May Day 2021 – Brighton & Hove Trades Union Council Says Stop the Police Bill

 Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP for Brighton Kemptown Defies the Board of Deputies 10 Pledges & Speaks on the Same Platform as Expelled Labour Member, Tony Greenstein

UPDATE

Labour MP’s platform rally with Tony Greenstein &

Open Letter to Russell Lloyd-Moyle

For the first time in more years than I can remember, Brighton & Hove Trades Council organised a May Day demonstration. It was held at the Level. The theme of the demonstration was the Police, Crime & Sentencing Bill which will make illegal all demonstrations that cause a ‘nuisance’ or are in any way effective. It is a clear threat to the rights of workers You will be able to hold demonstrations in future only if they are ineffective. A telling commentary on capitalist democracy today.

Howard Beckett - Unite Left Candidate for General Secretary

The main speaker was Howard Beckett, the left’s candidate in the Unite General Secretary election. There were a host of other speakers including Mark Abel from UCU, Sue from the Campaign to Save Brighton University’s One World Nursery, Matt Webb, Secretary of the Trades Council, Lloyd-Russell Moyle MP for Brighton Kemptown, Steve from Save the NHS campaign and myself.

Tony Greenstein (left) and Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP speaking at Trades Council's anti-Police Bill rally

After the rally the Stop the Bill Campaign organised a march to Brighton Clocktower via the Police Station chanting ‘Sussex Police are not innocent’ amongst other slogans.

Sue speaking from the Campaign to Save the One World Nursery

Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who was sacked from Sir Starmer’s shadow cabinet has been extremely weak and wobbly on the Zionists’ fake anti-Semitism campaign. Indeed when I was suspended from the Labour Party in 2016, Brighton & Hove District Party voted to oppose my suspension.  Lloyd however, as Chair of the Party, wrote secretly to right-wing General Secretary Iain McNicoll urging that my expulsion be sped up. I obtained his correspondence from a Subject Access Request. Although Lloyd’s name had been redacted it was not difficult to work out the rat who wrote it!

When a Facebook post of Lloyd’s from 2009 was found saying:

“The point is people who are form Jewish descent/Jewish but are not Zionist is that the two are not automatic that you can be proud of being Jewish but realise that idea of inheriting/claim a land that you may have never visited or seen but have a ‘heritage’ claim for is not progressive in its very nature...

Terrorism feeds of violence, that is why it is only Israel that can stop the violence, it was the National Party in South Africa that had to make the first steps.”

All of these comments were true but instead of standing by them Moyle apologised and withdrew his comments saying that:

“I have now deleted these posts and recognise why they were offensive.”

The Jewish Chronicle quoted Moyle as saying that he would be contacting the Jewish Labour Movement for talks, adding:

“I am completely and unreservedly committed to supporting Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner’s pledge to rid the party of antisemitism.”

This has been typical of the cowardice of the Campaign Group ‘left’ which has consistently retreated on its support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism.

I therefore pointed out in my speech that the respected Human Rights Watch last week described Israel as guilty of the crime of Apartheid. This followed the declaration by Israel’s main human rights organisation B’Tselem in January that Israel was an apartheid state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan.

In an immediate response to HRW’s 231 page report, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which describes itself as the ‘voice of British Jews’ ‘condemned’ HRW’s report and defended Israeli Apartheid by pointing to a few token Arab ambassadors, judges and professors, as if this  somehow negates the demolition of Palestinian homes, the destruction of Palestinian villages, the segregated education sector and the refusal of Israel to vaccinate the 5 million Palestinians living under its military rule.

It was the Board of Deputies which accused the Labour Party of ‘anti-Semitism’. A campaign  which led to the overthrow and then suspension of Jeremy Corbyn and hundreds of expulsions and suspensions in the Labour Party including myself. It should be clear even to the most stupid member of Momentum or the Campaign Group of MPs that the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign was concerned about one thing only – Corbyn’s support for the Palestinians. It had nothing to do with anti-Semitism.

It is therefore to be welcomed that Lloyd defied the McCarthyist 10 Pledges (in fact Commandments) of the Zionist Board of Deputies.

When I spoke (see above) I recalled that the last time I spoke at a Stop the Police Bill demonstration I had only just been released from Birmingham’s Winson Green Prison where I had been remanded as a result of the arrest of 6 supporters of Palestine Action who had intended to redecorate Elbit’s Shenstone factory of death where engines are manufactured for their killer drones.

At today’s march I laid into the Labour Party which is led by someone who describes himself as a Zionist (i.e. racist) without qualification. Starmer had originally intended to abstain on the Police Bill as he had ordered Labour MPs to do on the Spy Cops Bill. This was in order to demonstrate that the Labour Party, now it was ‘under new management’ would be a responsible party and not challenge neo-liberal economics or imperialist foreign policy.

Speaker from Labour Party Black Socialists

It was therefore extremely welcome to see hundreds of people at the rally, not only older trade unionists but hundreds of younger people with a variety of posters and banners.

I also learnt from Sue who spoke from Save One World Nursery at Brighton University that their nursery is under threat of closure. I have a very personal interest in this.

44 years ago I led the campaign, as Vice President of Brighton Polytechnic Student Union, to establish a nursery at the Poly. In 1979 we were successful. Now the contribution of Brighton University's VC and Administration to women's equality and the provision of workplace based child care is to abolish the nursery on grounds of cost.

This outrageous decision should not be accepted. Please sign the petition and join the campaign.

Tony Greenstein

Solidarity is the Bread and Butter of Socialism – That’s Why I Called Out the Participation of Novara Media in a Celebration of Jewish Radicalism

An Injury to One is an Injury to All – Rivkah Brown’s Attack on Chris Williamson as a ‘Jew Baiter’ Causes Jewish Voice for Labour to Withdraw

It was two days ago that Becky Massey, an expelled comrade in Brighton & Hove Labour Left Alliance sent round a What’s App message about a meeting ‘A Celebration of Jewish Radicalism’ next Tuesday.

Such meetings are, of course, to be welcomed given that Starmer and his glove puppet Evans operate on the basis that the only Jews that matter are racists, Zionists and reactionaries like themselves. However the description of one of the speakers, Rivkah Brown of Novara Media as ‘radical’ is highly questionable.

Her attack on Chris Williamson as a ‘Jew baiter’ is outrageous. Despite being asked, numerous times, Rivkah has not provided a sliver of proof. If she knew anything about anti-Semitism or racism she would know that the term ‘Jew baiter’ is reserved for those few people who are not merely common and garden anti-Semites but pathological haters of Jews.

The JLM repaid Corbyn by voting no confidence in him!

Chris Williamson was someone that I and other Jewish people were happy to campaign for at the last election. There is nothing he has said that is at all anti-Semitic. This charge by the racist Zionist Board of Deputies is entirely without merit.

It is another example of how the Zionists, in order to defend the Apartheid State of Israel not only demonise their critics but drain all meaning out of the term anti-Semitism. That Rivkah Brown makes this charge, without even a sliver of proof, demonstrates that despite her alleged criticism of Israel as an apartheid state, she is borrowing her vocabulary from the Zionists she purports to oppose.

Given what Chris Williamson has been through and his demonisation at the hands of the right-wing of the Labour Party and the British press, the least he is entitled to is solidarity. The failure of Rivkah Brown and indeed the whole of the Novara Media group to extend any solidarity to Chris is shameful.

Peter Mandelson strangely enough has not been suspended for disagreeing with the EHRC Report Recommendation

It was solidarity or the lack of it from the British working class that led to the defeat of the Miners 35 years ago. It is the lack of solidarity among the Labour Left, epitomized by the role of Jon Lansman and Owen Jones in attacking Jewish socialists, which led to the crushing defeat at last December’s General Election.

There is no need to go into why the issue of ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party was always a confected and false narrative that bore no relationship to reality. For those who are interested in the details see my Open Letter to Members of Labour’s National Executive Committee.

When it came to genuine racism from the Labour's Right had no problems, it was just 'antisemitism'

Suffice to say that if the Left had stood up to the suspensions and expulsions from the very start then Jeremy Corbyn could be Prime Minister today. If the false narrative of ‘anti-Semitism’ from a right-wing that has been riddled with racism (including anti-Semitism) for decades had been called out at the start, then the anti-Corbyn campaign could have been halted in its tracks. Labour’s Right even failed to oppose the Immigration Act 2014 which introduced the ‘hostile environment policy which in turn led to the Windrush Scandal.

Let us remember that the fake ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign began with that well known anti-racist paper the Daily Mail, the paper which employed Katie Hopkins of ‘refugees are cockroaches’ fame.

'Antisemitism is a menace' is a cliche of Jones and his identity politics - Google how many times he uses it

However the poisonous legacy of identity politics, in which Jews are held to be oppressed just like Black and Muslims triumphed.  People like Lansman and Owen Jones counterposed White privileged Jews in British society to those who are really at the sharp end of racism.

Anti-Semitism must of course be fought, not with expulsions but by challenging it whenever it rears its ugly head. I have done so tonight with a racist on Twitter and have never failed to challenge holocaust denial but not because Jews are in any danger but because racism divides us and gives false solutions to the problems of capitalism.

There is no Jewish Windrush Scandal

But to pretend that Jews are oppressed or exploited in the same way as Black people in this society is a falsehood. There is no crime of driving whilst Jewish, Jews don’t face Stop and Search, economic discrimination, disproportionate imprisonment or the institutional racism of the Police force. Being Jewish in British society is not a disadvantage which is why even Boris Johnson professes a concern for ‘anti-Semitism’ (whilst being the author of a novel 72 Virgins which is anti-Semitic).

McDonnell never stopped appeasing the Zionists

If the Left of the Labour Party had shown resolve, if Corbyn hadn’t sulked and thrown his friends under the bus and instead addressed the false narrative, if John McDonnell hadn’t appeased the Right, if Jon Lansman hadn’t obsessed about ‘unconscious anti-Semitism’ and Owen Jones hadn’t been concerned to flatter his own ego then things might have been different. However we are where we are.

Floating in the shadows in the past few years has been an outfit called Novara Media. I was never very sure as to what they stood for or represented or indeed what they did. Aaron Bastani, their founder, addressed a Brighton Momentum meeting a couple of years ago and managed to say very little of relevance as far as I can recall but he didn’t attack Chris Williamson and Jackie Walker.

Ash Sarkar I had seen on television and I can remember she used to have a Twitter account which boast that she ‘fucked like a champion’ which struck me as somewhat odd as I wasn’t aware that fucking was now a regulated sport. I am told that this particular boast has now been taken down.

What I was unaware of, until Becky drew my attention to it, was the attack by Novara Media on Jackie Walker and Chris Williamson.  According to Rivkah Brown, of whom I had heard nothing until now, he was a ‘Jew baiter’. Ash Sarkar described Jackie Walker as a ‘crank’ and also supported removing the whip from Chris Williamson (alongside Ian Austin, Tom Watson et al). Aaron Bastani was all in favour of expelling Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker.

Clearly this was a Lansmanite style set up without a principle in sight. Ash Sarkar ventured that ‘characterising proceedings as a witch-hunt helps absolutely no one’ which rather begs the question, how would she characterise the expulsion and suspension of hundreds if not thousands of activists?  The mad hatter’s tea party?

I therefore wrote 2 days ago to leading members of Jewish Voices for Labour asking that they disown the meeting, which they were down as hosting, alongside Red Labour.

Well today I was told by JVL that they had indeed withdrawn their sponsorship of the meeting, although Naomi Wimborne-Iddrissi would be speaking in a personal capacity.

I also contacted some of the speakers, including Leon Rosselsson, Alexei Sayle, Andrew Feinstein and David Rosenberg to let them know who they were appearing besides.

The previously unknown Rivkah Brown attacks the one MP who stood up to those under attack

Only tonight I have learnt that Paddy O’Keefe, a long standing peace activist and who represents Equity on Brighton & Hove Trades Council has been suspended for the third time. Nearly all of the 24 pages of the allegations against Paddy relate to postings which predate his original suspension and reinstatement in Feb 2019. This is Starmer’s justice.  Someone should tell this ‘Racist without Qualification’ that there is a rule called double jeopardy. If someone has been reinstated after an investigation into a set of charges you can’t resuspend them on the basis of the same allegations!

Novara Media are the Establishment’s acceptable face of the Labour Left. We should make it clear that they are unacceptable to us as long as they feed the witchhunt of socialists.

Tony Greenstein