It was the Betrayal of Chris
Williamson by Corbyn, Formby and Lansman That Paved the Way to Starmer's Stasi
Lee Garratt, Thinkwell Books, 2021
The suspension and forcing out of Chris Williamson from the Labour Party was a watershed moment in the death of the Corbyn Project. Alone amongst Labour MPs, Chris understood that the Zionist 'anti-Semitism' campaign was not about anti-Semitism but the removal of Jeremy Corbyn from the leadership of the Labour Party. For anyone interested in how a popular Labour leader went from near victory in 2017 to humiliating defeat in 2019 this book is essential reading.
The
book opens with a quote from Nietzsche, that ‘there are no facts, only
interpretations.’ Why Lee Garratt opened with this post-modernist nonsense
is unclear but the Nakba of 1948 when ¾ million Palestinians were expelled is a
fact, regardless of the Zionist interpretation that they ran away. Likewise the
holocaust is a fact. I can only assume that it was included as a reference to the fake evidence that was used to 'prove' that the Labour Party was overrun by anti-Semitism.
Tommy
Sheridan, the former Scottish Socialist Party MSP, provides a foreword and makes
the point that the ‘creation of a
narrative during the last decade that casts (Corbyn, Livingstone and
Williamson) as anti-Semites underlines
the preposterous and perverse power of the billionaire-owned mainstream media.’
This is the basic political lesson that Formby, Corbyn and McDonnell forgot.
There
is a preface on the origins of the word ‘anti-Semitism’ and the question of
whether to hyphenate it. Garratt argues, in my view correctly, that to hyphenate
‘anti-Semitism’ is to forget the hidden intersections between Jews and Moslems and
the history of the term ‘semite’. It also reminds us of how anti-Jewish racism became racialised in the latter part of the 19th Century.
There follows an interesting discourse on the
definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ and the Zionists’ IHRA definition. Lee points to
one of the illustrations of ‘anti-Semitism’
‘accusing Jewish people of being more loyal to
Israel than the country they live in’.
arguing it is a fact that many Jews proudly declare that their first loyalty is to Israel. Indeed fundamental to Zionism
is the belief that Israel is the nation state of the Jews which therefore demands
their allegiance. This is a good example of how the Zionism and anti-Semitism coincide.
Unfortunately
the book has a potted history of anti-Semitism that accepts the Zionist myth of
an eternal 2,000 years of Jewish suffering. In fact Jews were both oppressors
and the oppressed. As Abram Leon wrote in The
Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation:
‘Zionism transposes modern anti-Semitism to
all of history and saves itself the trouble of studying the various forms of
anti-Semitism and their evolution.’[i]
Lee
Garratt also argues that the Israeli state itself has changed since 1948 when
it was ‘leavened with left, egalitarian
views e.g. the kibbutz movement.’ In fact the Kibbutzim were the pioneers
of Zionist apartheid. Arabs could not be members of a kibbutz. They were Jewish
only stockade and watchtower settlements.
When Chris Williamson was suspended, after his speech to Sheffield Momentum had been twisted and distorted to mean
its exact opposite, I wrote
that ‘The Suspension of Chris Williamson
MP is Shameful – This May Be the End of the Corbyn Project.’
The suspension of Williamson and
the refusal to support him when under attack by Tom Watson and the Right was perhaps
the most shameful aspect of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. More shameful even than
the suspension and expulsion of Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone
and myself.
It is to the discredit of John
McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Laura Pidcock, Dianne Abbot and the other members of the Socialist
Campaign Group that not only did they fail to offer any solidarity with Chris
but Pidcock told him not to come to SCG meetings anymore. Richard Burgon’s
excuse was ‘What can 10 MPs do against
100?’ It was an attitude of utter defeatism.
Ian Lavery as a former President of the
NUM knew better than anyone what the meaning of solidarity is yet he too failed
to utter a single word of support to Chris Williamson. The sole exception to this scabbing by the SCG being Laura Smith, the MP
for Crewe and Nantwich, who unfortunately lost her seat at the last
election. And ironically Fabian Hamilton, the Leeds NE MP who is
also a Zionist! (p. 67)
When Corbyn
was suspended the SCG ‘released
a few ambiguous, wishy-washy faux solidarity statements to the media.’ They
expressed regret at Corbyn’s suspension whilst at the same time wanting him to
issue another apology. Garratt is right when he says that:
‘it
has been these erstwhile supporters that have done the most damage to the left.
It is much easier to deal with one’s enemy when he or she is out in the open.
Right-wing bully boys such as Ian Austen can easily be seen for who they are
and their comments are taken as such. But when people like John McDonnell
express support, yet saddle it with further conditions, one would be better off
without that support in the first place; their crocodile tears and misplaced
concern serving only to give further credence to the lies and calumnies.’
Garratt gives as an example of the
complicity of the SCG in the witch-hunt, the attack by Alliance for Workers’
Liberty supporter Nadia Whittome MP on Nottingham East CLP for having the
temerity to discuss the EHRC report. One Jewish Zionist left the meeting after
having made false allegations against another member. Other Jewish members supported the motion. The Chair, Louise Regan,
quite rightly refused to rule the motion on the EHRC out of order. Instead of
supporting the democratic rights of CLPs, Whittome condemned them for not
obeying David Evan’s dictat. Ms Regan was suspended almost immediately.
Unfortunately the SCG has no procedure for suspending or expelling scab
members.
In the Kafkaesque atmosphere of the
Labour Party, merely challenging accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ ‘denialism’ is deemed proof of anti-Semitism. Just as in 17th century Salem,
denying that you were a witch was proof of being one.
What were the ‘crimes’ that Williamson was suspended for? There were two major offences:
1.
Chris’s speech to Sheffield Momentum of
23 February 2019.
2.
Booking a House of Commons committee
room for a showing of Jackie Walker’s film ‘The
Witchhunt’.
The first offence was a classic example
of how the words of people were twisted and mangled to serve the Zionist agenda. It is proof of the poisonous nature of the British press and British politics. It was an example of Orwellian Doublethink. War is Peace or in this
case Anti-racism = Racism and opposition to anti-Semitism = anti-Semitism.
After being suspended Chris was asked by
Labour’s Thought Police about what he had said in Sheffield:
During
this meeting did you say “The Party... is being demonised as a racist, bigoted
party... I think the Party’s response has been partly responsible... we’ve
backed off on too much, we’ve given too much ground, we’ve been too
apologetic?” (p.149)
If so please explain
what you meant when you said this.
Chris’s response was that this
‘selective and highly misleading
quote above is without context and appears to have been provided maliciously
and vexatiously... with the deliberate intention of my words being
misconstrued.’
What then were the actual words which
Chris had said?
‘We are not a racist party, are we? We’re not
an anti-Semitic party. We are the party that stood up to racism throughout our
entire history... It was Labour that was the backbone of the Anti-Nazi League
in the 1970s when we confronted the anti-Semites, the racists, the Islamaphobes
on the streets and we defeated those fascists, didn’t we? And now we – Jeremy,
me and others – are being accused of being bigots, of being anti-Semites. And it’s
almost as we’re living within the pages of Orwell’s 1984. You know the Party
that’s done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist,
bigoted party.
And I’ve got
to say I think our Party’s response has been partly responsible for that.
Because in my opinion...– we’ve backed off far too much, we’ve given too much
ground, we’ve been too apologetic. What have we got to apologise for? For being an anti-racist party? And we’ve
done more to actually address the scourge of anti-Semitism than any other
political party. And yet we are being traduced. And grassroots members are
being traduced.
Chris can certainly be criticised for
giving too rosy a picture of Labour’s record when it came to fighting racism
and fascism. It’s not true that the Labour Party mobilised for the Battle of
Cable Street. On the contrary members were dissuaded from going just as Jews
were urged by the Board of Deputies not to confront the fascists. It was the
Communist Party and the Independent Labour Party and Jewish workers
themselves who took the lead.
The record of the Labour Party from the
Kenya Asians Act in 1968 to the Blair government’s hostile environment policy
(Home Secretary Alan Johnson coined the phrase) was anything but anti-racist. Labour’s
record on support for imperialism, from India to Africa to Palestine, is a
shocking one.
There is nothing in what Chris Williamson said in his speech that was
remotely racist or anti-Semitic nor did it criticise the Labour Party for
fighting racism and anti-Semitism. What he was saying was that the Labour Party should have been done more to reject and rebut the false allegations of anti-Semitism.
Yet what was the reaction to Chris’s
speech? The Independent led
the mob: ‘Chris Williamson: Labour MP
filmed telling activists party is too 'apologetic' about antisemitism’. Matt
Greene, also of the Independent chimed
in with a particularly disgusting opinion piece: ‘Chris Williamson has given Labour the perfect opportunity to show it is
serious about tackling antisemitism’ which compared Chris’s failure to
apologise for Labour ‘anti-Semitism’ to the failure of the US Congress to
apologise for its ‘maltreatment’, in
fact extermination of the native Indians
or the failure of David Cameron to apologise for the Amritsar massacre when he
visited India in 2013.
There were no depths to which the press
wouldn’t sink in order to demonise Williamson. Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ was a
contested allegation. 70%
of Labour members believed it had been weaponised by the Zionists. A
belief that has been thoroughly vindicated by Keir Starmer who in his mission
to ‘root out the poison’ of
anti-Semitism has expelled and suspended 5 times as many Jews as non-Jews.
Greene’s comparison of Williamson’s
speech to the massacre of thousands of native Indians or the machine gunning of
a peaceful crowd, of whom at least 400 died, to
Labour ‘anti-Semitism’ where not one single ‘victim’ was identified, was obscene. But it was no more obscene than Nazia Parveen’s article
in the Guardian: ‘Chris Williamson: 'no place'
in Labour for MP embroiled in antisemitism row’.
Lapsley, a member of the Zionist Jewish
Labour Movement, was quoted as saying that 'There is no place for
Chris Williamson in my Labour party’ despite the article
pointing out that while he was leader of Derby Council ‘Williamson was
instrumental in setting up Holocaust Memorial Day events in the city, and he
also rescinded the medieval proscription of Jews living in Derby.’
MI5’s asset at the Guardian, Jonathan
Freedland, joined
in: ‘Labour doesn’t have zero
tolerance of antisemitism if Chris Williamson is an MP.’ In one continuous
litany of lies Freedland, knowing that his assertions on Labour ‘anti-Semitism’
lacked merit, began his contribution with a sarcastic
‘Credit to Chris Williamson for originality. Not many have
suggested that Labour’s chief problem with antisemitism within its ranks is
that it has been too apologetic to the Jewish community, that it has shown an
excess of concern and contrition.’
Freedland quoted that
well-known anti-racist Tom Watson ‘who
wasted no time in branding Williamson’s apology “long-winded” and “not good
enough”, adding that if it were up to him, he’d have removed the whip from
Williamson already.
This is the same Tom Watson whose reaction
to the decision of the High Court to remove racist MP Phil Woolas from the
House of Commons, after having fought an election designed
to ‘make the white folks angry’ was that ‘I’ve
lost sleep thinking about poor old Phil Woolas and his leaflets.’ And if
anyone is under any doubt that this was a one-off, Watson was the campaign
manager in the by election in 2004 in Birmingham Hodshrove when Labour issued
a leaflet with the slogan ‘Labour is on your side, the Lib Dems are on
the side of failed asylum seekers.'
Garratt documents the onslaught of the media,
especially the Guardian. On 9 July 2019 a letter from over 100 Jewish people to the Guardian protesting Williamson’s suspension was published. Immediately the Board of Deputies and Hope not Hate protested because
two of the signatories, although individual members of the Jewish Labour Movement and HnH were not writing on their behalf. The letter was ‘disappeared’ by the Guardian from the
Internet. But even in the age of the Internet you can’t ‘disappear’ the printed
word!
Owen Jones played a particularly disgusting role in the attack on
Williamson. He was the Guardian’s faux left columnist who, lacking all arguments, resorted to insults describing Chris as ‘king
of the cranks’ for having something Jones lacks – principles. Jones
joined the clamour against Corbyn writing that Jeremy
Corbyn says he’s staying. That’s not good enough a month before the
2017 General Election.
Garratt says that Jones had a ‘blind spot’ on the question of Labour
anti-Semitism. I disagree. It is part and parcel of his noxious identity
politics which promotes the most powerful and reactionary identities, Zionist
Jews against their victims, Palestinians. (p. 114)
Every racist and reactionary, inside and
outside the Labour Party, was clamouring for the expulsion of Chris Williamson.
Chris’s second offence was to book the
House of Commons to show Jackie Walker’s film Witchhunt which is a
sustained polemic against the anti-Semitism narrative.
The Witchhunt was
due to be shown by Jewish Voices for Labour at the 2018 Labour Party
conference. However this was prevented because of a bomb threat. Instead of
calling out this political terrorism by the Zionists Jennie Formby did their
work for them.
Instead
of defending the democratic right of an MP to organise the showing of a film that offended the Zionists or simply defending
the right of free speech, Formby sent an email to Williamson demanding that he
cancel the showing of the film ‘with a
heavy hint that if he didn’t, she would suspended him’
The Witchhunt was
a film produced by Jon Pullman, himself Jewish. It offered a different
perspective to that of the Board of Deputies, the Daily Mail, Jonathan
Freedland and John Mann. It would have been easy for Formby to defend the right
to show the film as a basic democratic right. Instead Formby, acting on behalf
of Corbyn and the Leader of Opposition Office, became the emissary of Apartheid Israel and its apologists. In Israel they administratively detain dissidents. In Britain they rely on ‘socialists’ to do
their dirty work. (pp. 61-62)
In
this one incident we see exactly where the Corbyn Project went wrong. Instead
of defending their supporters against the attacks of Zionists and Israel
apologists, Formby went out of her way to appease them. And a fat lot of good it did because when the
2019 General Election came they wheeled out the Chief Rabbi, the Board of
Deputies and all the rest of the Zionist cabal to damn Corbyn as the worst
thing since Adolf Hitler.
It
is regrettable that Chris initially apologised and even more regrettable that
once he was suspended he didn’t rebook the film, however he was under immense
pressure.
In Appendix 5 there is reprinted a copy
of the questions sent by the witchhunters to Chris. There were 4 questions
about the film:
i.
Did
you book a room in Parliament for 4th March 2019 to screen a film
entitled ‘Witch Hunt’?
ii.
Please
explain your understanding of the film
iii.
Please
explain why you booked a room in Parliament to screen this film.
iv.
Do
you have anything else you think the Party should know about this screening.
If I had been sent these questions my
answers would have been short and to the point. I would have asked Formby and the witchhunters why they had a problem with the screening of a film? What did they fear? Do they not believe any longer in democratic debate? Is the Labour Party a replica of the Israeli state? Did they never consider that the Zionists had something
to hide?
The shrill and raucous Ruth Smeeth MP, who lost Stoke
on Trent North at the 2019 General Election, whined that ‘Giving these people and Jackie Walker a platform at the home of
British democracy is a complete and utter disgrace.’ (p.62)
Smeeth, who was previously Director of Public
Affairs and Campaigns at the Britain Israel
Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) in November 2005 became CEO of Index on
Censorship in June 2020 after having lost her seat at the General Election. IoC should be called
Index for Censorship. The fact that
Formby and Corbyn backed up Smeeth, an utterly reactionary MP, who was an informer
for the US Embassy demonstrates the cowardice and lack of any political
perspective of these spineless reformists.
Smeeth
was defending an Israeli state that has ruled over 5 million Palestinians for
over half a century. There are two systems of law in the Occupied Territories –
one for Palestinians and another for Jewish settlers. That is the definition of
apartheid and that is what Corbyn and Formby were defending. We should bear
this in mind next time Corbyn speaks at a Palestine solidarity event or pushes
his Peace and Justice campaign.
There follows an amusing chapter on the
main Zionist ‘victim’ of anti-Semitism, Luciana Berger, the Blairite parachuted
into Liverpool Wavertree constituency in 2010 who
didn’t even know the name of the famous Liverpool football manager, Bill
Shankly. Despite the false allegations by Tom Watson et al that Berger was driven
by anti-Semitism out of the Labour Party, Garratt is right that
‘to this day,
there remains no evidence of any anti-Semitism directed at Berger from within the Liverpool Wavertree
constituency or from anyone with any serious
connections to the party.’ (p.37)
In a trenchant defence of Williamson Garratt points to the stench of hypocrisy emanating from Margaret
Hodge, who knowingly presided over the child abuse scandal at Islington Council. Hodge, a
tax-dodging millionairess who broke the Boycott of Apartheid South Africa,
compared herself to a victim of the Nazis declaring that she knew ‘what it felt like to be a Jew in Germany in
the 30s.’
If anyone else had compared themselves
to the Jewish victims of the Nazis they would have been labelled as
anti-Semitic.
The section on Gilad Atzmon, the anti-Semitic
jazz player, is badly researched. Despite quoting Atzmon as saying that ‘(We) must begin to take the accusation that
the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously’ Garratt says
that he merely ‘overreached’ himself and that
this was ‘merely clumsy writing’ ,arguing
that his subsequent substitution of ‘Zionists’ for ‘Jews’ worked in his favour
(in fact Atzmon was covering his tracks). Garratt argues that ‘whether this makes him an ‘anti-Semite’
is another matter. Well it does matter and Atzmon is an anti-Semite.
The use of scare quotes suggests that
Garratt disagrees. He is simply wrong and if anyone is in any doubt then I
refer them to my blog A
Guide to the Sayings of Gilad Atzmon, the anti-Semitic jazzman where we
learn that Jewish anti-Zionists are a fifth column
‘who
will convert (to Zionism) in the next anti-Semitic wave… who makes Zionism into
an eternal struggle for ‘Jewish salvation’.’
Atzmon has an
interesting backstory, having become alienated by what Israel was doing when he
fought in the 1982 Lebanon war. However Atzmon didn’t reject Zionism, rather he
internalised Zionism’s Jewish self-hatred and turned it into anti-Semitism.
This arose
because Islington Council had rejected a booking by Atzmon and the Blockheads
on the grounds of his anti-Semitism. Chris Williamson not knowing who Atzmon
was tweeted in support of a petition against the ban before deleting his tweet
minutes later. The Zionists made hay out of the affair.
The Zionists
harassed 3 venues into cancelling a meeting with Chris Williamson in Brighton - however People Power defied the attempts of the racists to close down free speech and we held the meeting, with 200 people in Regency
Square
However Chris
could have taken my position. I led the campaign against Atzmon with articles in
Weekly Worker such as Anti-Semitism
in anti-Zionist garb
and for the Guardian’s Comment is Free, The
Seamy Side of Solidarity At
all times we stressed that we were opposed to Atzmon’s anti-Semitism not his
jazz playing. He is a world renowned jazz player. I therefore took the decision
to sign the petition and I personally attended one of Atzmon’s gigs in Brighton!
Chris’s one regret was being pressurised
into apologising for his speech at the Sheffield meeting. It is understandable
that he did so in order to avoid disciplinary action but he made the situation
worse:
‘Typically,
later that evening, despite the assurances he felt he had received regarding
his apology and despite the agreement he had regarding cancelling the film,
Williamson was suspended anyway.’
When Len McLuskey and Corbyn claim that
Starmer ratted out on promises he made, that if Corbyn retracted his initial
statement responding to the EHRC report, he would be reinstated we should remember that Corbyn
showed the way.
The reaction to Chris Williamson’s
suspension from the grassroots of the Labour Party was overwhelmingly supportive.
What was Formby’s reaction? To declare that motions supporting Williamson were ‘not competent’. When it came to Corbyn’s
suspension the same device was used by David Evans but who paved the way if
not Jennie Formby? Even worse, when Chris was reinstated Formby bowed to a
petition from Tom Watson and 100 MPs to resuspend him. The cowardice of Formby
and LOTO knew no bounds.
When Chris went to the High Court to
obtain an injunction against the Labour Party he was successful. Anticipating
the High Court decision the party issued another suspension a few days before the
hearing and it was this which the judge refused to overturn.
Garratt shows how the press and the BBC unanimously
declared that ‘MP Chris Williamson
loses anti-Semitism appeal.’ The judge had ruled that the Labour Party’s
excuse for resuspending Chris was unlawful. This was confirmed this when he
awarded Chris 100% of his costs despite the Labour Party arguing that it should
recover 60%.
When Chris ran into Corbyn in parliament
he promised him that he would remain the Derby North MP. However this was a
lie. There was no such agreement.
It is no surprise, given Chris’s
prominence in the Labour anti-Semitism campaign that the EHRC
was preparing to name him as one of 6 individuals guilty of harassing Jewish
members of the Labour Party. In
fact a ‘swift and comprehensive legal
challenge’ ensured that Chris’s name was entirely expunged from the report.
In the end they scapegoated just 2 people – Ken Livingstone and Pam Bromley.
Garratt concludes his book by quoting from Norman Finkelstein:
‘Corbyn,
he did not only present a threat to Israel and Israel’s supporters, he posed a
threat to the whole British elite. Across the board, from The Guardian to the
Daily Mail they all joined in the new anti-Semitism campaign. Now that’s
unprecedented – the entire British elite, during this whole completely
contrived, fabricated, absurd and obscene assault on this alleged Labour
anti-Semitism, of which there is exactly zero evidence, zero.’ (p. 117)
This was, as Garratt says, a fabricated
smear campaign comparable to the McCarthyite witch-hunts in 1950s America. Chris’s
real ‘crime’ was in his own words being Corbyn’s
‘most outspoken supporter in the House of
Commons, which made me a target for disgruntled Labour MPs, mischief-making
bureaucrats and Zionists. Consequently, I expected trouble, but I never
anticipated how serious that trouble would turn out to be. I certainly did not
expect to be forced out of the party to which I had devoted my entire adult
life.’ (p. 126)
Chris is clearly right that
‘there
was never any recognition that the capitulation strategy was making matters
worse. Jeremy’s advisers seemed to have the collective memory of a goldfish
rather than drawing a line in the sand.’ (129)
The conclusion that Chris has drawn from
this is the ‘impossibility of turning the
Labour Party into a vehicle for socialism and anti-imperialism’ is one that
is currently being fiercely argued over.
This book, despite its flaws, is a welcome
and long overdue exercise in setting the record straight. Chris Williamson was
not a Jew baiter or an anti-Semite as the Zionists alleged. Jon Lansman and
Owen Jones, who propagated the ‘anti-Semitism’ slurs were in fact the grave
diggers of the Corbyn Project.
Chris Williamson will long be remembered
as a brave and principled Labour MP who was let down and betrayed by those who are
only in politics for what they can personally get out of it. All those SCG MPs, such
as Russell Lloyd-Moyle who lied to me about Chris Williamson, aren’t fit to
walk in his shadow.
Tony Greenstein
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