VICTORY - Employment Tribunal finds Stan Keable was Unfairly Dismissed Despite Being Abandoned by UNISON

UNISON HAS QUESTIONS TO ANSWER – why did unelected officials refuse to defend the right of workers to freedom of speech?

Cast your mind back to March 26^th 2018. The Board of Deputies of British Jews held a demonstration against ‘anti-Semitism’ in Parliament Square. Its target was Jeremy Corbyn. We were in the middle of the local election campaign and Luciana Berger, who was a Labour MP before decamping to the Independent Group, had just discovered a 7 year old ‘anti-Semitic’ to beat Jeremy Corbyn over the head with.

The Board of Deputies at the time of Oswald Moseley urged Jew to do nothing about fascism

Never before in its history had the Board of Deputies held an anti-racist demonstration. Not during the 1930’s in the battle against  Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists. Not during the 1970’s in the fight against the National Front or in succeeding decades against the BNP and EDL. But when Israel was on the agenda they moved into action.

Steve Terry - right-wing Progress Labour councillor and UNISON's London Regional Organiser faced a conflict of interest and resolved it in his favour

Indeed on October 2^nd 1936 the Board specifically issued warnings in the Jewish Chronicle telling Jews to stay away from the BUF march in what became known as the Battle of Cable Street.

Letter from Steve Terry advising Stan to apologise and 'plead mitigating circumstances'

 ‘Anti-Semitism’ had only, it would seem reared its head under Jeremy Corbyn, the left-wing leader of the Labour Party. The fact that he is also a supporter of the Palestinians is entirely coincidental!

The Zionists' Racist Demonstration that Momentum Ignored

But on March 26^th 2018, the Board and the Zionists girded their loins and organised a demonstration. Indeed not only the Board but those well known anti-racists Ian Paisley of the DUP, Norman Tebbit, Sajid David and even Chuka Ummuna attended.  It was the strangest ‘anti-racist demonstration ever seen as it seemed to be composed mainly of racists.

The late David Cesarani was a Zionist historian confirming Nazi support for the German Zionists, who represented about 3% of the Jewish community

There was also a counter-demonstration to the Zionists organised by Jewish Voice for Labour and supported by Labour Against the Witchhunt.  At the counter demonstration LAW Secretary Stan Keable got into a discussion with a Zionist demonstrator, during the course of which Stan expressed his view that the Zionists had collaborated before the war with the Nazis.

David Grossman, BBC2 journalist - the ethics of a demented skunk  - note how allegations of collaboration have become 'plotting with Hitler' and how the Holocaust isn't antisemitic

The evidence for this point of view is extensive. However a BBC2 Newsnight ‘journalist’ David Grossman secretly filmed the exchange, posting it on social media.  Immediately came a demand by a junior government minister and Tory MP Greg Hands, for Hammersmith Council to dismiss Stan for having the temerity to express his opinions.

Instead of Council leader Steve Cowan telling Hands to get on his bike, this New Labour apparatchik immediately had Stan suspended.

You might think that this was a slam dunk for Stan’s union, UNISON. Stan approached their London Regional Organiser, Steve Terry, to help him fight the case. Little did Stan know that Terry was a right-wing councillor in Walthamstow and a supporter of Progress. Instead of supporting Stan he told him to plead guilty and plead mitigation!

I spoke, briefly to Terry on the phone and pointed out that the suspension was a breach of Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Speech) however he was too arrogant to take advice.

Unfortunately it's not true

I therefore represented Stan at his disciplinary hearing and on May 21^st he was dismissed. An appeal was made and London UNISON successfully prevented me representing Stan thereon although the Secretary of the local branch represented him.  The appeal nonetheless failed.

It is therefore gratifying to learn that nearly a year later, the Central London Employment Tribunal has upheld the claim of Stan Keable for unfair dismissal, both procedural and substantive. The judgement has not yet been put online but it took 2 hours to read out.

Beth Bickerstaff, a senior UNISON official, dismisses out of hand Stan's complaint at the refusal to provide support for Stan's disciplinary hearing - it is a case of one unelected official covering the back of another

UNISON’s failure to defend the right to free speech of its members is shameful and shocking. There is no excuse for the behaviour of Stephen Terry nor that of his superiors such as Beth Bickerstaffe who upheld the decision of Terry not to give Stan any support.

Why has this happened?  Undoubtedly it is a product of UNISON having adopted the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism which effectively outlaws criticism of Zionism. It is a definition which effectively renders UNISON’s policy of BDS and support for the Palestinians as ‘anti-Semitic’. It means that criticism of Zionism, the ideology and movement behind the establishment of the Apartheid State of Israel is also 'antisemitic' based as it is on the assumption that all Jews are therefore Zionists.

Linda Perks, who broke UNISON's election rules, was effectively promoted for what she had done

Prentis went out of his way to support Adam Langleben of the Jewish Labour Movement who like a rat left Labour for the TIGs. He is now marshalling the case against Labour before the EHRC

Dave Prentis after last year’s elections, went out of his way to extend his sympathy to a Jewish Labour Movement Councillor and Officer, Adam Langleben who, as a result of the false anti-Semitism campaign, managed to lose his own seat in Hendon West.  Langleben is a scab who subsequently jumped ship entirely and joined Chuka Ummuna’s Independent Group. Who knows where he will now go given the split in the Funny Tinge!

The only person penalised throughout all of this was me.  On 8^th October, after a farcical and incompetent investigation carried by Regional Officer Tony Jones I was summoned to a disciplinary hearing conducted by 3 Prentis loyalists headed by Mark Fischer.  I was found guilty and sentenced to the heaviest punishment bar expulsion – 3 years suspension with loss of membership rights – for having dared to criticise Terry’s treacherous behaviour. UNISON is run by full-time officials for full-time officials.  Members are not supposed to criticise these unelected, overpaid bureaucrats.

Terry himself though did not make a complaint. It was his superior, Maggi Ferncombe, who had previously been SE Regional Secretary. I have previously crossed swords with her. This meant that at the disciplinary hearing I was faced with the somewhat difficult task of cross examining Ferncombe as to what was Terry’s reactions were to my criticisms. For example did he feel intimidated and afraid as was alleged. In essence I was cross examining on what was hearsay.  A somewhat difficult task.

Mark Fischer, as a Prentis loyalist, refused to listen to any mention of the reasons why I had criticised Terry publicly.  To him they were irrelevant. Nonetheless during the disciplinary hearing it emerged that I hadn’t been given notes of the original investigation and other discrepancies. These were also disregarded.

Because I secretly taped the meeting I was able to show how I had been hampered in my ability to put forward a defence by the way that the complaint had been made.

However the twist is that although I was required to appeal by November 1^st last year, the appeal hearing has still not been heard 7 months later. The original decision has effectively been abandoned. The reason is not hard to work out. How can someone make a complaint on behalf of someone else when that person isn’t willing to complain themselves?  The unfairness is clear even to such a died in the wool bureaucrat as Beth Bickerstaffe (the daughter-in-law of previous UNISON General Secretary Ron Bickerstaffe).

Tony Jones, a South-Eastern regional official who was my investigator - he is also a right-wing Labour councillor!

So the net result is that I am still a member of UNISON with full membership rights! However the original injustice has not been remedied.  Stan was betrayed by UNISON’s full time officials.  They failed to do their job which is to defend the right of a member to hold and express his opinions. 

The charges against Stan from his employer were laughable:

1.     That, in attending a counter demonstration outside the Houses of Parliament on the 26th March 2018, you knowingly increased the possibility of being challenged about your views and subsequently proceeded to express views that were in breach of the Council’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and the Council’s Code of Conduct.

2.     That you made inappropriate comments which were subsequently circulated on social media which are deemed to be insensitive and likely to be offensive and potentially in breach of the Equality Act 2010 and/or the Council’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy.

Terry could find nothing wrong in these charges which were a direct challenge to an employee’s right to attend a demonstration and a flagrant breach of Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights relating to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Any full-time official who doesn’t understand that such a dismissal is almost certainly going to be unfair and outside what is called the band of reasonable responses should either be retrained or dismissed. It is clear that Terry's decision was taken on political grounds. Terry’s right-wing politics should not be allowed to interfere with his work which is representing union members.

See:

Stan’s open letter to H&F Councillors:

Mike Cushman – ‘How talking about Zionism can lose you your job’:

Tony Greenstein – ‘No criticism permitted’:
Labour Against the Witchhunt - Stan Keable has won his employment tribunal

Stan Keable - Suspended for Expressing his Opinion on Zionism

What is UNISON for if it doesn't defend its own members?

Why I face disciplinaryaction for criticising London Regional Organiser Steve Terry who scabbed onStan Keable

Suspended from UNISON for Defending Freedom of Speech and the Right of Free Assembly

Unison’s Shameful Betrayal of its members – it supports the right to dismiss a worker for attending a demonstration

Why I face disciplinary action for criticising London Regional Organiser Steve Terry who scabbed on Stan Keable

Two weeks ago I was called to an investigation hearing. A complaint had been made against me regarding criticism I had made in various articles of UNISON’s London Region Organiser, Steve Terry, a right-wing Labour Councillor in Walthamstow.  The articles are below:

Stan Keable - Suspended for Expressing his Opinion on Zionism - Welcome to Stephen Cowan's Thought Police in Hammersmith & Fulham Council

What is UNISON for if it doesn't defend its own members? Stan Keable - abandoned by Steve Terry, the union’s London Regional Officer

No criticism permitted

Stan Keable, an employee of Hammersmith and Fulham Council and also Secretary of Labour Against the Witch-hunt, attended a demonstration in London on March 26^th called by Jewish Voice for Labour.  It was called in opposition to the Zionists’ ‘Enough is Enough’ demonstration outside Parliament. It was part of the fake anti-Semitism campaign before the local elections, whose target was Jeremy Corbyn.

Unison sells itself more as an insurance company than a trade union

The Zionist demonstration was billed as an ‘anti-racist’ demonstration (the first one the Board of Deputies has called in its history) but an anti-racist demonstration at which Norman Tebbit and the Democratic Unionist Party are participants, to say nothing of Uncle Tom Chuku Ummuna and Sajid David is unlikely to be about fighting racism.

BBC 'journalist' David Grossman, with the ethics of a rattle snake

Stan got into a discussion with a Zionist in the course of which he expressed the view that the Zionist movement had collaborated with the Nazis.  The discussion was recorded by BBC Newsnight editor and all round bigot, David Grossman.  Placed on social media it caused the racist local Tory MP, Greg Hands to demand that Stan be sacked. Thus we see how the false anti-Semitism campaign is a threat to free speech and democratic rights, aided by yellow journalists such as the BBC’s Grossman.

H&F Council leader Steve Cowan promptly ensured that Stan was suspended and last month I represented Stan at his disciplinary hearing the result of which was that he was sacked.  I should not, of course, have had to represent Stan as I am from Brighton and Hove UNISON not Hammersmith but when Stan approached the London Regional Organiser, Steve Terry for support he received none.

Terry’s advice was that Stan should plead guilty and plead for forgiveness.  In a letter of May 8^th Terry advised Stan that:

‘the course that you should take is to indicate that you regret any offence caused by your remarks and plead mitigating circumstances.’

A supporter of Progress, Terry was completely unfit to make a decision in this case. His own prejudices rendered him incapable of seeing that the main issue was not whether or not Stan was correct in his views but an elementary one of the right to free speech and free assembly, rights guaranteed under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The ECHR was drawn up and approved by the European countries precisely because of the lack of rights of civilians under Nazi occupation during the war. Terry however is a pen pushing bureaucrat, incapable of comprehending such issues.  For him, defence of Zionism was the only issue. 

Tony Jones - one of my two investigators

The two main charges against Stan were:

1. That, in attending a counter demonstration outside the Houses of Parliament on the 26th March 2018, you knowingly increased the possibility of being challenged about your views and subsequently proceeded to express views that were in breach of the Council’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and the Council’s Code of Conduct (‘Working with integrity’ and ‘Working with the media’).

2. That you made inappropriate comments which were subsequently circulated on social media which are deemed to be insensitive and likely to be offensive and potentially in breach of the Equality Act 2010 and/or the Council’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy.

In other words Stan should not have attended the demonstration in question because he rendered himself susceptible to being challenged about his view!  Could you have a more pathetic attack on the basic rights of any citizen?

Gail Adams, the second of my investigators, receiving a CBE from Prince William

To anyone with a modicum of understanding of human rights issues, let alone employment rights, these charges were a threat to all workers. Terry however was too dim to understand that.

The idea that by ‘causing offence’ Stan was guilty of a disciplinary offence is outrageous. Where lies freedom of speech? As Jodie Ginsberg wrote in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings and the murder of a Danish filmmaker by jihadists,

the right to free speech means nothing without the right to offend.  If all you have the right to do is to utter platitudes then free speech is meaningless.

Of course Terry was unconcerned by issues such as free speech. This overpaid and useless official considers that the members are accountable to him. It was therefore not surprising that Terry, who is not used to criticism from members, made a complaint via his superior, the London Regional Secretary against me.

The racist Zionist demonstration whose counterdemonstration Stan joined

On June 4^th I was called to an investigation hearing conducted by 2 more officials, Gail Adams and Tony Jones from the southern region. Ms Adams is Head of Unison’s Professional Services Unit and Tony Jones is Regional Manager for the South-East and as Tony revealed during the course of the interview is himself a Labour councillor in Reading!  Most of the interview was conducted by Tony Jones, who was jovial and pleasant.  Gail Adams was mostly silent but her hostility was evidenced by her body language and general demeanour.  Clearly the idea of criticising a fellow official didn’t go down well.

You can read the whole interview here or you can listen to the tape of the interview here. Amongst the ‘highlights of the interview was my statement, in a letter to the Head of UNISON’s Executive Office, Beth Bickerstaffe, that the Inquiry could only be a ‘stitch-up.’ Tony Jones was offended by this description so I had to point out that this was not intended personally. Rather it was the fact that I was the person who was subject to a complaint rather than Terry, for his refusal to defend a member under attack and his incompetence in failing to have any grasp of basic employment or human rights, to  say nothing of his refusal to get a legal opinion.  On any objective basis Terry should be suspended on charges of gross misconduct as a prelude to his dismissal. But of course to Ms Bickerstaffe, daughter-in-law of former UNISON General Secretary Rodney Bickerstaffe, it is me who is guilty of the ‘crime’ of criticising a full-time official.

What my case demonstrates is the democratic deficit in UNISON.  Despite supporting Jeremy Corbyn in the leadership elections in 2015 and 2016 (despite rumours that Dave Prentis would withdraw his support) UNISON is not a left-wing union. In the past 8 years, at a time of massive cuts in local government, it has abysmally failed to take any action against those attacks on members’ jobs and conditions or pay. When there was action a few years ago and strikes over pensions the union leadership did their best to get the action called off by pretending that they had secured concessions. Prentis is well-known for his lack of backbone.

Despite the fact that UNISON has good policy on Palestine and supports BDS (albeit doing very little to implement it) it has also supported the false ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign against supporters of Palestine.  I spoke on the motion in 2007 and again 2008 at national conference when policy on BDS was first proposed.  The arguments of the Zionists were basically that those supporting BDS were supporters of Hamas and anti-Semitic! Rodney Bickerstaffe, when he spoke at a PSC AGM attacked the use of false accusations of anti-Semitism against supporters of Palestine.  People are well aware of how Zionists weaponise ‘anti-Semitism’ but today they remain silent.

That is what the actions of Terry are about.  He is a fulsome supporter of the idea that support for the Palestinians is ‘anti-Semitic’ and in particular criticism of Zionism, the ideology of the movement that dispossessed the Palestinians. That is why Stan has been abandoned and that is why I am subject to a bogus ‘investigation’ that can only conclude that I am guilty as charged, even though charges have yet to be laid.

Tony Greenstein

Stan Keable - Suspended for Expressing his Opinion on Zionism - Welcome to Stephen Cowan's Thought Police in Hammersmith & Fulham Council

How Equalities Policies are Used to Deny Free Speech & Human Rights

On March 26^th, as part of the wholly contrived campaign against Jeremy Corbyn, which blew up around a long erased, allegedly anti-Semitic, mural various Zionist organisations organised their first ‘anti-racist’ demonstration outside Parliament.  It is worth noting that over 2 years ago the Jewish Chronicle was far more tentative, describing the mural as having ‘anti-Semitic undertones.’  Fast forward to today and the same Jewish Chronicle was clear that ‘its intent was obvious’.

This must have been the first anti-racist demonstration that the bigots of the anti-Catholic DUP had attended. We even had our old friend Norman Tebbit there.  Tebbit was previously known for devising the ‘cricket test’ to ascertain whether Pakistani and Indian immigrants were really British, according to which, if someone supported the Indian or Pakistani cricket team then they weren’t really British.

A counter-demonstration was also called by Jewish Voice for Labour and about 200 people, including supporters of Labour Against the Witchhunt rallied to the banner of Jews who believed that the fake anti-Semitism campaign was more about defending Israel and getting rid of Corbyn than anti-Semitism.

Lucy Dawidowic's War Against the Jews - the SS consciously favoured the Zionists

Lucy Dawidowic's War Against the Jews - the SS consciously favoured the Zionists

One of the demonstrators was Stan Keable, the Secretary of LAW. As Stan went around handing out leaflets he got into a conversation with some Zionist supporters and into a conversation about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. During this conversation Stan made his views clear that the Holocaust wasn’t only caused by anti-Semitism (obvious it wasn’t – anti-Semitism has existed since time immemorial), that the basis of Zionism was that Jews didn’t belong in the countries of their birth and further that the Zionist movement had collaborated with the Nazi in the period leading up to the Holocaust.

David Grossman - BBC Newsnight's Skunk of a Journalist

This is the distortion that one comes to expect from a BBC 'journalist' - from the school of Tory Kuensberg

Unknown to Stan BBC Newsnight editor David Grossman had secretly recorded the conversation and it wasn’t long before it was in the public domain and on social media.  The result of this quite innocuous conversation was big headlines in papers like The Standard and Jewish Chronicle, articles in that well-known anti-racist paper the Daily Mail on-line.  The next day local Tory MP, Greg Hands sent a tweet out demanding action against Stan and he followed this up with a letter to Steve Cowan, leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, Stan’s employer, demanding action.

Note how Greg Hands has elided comments made in Parliament Square to 'anti-semitism' at Hammersmith - Stephen Cowan could and should have told him to get lost 

Greg Hands ties in the 'antisemitism' crisis (what crisis?) with Momentum

It has to be said that the BBC’s David Grossman behaviour is akin to a syphilitic ulcer. Utterly reprehensible behaviour by this skunk of a human being.  It’s just a pity that there are no more job opportunities left as a Stasi informer.

How Equality Policies are used to clamp down on democratic debate and the free exchange of opinions - everything is 'offensive'

Stan has been suspended for the past month for making ‘offensive comments’ likely to be in breach of the Equality Act 2010.   And of course these comments ‘have the potential to bring the Council into disrepute.’  Because you always need a catch-all charge, plumbed from the depths of McCarthyism if you don’t have anything substantive.

Freedom of Speech

You don’t have to be a follower of Voltaire or Socrates or to have read John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty to understand that inherent in freedom of speech is the right to offend or shock. That one cannot discuss one’s opinions with one’s fellows in a public space without a servile member of the BBC Newsnight’s Thought Police recording you, only to denounce your opinions with all the fervour of a moser, is in itself shocking. 

Steven Cowan - Reactionary Leader of Hammersmith/Fulham Council

It is no surprise that Stephen Cowan, the Leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council, being a paid up member of Labour’s Right, should seek to excommunicate and dismiss Stan Keable for daring to voice a dissenting opinion.

After all it is received wisdom amongst our rulers (but precious few others) that Zionism is a good thing, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and that kosher pigs fly.  In that order.  To dare to voice an opinion on Zionism that runs counter to the accepted narrative risks incurring the wrath of robotic council bureaucrats and mindless pen pushers with the claque of equal opportunist hangers on trailing behind.

As Jodie Ginsberg wrote in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings and the murder of a Danish filmmaker by jihadists, ‘the right to free speech means nothing without the right to offend.  If all you have the right to do is to utter platitudes then free speech is meaningless.’

If Corbyn should be hauled over the coals, it is not for failing to tackle a non-existent ‘anti-Semitism’ but in his failure to stand up for his friend Ken Livingstone.  When Livingstone said that Hitler ‘supported Zionism’ then he was doing no more than speaking an uncomfortable truth about an ideology and movement that has led to millions of refugees, thousands of deaths and a series of never ending wars and that is just in Palestine.  It is a fact that during the War the Zionist was opposed to the rescue of Jews if the destination was not Palestine.

Lucy Dawidowicz on the Haavara agreement between the Nazis and Zionists

The fact that Livingstone was essentially correct is almost irrelevant.  It is an indisputable fact that on 10^th August 1933 the German Zionist  Federation and the Palestinian Jewish Agency signed an economic trade agreement, Ha'avara, with the Nazi state, that helped destroy the Jewish led international boycott of Nazi Germany.

It is also a fact, as Zionist historian Lucy Dawidowic wrote, that on 28^th January 1935 Reinhardt Heydrich issued a directive stating: ‘the activity of the Zionist-oriented youth organizations that are engaged in the occupational restructuring of the Jews for agriculture and manual trades prior to their emigration to Palestine lies in the interest of the National Socialist state’s leadership.’ These organisations therefore ‘are not to be treated with that strictness that it is necessary to apply to the members of the so-called German-Jewish organizations (assimilationists)’. [Lucy Dawidowicz, War Against the Jews, pp.118, and Francis Nicosia, Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, p.119]  It is also a fact that another Zionist historian, David Cesarani, in his book The Final Solution noted that ‘the efforts of the Gestapo are oriented to promoting Zionism as much as possible and lending support to its efforts to further emigration.’

How do you 'discredit' a Council anymore than it is already discredited?

Stan was also accused of breaching the Equality Act because he said that according to Zionism ‘“Jews are not acceptable here”

Perhaps Alexander and Claude Montefiore, Presidents respectively of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and of the Anglo-Jewish Association, were also anti-Semitic (because that is what is really being alleged) when on 24^th May 1917 they wrote a letter to the Times protesting against political Zionism which said that the:

“…establishment of a Jewish nationality in Palestine, founded on the theory of Jewish homelessness, must have the effect throughout the world of stamping the Jews as strangers in their native lands and of undermining their hard-won positions as citizens and nationals of those lands.”

It might be true but it is 'offensive'

Likewise Lucien Wolf, a leading member of the Conjoint Foreign Committee of British Jews, wrote a worried letter to James de Rothschild, dated August 31 1916 concerning the efforts to form an alliance between British imperialism and the Zionist movement: Wolf declared that:

‘the Zionists do not merely propose to form and establish a Jewish nationality in Palestine, but that they claim all the Jews as forming at the present moment a separate and dispossessed nationality, for which it is necessary to find an organic political centre, because they are and must always be aliens in the lands in which they now dwell and, more especially, because it is ‘an absolute self delusion’ to believe that any Jew can be at once ‘English by nationality and Jewish by faith.  I have spent most of my life in combating these very doctrines, when presented to me in the form of anti-Semitism, and I can only regard them as the more dangerous when they come to me in the guise of Zionism.’

When Stan Keable was repeating the above he was no more breaching the Equalities Act than someone who exercises their right to free speech at Speakers Corner.  The temerity and cowardice of the sycophants and petty bureaucrats of Hammersmith Council is a wonder to behold.

Did Stan Keable Breach the Equality Act 2010

If anyone deserves to be dismissed for gross misconduct it is those who were responsible for the Disciplinary Investigation Into Allegations Against Stan Keable.  It is difficult to believe that trained HR Professionals can come up with such utter nonsense.  One wonders whether it ever passed the eye of a lawyer in Hammersmith and Fulham Council.  If Steve Cowan were to spend less time plotting to appease Greg Hands and more on the Council he is leader of then he might ensure that their HR Department was fit for purpose.

The suggestion that debating an issue such as Zionism is a breach of the Equality Act is for the birds.  The Introduction to the Act, which sets out its purpose is quite clear.  It is an Act whose purpose is

‘to reform and harmonise equality law...  to enable certain employers to be required to publish information about the differences in pay between male and female employees; to prohibit victimisation in certain circumstances; to require the exercise of certain functions to be with regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and other prohibited conduct... to increase equality of opportunity; to amend the law relating to rights and responsibilities in family relationships; and for connected purposes.’

There is nothing in the Act about restricting freedom of speech or disciplining people who make comments unpopular with Britain’s yellow press or its obsequious journalists. The key paragraph in the charges against Stan are contained in Paragraph 5.2 which states:

This is the level of idiocy - the allegation about Zionist collaboration with the Nazis has nothing to do with whether or not Zionism is 'at the centre' of Judaism - which incidentally breaches the IHRA definition of antisemitism that you can't blame Jews for Israel!

The person who wrote this never once thought to ask whether challenging someone's belief, not discriminating on the basis of that belief, is a breach of the Equality Act.  The standard of professionalism or rather the lack of it is breathtaking

Whoever wrote this clearly does not understand what a Protected Characteristic is - it doesn't imply protection from criticism but discrimination

The question as to whether or not Stan Keable’s comments breach the Equalities Act may hinge on an interpretation of what constitutes ‘belief’ under the terms of the Act... One of these [protected] characteristics is “religion and belief”. Zionism is not a religion, although it is closely related to Judaism, but it is a belief in the right of the Jewish people to have a nation state in the ‘Holy Land’, their original homeland. Legal advice, obtained as part of this investigation, states that case law has established that the definition of belief can extend to political beliefs. If Zionism constitutes a ‘belief’ under the terms of the Equality Act then the statements by Stan Keable that the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazis and that it accepted that “Jews are not acceptable here” might be deemed to have breached the Equality Act.

Leave aside the nonsense about Zionism being ‘closely related to Judaism’ or that Israel/Palestine is the ‘original homeland’ of the Jews (a popular anti-Semitic misconception of the Evangelical Christians who wanted to send the Jews back) there is a fundamental flaw in the above passage which any child of above average intelligence should be able to spot. 

Equality Act Section 13

Zionism probably is a philosophical belief under s.10 of the Equality Act. But then so is anti-Zionism. However it is not the protected characteristics of Zionism’s believers which is at stake but those of Stan. Protected characteristics are not a free floating cause of action but they are tied to specific acts such as discrimination, harassment and victimisation. The Act is quite specific. Section 13(1) says for example that

(1)             A person (A) discriminates against another (B) if, because of a protected characteristic, A treats B less favourably than A treats or would treat others.

It should be obvious to any fool, though clearly not to those trying to persecute Stan Keable that debating a topic in the open air or in a pub does not infringe your adversaries rights or treat him less favourably. By saying that the Nazis and Zionists collaborated at certain times, no one is being discriminated against.  Stan was not in any contractual or employment relationship with his adversaries.

BUT in suspending and seeking to dismiss Stan, it is Hammersmith Council which is guilty of breaching the Equality Act because it is Stan who they are discriminating against on the grounds of his Religion or Belief.  The failure to understand this simple but obvious point is quite staggering.

There is no single definition of what constitutes a religious or philosophical belief but the case of Grainger plc & others v Nicholson set out some guidelines. There must be:

• A genuinely held belief.
• A belief and not an opinion
• A belief as to a weight and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour
• The belief must have a certain level of cogency, seriousness, coherency, and importance
• The belief must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not be incompatible with human dignity, and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others

If Stan Keable were to be dismissed then almost certainly he would have been directly dismissed because of his philosophical belief, i.e. anti-Zionism.  In addition to being unfairly dismissed he would also have suffered a detriment.

The person who compiled the Council’s Report states (Para. 5.6) that

‘in attending the counter demonstration at Westminster on 26th March and in making the comments that subsequently appeared on social media, Mr Keable has failed to avoid any conduct outside of work which may discredit himself and the Council.’

The only conclusion from this piece of idiocy is that Council employees must not take part in protests, demonstrations or any other political activity

Under recommendations (Paragraph 7.1) we have this little gem, the product of the kind of bureaucratic mind that diligently produced ID cards that were nigh impossible to forge in Nazi Occupied Netherlands (thus condemning thousands of Jews to death): 

That, in attending a counter demonstration outside the Houses of Parliament on the 26th March 2018, Stan Keable knowingly increased the possibility of being challenged about his views and subsequently proceeded to express views that were in breach of the Council’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and the Council’s Code of Conduct (‘Working with integrity’ and ‘Working with the media’).

Have you ever heard such a pathetic, cringing, ingratiating formulation?  That in attending a demonstration Stan ‘knowingly increased the possibility of being challenged about his views...’

What kind of pathetic wretch of a human being is capable of formulating this nonsense?  Whoever wrote this drivel should be sent on an extended course on basic civil liberties, the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act and for good measure a civics course explaining why protest is legitimate in a democracy.

We should be under no illusions that the product of the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign of groups like Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement, where people are made to feel guilty about saying a word out of place, at the very same time that unarmed Palestinians in Gaza are being gunned down in cold blood, is to make people afraid that they might say something ‘anti-Semitic’. The McCarthyist campaign of Israel’s shills and propagandist organisations – such as Luke Akehurst’s We Believe in Israel, is to exert a chilling effect on democratic debate. 

If this Report is accepted by Hammersmith Council and Stan is dismissed, then mere attendance at a demonstration will be a potential breach of one’s employment contract. Because of course there is always likely to be press coverage of a demonstration and, horror of horrors, one might even feature in that coverage.

Clearly the person who drew up the Report are also unaware of Schedule 1 of the 1998 Human Rights Act which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into British law. 

Article 10 Freedom of Expression states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.

Article 11 Freedom of Assembly and Association begins:

Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Closely allied to these is Article 9 on Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion.  If it is disappointing that a Labour Council is prepared to trample over the most basic human rights in order to appease the Israel lobby, then the reaction of UNISON and its London Organiser, Steve Terry, is little better.  He has been obstructive, incapable of acknowledging the issues at stake and has suggested that if Stan didn’t apologise (for what?) then he would sit in on the disciplinary as a ‘silent representative’.  I have tried in vain to get UNISON to obtain a legal opinion from their own solicitors. The complete lack of any politics or awareness of trade union bureaucrats is nearly equal to that of their council counterparts.  One of the reasons that the trade unions in this country are in such a weak state is that their leadership has almost no political understanding of who their friends and enemies are.  Their capitulation before the false 'anti-semitism' campaign against Corbyn may in the end prove fatal.  Steve Terry also doesn’t appear to understand that UNISON officials are paid to represent and support their members.

I have no doubt, having considerable experience of both Employment Tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal, that in the event of Stan being dismissed he will win any subsequently case because not even the most conformist and timid Tribunal will accept that going on a demonstration and airing one’s views in public constitute a breach of the Equality Act or one’s contract.  What is truly pathetic is that Steve Cowan and the Labour Council don’t understand this.