are anti-Semitic incidents but they are usually related to Israel’s behaviour, Israeli brutality.  So every time there is an Israeli attack on Gaza and there have been 3 in the last 7 years there is a rise in anti-Semitic episodes and incidents in Britain. Fundamentally Israel and the Israeli propaganda machine and Israel’s friends in England and the Israel lobby in Britain deliberately confuse or conflate, and I stress they do it deliberately, anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.  Anti-Semitism is hatred of the Jews as Jews.  Anti-Zionism is opposition to Israel as a colonial power and as an exclusive Jewish state.’

As long as Israel perpetrates war crimes against the Palestinians and as long as it claims to do this in the name of all Jewish people, so long will there be, low level anti-Semitism.  The irony is that anti-Semitism today, except for the neo-Nazi variety which Zionism has no problem with, as in the USA, is a product of Israel and Zionism.  That is the irony.  The Jewish state is responsible for most of today’s anti-Semitism.

Personal Abuse

McNicol ignored this abuse by former  councillor Craig Turton and the support for Turton by the present head of Brighton Council, Warren Morgan

One of the key charges against me is of personal abuse of Zionists.  I pointed out to the Panel that no less than 4 times I had complained to Iain McNicol, Labour’s crooked General Secretary, about a post from the Leader of Brighton and Hove Council, Warren Morgan, in which another, former Labour councillor, Craig Turton, had called me a ‘poisonous piece of shit’ only to be told ‘’Thanks Craig, appreciate that.  Hope you are well.’ by Morgan.  All my complaints were ignored because only abuse by the Left is an offence in the Labour Party.  Abuse by the Right is tolerated if not encouraged and there is good reason to believe that senior Labour Party employees such as Sam Matthews are working hand-in-glove with the trolls of Labour Against Anti-Semitism.

Caroline 'Poison' Penn was waged a vendetta against the elected Secretary of Brighton & District Labour Party, Greg Hadfield, before Penn and Warren Morgan's lies got Greg suspended

Another local councillor who is to the forefront of the anti-Semitic witchhunt in Brighton is one Councillor ‘Poison’ Penn who launched a series of vicious tweets attacking Greg Hadfield, who was elected Secretary of Brighton and Hove District Labour Party.  Greg was and has been suspended for about 18 months as a result of the allegations of those like Penn and Morgan whose lies about spitting got the party suspended in the first place.  Hadfield's reward for having exposed the lies of the Right was to become suspended

Ms Penn who has close links to the troll group, Labour Against Anti-Semitism, also submitted during my legal battle with the Labour Party over Data Protection a false and dishonest statement suggesting I had harassed her.  Twice Penn complained to the Police and twice her complaints were rejected.  Her allegations that I had publicised personal information about her is a simple  lie but of course impressed the Judge.

Penn's perjured email to the County Court, secured by the Labour Party, in order to provide false evidence that she was at risk if her identity was revealed.

 The inherent unfairness of the disciplinary process

There is really no pretence that the disciplinary process in the Labour Party is fair and above board.  It is a weapon in the hands of the Right.  If anyone was in any doubt then the refusal of Iain McNicol to suspend Jeremy Newmark, the Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement who was alleged to have defrauded a Jewish charity out of tens of thousands of pounds proves this beyond doubt.  McNicol’s response was to call this a ‘private’ matter, ‘historic’ even.  Nothing about bringing the party into disrepute because that allegation so solely reserved for the Left.

As the Labour Party barrister Ogg accepted in his skeleton argument argument, all the charges related to after my suspension.  It therefore follows that my suspension was, in terms of Labour’s own constitution, unlawful.  It has no rational basis.  I was targeted by the Jewish Labour Movement and other Zionist groups in the Labour Party and suspended for absolutely no reason.  Having been targeted they then went about finding evidence.  That is why it took them 20 months before they had assembled a case.

Any party that claimed to be a democratic socialist one would have reinstated me automatically.  But in the Labour Party the disciplinary process is in the hands of the Right and in particular the Crooked General Secretary Iain McNicol and his equally crooked subaltern Sam Matthews.  For them the disciplinary process is nothing but a means with which to ensure that the Right holds on to control of the levers of power.  Disciplinary procedures, investigations etc. have been used as a factional instrument.

But that is why the Left should have no truck with the witch hunt.  It is a weapon against not for Corbyn.  He won’t buy time by playing along with the anti-Semitism witch hunt because its purpose is to be rid of him.  That is why the Zionist lobby can never be satisfied. However many victims are served up to them, they will always demand more.

It is in this context that the behaviour of the so-called ‘left’ representative, Emena Ibrahim, who is Vice-Chair of Momentum, on Labour’s National Constitutional Committee needs to be examined. It is outrageous that a senior officer of Momentum has gone along with this racist witch-hunt.

Tony Greenstein 

Tony Greenstein - Expelled for Opposing Zionism and the Israeli State – The Fight Goes On

Racists Celebrate as the Labour Right and the Zionists Gets Their First Victim

The day began brightly enough with a lively picket of the Metropole Hotel in Brighton as Labour’s National Constitutional Committee met to decide whether to expel me for my support of the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism.  It is of course appropriate that as someone who is Jewish that I should be one of the major casualties of the false anti-Semitism witchhunt.  The allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party have nothing to do with anti-Semitism and everything to do with opposition to the racist creed of Zionism and support for the Palestinians.

My thanks to Debbie Hobson from Grassroots Black Left for being my silent witness.  Thanks also to Marc Wadsworth, another of those victimised and suspended by the Labour Party for opposing racism and to all those in Brighton and Hove Momentum and comrades for turning out.  Even Simon Cobbs of Sussex Friends of Israel, in a unique and comradely gesture, turned out to give his support, however fleetingly, to me.  

I was suspended nearly 2 years ago for comments I was alleged to make.  The Skeleton argument argument of the NEC’s barrister, one Mr Ogg, admitted that all the charges related to events that took place after I had been suspended.  In other words I was originally suspended without just cause yet despite this the NCC saw no problem in continuing.  Why?  Because as part of its Guidelines, Appendix 6D to the Rules of the Labour Party (which are actually not part of the rules!) stipulates that the NCC must ignore everything that happens prior to the issuing of charges.  This is the ‘turning a blind eye’ clause.  It states that:

The NCC is entitled to (and will) act on the basis that the charges are properly brought before them and cannot become embroiled in dealing with complaints about the administration of any investigation leading to the charges. Any such complaint will therefore not be entertained by the NCC or panel thereof unless it is material or relevant to the consideration of the evidence to be used by the presenter in support of the charges.

This enables the NCC to ignore any injustice, breach of the rules, leaking to the press etc. that occurs.  Of course the NCC is also bound to act fairly under Chapter 1, Clause IX (4) of the Rules, which are part of the Labour Party constitution and also to modify the Guidelines as it sees fit but the NCC chooses to interpret its remit narrowly and against the interests of natural justice.  That was why I was forced to obtain an injunction against the Labour Party on December 7^th preventing them from holding a rushed hearing.

The charges which were brought, as the barrister for the Labour Party was at pains to point out, were not that I was anti-Semitic although of course the Zionists will pretend otherwise. My ‘crime’ in essence was the abuse of racists and Zionists (or Zios) in the Labour Party including that detestable supporter of Palestinian child abuse, Louise Ellman.

Ivor Caplin - war criminal and former Junior Defence Minister

A Mr Ogg, the Labour Party barrister gave a long 2 hour + speech which was the equivalent of watching paint dry.  My own speech was much shorter and to the point.  I made it clear that I regretted nothing.  I was accused of insinuating, when accusing the execrable MP for Liverpool Riverside, Louise Ellman of supporting the abuse of Palestinian children, that she therefore supported sexual abuse of those children.  Although this wasn’t directly true I made it clear in my submission that the abuse of Palestinian children was often sexual in nature and that Ellman had never spoken out against this treatment.  On the contrary she supported everything Israel did in the name of ‘security’.

The NCC under Maggie Cosins who chaired the hearing has repeatedly ignored the question of fairness, in my case trying to rush a hearing after a 20 month suspension.  The other 2 wing members of the NCC included a Gordon (?) Fairbrother of the Community Union.  As I pointed out this right-wing union was the only one to affiliate to Trades Union Friends of Israel.  So the verdict was no surprise.  Unfortunately Emina Ibrahim, who was elected as part of the Left, also supported the Right on the NCC and seems incapable of standing up to the Right by herself.

As I told the Committee when beginning my response, an old time friend, Graham Bash rang me this morning and said that he reckoned I had a 1% of chance of not being expelled to which I responded that the odds probably weren’t that high!  Ogg argued that I was not being expelled for my views but for abusing racists and right-wingers online.  However the bundle of papers prepared for the hearing demonstrated that this was a lie.  Statements such as ‘Israel is a settler colonial state’ were highlighted in an article dealing with the eviction of a Bedouin village Umm al-Hiran in Israel’s Negev.  Although dressed up in procedural terms, my expulsion was for my anti-Zionist politics. 

That is why the Southern organiser for the Jewish Labour Movement, junior war criminal and former Defence Minister Ivor Caplin welcomed my expulsion.  My expulsion and the proposed expulsion of Marc Wadsworth and Jackie Walker are nothing less than an attempt by the Right and the Zionists in the Party to purge the party of socialists and anti-imperialists.  The fight will go on for my reinstatement and the acquittal of both Mark and Jackie.  It is not we but the Jewish Labour Movement, the apologists for the deportation of African refugees from Israel for the ‘crime of being Black and not Jewish, who deserve to be expelled.

It is ironic that at the same time as I am expelled for anti-Zionism and anti-racism, Labour’s Crooked General Secretary McNicol has declared that the charges against the JLM’s former Chair Jeremy Newmark of having defrauded a Jewish charity of thousands of pounds are a ‘private’ matter. 

The right-wing Huff Post, the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish News and no doubt others will be celebrating as Labour’s witch-hunt continues even whilst they keep quiet about the Jeremy Newmark scandal.  The Daily Mirror has managed to outdo even Marcus Dysch of the Jewish Chronicle in the number of mistakes it has made. 

Tony Greenstein