Showing posts with label Cable Street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cable Street. Show all posts

12 January 2020

Open Letter to Rebecca Long-Bailey – Your acceptance of the Board of Deputies’s 10 Pledges means there is no real difference between you and Keir Starmer

Socialists, Anti-racists and Anti-imperialists Cannot Support a Candidate Who Supports Israeli Apartheid and Racial Supremacy in the name of opposing ‘anti-Semitism'

Dear Rebecca,
50 years ago, when I was 16, the first demonstration I took part in was against the visiting Springbok Rugby tour from South Africa. The demonstrations had been organised by Peter (now Lord) Hain.
Those who refused to support the Boycott of South Africa included the Wilson government. It seems we have come circle with your cuddling up to the Board of Deputies, who have supported every war and every attack against the Palestinians. Palestine is the South Africa of today.
In 1994 Apartheid officially ended as Nelson Mandela was elected President. Unfortunately Apartheid remains in Greater Israel where Jewish only settlements, linked by Jewish only roads, dominate.
In Israel where the far-Right reigns supreme, the structures of apartheid are just as real as in South Africa. 93% of Israeli land is off-limits to Israel’s Arab citizens who are confined to 2% of the land. In over 70 years not one single Israeli Palestinian town or village has been built in Israel despite a 10-fold increase in population.
The 10 Pledges that RBL has signed up to - all she needs is a pair of handcuffs
Zionist settler colonisation proceeds apace. One half of Israel’s Arab villages are ‘unrecognised’ i.e. liable to instant demolition. In January 2017 hundreds of Israeli Police invaded the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev evicting its residents. Their ‘crime’? They weren’t Jewish. In their place has been constructed the Jewish only town of Hiran. This is what the Board of Deputies ‘pledges’ is designed to defend and what you have signed up to.
In 2010 the Chief Rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu issued an edict forbidding Jews to rent or sell homes to Arabs. Eliyahu is a paid official of Israel. When this racist edict was criticised dozens of Israeli rabbis supported it. That too is what the pledges are about.
I could give you dozens of similar examples. In 2011 the Reception Committee Law was passed allowing hundreds of Jewish villages to exclude Israeli Arabs. The passing of the Jewish Nation State Law in 2018 defining Israel as a Jewish state meant, in the words of Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel is ‘not a state of all its citizens’.
This is why veterans of the struggle in South Africa have declared that Israeli Apartheid is even worse than it was in South Africa, especially in the West Bank where there is a strict regime of pass controls, state violence and land theft.
In the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, ‘Their [Palestinian] humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government." That is why Tutu supports the BDS campaign.  Mandla Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela was even more forthright:
Like Madiba and Desmond Tutu before me, I see the eerie similarities between Israel’s racial laws and policies towards Palestinians, and the architecture of apartheid in South Africa. We South Africans know apartheid when we see it. In fact... in some respects, Israel’s regime of oppression is even worse.
This is the purpose of the Board of Deputies pledges. It is what lay behind the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign for the last 4 years which ended with Jeremy Corbyn himself being accused of ‘anti-Semitism’.
This was the Board of Deputies warning when genuine anti-Semites were around - keep away, do nothing
The Board of Deputies, have never fought anti-Semitism. My father, like Jeremy’s mother, took part in the 1936 Battle of Cable Street against Moseley’s British Union of Fascists. The Board of Deputies told him and other Jews to stay at home.
The BOD repeated the same trick in the 1970’s. When the Anti-Nazi League was confronting the National Front, the BOD attacked it with ‘all the fervour of a kamikaze pilot’ according to the Searchlight anti-fascist magazine.
The 500+ word IHRA ‘definition’ that you support is not even a definition. In the words of Stephen Sedley, a Jewish former Court of Appeal Judge, it is ‘open ended’. Its only purpose is to portray opposition to Zionism as ‘anti-Semitic’. That is why 7 of its 11 illustrations of ‘anti-Semitism’ relate to Israel not Jews.
Why should you need a definition of anti-Semitism unless it is to close down free speech? My dad did not need a definition of anti-Semitism to oppose it. Anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews not support of Palestinians or opposition to Apartheid.
Not one word of condemnation of Israel for shooting at unarmed demonstrators including children - this is the real agenda of the Board of Deputies
Even American academic Kenneth Stern, who drafted the IHRA, has testified that it ‘chills’ free speech. I suggest you read Stern’s article in The Guardian I drafted the definition of antisemitism. Rightwing Jews are weaponizing it.’ Even Donald Trump has just issued an Executive Order on Anti-Semitism incorporating the IHRA. This is the man who called neo-Nazis ‘fine people’!
It is no accident that anti-Semites such as Trump, Johnson, and Hungary’s Viktor Orban love the IHRA. The IHRA redefines opposition to the United States’s watchdog in the Middle East as ‘anti-Semitism’.
The least one can expect of a candidate for Leader of the Labour Party is an unequivocal commitment to free speech. Your willingness to bow to the demands of the Zionist lobby, the people who defend bombing UN schools with white phosphorous, renders you unfit to become Leader.
The Board of Deputies concern about 'antisemitism' doesn't extend to the civilian victims of Israeli sniper fire
The Board of Deputies is NOT the representative of British Jews. It is a pro-Israel advocacy group. It represents 30% at best of British Jews. This is the same Board which supported Israel’s use of snipers against unarmed demonstrators in Gaza killing to date over 70 children.
The demand that you only talk to the most reactionary section of the Jewish population in this country is outrageous.
The first victims of the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign were Jewish. Both Jackie Walker and myself were expelled. Others were suspended. Just as White opponents of Apartheid in South Africa were vilified by other Whites so too are Jewish opponents of Zionism. It is a pity that you are unable to muster the courage to tell supporters of Israeli Apartheid where to go.
When it comes to a genuine racist who uses terms such as 'banana smiles' and 'pikeys' then the Board of Deputies welcomes them warmly
If the Board of Deputies were seriously concerned about anti-Semitism then instead of profusely welcoming Boris Johnson as Prime Minister (‘We have had a long and positive relationship with Mr Johnson’) they would have queried his comments in 72 Virgins about Jews controlling the media, as well as other racist comments. Johnson described a Jewish character as an unethical businessman with a large nose, who exploits immigrant workers and black women’. The Mogg described opponents of Brexit as ‘illuminati’ a term beloved of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.
I am not concerned at your pathetic attempts to portray yourself, a prosperous solicitor living in a posh part of Salford, as someone who is working class. No one is fooled bar you.
What is concerning is that you don’t seem to have an anti-racist bone in your body. You are oblivious to what imperialism means at a time when the United States is on the warpath. You are seemingly unaware of the fact that Trump, fresh from telling 4 Black Congresswomen to go home then accuses them of being ‘anti-Semites’ and ‘haters of Israel’ (at least he is honest enough not to make a distinction).
In view of your decision to get into bed with the most right-wing, racist section of British Jews, whilst having nothing to say about genuine racism in British society such as the Windrush Scandal, there seems no reason why socialists should support you.
What first alerted me to your lack of principle was when you told the Jewish Labour Movement, which is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation, (it has a land theft division), that you ‘did not know how he had not already been expelled’ referring to Chris Williamson and said that if you could you would have signed Tom Watson’s petition to have him (unlawfully) resuspended.
Socialism is about solidarity. It is about defending the oppressed not the oppressor. Chris Williamson refused to bow to a baying mob of right-wing Labour backbenchers. Unfortunately you ran for cover.
Our experience of fake left candidates like Kinnock is that they can be worse than honest right-wingers. You may be the candidate of Jon Lansman but you are no socialist.

I’ll leave you with one thought.  If Jews in Britain experienced even a fraction of the discrimination that Palestinians do in Israel then they would indeed have cause to cry ‘anti-Semitism’. As it is they don’t.
In solidarity,
Tony Greenstein

7 May 2018

The Incremental Coup – How the Labour Right Successfully used ‘anti-Semitism’ to attack Corbyn

Lansman’s Momentum Hoists the White Flag and Surrenders to Chuka Ummuna’s narrative




When the General Election was called last year I was one of the few people to predict that Corbyn might achieve a hung parliament.  This at a time when the Tories were ahead by up to 24% in the polls. On 20th April I posted a blog Labour Can Win if Corbyn is Bold.  On 3rd June I followed this up with Is Labour on the threshold of victory? the subtitle of which read ‘No one has been more disappointed with the success of Labour’s campaign than the Labour Right and Zionist Jewish Labour Movement.’
In view of my successful prediction of Corbyn's victory at the election, I wrote to Kath Viner, Editor of the Guardian, saying that I would replace both Nick Cohen and Owen Jones for half the salary - amazing as it seems she rejected this offer. 

This was at a time when the Observer’s sage Nick Cohen wrote ‘Will there be 150, 125, 100 Labour MPs by the end of the flaying? My advice is to think of a number then halve it.’  Don’t tell me you weren’t warned about Corbyn
Corbyn doesn't realise that however a 'militant' opponent of antisemitism he is he will not be acceptable to the Zionists because their real concern is defence of Israel not antisemitism
I will therefore make another prediction.  The revitalised ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign we have seen in the past 6 weeks, is just the beginning. It is a weapon of mass expulsions. As long as Corbyn accepts that there are ‘pockets of anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party, then he will be at the perpetual mercy of those whose real goal is his removal. Until Corbyn is gone the ‘anti-Semitism’ crisis will not abate.

It is important to understand that there is nothing that Corbyn can do to satisfy his accusers.  Every tweet, every blogpost will be ‘proof’ of anti-Semitism.  As long as Israel commits its war crimes in the name of the Jewish people so long will there be people who are fooled by this and use anti-Semitic terminology.  They are wrong to do so but the blame lies with the apologists for Israel’s war crimes. The only answer to this campaign is to stand up to it, to rebut its assumptions and to declare openly that Labour is opposed to an Apartheid State of Israel.
Chuka Ummuna and the Labour Right set out to damage Labour's prospects in the local elections.  There is no doubt that they had some success, not least in London. It is understandable that people want to spin the local election results but we should admit that they weren't as good as they could have been.

Jewish Labour Movement Campaigns Officer and ex-Councillor Adam Langlaben, this racist Zionist was defeated when he convinced his electorate that he and his fellow Zionists were antisemitic!!  He went down to defeat in West Hendon
Langleben toured the TV studios with his message that 'antisemitism' had defeated - strangely enough no other defeated councillor was offered the same facilities - media bias?  perish the thought
Ironically the Labour Right's greatest success was in Barnet, where Labour failed to take control of the Council on a small swing. Labour's Zionist councillors, in particular the Jewish Labour Movement’s [JLM] Campaigns Officer Adam Langleben and friends in West Hendon succeeded in convincing the electorate that Labour was ‘anti-Semitic’.  The result was they lost! In a classic display of Chutzpah Langleben complained that voters had been put off by Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’!  Langleben it was who secretly filmed Jackie Walker at the ‘training’ session at Labour Party Conference 2016 which resulted in her suspension.

Unless Corbyn begins fighting back against the Israel’s supporters and the Zionist lobby he will never become Prime Minister.  It is worse than useless, when Labour is accused of being ‘riddled’ with anti-Semitism to say that he is a militant opponent of it. He and Israel’s apologists are talking about two different things. Corbyn means hatred of Jews when he talks about anti-Semitism.  Jonathan Arkush and the Zionists mean hatred of Israeli Apartheid and Zionism. That is why, after their recent talks, Arkush expressed his dissatisfaction because Corbyn couldn’t agree to his simple requests.

The Zionists wanted ‘a swift resolution of party disciplinary cases such as that of Ken Livingstone and Labour adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.’  None of these things have anything to do with anti-Semitism.

Jess Phillips - one of the lynch mob that accompanied liar Ruth Smeeth MP to Marc Wadsworth's hearing
Livingstone stated that Hitler supported Zionism.  Whether he was right or wrong is immaterial. The fact is that he spoke about Zionism not Jews or Judaism.  Unless you believe that Jews and Zionism are synonymous then the attack on Ken makes no sense and if you do believe that Jews and Zionism are the same thing then what you are saying is that anti-Semitism equals anti-Zionism, which is in itself an anti-Semitic statement!

This simple piece of logic entirely has entirely escaped Corbyn and his advisers.  The demand that Jackie Walker, a Black-Jew be expelled is obviously on account of her anti-Zionism. Even stranger is their demand for the full IHRA definition of anti-Semitism when there is a very simple 21 word definition of anti-Semitism from an academic expert on anti-Semitism, Dr Brian Klug:

antisemitism is a form of hostility to Jews as Jews, where Jews are perceived as something other than what they are.

The full IHRA definition, including 11 examples, comes to 450 words.  Why?  Because it takes that many words to conflate anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism!  Thus anyone who says the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign isn’t about Israel and Zionism is either a liar, a fool or both. 

Sir Stephen Sedley, a Jewish former Court of Appeal Judge wrote that

‘the IHRA definition offers encouragement to pro-Israel militants whose targets for abuse and disruption in London have recently included the leading American scholar and critic of Israel Richard Falk’

Sedley described how the definition

‘gives respectability and encouragement to forms of intolerance which are themselves contrary to law, and higher education institutions in particular need to be aware of this.’

If we don’t learn the lessons of what happened in the past 6 weeks then we should not be surprised at the consequences which are Corbyn’s removal.
Ever since Corbyn was elected as Labour leader in September 2015, the Right has made it clear that he is unacceptable at any price and in any form.  This should not be a surprise. The Labour Rights is devoted to the ‘special relationship with the US. The US spends hundreds of millions of dollars on the CIA and its Intelligence agencies.   Their purpose is to keep the world safe for US interests.  You can imagine their shock when one of Britain’s leading left-wing politicians, anti-NATO, anti-Trident, anti-US invasion of Iraq and bombing in the Middle East was elected as leader of Britain’s second largest party. 

The idea that the CIA and and related agencies, in co‑ordination with their Israeli allies, would do nothing is absurd. The CIA are not paid hundreds of millions of dollars for nothing. Our own MI6 have a Domestic Subversion section.  Have people forgotten how the Police sent officers into environmental groups and even had children with female activists?  This is the deep state.

Ruth Smeeth - an agent of influence
There is no doubt that the campaign about ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party originates is a state sponsored campaign dirty tricks programme placed in friendly newspapers like the Daily Mail and the Guardian.  Jonathan Freedland has been particularly assiduous in spreading this state sponsored propaganda. We know for a fact that Ruth Smeeth is a US asset because Wikileaks got hold of US cables.

The demonstration in the summer of 2016 called by Momentum to defend Corbyn against an attempted coup this time Momentum or rather Lansman chose to be absent as Corbyn came under attack from Israel's supporters
At first the Labour Right were inclined to challenge Corbyn head on. There was Hilary Benn’s treachery with the staged resignations from the Shadow Cabinet in Summer 2016 and then the challenge from Angela Eagle and then Owen Smith.  Momentum rose to the occasion, with a demonstration on College Green outside the House of Commons as 172 Labour MPs, treated to the soaring rhetoric of the Welsh Windbag Neil Kinnock tried, in Dianne Abbot’s words, to ‘break the man’.  I went up with my son Tom, a young Corbynite and the atmosphere was heady.

The Zionist Demonstration - Harry Markham, a Jewish fascist is in the bottom right with the hat

Friends of the fascists Jonathan Hoffman and Harry Markham (in hat and bottom  right) are also against 'antisemitism'

Jonathan Hoffman (left) with Paul Besser, former Intelligence Officer of Britain First and Gemma Sheridan of the Jewish Defence League is in between them
Contrast this with today and the reactionary ‘Enough is enough’ demonstration under the auspices of the Board of Deputies. This is an openly Zionist organisation led by right-wing Tory Jonathan Arkush who welcomed Donald Trump and the anti-Semitic alt-Right to power in America. This despite the fact that Trump’s campaign employed anti-Semitic stereotypes and themes, see Anti-Semitism is no longer an undertone of Trump’s campaign. It’s the melody
At the Battle of Cable Street as Jewish workers confronted the fascists the Zionists and the Board of Deputies told Jews to stay indoors and keep their heads down
This was billed as an ‘anti-racist’ demonstration but it is must be the first time that the sectarian homophobic bigots of the Democratic Unions Party attended such a demonstration! Not only the DUP but that well known anti-racist Norman Tebbit, Michael Foot’s semi-house trained polecat’ was also in attendance.  It is fortunate that didn’t devise a Jewish version of his notorious ‘cricket test’  (Asians who supported the Indian/Pakistani cricket teams were held not to really be British). It was the first anti-racist demonstration that the Board has organised. In 1936 when the British Union of Fascists tried to march through the Jewish East End of London, the Board vociferously opposed any counter demonstration.  Stay inside they advised and ignore the anti-Semites. Thousands of Jewish demonstrators ignored them and successfully stopped the fascists together with non-Jewish workers in the Battle of Cable Street.

The main chant at the Zionist demonstration, which included openly fascist Zionists such as Harry Markham and Jonathan Hoffman, was ‘Jeremy is a racist’. The demonstration was attended by numerous Tory and right-wing Labour Right MPs. Yet where was Momentum ? Completely absent. Jon Lansman’s refusal to mobilise any opposition to this anti-Corbyn demonstration was an act of treachery.

This demonstration was a reaction to the synthetic furore over a 6 year old mural, long erased, which Corbyn had defended on free speech grounds. It was claimed that it was anti-Semitic but on any objective viewing it depicted bankers not Jews, dining on the back of Black sweated labour. It was anti-banker not anti-Jewish and if you think bankers are all Jewish well you are anti-Semitic!

This mural was the pretext for the insertion into the election campaign of the false ‘anti-Semitism’ narrative. This was a weapon that had already been tried out even before Corbyn was elected when it was alleged he associated with holocaust deniers. It surfaced in January 2016 in the Oxford University Labour Club affair, which Asa Winstanley debunked. The most dedicated anti-racist Labour MP who was arrested outside the South Africa  High Commission in Trafalgar Square in the days of Apartheid was now being called a racist.
In the 2½  years since we have had a non-stop diet of ‘anti-Semitism’. It is no coincidence that nearly all the victims of this campaign have been Jewish, Black anti-racists – Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Cyril Chilson. It is obvious that the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign is not about anti-Semitism.

Jackie Walker was subject to what I described on 17th September 2016 to a political lynching even before the 2016 Labour Conference where she attended a secretly taped ‘training event’ run by the JLM. Shortly after Jackie was suspended for saying that groups other than Jews should be included in Holocaust Memorial Day and that she hadn’t come across a definition of anti-Semitism that she could work with. This was the cue for Lansman to remove Jackie as Momentum Vice-Chair. Shortly afterwards Jackie was suspended. Cyril, Marc and I have since been expelled. Having the JLM take a training session on antiracism was like Nick Griffin of the BNP lecturing on multi-culturalism!

The JLM is the ‘sister party’ of the Israeli Labour Party, an openly racist party that supports Netanyahu’s attempts to deport 40,000 Black African refugees from Israel because, in the words of Prime Minister Netanyahu they threaten Israel’s Jewish identity. [See The violent roots of Israel's Labor party]

The Zionists react angrily to any suggestion that their concerns about ‘anti-Semitism’ have anything to do with Israel. They complain that the ‘victim’ is being denied the right to define their own oppression (though Jewish anti-Zionists are never seen as victims). But when you read what they say it is clear that they are incapable of differentiating between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. In their Open Letter to Corbyn, Arkush and Goldstein stated that:

“Again and again, Jeremy Corbyn has sided with anti-Semites rather than Jews. At best, this derives from the far left’s obsessive hatred of Zionism, Zionists and Israel. At worst, it suggests a conspiratorial worldview in which mainstream Jewish communities are believed to be a hostile entity, a class enemy.”  (my emphasis)

They can’t help themselves. If there was any doubt about this then Arkush put it to bed when he described Jewdas, a group of Jewish anarchists, as a ‘source of virulent anti-Semitism’.

Lucianer Berger ex-headof Israeli dirty tricks PR group BICOM
That is why the decision of Corbyn to accept that Labour has an ‘anti-Semitism’ problem is so stupid and counter-productive.  What he is doing is accepting the bona fides of a campaign whose sole purpose is to get rid of him. When the whole of the right-wing press, the same press that attacks George Soros using the anti-Semitic stereotype of a ‘puppet master’, is adopting the ‘anti-Semitism’ narrative then it is absurd for Corbyn to throwaway his defences. 77% of Labour Party members refuse to accept that the Labour Party is full of anti-Semites.

What we saw in the election was a determined campaign by right-wing Labour MPs to use anti-Semitism as a weapon to attack Corbyn by damaging Labour’s chances in the local elections. When the Tories staged their debate on anti-Semitism in Parliament it gave the chance to Labour’s right-wing– Smeeth, Luciana Berger, John Mann – to attack their own leader. These creatures would prefer Labour to lose to the Tories than win under Corbyn. It is important to grasp this essential truth.
Most Black anti-racist activists see Chuka Ummuna as politically White

Chuka Ummuna has been waging a one man war against Corbyn over anti-Semitism. Here is an MP, who is nominally Black and yet has next to nothing to say about the Windrush scandal.  It is incredible.  Anti-Semitism is not a form of state racism, racism against Black people is.

Jewish people aren’t being hauled out of their beds and put on the next plane out of the country. Jews aren’t being denied hospital treatment or loss of benefits or being told to ‘go home’. Jews don’t face deaths in custody or synagogues being firebombed or worshippers run over outside the synagogue. These are the experience of Black and Muslim people. 

Anti-Semitism is largely confined to social media. No one has died from a tweet or a Facebook post. In the Independent less than two weeks before the elections, he wrote an article attacking Labour over ‘anti-Semitism’ whilst playing down the racism of the Windrush Affair which has seen Black citizens of this country for 70 years deported. 

Ummuna wrote that ‘We can’t attack the racism that may lie behind the Tories’ mistreatment of the Windrush generation when we don’t get our own house in order on hate’.  Note that  ‘racism may lie behind the Tories’ mistreatment’.  He isn’t even certain whether the ‘hostile environment’ policy of the Tories is racist and he describes denying cancer treatment to someone as ‘mistreatment’ rather than say racist abuse or attempted murder.

You couldn’t get much gentler but then Ummuna was among those Labour MPs who abstained, i.e. supported the Government’s 2014 Immigration Act.  Only 8 Labour MPs voted against this Act including Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbot.
John Mann- rent a mouth MP demonstrates that he is a  racist bigot whose concerns about antisemitism are entirely bogus
John Mann, the rent-a-mouth MP for Bassetlaw is a racist viper. In his speech in the ‘anti-Semitism’ debate he alleged that Momentum had something to do with his wife being sent a dead bird in 2012, three years before Momentum was even formed! This is an MP who produced a legal guide to Anti-Social Behaviour which has sections such as ‘‘loitering by youths’, ‘graffiti’, ‘neighbours from hell’, ‘alcohol’ – and ‘travellers’.

In the section on ‘Travellers’, there is a big, bold strapline “the Police have powers to remove any gypsies and travellers” (sic).  Mann’s concern with ‘anti-Semitism’ contrasts with virulent racism when it comes to the Roma, who were also victims of the Holocaust.
Lansman's Momentum is similar to the Mountain troll in Harry Potter's The Sorcerer's Stone - brawn without brain
Lansman’s Momentum resembles the Mountain Troll in Harry Potter’s The Sorcerer’s Stone.  It is 40,000 strong and yet politically it is ineffective and inarticulate.  In its statement on anti-Semitism, after having maintained radio silence for two weeks, it spoke of the numerous cases of antisemitism in the Labour Party’ as being the product of an ‘unconscious bias’. It went on to state that ‘accusations of antisemitism should not and cannot be dismissed simply as right wing smears nor as the result of conspiracies.’ 
Momentum, because of Lansman openly Zionist politics, has run up the white flag over the Right’s ‘anti-Semitism’ attack. When the main, left-wing Corbyn group accepts their bogus narrative then this demonstrates that the pro-Corbyn movement is politically weak.  

Momentum rode the crest of a wave at the last general election but this time it was different. The Right controlled the narrative and Corbyn was unable to break free. So when Momentum pushed hundreds of people into Wandsworth they didn’t get the massive swings they expected. Indeed they may have been counter-productive. Momentum has been seduced by the myths of its own achievements last June just as New Labour believed that its spin machine won it the 1997 General Election. 

Roma child in the hands of a Nazi soldier
It doesn't matter whether Momentum is 40,000 or 100,000 strong. Politically it is at the mercy of Lansman's caprices. Its lack of any democracy is crippling it.  It is incapable of responding to the attacks of the Right because its membership are disenfranchised.

We face a situation where 60+ Labour MPs, led by Mann, Ummuna, Smeeth and Berger are making it crystal clear that they will not, under any circumstances support  Corbyn for Prime Minister if he were in a position to form a government.  If these Red Tories are not removed then we can say goodbye to a Corbyn government.  The easiest way would be through the removal of the whip or reselection but Lansman is also opposed to this.
Not only do we need to reject the false anti-Semitism narrative but to oppose the witchhunt which is back to the proportions it was under McNicol. Jennie Formy is now presiding over the same undemocratic Compliance Unit.  Christine Shawcroft was stabbed in the back by Lansman and Corbyn. We need to build Labour Against the Witchhunt.

The false antisemitism campaign in the Labour Party has made people afraid of raising the issue and succeeded in stopping support for the Palestinians
The ‘anti-Semitism’ narrative is responsible for people being afraid to raise the question of Palestine and Zionism. The false anti-Semitism campaign is importing Israeli ‘democracy’ into the Labour Party and having a chilling effect on free speech.

Above all we need to say that the days of the Labour Friends of Israel and JLM are over.  What other party allows a foreign party to affiliate to it. We didn’t have a Labour Friends of South Africa during the days of Apartheid and we don’t need a Labour Friends of Israeli Apartheid either. The JLM should have their privileges as a socialist society removed.

Tony Greenstein