By Standing as an Independent Jeremy Corbyn Can Help Destroy the Warmongers and Neo-Liberals behind Liar Starmer

Labour is Dead as a Party Representing The Working Class and Oppressed

Ken Loach on Slippery Starmer

I had a personal and political reason for knowing that Starmer was lying when he stood as a Corbyn continuity candidate for the Labour leadership. That he should have jettisoned his 10 Pledges so quickly was no surprise whatsoever. That he should have called himself a Zionist ‘without qualification’ was also no surprise. Racism and Starmer go together like Laurel and Hardy.

On February 18^th, hours after I had been expelled, Starmer welcomed my expulsion with one word – ‘good’. A man of few words and even fewer ideas.

Keeping Starmer in his Shadow Cabinet, despite his personal responsibility for what has happened to Julian Assange, his proposal to gaol those guilty of over claiming benefits for 10 years (not tax dodgers of course) and his refusal to prosecute police murderers such as the killer of Ian Tomlinson, should have given him ample warning of Starmer’s Brutus like treachery.

Below is an article which I largely agree with, from Adam Johannes, a Welsh socialist. It is clear that despite the Tories self-imploding over the summer with Liz Truss’s 44 day leadership, the shortest in history, Starmer has failed to capitalise on it.

Thornberry attacks the Crown Prosecution Service under Starmer for its failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile

Sunak has now stabilised the Tory government and Starmer has nothing to say, hence his childish ad accusing him of not wanting to gaol child abusers when it was he who refused to prosecute Jimmy Savile. Starmer himself has never denied his part in the decision not to prosecute Savile.

Starmer represents the British state in all its ugliness and hypocrisy. He is, as I wrote, two months before he was elected leader, ‘the candidate that the Deep State & the British Establishment want you to vote for.’

For me the key was Starmer’s pivotal role in the persecution of Julian Assange, whose only crime was the revelation of American war crimes in the illegal Iraq War. Starmer also ensured that thousands of CPS files were destroyed.

Corbyn made many mistakes during his leadership but the key one was appeasing those who were out to destroy him. Instead of calling out Israel’s supporters in the Jewish Labour Movement he tried to work with them.

Corbyn failed to understand the nature of the attack on him and took these attacks as if they had been made in good faith. In particular he accepted the ‘anti-Semitism’ narrative.

As Asa Winstanley made clear, The Jewish Labour Movement had been refounded precisely in order to destroy Corbyn. Yet, as the Labour Leaked Report revealed (p. 306)

Jeremy Corbyn himself and members of his staff team requested to GLU that particular antisemitism cases be dealt with. In 2017 LOTO staff chased for action on high-profile antisemitism cases Ken Livingstone, Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth, stressing that these cases were of great concern to Jewish stakeholders and that resolving them was essential to “rebuilding trust between the Labour Party and the Jewish community”.

Well we were all expelled or forced out of the Labour Party yet was trust rebuilt? Yet instead of realising his mistake Corbyn went on trying to appease the Zionists. Chris Williamson, his most faithful supporter in Parliament was thrown to the wolves. Jennie Formby boasted about how many socialists she had expelled compared to Iain McNicol.

The crowning mistake was at the Labour Party Conference in 2018 when Corbyn opposed reselection. I spoke with Chris Williamson at the Labour Against the Witchhunt fringe meeting and I said to him after the meeting that by taking this decision, and persuading Len McLuskey of UNITE to oppose it, Corbyn had driven the final nail into the coffin of the Corbyn Project.

Tony Benn and Jon Lansman

In one sense Corbyn and Tony Benn before him represented the fatal weakness of the Labour Left. In Benn’s famous phrase an airplane needs two wings to fly. This is of course true but when it has two pilots determined to fly in different directions that is a disaster.

The Labour left had little or no imagination and could never imagine life without the pro-war, pro-capitalist Labour Right. In practice what this meant was that the Labour Left abandoned all hope of socialism and put its faith in minor reforms to capitalism. The history of the Labour Left is a history of retreat, ideological confusion and betrayal.

This has now reached its logical end point with a Socialist Campaign Group that has, to all intent and purposes, abandoned any criticism of Starmer or his policy of faithfully following every twist and turn of US foreign policy.

John McDonnell and the SCG support the United States’s proxy war in Ukraine. Just as McDonnell, perhaps the most pathetic of the leaders of the Labour left there has ever been, praising Starmer’s do nothing, see nothing, say nothing refusal to criticise Boris Johnson over the COVID pandemic.

However Corbyn can make amends. To paraphrase Shakespeare, nothing would become Corbyn so much as his leaving of the Labour Party to stand as a socialist independent. The question is whether he will take that step and lead the fight against Starmer and for a new socialist formation.

I agree with Adam Johannes.  Because Starmer has refused to oppose the Tories on economic affairs, civil liberties, racism or indeed anything substantive, the Labour Party today is by no means guaranteed to win the next election.

Dido Harding - only qualification was marriage to a Tory MP

The refusal of Starmer and Streeting to support striking workers, including the nurses and junior doctors is particularly shameful. ‘There is no money’ they repeat in Tory fashion. But there was £37 billion for a failed COVID test and trace system run by Dido Harding. of which there  is no trace other than to say it went to Tory cronies.

There were billions of pounds for a VIP channel for COVID contracts that even the High Court declared unlawful. It is capitalism that prefers to reward ruling class crooks rather than pay ordinary workers that is the problem and the problem with the Labour Left is that they have never opposed a market economy or capitalism.

Tony Greenstein

The Weakness of Starmer Labour and the tasks ahead

Adam Johannes

The latest opinion polls suggest that the days of a 20 point lead by Labour over the Tories are over and we could be heading for a hung parliament in the next election, which could even mean the prospect of another five years of Tory rule.

On the central faultline in British politics the cost-of-living crisis and the economy the Labour Party are not offering a sharp, clear alternative way of resolving the crisis by ending it, or any easily understood solutions to the ills that plague everyday life today: wages, benefits and pensions that don't match rising living costs, the housing crisis, crumbling public services etc.

Labour's plunge in the polls comes as we reach the end of round 1 of the national strike wave which offered the possibility of a national alternative narrative to the establishment on the economic crisis, but has dipped with the drive of the trade union bureaucracy for sectionalism and to settle for pay rises well below inflation, effectively a pay cut, and refusal to link individual disputes into a national programme to end the cost of living crisis.

A stronger, more political, movement of workers in the rank and file will be needed that can push for a winning strategy in the workplaces and articulate an alternative set of national policies to end the crisis, tied in with supporting campaigns against racism, climate breakdown and imperialist war etc.

The permanent dithering of Jeremy Corbyn over whether he will stand as an independent (let alone help build a left wing alternative to Labour) is also problematic, as such such an election campaign even though in one constituency would offer a possibility to give a national profile for an alternative set of national policies and exert pressure on Starmer's Labour from the left.

One of the weaknesses of the Corbyn Project was the beginnings of a sweeping economic programme separated from fighting social movements and militant trade unionism at the base of society, it was as though it could all be done from above. One of the side-effects of the collapse of Corbynism is the beginnings of a revival of social movements and militant trade unionism that often don't link the day-to-day battles with 'high politics' and a sweeping economic programme that challenges the system.

Meanwhile yesterday's canvassers for nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy now say that all we can do is burrow away at a very local level in our renters unions and workplaces in the hope that in some far flung future we will reach the cumulative strength to articulate a national alternative, politics doesn't progress by gradualness though, but by 'Leaps! Leaps! Leaps!'

The Enough is Enough campaign has also been a setback for the left. The unions involved CWU, RMT, UCU, as well as Tribune and Acorn, and Zarah Sultana should be held to account, you don't play sectarian games during a major economic crisis. Last summer as the cost-of-living crisis began to fight hundreds of thousands signed up to this sham organisation wanting to join a national mass organisation to fight back. It's main achievement has been to derail building a national movement around the cost-of-living crisis and a national community organisation to support the national strike wave, by pretending to fill the space and thereby stopping anything actually being built to occupy the space.

The coming election will probably be the ugliest on record fought out on so-called 'culture war' issues in a bidding war between Tories and Labour over who can be most in the gutter in cynically using the lives of minorities, migrants and marginalised groups, and the poor, for political gain, and Labour deploying right wing tropes around being tough on crime, rather than its causes.

This is a potentially combustible mix. With no strong national left wing voice, as bitterness rips though society over rising living costs coming on top of years of austerity and neoliberalism, all kinds of dark forces may be waiting in the wings.

The left must stand with the oppressed and the scapegoated, but simply remaining in that defensive space means essentially getting bogged down on a terrain decided by the right and where the right is strongest.

What is desperately needed is HOPE a sense of a national movement in political life on the offensive with a progressive economic programme that can unify our people and cut across various cultural divides in society.

Not only repairing years of damage to the fabric of society done by forty years of Thatcherism and individualism, but offering something collective for the common good that goes beyond the welfare state consensus of 1945-1975.

Zionism During the Holocaust – Brighton Book Launch & PSC South Africa Zoom Meeting, Wednesday March 15 and Thursday March 16

 Gary Lineker’s Crime was Comparing the Tories Refugee Policies to the Nazis – We Must Compare, Compare and Compare Again

On Wednesday March 15 at 7.30 pm I will be holding the Brighton Book Launch for Zionism During the Holocaust. This will be the first physical meeting around my book that I’ve held in Britain.

On Thursday March 16^th at 5 pm British time there will be a Zoom meeting where I will be speaking with others at a PSC South Africa. Please do register.

You are invited to a Zoom webinar.
When: Mar 16, 2023 07:00 PM Johannesburg
Topic: Zionism During the Holocaust
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://tinyurl.com/3sf9dyxc

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
https://www.facebook.com/palestinesouthafrica

South Africa PSC was formed as part of an initiative for the (World Conference Against Racism) in 2000 as a secular initiative to promote the Palestinian cause in South Africa and to lead an international anti-apartheid movement against Apartheid Israel. The aims of PSC-SA include the establishment of a secular democratic state in Palestine.

When Gary Lineker spoke out against Cruella Braverman’s attack on refugees, what angered his opponents was the comparison between Cruella’s policies and those of Nazi Germany. For the ruling class and Zionists the Nazis represent a holocaust divorced from history. The holocaust began in June 1941 and Lineker referred to the 30s yet these ignoramuses tied everything into Auschwitz.

From 1933 to June 1941 the policy of Hitler was not extermination but expulsion of the Jews. The ruling class and the Mail forgets that large sections of the ruling class supported Hitler’s anti-Semitism .

In Nazi Youth in Control [Daily News 4.9.33] Lord Rothermere, the owner of the Daily Mail wrote that

‘Of all the historic changes in our time, the transformation of Germany under Hitler has been the swiftest, most complete…’

'There has been a sudden expansion of their national spirit like that which took place in England under Queen Elizabeth. Youth has taken command. On a visit, which I am paying to Northern Germany I find-, the signs of the new Hitler spirit as manifest in the most out of-the-way villages as in the largest cities.'

Like most bourgeois apologists for Hitler Rothermere considered the reports about Nazi brutality were irrelevant.

‘They have started a clamorous campaign of denunciation against what they call 'Nazi atrocities,' which, as anyone who visits Germany quickly discovers for him self, consists merely of a few isolated acts of violence.’

It was merely

‘The administration of a few doses of castor oil to Communist adversaries.’

For Rothermere the concentration camps of Sachsenhausen and Dachau did not exist. Support for Hitler extended deep into the Tory Party but today anyone who points this out or the comparison between   the demonisation of refugees and Hitler’s demonisation of the other, including Jews, is beyond the pale.

Lady Nugent (Emily Thornberry)

Emily Thornberry attacked Lineker saying that

Some of the language Gary Lineker has used in the last 24 hours has been really very unfortunate… I just think there is a special place in hell and for the Holocaust and I don’t think you should be making comparisons… I think he went too far but what the BBC does about it is frankly not my business…. It’ll be up to them if they want to do anything about it.

Yvette Cooper also preferred to attack Lineker than the Tories.

Asked whether she supported what Lineker had said Cooper stated:

‘No I don’t. No I don’t. That was wrong. I think he was wrong to say that.’

Asked to elaborate Cooper said

‘I just don’t think you should make comparisons with the 1930s… I just don’t think you should make those sorts of comparisons.’

Asked if he should be sacked Cooper responded that it was ‘a matter for the BBC.’

Contrary to Cooper and Lady Nugent aka Emily Thornberry we should compare, compare and compare again. When Israel uses the holocaust to justify ethnic cleansing and pogroms we should point out that the Nazis also started with ethnic cleansing and pogroms before moving on to extermination.

Hitler’s sterilisation and murder of the Disabled were modelled on similar laws in the United States, Sweden and elsewhere.

Of course Zionists hate comparisons with the Nazis but they are more than happy to make such comparisons themselves.

Former Israeli Foreign Secretary, Abba Eban when arguing against withdrawal from the Occupied Territories, referred to the 48 armistice lines as ‘the Auschwitz borders.’ Norman Podhoretz of the American Jewish Committee paper Commentary, accused Jewish critics of the Lebanese War of granting Hitler a ‘posthumous victory’ Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai threatened to give ‘Gaza a taste of the 'shoah’. Menachem Begin portrayed ‘Arafat in Beirut as Hitler in his bunker in Berlin’ as a reason for bombing Beirut.

In Israel every enemy is a reincarnation of the Nazis. In the lead up to the Six Day War:

the newspapers continually identified Nasser with Hitler. The proposals to defuse the crisis by any means other than war were compared with the Munich agreement. [Tom Segev, The Seventh Million, pp. 390-391].

The Nazi period is a seminal event in world history. It is the ultimate in capitalist barbarism. It is not surprising that it is the benchmark by which subsequent events are judged.

Zionist concerns about a high Arab birth rate in Israel mirror the Nazis’ racial obsessions. Ideologically Zionism and Nazism drink from the same poisoned well.

Relationships between Jews and Arabs are seen as a threat to the racial purity of the Jewish nation/race. More than half of the Jewish population in Israel believes intermarriage to be national treason.

In Israel like Nazi Germany opposition to miscegenation is strong. The Nuremberg Laws outlawed ‘inter-racial’ sex. In Israel opposition to such relations is a strong social taboo. 75% of Israeli Jews oppose intermarriage. A particularly egregious case involved an Arab who was gaoled for 18 months for rape. The Jewish woman believed that ‘Daniel’ was a Jewish man and thus she had been raped by deception. In Nazi Germany a common theme was that Jewish men concealed their Jewish identity in order to seduce Aryan women.

Israelis often see themselves in the role of Nazis. Before the massacre in Jenin, an Israeli officer said that:

it is justified and in fact essential to learn from every possible source…. the commander’s obligation is to … analyse and internalise the lessons of earlier battles – even, however shocking it may sound, even how the German Army fought in the Warsaw Ghetto.

When 41 Israeli Arabs were mowed down with machine guns at Kafr Kassem in 1956 one of the killers, Shalom Ofer, proudly proclaimed that ‘We acted like Germans, automatically, we didn’t think.’

There is a wider identification with the Nazis in Israeli society. ‘We are no longer Jews today,’ one Israeli wrote. ‘Today we are Nazis.’ He was trying to organise vigilante groups to attack Israeli Palestinians in mixed cities during Israel’s 2021 attack on Gaza.

The comparison of ‘assimilation’, marrying out or having relationships with non-Jews, to the Holocaust is a common Zionist theme. Avraham Greenbaum of Bar-Ilan University, expressed ‘concern that Jewry’s losses through assimilation were greater than the losses sustained in the Holocaust.’ For Zionism the Holocaust was not a human tragedy but a loss to the Jewish race.

Assimilation is frequently described as a ‘quiet’ ‘silent’ or ‘bloodless’ holocaust. Norman Lamm, President of the Yeshiva University, wrote that with a diminishing Jewish birth rate and intermarriage exceeding 40 %, ‘Who says that the holocaust is over?’ Chief Rabbi, Immanuel Jakobovitz believed that abortion in Israel was comparable to the Holocaust. Lehava’s slogan is ‘Intermarriage is a holocaust.’

Marriage between a Jew and non-Jew in Nazi Germany after 1935 was forbidden. The same is true in Israel where a Jew and non-Jew cannot marry. Hannah Arendt observed that:

Israeli citizens, religious and non-religious seem agreed upon the desirability of having a law which prohibits intermarriage… there certainly was something breathtaking in the naiveté with which the prosecution denounced the infamous Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which had prohibited intermarriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and Germans. [Eichmann in Jerusalem, p.7].

Far from comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany being anti-Semitic, the exact opposite is the case. Such comparisons constitute a powerful warning against the direction in which Israel is heading. The only question is whether they are true.

Comparing a country to Nazi Germany doesn’t mean that they are the same but that they have certain features in common.

Today there are demonstrations in Israel where the main slogan is ‘Death to the Arabs’. How is it anti-Semitic to compare this to similar demonstrations in Europe in the 1930s?

When Culture Minister Miri Regev described African refugees as ‘a cancer in the body of the nation’ this was a Nazi-like statement. Deputy Defence Minister Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan explained that ‘[Palestinians] are beasts, they are not human.’ He also explained the racial hierarchy of souls: ‘A Jew always has a much higher soul than a gentile, even if he is a homosexual.’

Professor Amos Funkenstein, former head of the Faculty of History at Tel Aviv University, explained why comparisons with the Nazis are valid. Referring to the refusal of soldiers to serve in the Occupied Territories, Funkenstein compared them to soldiers in the German army who refused to serve in concentration or extermination camps. Funkenstein explained:

As a historian I know that every comparison is limited. On the other hand, without comparisons, no historiography is possible. Understanding a historical event is a kind of translation into the language of our time. If we would leave every phenomenon in its peculiarity, we could not make this translation. Every translation is an interpretation and every interpretation is also a comparison.

Idith Zertal described how:

‘The transference of the holocaust situation on to the Middle East reality… not only created a false sense of the imminent danger of mass destruction. It also immensely distorted the image of the holocaust, dwarfed the magnitude of the atrocities committed by the Nazis, trivializing the unique agony of the victims and the survivors, and utterly demonizing the Arabs and their leaders. [Zertal, Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, p. 100].

At the Zionist Leadership hustings it was hard to tell who was the worst Zionist – Thornberry, Nandy, Starmer or Long-Bailey

A personal letter to Rebecca Long-Bailey You're no Corbyn Continuity Candidate You're Keir Starmer’s reflection

Last Thursday the Jewish Labour Movement, Labour Friends of Israel and Jewish News jointly staged hustings for the 4 leadership  candidates. All of them tried to outbid each other in their condemnation of Labour Party ‘anti-Semitism’.

Perhaps we should put the ‘anti-Semitism’ Disinformation Paradigm into perspective. According to a new survey by former Tory Party Treasurer Lord Ashcroft, 73% of Labour Party members believe the issue of anti-Semitism has either been invented outright or wildly exaggerated by Corbyn’s opponents. Amongst socialist members of the Labour Party this rises to 90%. Just 22% of members believe anti-Semitism is a serious problem (6% of the Left).

Despite all the propaganda - 3/4 of Labour Party members believe the 'antisemitism' allegations were invented or wildly exaggerated

Amongst Momentum members 92% believe that the ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations were an invention or wildly exaggerated.  Jon Lansman is completely out of touch, even with his own members. This is the context in which the debate last week took place. See Poll: Labour members say anti-Semitism crisis “invented”

Rebecca Long-Bailey, the ‘left’ candidate gave a toe-curlingly embarrassing display of subservience to Israel’s supporters. In the words of Sienna Rodgers of Labour List

Rebecca Long-Bailey kicked off the Jewish Labour Movement hustings... with an apology for the “hurt and anxiety” caused by Labour antisemitism ... she ... vowed to prioritise: a disciplinary process that is “legally independent, free from political bias or interference”; educating members; and calling out antisemitism.

You could not put a piece of paper between any of the candidates. Having been persuaded against my better judgement to support RBL, having previously described her as a wannabee Neil Kinnock, it is doubly disappointing to realise that I was right all along!

Realising that dialogue is the spice of life and the enemy of the totalitarian ideology that is Zionism, I decided to send a personal letter to Becky. Being an ex-solicitor I am sure she will have no problem in digesting the contents!

Tony Greenstein

Dear Becky,

This is, as you will appreciate, a painful letter to have to write. However knowing you as I do I am sure you will understand why I felt it necessary to put pen to paper or rather finger to keyboard.

Despite my many doubts about your recent move to the right, in particular your support for the expulsion of Chris Williamson and the Board of Deputies’ 10 Commandments (Pledges), I reluctantly accepted the argument from comrades that you were the least worst of the 4 candidates.

It was on the basis that you were still, just, a socialist, that I supported you and gave out leaflets supporting you and Richard Burgon at various meetings in Brighton and Hove.

Yesterday I was rung up by a friend in Brighton Kemptown CLP. Her question was simple. Who should she vote for? After listening to you at the Zionist hustings I couldn't in good conscience recommend a vote for you.

It should have been obvious just by the list of sponsors what this hustings was about. Socialism isn't just a word. It means anti-racism and anti-imperialism being an integral part of one's politics. Any socialist worthy of the name would have refused to take part in hustings sponsored by Labour Friends of Israel.

Surely you are not so naive as to believe that an organisation which has not once condemned Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land or its Apartheid practices could be genuinely opposed to anti-Semitism?

According to the murderous 'logic' of Labour Friends of Israel, the responsibility for Israel shooting unarmed protesters lies with Hamas, not Israel!  RBL is quite happy to keep company with this scum

Have you forgotten the response of LFI to the news that Israeli snipers were firing at unarmed demonstrators at the Gaza fence? They blamed those who died for their own deaths.

Over 500 children have been injured and over 70 have been murdered in cold blood by the Israel’s army since March 2019. Yet what was the response by LFI? It tweeted ‘Hamas must accept responsibility for these events.’ Except that Hamas didn’t shoot those who died or who were crippled by exploding ammunition deliberately designed to disable.

Imagine that a Palestinian organisation had blamed Israel for the deaths of 70 Jewish children. Would you have spoken on their platform? If not why do you speak under LFI’s banner. Do Palestinian lives not count? It seems Becky that you need to examine your own racism before pointing the finger at others.

LFI also supported the attack on Gaza in 2014, as it has done all Israel’s wars. 2,200 Palestinians were murdered, including 551 children. Do tell me what your description would be of someone who supported the murder of 500+ Jewish children.  Racist? Anti-Semitic? Yet when it comes to the blood of Palestinian children you turn a blind eye.

LFI's stance is not surprising as one thing Al Jazeera’s programme, The Lobby, made clear was that Labour Friends of Israel is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Israeli Embassy.

The Board of Deputies blamed those who were killed for their own deaths

The Board of Deputies too blamed the Palestinians. Their statement said that ‘the responsibility for the violence lies with Hamas’ before going on to support the murder of unarmed demonstrators: ‘Israel is defending its people from repeated violent attempts at mass invasion.’  they wrote. 

The idea that Palestinian refugees trying to return to the lands they were expelled from should be shot down in cold blood says everything about the Board. Whatever else they represent it is not the socialist traditions of British Jewry.

The Board of Deputies openly supported the murder of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza yet has the gall to talk of 'antisemitism'

21 year old medic Razan has come to symbolise the State Terrorism of Israel whose snipers picked off Razan for no other reason than that she was there

Even medics, such as 21 year old Razan Najar, have been murdered by Israeli snipers. All to the approval of the same BOD whose 10 Commandments you have agreed to. According to these 10 'pledges' you must not communicate with anti-racist or socialist Jews.

The Board of Deputies spent more time attacking the ANL than the National Front

I would be interested in an explanation as to how demanding that the Labour Party only communicate with the reactionary BOD, has anything to do with fighting anti-Semitism since the BOD has always opposed the fight against fascism and those who are genuinely anti-Semitic.

When it came to challenging genuine anti-Semites the Board of Deputies urged Jews to keep their heads down and say nothing - only Israel concerns them

In the 1930’s the Board opposed physical resistance to the British Union of Fascists telling Jews to stay at home during the Battle of Cable Street. In the 1970’s when the National Front was growing stronger they did the same. According to Paul Holborrow, Secretary of the Anti-Nazi League

‘We were constantly under attack from the Jewish Board of Deputies ... because of the SWP’s anti-Zionism.’

The Board of Deputies has only ever been concerned about one thing, supporting Zionism and the State of Israel, opposition to which they term ‘anti-Semitism’.

You opened the hustings by paying tribute to the great Jewish MPs that Manchester has had. You might have mentioned the late Gerald Kaufmann MP, Father of the House of Commons. In 2009 he made one of the great parliamentary speeches. He said, during Operation Cast Lead, when 1,400 Palestinians were murdered that:

My parents came to Britain as refugees from Poland. Most of their families were subsequently murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust. My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed.

My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.

You stated that ‘our Jewish Community just didn’t feel safe or welcome within our party.’ This is the big lie that Goebbels spoke of. There is no evidence whatsoever that even one Jew felt unsafe in the Labour Party. True the racists of the JLM, the British wing of the ILP may have felt uncomfortable when defending Apartheid but that surely is good.

What is remarkable about the fake ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign was the number of Jews who were victims. Not only was Jackie Walker and myself expelled, but numerous anti-Zionist Jews such as Glynn Secker and Jo Bird were suspended. Professor Moshe Machover, the founder of Matzpen, the Israeli Socialist Organisation was also expelled, until Sam Matthews was forced to reinstate him.

Oozing insincerity Emily Thornberry promised to expel anti-Zionists from the Labour Party - this despicable woman gained just 1.9% of the Zionist vote!

You stated that you would ‘act on the recommendations of the EHRC’ and that you find it very shameful that the Labour Party is being investigated by them. It’s not shame but outrage you should be feeling at the interference by a State body in the internal affairs of the Labour Party. The EHRC is not and never has been an anti-racist body. It is a body consisting of the great and good whose purpose is to ensure 'diversity' and neutralise anti-racist campaigning.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has never  condemned the Tory government over the Windrush Scandal, still less investigated it. It has remained silent over the recent deportations of Black British citizens to the West Indies and said nothing about Islamaphobia in the Tory Party or the racism of the Prime Minister. This is unsurprising since the EHRC is chaired by a Zionist, David Isaac. 

It is no surprise that no other forms of racism failed to get a mention at these Zionist hustings. Zionists are interested in defending, not combating racism.

Your response to the resignation of Louise Ellman and Luciana Berger proves that you represent the abandonment of everything Corbyn stood for. You said that it was ‘absolutely devastating & shameful that we had MPs leaving the party because they didn’t feel welcome.’ thus implying that anti-Semitism played a part in their decisions. This is a total fabrication. 

Ellman was targeted, not because she is Jewish but because she was a vitriolic right-winger who defended Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinian children. Arresting children in the middle of the night, blindfolding and beating them, including sexual abuse.  All of these practices this wretch of a woman defended. Many of her political opponents were Jewish. I suggest you read ‘The Riverside Scandal’ and then apologise.

Luciana Berger was another Blairite parachuted in to Liverpool Wavertree. The Chair of her own constituency was Jewish. She was hated, not because she was Jewish but because she was a nasty right-winger who was Director of LFI from 2007-2010.

One can only presume from your fatuous remarks that you only support the deselection of MPs if they are not Jewish!

You spoke of a ‘breakdown of trust’ between the Jewish community and the Labour Party. Leaving aside that there is no single Jewish community, the facts are that the Jewish community has long deserted Labour. For over 50 years British Jews have voted Tory in overwhelming numbers. In 2015 64% of Jews voted Tory and just 15% voted Labour despite having a Jewish leader, Ed Miliband.

But even this is untrue. Jeremy Corbyn forfeited the support of British Zionists but Labour never had their support anyway. Orthodox Jewry did not criticise Corbyn and 34 Orthodox Rabbis wrote a joint letter condemning the Board's attacks on Corbyn but of course the BBC and the prostitute press preferred not to publicise this.

As recently as last December Rabbi Ephraim Padwa, Head of the 35,000 Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations wrote a letter condemning those who called Corbyn 'antisemitic'. Yet instead of aligning yourselves with these and other Jews you preferred to ally yourself with the most racist and reactionary section of British Jews.

The Jewish Community Hasn't Supported Labour for 50 Years

I suggest you read Daniel Staetsky’s article in The Times of Israel, How British Jews vote and why they vote this way.  The ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign of the past 4½ years has been a wholly artificial creation whose sole aim was to remove Jeremy Corbyn.

On December 5^th 2019 just 1 week before the election, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Pollard, in a letter to readers wrote that

‘over the next 6 weeks we will discover if the British public are prepared to put an anti-Semite into Number Ten.’

Was this a false allegation? If so then why is it antisemitic to say that similar allegations against Labour Party members are also false? According to Zionist propagandists denial of false allegations of 'antisemitism' is proof of one's guilt! 

In just the same way denial of being a witch at Salem in the 17th century was held to be proof that you were a witch. I thought we had come just a little way in the past 300+ years but it would seem not. Instead Beccy you stand in the tradition of Cotton Mather and those whose false accusations led to the witch-trials which in turn led to the murder of 19 people, including 14 women.  

Elizabeth Reis wrote about the dilemmas that faced women in the witch trials: 

"During examinations, accused women were damned  if they did and damned if they did not. If they confessed to witchcraft charges, their admissions would prove the cases against them; if they denied the charges, their very intractability, construed as the refusal to admit to sin more generally, might mark them as sinners and hence allies of the devil."

Rebecca Long-Bailey signed up to the 10 McCarthyist Demands of the Board of Deputies without a whimper

In fact the only women who were hanged at Salem were those who denied their guilt.  

In May 2018 the President of the Board of Deputies, Jonathan Arkush, stated that Corbyn ‘has anti-Semitic views.’ Clearly this was a lie but it wasn't the only lie.  So why are you giving comfort to these racists? 

Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lansman's Protege Declares She is a Zionist 

Perhaps most shocking of all was your declaration that you are a Zionist.

Israel is an ethno-nationalist state, i.e. a state not of its own citizens but of the mythical ‘Jewish people’. When Netanyahu says that Israel is ‘not a state of all its citizens’ he is right. That is an admission that racism is part of Israel's DNA.

No state has a right to exist. Did the Apartheid, Francoist or Nazi states ‘have a right to exist’. Why?  States are not people.

Keir Hardie - member of the Trilateral Commission and a friend of the secret policeman

Zionism is the racist ideology that has guided the Israeli state from its foundation. Even before 1948 the Israeli Labor Party operated a colour bar, campaigning for Jewish Labour i.e. a Boycott of Arab Labour. Today the ILP supports the deportation of Black African refugees because they are not Jewish and therefore threaten the Jewish demographic majority of Israel.

The Jewish National Fund, which owns and controls 93% of Israeli land deliberately excludes Arabs from access to it. What is a Jewish state if not a state that discriminates against those who are not Jewish?

I realise that you know nothing about the Israeli state but are you seriously suggesting that criticism of Zionism and its bastard offspring, the Israeli state, which armed and trained the death squads of Guatemala as they murdered up to 200,000 Mayan Indians, is anti-Semitic? Is criticism of Israel for arming and equipping the death squads of El Salvador, arming the Argentinian Junta (which murdered up to 3,000 Jews) and Pinochet, to say nothing about Apartheid South Africa, antisemitic?

Yes of course Israel's supporters cry ‘anti-Semitism’.  What else can they say? If you can't attack the message then attack the messenger.

For ‘socialists’ such as you to defend such a state because it is ‘Jewish’, as if the Holocaust entitles Israel to support neo-Nazi regimes, is shameful.

What does Zionism mean in practice? Demonstrations in Afula against the sale of a single house to an Arab. The edict by the Chief Rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu, forbidding Jews from renting property to Arabs.  Eliyahu is a paid Israeli state official. It means the Reception Committee Law of 2011 allowing Jewish communities to ban Arabs from living there. Zionism means that maternity wards in Israel are segregated into Jewish and Arab. Education too is segregated and even Higher Education is now falling victim.

I doubt if there is a single Palestine solidarity activist in Britain who hasn’t been accused of ‘anti-Semitism’. Jewish anti-Zionists, who are the equivalent of Whites South Africans who opposed Apartheid, are called ‘self-haters’, the same term that the Nazis used against German anti-fascists.

You said, like the other candidates, that you support a 2 state solution. That is no solution. It is dead as a dodo. The only reason LFI and JLM support 2 states is because they know it won’t happen. It is a smokescreen for Apartheid. The only solution is a single state where Jews and Arabs have equal rights.

Stephane Savary drops the mask.  It's no longer about 'antisemitism' but Israel's right to be a racist 

It is strange that 'socialists' such as yourself are unwilling to support a single state where there are equal rights for all citizens.  Because that is what the 'antisemitism' campaign is really about. Today Lisa Nandy is being criticised because she supports the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees.

Far from being the Corbyn continuity candidate you represent a radical break from Corbynism. Unlike Jeremy you have no record of activism. Socialist and anti-racist politics are to you abstractions.

It is clear that there is no genuine difference between you and the other candidates. It is not surprising that despite your grovelling to the Zionists when the JLM came to vote on which candidate to support you obtained a mere 1.4%! Even Jeremy Corbyn in 2016 obtained 4%!!

It must be galling that unlike Pontius Pilate you haven’t received your reward of 30 pieces of silver. Clearly the price of treachery has fallen victim to inflation.

Kind regards

Tony Greenstein

Lisa Nandy - the Zionists' favourite

A Highlight of RBL’s Contributions

In Manchester where we have had some of the greatest Jewish MPs

It was absolutely devastating to see what they faced... our Jewish Community just didn’t feel  safe or welcome within our party. It was absolutely shameful that we were in that situation. We have to say sorry and I’ll say sorry again tonight.

 We have to have processes in the party that are legally independent, free from any political bias or interference

Education to stop the conspiracy theories and tropes that are emerging across the left

I’ve said very clearly that I’ll adopt the Board of Deputies 10 pledges. I’ll act on the recommendations of the EHRC. I find it very shameful that we are being investigated by them.

Peston: Labour did better than expected at the 2017 election and then anti-Semitism exploded as an issue... Why has it taken so long to tackle the scandal of anti-Semitism. What have you done over the last couple of years to try and eliminate the scourge of anti-Semitism. Peston says he’ll start with Becky because Thornberry suggested on Newsnight that you didn’t do enough and you were on the NEC.

RLB attributes anti-Semitism to the large influx after 2015.  We had a breakdown of trust between the Jewish communal organisations and the Jewish Labour Movement.

Says she spoke ‘privately’ to people to call for ‘auto-expulsions’

So I don’t think the Party gave the right response to that programme (Panorama). As the party of workers and trade unionists we should not have called out former members of staff.  Whether they were correct or not ‘was a completely different matter’.

We also have to recognise what those particular staff were going through.

Peston: would you welcome Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman back into the party?

RLB: that was absolutely devastating & shameful that we had MPs leaving the party because they didn’t feel welcome.

Peston intervenes to point out that Berger stood against the party

RLB: What Luciana, Louise and our other colleagues have been through is absolutely shocking and how they managed to cope with that is an absolute miracle.

Peston: Is that a yes?

RLB: I would, yeah.

RLB: We’ve got to do everything the EHRC wants and more. We have to adopt the Board of Deputies 10 pledges. We’ve got to roll out a robust educational progamme with the JLM.

Question from the floor: Would any of you describe yourself as a Zionist?

Thornberry: I believe in the State of Israel therefore I’m a Zionist.

Keir Starmer:  I believe in the State of Israel, a secure Israel I also believe in an independent Palestinian state (Peston intervenes) I don’t describe myself as a Zionist but I understand, support and sympathise with Zionism.

Lisa Nandy: I believe Jewish people have the right to national self-determination. That makes me a Zionist.

RBL: On Zionism I also agree with a secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state and a 2 state solution. I suppose that makes me a Zionist.  I agree with Israel’s right to exist and self-determine