Open Letter to Sharon Graham – How does support for the Palestinians square with working with the Israeli-state funded Campaign Against Anti-Semitism?

 Why have your officials lied and lied about the banning of ‘Jeremy Corbyn – The Big Lie’? 

Who has given you the right to decide what Unite members can or cannot see?

Dear Sharon Graham,

Correspondence with Unite officials reminds me of David Low’s cartoons which depicted the TUC as a carthorse. Slow-witted, disingenuous, impervious to reason and incapable of rational thought. As Low noted, ‘STUPIDITY has no frontiers.’

I refer to the ban on Jeremy Corbyn – The Big Lie and Asa Winstanley’s Weaponisation of Anti-Semitism. On 22 August Gail Cartmail wrote to David Plank of Cambridge Community Branch:

Unite has not “banned” the film mentioned nor the book, however we have declined to use our buildings for its showing and a related book launch.

That sounds like a ban. The film and talk were due to be held at Tony Benn House, Bristol on 24 July. They were cancelled. Organisers were told by a union official that the event was cancelled after “discussion with senior colleagues.” Unite’s leadership did not want to “be drawn into contentious political debate.”

The Ventriloquist & her Puppet

Skwawkbox editor Steve Walker attributed the decision to ‘the growing cosiness between Unite’s management and the current hard-right Labour regime.’

In an email Gail Cartmail claimed on your behalf that Winstanley’s book had “caused deep hurt among Jews in Britain.”. This evidence-free assertion is ironically an anti-Semitic lie, assuming as it does that British Jews are hurt by criticism of Zionism and Israel.

Since the buck stops with you as General Secretary I am replying directly to you rather than the ventriloquist’s puppet.

Cartmail’s ‘explanation’ came after Sarah Carpenter, Regional Secretary for SE Unite wrote on 8 June regarding the showing of the film by Portsmouth Community Branch:

I have asked for the screenings to be cancelled whilst I seek further guidance. I have not had any instructions to cancel.

Carpenter refused to clarify why she needed to take ‘further guidance’ about instructions that she hadn’t received. On 13 June Carpenter sent another email stating that

‘we will not be showing the film in the Portsmouth office, and I will alert the relevant branch of this.’

That also sounds like a ban.

In Carpenter’s email to me of 5 July Rule 17.3 was invoked to prevent Unite SE 6246 branch from donating to Platform Films, which produced the film. Over the years Platform Films has made a host of films for the trade union movement including Unite and history of the T&GWU. Given that the overwhelming majority of the media is anti-trade union what kind of mule headed idiocy is it that possesses a union official to ban donations to a pro-trade union film company?

As Tony Benn observed “By making these brilliant films over the years, Platform has filled a gap that is so obvious in the media.’ Bob Crow, the legendary RMT leader wrote that:

RMT is proud to be associated with a film company that unashamedly knows which side it is on, and is carrying the tradition of gutsy, agitprop, socialist film-making to a new generation in the 21st century

If Platform Films knows which side it’s on the same cannot be said for you or your officials. In an email of 13 June Carpenter gave a variety of excuses for the ban:

The issues covered in the film are pertinent to internal Labour Party matters and that is not the focus of our union…  union resources are prioritised in these areas.

Although Unite has increased the amount of money it gives to the Labour Party, despite your assurances to the contrary, it isn’t able to afford the cost of security for a union building to show a film. As David Plank wrote

Frankly, this beggars belief. The unions founded the Labour Party to achieve the political voice that is essential to the best interests and welfare of our members. It is neither possible nor desirable to make such a flimsy, artificial distinction.

The suggestion that privatisation of the NHS and renationalisation of rail and the utilities are internal Labour Party matters is risible.

The real reason for these bans is to appease Starmer who has repeatedly refused to support striking workers. No sooner had he left Unite’s policy conference than he tore up his pledge to repeal the latest Tory anti-union legislation.

It is shameful that you are complicit in the efforts of Starmer to silence and expel those who disagree with his neo-liberal agenda.

In her email of 5 July Carpenter wrote:

I can be clear that Unite has not been contacted by any group in regards to the decision made…. the decision taken was grounded in our focus to prioritise resources ….

This was clearly a lie. On 23 July the far-right Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, boasted of its role in the banning of the film:

Following correspondence with CAA, the Unite union has cancelled the screening of a propaganda film about the antisemitic former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn that was due to be shown alongside a book signing and talk from Asa Winstanley.

The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism has one purpose - to smear supporters of the Palestinians and opponents of Zionism as anti-Semitic. It openly boasted of its role in removing Jeremy Corbyn.

Lest you have any doubt that Israel is an apartheid state you should be aware that this is the unanimous view of human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem.

Israel is a state whose official police is one of ‘Judaising’ the Galilee and Negev. The Koenig Memorandum of April 1976 by Yisrael Koenig, a senior member of the Israeli Labor Party, proposed to:

Expand and deepen Jewish settlement in areas where the contiguity of the Arab population is prominent, and where they number considerably more than the Jewish population; examine the possibility of diluting existing Arab population concentrations.

Imagine the outcry if there was a proposal to ‘dilute’ the Black population of London. Koenig spoke about the duty of ‘those dealing with the Arab sector… to familiarize themselves with the Arab mentality.’ I suggest you substitute ‘Jewish’ for ‘Arab’.

If anyone harboured any doubts that Palestinians live under an Apartheid regime then Israel’s neo-Nazi Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir laid these to rest when he told an Israeli Arab journalist:

“My right, the right of my wife, of my children to move around on the roads in the West Bank is more important than the right to freedom of movement of the Arabs – sorry, Mohammed, this is the reality, this is the truth,”

Moshe Yalon, the ex- Likud Defence Minister termed Gvir ‘Mein Kampf in Reverse.’

The CAA has been at the forefront of attacks on pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist academics such as Bristol University’s Rachel Gould and David Miller, Warwick University’s Goldie Osurie, Shahd Abusalama of Sheffield Hallam and Exeter University’s Malaka Shwaik.

The CAA demanded that Gould, a Jewish professor, publicly retract an article Defining Anti-Semitism and if she refused then she should be dismissed “and her dismissal should be made public so as to clearly signal the University of Bristol’s values”.

The CAA has used the IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitism as a political weapon. Even American academic Kenneth Stern, who drafted the IHRA, said, in testimony to the US Congress, that the CAA’s attack on Gould was ‘chilling and McCarthy-like’.

Gideon Falter, Chair of the CAA, has also supported Hindu racists in opposing protection against racial discrimination for Dalits (Untouchables), which is dressed up as racism against Hindus.

The CAA posted this story before quickly taking it down - Jackie Walker's 'holocaust' story was based on her quoting David Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister

The CAA has deliberately tried to stir up fear of anti-Semitism amongst Jews. Anshel Pfeffer in Ha’aretz, commenting on the CAA’s 2015 Anti-Semitism Barometer wrote of the CAA’s:

eagerness to see anti-Semitism in Britain… as much more widespread than it really is….

If the majority of British Jews and the authors of the CAA report actually believe that [anti-Semitism in Britain today resembles that in the 30s], then it’s hard to take anything they say about contemporary anti-Semitism seriously…. To compare today’s Britain… with the Jews’ situation in 1930s exhibits a disconnect from reality which borders on hysteria.

This is the organisation that you take your advice from when deciding what Unite members can and cannot see.

The CAA is Islamophobic and also Anti-Semitic

The CAA was formed in 2014 during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge when 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children, died. Its purpose was to undermine solidarity with the Palestinians.

This is the racist CAA's new definition of anti-Semitism

The CAA is not interested in genuine anti-Semitism. In 2019 it redefined anti-Semitism with 6 questions, all about Israel. If you weren’t comfortable spending time with supporters of Israel that made you an anti-Semite. I was uncomfortable in the company of supporters of Apartheid in South Africa. Did that make me a racist? Amongst the other 5 questions was “Israel makes a positive contribution to the world.” If  you disagree that makes you an anti-Semite!

Anti-Semitism as defined in the OED, which most people understand anti-Semitism as ‘hostility to or prejudice against Jews as Jews’. By constructing these fraudulent questions, the CAA was able to pretend that anti-Semitism is a problem of the left not the right.

When it comes to genuine anti-Semitism the CAA is not interested - it's only Israel that concerns it

When Jacob Rees-Mogg attacked two fellow Jewish Tories, Oliver Letwin and John Bercow, as “Illuminati who are taking the powers to themselves.” the CAA said nothing. As Michael Berkowitz, Professor of Modern Jewish History at UCL wrote:

‘Rees-Mogg is knowingly trafficking in the portrayal of Jews as underhanded and sinister. … he has exhumed, embellished, and rebroadcast one of the most poisonous antisemitic canards in all of history.

Mogg also retweeted comments by Alice Wiedel, leader of the neo-Nazi AfD but all you will find is a neutral article Jacob Rees Mogg defends sharing German far-right leader’s speech on Twitter.

Why is this? Because Mogg is ardently pro-Israel and the AfD is the most pro-Zionist party in Germany. All the CAA said was that the ‘AfD has a long history of problematic language and policies’. The Nazi Party also had a history of 'problematic language and policies'.

The CAA’s 2016 Report British Muslims and antiSemitism had a picture of a Muslim man holding a ‘Hitler was right’ poster. The implication is clear. Muslims are Nazi supporters.

The Report included a full colour drawing of a ‘typical’ Muslim man. If this had been a ‘typical Jew’ the air would have been thick with accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’. The report accused Muslims of being

more likely by far than the general British population to hold deeply antisemitic views…. many British Muslims reserve a special hatred for British Jews …

Who Gives You the Right to Decide What Unite Members Can or Can’t See or Hear?

No one has alleged that The Big Lie is anti-Semitic. This would be surprising since Jews feature prominently in it. Yet Cartmail says that it ‘will offend ’ and ‘rake up issues’ that you want to bury.

Zionists may be offended. So? what? Are you opposed to offending racists? As George Orwell said: ‘If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’ Freedom of speech is meaningless without the right to offend. Cartmail does not understand this but I would expect you to.

Lord Justice Sedley ruled in DPP v Redmond-Bate (1999) that

Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having.

You have no grounds to ban this film or the book. This is censorship carried out on behalf of the same Israeli state that is currently waging a campaign of terror against the Palestinians. B ranches have the right to show films about what happened during Corbyn and make up their own mind without Big Sister interfering. Offending those who support pogroms and murder of children should be welcomed.

When Muslims attacked Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses the media proclaimed If we don’t defend free speech, we live in tyranny. When Charlie Hebdo mocked the Prophet Muhammad, it was a case of Je Suis Charlie. But when anti-Zionists criticise the tactics of supporters of Israeli Apartheid ‘preventing hurt’ to racists is your priority.

As Ken Loach noted:

Asa Winstanley’s book has been widely praised, including by noted Jewish commentators, for its rigorous and authoritative research.

By banning the author from discussing it in this way, Unite has shown the title to be accurate – anti-Semitism has indeed been weaponized. This is a critical political issue. Buy this important book and judge for yourself.

Cartmail, in her email of 22 August to David Plank, said

‘Unite is proudly anti-racist and stands with all minorities in our communities who face prejudice and discrimination.’

Prehistoric is Cartmail and Graham's View of Zionism - They Have Learnt Nothing and Forgotten Nothing

Does this apply to billionaires who are undoubtedly a minority? Have ordinary words lost their meaning for you too? All minorities? Are we not allowed to offend fascists? Cartmail’s ready resort to clichés and hackneyed phrases is embarrassing, even for a union bureaucrat.

What possible connection does Cartmail’s statement have to the film? How was the film supporting prejudice and discrimination? 

The clear implication of Cartmail’s words, on your behalf, is that the Big Lie is racist. In essence you have chosen to take the word of a far-right Zionist, an officer of an organisation that spearheaded the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 over Jewish socialists.

The role of an Ambassador is to lie on behalf of their country. Is that Cartmail’s role? She has adopted the stratagem Orwell described in 1984 whereby the constant repetition of lies become the truth. In her email to Plank, Cartmail boasted that

Unite has a longstanding commitment to international solidarity and has for decades supported the Palestinian cause and will continue to do so.  No union has done more on Palestinian solidarity than Unite.

This too is a lie. The union which has done most for the Palestinians is the FBU. The late Ken Cameron, its General Secretary, worked tirelessly to win the trade union movement to the Palestinian cause. Cartmail’s boasts are designed to conceal the truth of your support for the Zionism and Israel’s apartheid state.

Cartmail quoted the EHRC Report into Labour ‘antisemitism’ in support of the ban. She assumes that the EHRC is an anti-racist body. Nothing could be further from the truth. In July 2020, two former EHRC commissioners — Simon Woolley, previously the only black person on the Commission, and Meral Hussein-Ece, the only Muslim — told Newsweek that they had not been reappointed to their posts in 2012 because they were “too loud and vocal” on questions of racism.

The EHRC Report was produced by Alisdair Henderson who was caught tweeting in support of Roger Scruton, the fascist founding editor of Salisbury Review. Henderson combined racism, homophobia and misogyny in one.  See The Labour Antisemitism Report Has Always Been a Politically Motivated Travesty]

The Report was legally flawed and is currently subject to judicial review proceedings. Yet Cartmail relies on this worthless report much like a drunk leans on a lamppost, for support not illumination.

The EHRC has an appalling record of discrimination against its own Black members of staff. Successive governments have stuffed its Board with Tory appointees such as David Goodhart who argued that the “hostile environment” should not be watered down in the wake of the Windrush scandal or Jessica Butcher who believes that modern feminism disempowers women.

The EHRC's first Chair, Trevor Philips is a bigot who was suspended from the Labour Party for comments such as Muslims are a ‘nation within a nation’. Starmer quietly reinstated him.

Cartmail mentioned that Labour List had published an article on the film but didn’t mention that it was by Paul Mason, a lapdog for the security services, who declared that he was waging war against anti-imperialist academics. That you should cite Mason’s attack shows the lengths to which you will go in order to appease Starmer.

What this shameful decision demonstrates is that your militant talk and support for strikes takes place in the context of your own right-wing, chauvinist pro-capitalist politics.

The Objection to A Big Lie Comes from Zionists not Jews

Between 2015 and 2019, a campaign was waged by the British Establishment to paint Corbyn as an anti-Semite and the Labour Party as anti-Semitic. Politicians like Tom Watson, who had spent their careers demonising refugees, overnight became anti-racists.

The dishonest nature of this campaign was exposed by the Labour Leaked Report which detailed how senior Labour staff had sabotaged Labour’s election chances in 2017.

Because of the British media’s complicity it was Al Jazeera’s “The Lobby” and the “Labour Files” which exposed the confected nature of the ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations. The Forde Report later confirmed that anti-Semitism had been weaponised by the Right.

Gideon Falter, Chair of the Jewish National Fund & Vice-Chair of JNF-UK which refuse to lease or rent land to non-Jews - this is Sharon Graham's comrade-in-arms

You Sharon Graham have banned an anti-racist film at the behest of an organisation whose Chair, Gideon Falter, is Vice-Chair of the Jewish National Fund, an organisation which refuses to rent or lease the 93% of land in Israel that it owns or controls. It makes Unite party to the JNF’s continuing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

In 2004 the Adalah Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel petitioned the Supreme Court demanding the cancellation of the allocation of JNF lands to Jews only. The JNF’s response was that

The JNF is not the trustee of the general public in Israel. Its loyalty is given to the Jewish people in the Diaspora and in the state of Israel... The JNF… is not a public body that works for the benefit of all citizens of the state. The loyalty of the JNF is given to the Jewish people and only to them is the JNF obligated. The JNF, as the owner of the JNF land, does not have a duty to practice equality towards all citizens of the state.

Electronic Intifada has just revealed that the CAA is directly funded by JNF-UK. In 2018 and 2019 it received $450,000 from an Israeli para-state organisation. Far from upholding ‘a longstanding commitment to international solidarity’ you Sharon Graham have been holding hands with the practitioners of Israeli apartheid.

Look Who's Just Dropped In To Support Israel

Cartmail states that Unite has for decades supported the Palestinian cause. So let us get this correct. On the one hand you are working with lobbyists for Israeli apartheid and on the other hand you support Palestinian liberation. Do you not see the contradiction?

It would have been like saying you support Black people under apartheid in South Africa whilst at the same time vetoing anything that was critical of apartheid on the grounds that it ‘might give offence’ to White South Africans. It is shameful.

‘Anti-Semitism’ has been the principal defence of the racist regime in Tel Aviv. Everytime someone calls out the murder of Palestinian children, the demolition of homes or theft of land up goes the cry of ‘anti-Semitism’. Have you learnt nothing in the past 7 years?

‘Anti-Semitism’ is the only defence the Zionists have left. Such cries are themselves anti-Semitic. To see you going along with this brands you an utter hypocrite and a collaborator with apartheid.

If these bans remain then Unite policy on Palestine will be worthless. Every time that we call out Israel’s crime of apartheid Israel’s supporters will cry ‘anti-Semitism’ and you will jump to attention.

See Unite’s ‘disgraceful’ response to branch about film and book ban and

The Banning of Corbyn - The Big Lie & Asa Winstanley’s ‘Weaponising Anti-Semitism’ because they ‘caused deep hurt among Jews in Britain” Renders Unite's Policy on Palestine Meaningless

Correspondence Between David Plank, Cambridge Community Branch & Gail Cartmail

Can the left survive outside the Labour Party? Is it time to form a new socialist party?

Einstein remarked that the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Is that also true of the Labour left?

The Left in the Labour Party is facing an existential crisis.  Can it survive?  Does it have a future in a party where democracy has been abolished? Where guilt-by-association is the modus operandi and where McCarthyism is the rule how can it operate other than by subterfuge?

The launch meeting of LAW - from right to left - Tony Greenstein, Moshe Machover, Jackie Walker and Ken Loach

Tomorrow Labour Against the Witchhunt, which was proscribed by Starmer’s minions on 10 July, will debate these and other questions at an All Members Meeting.

If you are a member you are welcome to participate and if you are not then you can still joinand participate.

I have submitted a strategy paper which raises these and other questions.  It is clear that Starmer is intent on purging the left from the Labour Party. Unfortunately the left is still divided into those who are considering doing something and those who believe, like Dickens' McCawber, that ‘something will come up’. The largest organisation Momentum, which can barely be called on the left, has simply refused to fight the witchhunt. It believes that by keeping its head down it can avoid being targeted.

The proscription of LAW, Labour-in-Exile-Network, Socialist Appeal and Chris Williamson’s Resist is the beginning not the end. Almost certainly next on the list is the Labour Representation Committee, whose President is John McDonnell. Already many members of its Executive, such as Pete Firmin and Graham Bash, have been expelled or given notice of auto exclusion.

Jennie Formby on Twitter today forgets that she began the ball rolling and Starmer picked it up from her

But organisations such as the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy have done their best not to fight the witchhunt, despite a number of their own members having been targeted. CLPD is particularly invidious in this respect. When Pete Willsman, its veteran representative on the NEC was suspended, the CLPD completely disowned him even though he was setup by a far-Right Israeli racist. And this happened under Corbyn and Formby not Starmer.

CLPD has effectively been dead for many years. Its heyday was in the early 1980s with the Benn for Deputy Campaign and the campaign to elect the Labour leader (prior to 1981 the leader had been elected by the Parliamentary Labour Party).

LAW fringe meeting at Liverpool Labour Conference 2018 with Chris Williamson speaking and the late Militant Councillor Terry Mulhearn

Labour Left 4 Socialism

A new organisation, Labour Left for Socialism (formerly Don’t Leave Organise) made up a number of groups, including the Bakers Union (whose President Ian Hodson is on the brink of expulsion) and the Fire Brigades Union, whose President Matt Wrack is Chair of the LRC and also a candidate for expulsion, issued a statement ‘Labour Left Rallies To Reclaim Party As Democratic Force For Socialist Transformation’.

Unfortunately this is not true. Sectarians around the CLPD and Socialist Action, the undercover group that does not declare its presence, insisted on inserting a weasel worded clause which reads:

We stand firmly against proscriptions, and stand in solidarity with every grouping that is proscribed solely for holding socialist views. 

In other words it was only prepared to support Socialist Appeal, which was that part of Militant years ago which stayed inside the Labour Party. It doesn’t therefore support LAW or LIEN which were proscribed for opposing the ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt. It is for that reason that LAW, although signing up to the statement, found its name left off the initial signatories.

Momentum which was part of the DLO has since walked out.  Presumably the idea of fighting anything that Starmer does is too much for those who have inherited the mantle of Lansman. It was hoped that the victory of Forward Momentum over Lansman’s Momentum Renewal meant that Momentum might revert to a more activist stance but this has not proven to be the case. If anything things have gotten worse.

As it is Momentum is haemorrhaging members and an organisation which once boasted over 40,000 members is now believed to have less than 15,000 paying members, only a fraction of whom are now active. SE National Coordinating Group member Phil Clarke recently called a Brighton & Hove Momentum Zoom meeting. There was an attendance of 33, one of whom was me! In the days when we had physical meetings we would regularly get 60-70 and sometimes over a hundred attending. Zoom meetings tend to attract more not less people and at one time Brighton had some 1,500 supporters so if Brighton is anything to go by the organisation is in serious decline.

Corbyn’s failure to confront the Fake Anti-Semitism Campaign

If Jeremy Corbyn and those around him had understood that the fake anti-Semitism was about as genuine as a 9 bob note then Labour might be in government now. Instead Corbyn and McDonnell spent their time fighting the left and appeasing the Right. This culminated in the decision to oppose Open Selection, the only means of removing the scab Right in the PLP.

It was or should have been obvious that anti-Semitism was being weaponised. Even before Corbyn was elected, in August 2015, the Daily Mail ran a story about Corbyn being associated with a holocaust denier, Paul Eisen. That story disappeared but other fake stories came and went, always without any discernible victims. Indeed one of the most remarkable things about the fake ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations is that there never were any Jewish victims.

Graham Bash - Jewish member over 50 years in the Labour Party - on the brink of expulsion - this is what Starmer's 'antisemitism' campaign has led to

At least not unless you consider those 2 Zionist harridans – Luciana Berger and Ruth Smeeth. Not forgetting of course Ella Rose, the Israeli Embassy employee who became Director of the Jewish Labour Movement and a potential Oscar winner when she starred in Panorama’s Is Labour Anti-Semitic?

Why anti-Semitism?  Because it gave a certain moral righteousness to the Labour Right that they otherwise would have lacked if they had attacked Corbyn for opposing austerity. To some extent they ran with ‘terrorism’ but ‘anti-Semitism’ made the racists of the Labour Right feel good.  After all who doesn’t want to oppose anti-Semitism?

July 10th Picket of Labour NEC which proscribed 4 organisations

If Corbyn and his advisers had had their wits about them they would have sussed out the Board of Deputies immediately.

In its 250 year history the Board has never opposed anti-Semitism. It has always urged caution. When Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists began organising in the Jewish East End of London in the 1930s the Board urged that Jews turn the other cheek.

The only ‘anti-racist’ demonstration that the Board has ever organised was in March 2018 and that was against Jeremy Corbyn!  And who attended it?  Those well known anti-racists Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party and Norman Tebbit, famous for his cricket test for Indians and Pakistanis.

The fact is that Zionism has never opposed anti-Semitism for the simple reason that they and the antisemites both agree that Jews do not belong in the countries they are living. As the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl observed in his Diaries (pp. 83/4), ‘The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies,”

When the fascists attempted to march through the East End of London in October 1936 the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Chronicle told them to stay indoors!

When Moseley decided, in October 1936 to march through the East End he was opposed by thousands of Jewish and non Jewish workers. Estimates range from 100,000 upwards. They were organised by the Communist  Party, the Independent Labour Party and the Jewish Peoples Council.  The Board of Deputies (& the Labour Party) were vehemently opposed. The Board told Jews to stay indoors and keep their heads down. As Harriet Sherwood observed:

The Jewish Board of Deputies and the Labour party were against confrontation. “Jews are urgently warned to keep away from the route of the Blackshirt march and from their meetings,” said the Jewish Chronicle. “Jews who, however innocently, become involved in any possible disorders will be actively helping antisemitism and Jew-baiting. Unless you want to help the Jew-baiters, keep away.”

Of course a party of nearly 600K members would have a few anti-Semites in it.  It had a hell of a lot more Islamaphobes in it too but no one seemed to be bothered about that. It also had, statistically some paedophiles in it but no one suggested it had a paedophile problem.

There was a time that the Labour Party had an antisemitism problem.  It was a problem of the Labour Right. Herbert Morrison, Labour Home Secretary during the war and grandfather of Peter Mandelson, was both a fervent Zionist and an anti-Semite. He also did his best to keep Jewish refugees from the Nazis out of Britain.

In October 1942 Morrison received a delegation of eminent churchmen and public figures such as Eleanor Rathbone and Lord Astor, asking him for visas for 2,000 Jewish children and the elderly in Vichy France. Morrison refused. Apparently anti-Semitism ‘was just under the pavement.’ A month later the Nazis overran Vichy France and these Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Morrison was said to doubt that there was a holocaust.[i]

On 31 December 1942 Morrison made it clear that although the Home Office might take a limited number of refugees ‘he could not, however, agree that the door should be opened to the entry of uncategorised Jews.’ [ii] Morrison believed that if the Jews were allowed to remain in Britain after the war ‘they might be an explosive element in the country, especially if the economic situation deteriorated.’[iii] In other words Morrisson’s real fear was of communist Jews. 

Yet Corbyn took the accusations of anti-Semitism personally instead of seeing them for what they were, part of a deliberate state destabilisation of the Labour Party. A radical, anti-imperialist pro-Palestinian leader of the Labour Party set off alarm bells not just in MI5 but in Tel Aviv and the CIA. The ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign was the answer.

‘Anti-Semitism’ today is the false anti-racism of the Right. Donald Trump attacked the Squad, the group of 4 radical Black Congresswomen, for ‘anti-Semitism’ whilst at the same time telling them to ‘go home’ .

Yet instead of rebutting these accusations and seeing them as coming from the Zionist Jewish Labour Movement, eager to defend Israel, whose ‘sister’ party the Israeli Labor Party is now in coalition with the far-Right in Israel, Corbyn took them as genuine.

Corbyn, who had 30 years experience of pro-Palestine politics should have been aware of the fact that all Palestine solidarity activists are routinely accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ including Jewish anti-Zionists.  I doubt there is a single Palestine solidarity activist in Britain who hasn’t been accused of anti-Semitism. Yet Corbyn and McDonnell were oblivious to this.

Corbyn believed that he could appease the apartheid animal that is Zionism.  There was only one way to disarm the ‘anti-Semitism’ attacks and that was by confronting it.  It is to his eternal discredit that Corbyn took the path of least resistance, betraying those of use who were his allies.  In the Labour Leaked Report he and his office are quoted on page 306 and 333 thus:

Well we were all expelled but was trust rebuilt?  Of course not. The Zionists simply demanded more victims and Corbyn and Formby supplied them.  Formby was very proud of how many socialists she expelled. She and Corbyn were too stupid to understand that the more people you expel the more credence you give to the ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations. In essence they were running on a treadmill.  The faster they ran the faster it revolved.

Corbyn apologised and apologised.  Did it make him stronger or weaker? Well the answer is obvious. Just as I predicted the near victory in 2017 I also predicted the debacle of 2019.

Corbyn’s strongest supporter in Parliament, Chris Williamson was targeted by the Zionists and instead of supporting him Corbyn abandoned him. Ken Livingstone was abandoned for telling the truth that during the Nazi period the Zionists collaborated with and worked with the Nazis, especially in the 1933-39 period.  This is simply a matter of historical fact. The Zionists were the right-wing nationalists of the Jewish community and they agree with the Nazis that Jews did not belong in Germany or anywhere outside Palestine.

Seamus Milne & James Schneider

If Corbyn can be forgiven for not being clued up, this is not true of either of his closest advisors, ex-public school boys Seamus Milne and James Schneider. Milne in particular must have been aware of what was happening yet he stayed silent. The suspicion must be that this scion of the ruling class was not all he seemed.

Today there is no pretence that people are being expelled for ‘anti-Semitism’. But when Starmer was first elected he promised to ‘root out’ anti-Semitism. His first action was to declare, in an interview with The Times of Israel that he was a Zionist (i.e. racist) ‘without qualification’.

When I was the first Jewish person to be expelled Starmer took to Twitter to welcome my expulsion. That was the first time that I took notice of this apology for a personality. However I was expelled under Corbyn not Starmer.

Unfortunately Corbyn and Jennie Formby welcomed Starmer to their bosom despite him having been part of the chicken coup. Because Starmer used ‘anti-Semitism’ as his pretext much of the stupid Left (Momentum and CLPD) were fooled into believing everything was fine. Andrew Scattergood, co-chair of Momentum, even came out with a statement that

“the suspension of [Jeremy Corbyn] risks politicising and undermining Labour’s response to anti-semitism.” 

How more stupid can you get? The whole point of the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign was to get rid of Corbyn in the first place. With a left like this it’s no wonder that Starmer has had such an easy ride.

It probably still hasn't dawned on Scatterbrain that Jews in the Labour Party are now 5 times as likely to be expelled as non-Jews. This is the 'fight against anti-Semitism' yet Momentum stays silent.

Where to now

However we are where we are. The question is what next? The reformist left in the Labour Party, CLPD and Momentum, will be protesting their loyalty even whilst Starmer kicks them out.

However most Labour members don’t and never have accepted the fake anti-Semitism narrative. Some 120,000 at least have left the Labour Party and it is likely that another 100K or more will do so with the expulsion of Ken Loach.

It is also likely that not only will Starmer move to proscribe the LRC and CLPD and possibly even Momentum but that he will move against at least that part of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs who have at least given some indication of standing up to Starmer.

Although it is clear that many of the SCG are running for cover, 19 of them have signed a statement opposing the expulsion of Ken Loach. Which means that nearly half of them haven’t put their names to it. I emailed my own MP, Lloyd Russell-Moyle to ask why he hadn’t signed but I received no response. Lloyd has been so busy retreating from previously held positions that he hasn’t had time to answer!

But if much of what passes for the Labour Left is pathetic and cowardly then much of the socialist or far left is suffering from myopia.

At the LAW AMM tomorrow the Communist Party of Great Britain/ Labour Party Marxists will put its own strategy paper to the meeting. Their argument is for fighting in the Labour Party because it is supported by the trade unions. And essentially that is the limit of their strategy. It is more a dogma and article of faith than a rational argument. There is absolutely no reason to believe that it is any longer possible to fight the witchhunt in the Labour Party. The present witchhunt is the worst since 1945 and quite possibly ever.

CLPD refused to defend their own representative on the NEC

Where Labour is heading under Starmer

Starmer is, as he has made clear, determined to complete what Blair started.

Starmer’s distinguishing mark has been as a liar.  He has all the charisma of a wet fish on a windy day. He stood as a unity candidate with a radical set of 10 pledges. It is hard to believe that his first pledge, Economic Justice, contained the promise that he would

‘Increase income tax for the top 5% of earners, reverse the Tories’ cuts in corporation tax and clamp down on tax avoidance, particularly of large corporations. No stepping back from our core principles.

He ended up opposing the Tory increase in corporation tax! A position that New Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson endorsed. The same Alan Johnson who gave birth to the term ‘hostile environment’. Given that Starmer relied on a few rich donors to fund his campaign, including the Zionist owner of Qwik-Fit, Sir Trevor Chinn, it is amazing that many Momentum supporters like Paul Mason and Lansman poodle Laura Parker backed him.

Yet despite this the opposition to Starmer’s political move to the Right has been almost inaudible.

We cannot just focus on those remaining in the Labour Party

It is true that socialists inside the Labour Party cannot just be abandoned and nor is a strategy that encourages them to leave a useful one.

However thousands have left and it is clear that Starmer intends to continue the purge, destroying Labour Party democracy in the process. It is equally clear that Corbyn, having failed to regain the Labour whip by rowing back on what he said, is determined not to lead the fight against Starmer.

It is crystal clear that that the fight against the witchhunt will fail, not least because the trade unions are giving it their tacit support and there is no rule that Labour's bureaucrats are not prepared to break. What then?

My own view is that we should be thinking of setting up a Socialist Movement in parallel to the Labour Party and as the precursor to an alternative party. If members of the SCG are expelled, as seems likely, then such a party could have real weight, especially if Corbyn were to join.  Given that it is highly unlikely he will be allowed to stand as a Labour member at the next election it is to be hoped that for once he will take decisive action.

But regardless there is no doubt that the traditional allegiance of the working class to Labour is dissipating.  The Red Wall effect may not simply confined to the North. Having lost the Scottish working class it is quite possible that Labour will also start to lose other sections, starting with the Muslim vote.

Unfortunately with the disappearance of traditional class consciousness, with the atomisation of the working class, old allegiances are also dying.

The question is whether the socialist left in the Labour Party can be bold enough to take a step outside the comfort of resolutionary socialism. There is no natural law that says that the Labour Party will continue to have the allegiance of the working class.

And that will effect our attitude to the trade unions.  If I was in the Bakers Union, which is considering disaffiliation from the Labour Party I would support such a motion.  Likewise in the FBU. For too long the Labour Party has taken the unions and the working class for granted. Now that Starmer wants to make Labour a safe capitalist alternative to the Tories there are serious questions that need to be asked about the future of the socialist left in Britain. And they may not involve automatic support for Labour.

For some like the CPGB there will never be a retreat from comfortable dogma and shibboleth.  But the same does not need to be the case for all socialists facing the dilemma of what to do next.

Tony Greenstein