John McDonnell Has Become Tom Watson’s Useful Idiot as Watson Openly Defies Corbyn and Prepares a Coup

McDonnell’s Pathetic Acceptance of the Right's Fake ‘Anti-Semitism’ Campaign is akin to flying the White Flag of Surrender

Sunday Times 3 March 2019

I know it is difficult for Labour politicians to absorb, but for a decade the Tories have been in alliance with a host of genuinely anti-Semitic parties in the European parliament. Parties like Poland’s Law & Justice Party or Latvia’s LNNK, whose MEP Robert Zile goes on a walk each March with veterans of Latvia’s Waffen SS who did their duty helping out with the Holocaust. What is it that prevents them mentioning this every time someone accuses the Labour Party of ‘anti-Semitism’?  Stupidity? Cowardice? Take your pick. Labour's antisemitism fantasists don’t even refer to Boris Johnson and his racist comments.

Of course these anti-Semitic parties that the Tories are in alliance with are also devoted supporters of Israel, so perhaps this is not something worth mentioning?  I refer to e.g. Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, who is busy trying to rehabilitate Admiral Horthy, Hungary's war-time Nazi ruler who presided over the deportation of nearly half a million Jews to Auschwitz. The fact that he is of the opinion that Horthy was an 'exceptional statesman' doesn't prevent Netanyahu establishing a solid friendship with him or the Tories, alone amongst conservative parties in the European parliament, supporting him in a censure motion.

Horthy is a genuine anti-Semite unlike those accused in the Labour Party anti-semitism witch-hunt so what is it that prevents McDonnell engaging his brain with his mouth?

 It seems to be a little difficult for McDonnell and Labour’s so-called leftwingers, such as Angela Rayner or Rebecca Long-Bailey, to get their collective heads round the fact that genuine anti-Semites, like Richard Spencer, neo-Nazi founder of the alt-Right, support Israel and even declare that they are ‘white Zionists’.  Most anti-Semites today are supporters of Israel and Zionism.  Israel is the ideal ethno-nationalist state, something to model themselves on. That is why allegations of Nazi-Zionist collaboration were no aberration. Zionism has always worked with genuine anti-Semites.

What is unforgivable is that McDonnell, Corbyn, Formby and the rest seem incapable of doing anything but retreating in the face of the Zionist and right-wing ideological onslaught.  Of course it’s not helped by the fact that Jon Lansman, Momentum’s dictator, is a paid up supporter of Israel and Zionism.

Perhaps the most abject moment in John McDonnell’s interview with Sky was when he said how much he regretted the resignation of Joan Ryan, Chair of Labour Friends of Israel.  Ryan was the person who deliberately invented false allegations of anti-Semitism against Jean Fitzpatrick, a delegate to the 2016 Labour Party Conference who had the effrontery to challenge her over LFI’s claim to support the Palestinians. Ryan was also filmed discussing a £1m contribution by Israeli agent Shai Masot to her slush fund.

Ryan has consistently been the front person for the Israeli state. Ryan it was who claimed that Jean had mentioned Jews and bankers in the same breath when criticising LFI. Fortunately the whole incident was secretly recorded by Al Jazeera’s The Lobby. Ryan, who is not even Jewish, has been assiduous in spreading the myth that the Labour Party is ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’. Far from regretting  Ryan’s departure it is one of the few good things to have happened lately. The pity is that more of the racist rats have not departed.

McDonnell is allowing this man to set the pace

Although McDonnell rebutted the suggestion that the Labour Party is ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’ he accepted that anti-Semitism was a major problem in the Labour Party.  It was only two weeks ago at the Labour Representation Committee, of which he is honorary President, that McDonnell gave his support to Jackie Walker, the Black Jewish activist who is currently suspended and facing expulsion on March 26^th. He also gave support to Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt whose candidature in Thanet South was rejected by the NEC Panel.

McDonnell has no problem in acknowledging the fact that the Witchhunt has predominantly netted anti-Zionist Jews and Black anti-racists but he seems unable to put two and two together and work out exactly why there never seems to be any evidence of ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party. There are just assertions.

It was good that Jennie Formby wrote a stiff letter to Tom Watson calling him out over his vague parallel complaints monitoring system.  Unfortunately she also went and appointed an ‘independent’ overseer to the complaints system, Lord Falconer, Blair’s former flat mate and ex- Attorney General. It’s called shooting yourself in the foot.

It is difficult to know whether McDonnell is simply stupid or disingenuous.  My preference is for the latter but it is a close run thing.

It is should be clear with anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that the anti-Semitism campaign is a fake and that anti-Semitism has been weaponised by the Right. On LBC, in response to a caller who said that he was ‘killing Labour’ Tom Watson said that he won’t rest until he drives every last anti-Semite from the Labour Party. 

Leaving aside the absurdity of thinking that a mass party can simply purify itself 100% of any bigotry or prejudice (does the same apply to homophobes, Islamaphobes and any other form of prejudice?) it is a fact that Watson is extremely unconcerned when it comes to racism against Black people and Muslims. He went along with all New Labour’s anti-terrorism and Prevent measures. 

Tom Watson also abstained on Theresa May’s 2014 Immigration Act (ie. supported it) which introduced the ‘hostile environment policy’ which led to the deportation of hundreds of Black people.  If Watson is into expelling every last anti-Semite then presumably he is in favour of expelling himself as an incorrigible racist?  And given the way Ed Miliband pandered throughout his miserable leadership to racists, with those Labour Immigration Control mugs, presumably we can start by purging the Parliamentary Labour Party?

Of course this won’t happen. Anti-Semitism is the most marginal form of racism in Britain today.  The fact that the Labour Party is alleged to be overrun by it is testimony to how a ruling class, narrative, Orwellian in the way Black has become White has come to dominate the media.

What Watson really means by his declaration of running every anti-Semite out of the Labour Party, is that hostilities will continue until Corbyn is removed. It is a declaration of war and for McDonnell to simply mouth the same pieties is unforgiveable. He is in essence giving the green light to Watson and the Labour Right to continue a campaign whose sole purpose is to be rid of Corbyn as leader. 

It was therefore pretty sickening to hear McDonnell fawning over Momentum’s latest video attacking the Rothschild’s meme (basically that the Rothchilds finance Israel etc.) At a time when the Home Office is chartering planes to take Black people to the West Indies as part of their hostile environment policy Momentum under Lansman is obsessed by ‘anti-Semitism’, the most marginal of all forms of racism.

Rothschild’s conspiracy theories are believed by nutcases like David Icke. They have no popular purchase and are essentially harmless. For Momentum to concentrate on nonsense like this when there is real state racism, when Tommy Robinson’s thugs are active and when Apartheid Israel is continuing to use snipers to murder unarmed demonstrators is sick.

No one seriously thinks anti-Semitism in the Labour Party is a problem. It barely exists outside of the Daily Mail’s headlines.  Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman faced reselection problems not because they were Jews but because they are obnoxious right-wingers.

What is appalling is the way that so called left-wingers and socialists like McDonnell feel unable to stand up and call it out.

Jews in Britain are not being deported back to where their ancestors came from. They don’t die in police custody. They are not disproportionately gaoled. They do not fear (with the exception of the visually distinctive Ultra Orthodox) attacks on the street and the Ultra Orthodox have distanced themselves from the mainstream Zionist Board of Deputies attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, although the media deliberately didn’t report a letter from 29 rabbis last year distancing themselves from the Zionist attacks on Corbyn. Jews are not  economically deprived nor do they live in the inner cities.  Jews have long moved out of the East End into the suburbs of London.

It is an easily verifiable fact that the false anti-Semitism campaign was launched as soon as a Jeremy Corbyn leadership became apparent.

A month before Corbyn was elected the Daily Mail was accusing Corbyn of associating with a holocaust denier, Paul Eisen. The attention of the Zionists then turned to Jewish MP Gerald Kaufman before the incident of ‘anti-Semitism’ at Oxford University Labour Club.  All of these were fake and manufactured incidents as Asa Winstanley documented. The Chair of Oxford University Labour Club, Alex Chalmers, just happened to have worked as an intern for the main Israeli propaganda group in Britain, BICOM.

The witchhunters then moved on.  I was suspended in March 2016 and Jackie Walker was suspended two months later. Around the same time Ken Livingstone was demonised for having said that the Nazis supported Zionism during the 1930’s, something clearly a matter of historical record.

If McDonnell ever got anywhere near power the Zionists would turn on him and dig up every 'skeleton' from the IRA to the PLO

Only last July the Jewish Chronicle and two other Zionist papers printed a joint editorial United We Stand which spoke of ‘the existential threat to Jewish life in this country that would be posed by a Jeremy Corbyn-led government.’ Corbyn was deemed a threat to the very existence of the Jewish community in Britain.  In other words he was anti-Semitic. Accusations that Chris Williamson was a ‘Jew Baiter’ have been the staple of Zionist propaganda. 

Yet instead of calling these false anti-Semitism attacks out, McDonnell beats his breast about ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party and how we must engage in a purge.  McDonnell is Tom Watson’s useful idiot. Anyone with the slightest guts would call out Watson and the Labour Right for their abysmal record on racism in Britain against Black and Asian people.

The real problem is that Corbyn and McDonnell believe that the road to power is via appeasing the majority of Labour MPs.  They are sadly wrong. It will not happen.  Last September Corbyn opposed Open Selection, the only device that would have allowed the composition of the PLP to change. He is now paying the price.

They said that adoption of the IHRA would put the anti-Semitism nonsense to bed.  A ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism which conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and which defines hostility to Israel as hostility to Jews.

When last year it was seen as possible that Corbyn wouldn’t survive and McDonnell was seen a possible successor the Jewish Chronicle and the Zionists immediately began digging into their files for evidence of McDonnell’s ‘anti-Semitism’.

McDonnell’s embrace of this false narrative, which is counter to the experience of all Labour Party members, is like drinking poison. It is utterly suicidal. It is clear that Watson is involved in preparations for a coup, whether it is a breakaway inside the PLP as the Sunday Times speculates or simply forcing Corbyn to resign. McDonnell’s behaviour is akin to treachery and it is no accident that he and Lansman are thick as thieves.

What McDonnell and the Labour Left, which today is difficult to discern in the PLP, should do is to call out the Labour supporters of Apartheid in Israel, i.e. Tom Watson and company.  When edicts are issued in Israel by Chief Rabbis against even Israeli Arabs renting rooms or flats in cities like Safed and members of the Labour Party like Luke Akehurst justify Israel’s use of snipers to mow down peaceful and unarmed demonstrators it is clear that McDonnell and other ‘lefts’ have lost the plot.

Yes there should be a purge but of the racist Right in the Labour Party not the anti-Zionist left.

Tony Greenstein

Joan Ryan Resigns from Labour – Xmas Comes Early for Corbyn

Goodbye to a Symbol of Parliamentary Corruption – Say Hello to the New Politics

Yesterday I put Joan Ryan at the top of my list of MPs who I hoped would join their fellow rats. Today she has done more in one day than she has done in the rest of her miserable, soon to be terminated, parliamentary career.

However it would be wrong and churlish of me not to look back at some of the highlights of Ms Ryan’s career.  But before I do, it is well to remember that she is the Chair of Labour Friends of Apartheid I mean Israel. There is no act of savagery or barbarity that Ryan couldn’t be counted on to support.  It is with a great sense of relief that we can look forward to this corrupt and obnoxious woman soon having to seek gainful employment.

Expenses Scandal

Joan Ryan is part of the Progress faction.  She was an MP until 2010 when she was defeated at the General Election.  Unfortunately she came back in 2015 Her entry in Wikipedia is extremely revealing.

The Evening Standard reported that in 2005/6 she made the second highest expense claim of any MP.  In 2006/7 she did even better, achieving first place with a total of £173, 691.

Ryan was by all accounts delighted to have won the coveted ‘Snout in the Trough Award of the Year.’ It was no wonder that her electors rejected her in 2010. Unfortunately her CLP was stupid enough to allow her back in 2015.

In May 2009 Ryan claimed more than £4,500 under the Additional Costs Allowance for work on a house she had designated as her second home.[Telegraph 17.5.09.] In February 2010 Ryan was asked to repay £5,121 mortgage interest which she had corruptly claimed.  [Evening Standard 4.2.10.]

Not surprisingly Ryan found her greed somewhat embarrassing and unhelpful when she was trying to get back into Parliament. The Independent of 9th March 2012 reported that:

"[a]t least 10 attempts have been made from computers in Parliament to remove information about [Ryan's] expenses claims and a further 20 efforts to delete the information, some from her constituency of Enfield North, have also been recorded in Wikipedia's logs."

The Telegraph reported that:

The entire section about expenses on Joan Ryan’s page was deleted. Ms Ryan spent thousands on repairs and decorations at her Enfield home before ‘flipping’ it to another property.

Ryan’s Wikipedia entry reports that to this present day ‘similar edits to hide Ryan's record continue to be made.' [Telegraph 26.5.15]

The efforts were successful and all mention of expenses claims were removed and instead replaced with a paragraph about edits to Wikipedia.

During the 2015 general election, The Daily Telegraph returned to this issue. In Ryan's case, the entire expenses section was deleted, including information on repairs and decorations on her home paid for out of her MP's expenses; the edits were made while Ryan was not an MP, and according to the Telegraph she denied involvement, though it’s difficult to think who, apart from her Zionist friends, would be interested in cleaning up her record.

Joan Ryan is a devoted servant of the Israeli state.

Not Israel whose troops opened fire but those who were killed ('Hamas') 'must accept responsibility'

Last summer Israel began firing on unarmed demonstrators in Gaza, the worlds largest open air prison, who were part of the Great Return march.  The demonstrators were entirely peaceful and were deliberately mowed down.  Over 300 have been murdered and thousands have been injured by explosive bullets designed to cause maximum casualties.

This despicable woman is still Chair of Labour Friends of Israel which put out a tweet supporting Israel’s callous murderers.  And when that was greeted by a storm of protest, they substituted an almost equally offensive tweet.  Why?  Because LFI are just a front group for the Israeli Embassy.

Ryan is, by any measure, one of the most self-seeking and greedy MPs. However this all pales into comparison compared to the £1 million slush fund that the Israeli Embassy agent Shai Masot arranged to be paid for her and which was captured in the Al Jazeera programme

The Lobby.

Ryan was also caught on camera making a false allegation of anti-Semitism against a Labour Party member, Jean Fitzpatrick, at the 2016 Labour Party Conference.

 When put under pressure to explain exactly what Labour Friends of Israel were doing to achieve their supposed objective of a 2 state solution Ryan preferred to concoct an allegation of anti-Semitism.

In August 2016 Richard Burgon MP, the Shadow Justice Minister, described Zionism as an enemy of peace. Ryan leapt into action to defend the world’s only apartheid state. In response I penned an Open Letter.

When Kate Osamor MP, who is both a member of the Shadow Cabinet and a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee tweeted her support for the campaign for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Ryan once again issued an Open Letter.

We should bring out the champagne and drink a toast at the departure of Joan Ryan and let us hope that Ian Austen and Tom Watson also do the decent thing by the time the night is out.

Tony Greenstein

Jewish Labour Movement’s Rule Change is Gutted

Zionist attempt to make support for the Palestinians an expulsion offence fails

The first allegations of 'anti-Semitism' were made against Corbyn himself and the Guardian joined in with the Mail and Express

Ever since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party, Netanyahu’s friends in the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel have waged a false anti-Semitism campaign, whose purpose was to create the impression that anti-Semitism is rife within the Labour Party. 

Jonathan Freedland, the Guardian’s house Zionist, led the way with articles such as Labour and the left have an antisemitism problem. Despite the BBC, Daily Mail and Guardian singing from the same hymn sheet, no evidence of anti-Semitism has ever been produced. What was remarkable about this furore about 'anti-Semitism' in the Labour Party was a complete lack of concern about State Racism, Islamaphobia and racism against Black people.  Racism against a privileged white minority was seen as more important than Black deaths in custody, hostility to asylum seekers and violent attacks against Muslims and mosques.  

Jean Fitzpatrick was fitted up by anti-Corbyn MP, Joan Ryan, as an anti-Semite.  The allegation was later shown to be without merit

This more than anything demonstrated the contrived nature of this campaign.  It was about Israel not Jews.  In the third of the Al Jazeera undercover programmes ‘The Lobby’, the Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, Joan Ryan MP was filmed manufacturing a false allegation of anti-Semitism against Jean Fitzpatrick, a Labour Party conference delegate.

Joan Ryan campaigned in the General Election as an anti-Corbyn candidate who stated that 'people have more confidence in Theresa May than Jeremy Corbyn'

Ms Fitzpatrick had gone to the LFI stall and asked a question about their apparent support for a 2 States Solution.  What about the Occupation and the Settlements she asked?  She soon found out that ‘2 States’ was a slogan designed to cover up continuing colonisation.  LFI and JLM have never opposed the Occupation or the Settlements.  

The JLM’s real aim has been to criminalise support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism, an ideology of racial supremacy.  It is hard to defend jailing and torture of children as young as 12 and , the administrative detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for 6 months at a time, the demolition of EU funded schools and clinics, homes and facilities.  It is much easier to attack Israel’s critics as 'anti-Semitic' than to defend the practices of the Israeli state.

Jeremy Newmark is seen in between Israel agent Shai Masot, who was forced to leave Britain earlier this year, and Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev, second from right.

Prominent in this campaign has been the Chair of the JLM, Jeremy Newmark, an Israeli state agent and propagandist.  Newmark was accused of perjury in an Employment Tribunal case Fraser v University College Union. A Zionist academic Ronald Fraser had argued that the UCU, by supporting the academic boycott of Israel, was anti-Semitic.  He reasoned that support for Israel was an integral part of Jewish identity and therefore opposition to Israel was an attack on Jews i.e. anti-Semitic.

By the same ‘logic’ criticism of Apartheid in South Africa was anti-White racism.  By this criteria, criticism of Burma could be considered anti-Burmese racism. The threat to free speech is obvious but Zionism has consistently sought to close down free speech for anti-Zionists and in Israel even Palestinian poets are imprisoned.  

Jeremy Newmark - The JLM's perjurer in chief

The Employment Tribunal ‘rejected as untrue the evidence of Ms Ashworth and Mr Newmark’.  It described his evidence of the harassment of Jewish speakers as ‘false’ and described his claim that he was treated as a ‘pushy Jew’ as ‘preposterous’.

In ‘The Lobby’, which broadcast last January Newmark was filmed working hand in glove with Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev, a man whose previous role had been, as Netanyahu’s PR representative, to justify the murder of 2,200 Palestinians in Gaza in 2014, including over 500 children. [The real question is why Panorama, Channel 4 and the Guardian didn’t Investigate the Israeli Embassy's Political Destabilisation]

The JLM proposed a rule change last year which would outlaw ‘anti-Semitism’.  Its purpose was made blindingly clear by the ‘Supporting argument and rationale’ which stated that ‘This rule change would recognise that it is not acceptable to use Zionism as a term of abuse or to substitute the word Zionist for where the word Jew has been commonly used...’

The Genesis of a False Allegation of Anti-Semitism Courtesy of Joan Ryan MP

The JLM decries the very thing it is proposing! What has Zionism to do with anti-Semitism? Nothing unless one considers Jews and Zionists are the same. The reality is that those who confuse Jews and Zionists are the same people who regularly state that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is one and the same thing.  The Israeli state calls itself a ‘Jewish’ state.  As for not using Zionism as a term of abuse, well Zionism is very abusive. 

Extract from Shami Chakrabarti's Report on Racism

The heart of the JLM’s proposed Rule Change was its attempt to use the Report of the MacPherson Inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence in order to make anti-Zionism an expulsion offence.  The JLM defined a ‘hate incident’ as ‘something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice’.  If the JLM had had their way then anyone who claimed that criticism of Israel or Zionism was anti-Semitic could say they were a victim of anti-Semitism. Racists would be turned into ‘victims’. What MacPherson actually proposed was that where someone alleged that they had been the victims of a racial attack the Police must record it as such. What was not proposed was an allegation of racism was to be proof of guilt.

Darren Williams Report of last week's NEC

It is clear from reports of Labour’s National Executive meeting last week that the JLM’s attempt to make anti-Zionism an expulsion offence has been rejected.  What has taken place since is a battle of spin.  According to NEC member Darren Williams, a rule change was approved ‘that avoided the more draconian approach favoured by the Jewish Labour Movement’.  Williams, like most NEC members, has a limited grasp of what the JLM were trying to do.  It had nothing to do with being draconian and everything to do with an attempt to outlaw criticism of Israel and Zionism.

Jeremy Newmark claims a victory despite the JLM Rule Change having been gutted

The Zionists have since been trying to dress up their defeat as a victory.  Ella Rose, the JLM’s Director, a free transfer from the Israeli Embassy, posted a press release: ‘We are heartened that the NEC has adopted our rule change.’  The Jewish Chronicle Report Labour executive gives backing to new measures on antisemitism talked up the JLM’s ‘victory’.    Newmark claimed that “These constitutional amendments, if passed, will simply bring Labour’s rules to the place that should have been expected from a political party rooted in values of equality and anti-racism.’

Jessica Elgot of the Guardian (& former JC journalist) was part of the Zionist spin operation

The Guardian’s Jessica Elgot (who didn’t reveal that she was formerly a senior journalist on the Jewish Chronicle) was part of the same operation.  She wrote an article which was little more than a JLM press release. Jeremy Corbyn will back change to allow tough line on antisemitism.

There is something sickening in the JLM, an affiliate of the World Zionist Organisation, which believes that world Jewry owes allegiance to the State of Israel, talking about combating racism.  It is an organisation which funds Jewish settlements and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

The Israeli state defines itself as the State of all Jews, including those who live outside Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu has often stated that he is the Prime Minister of all Jewish people, not merely those living in Israel. The Director-General of  the Prime Minister’s Office, Eli Groner described Netanyahu as “by design, the leader of the Jewish world.”  Is it any wonder that some people associate Jews with the actions of the Israeli state?

The JLM speaks of the openly racist Israeli Labour Party, a party of ethnic cleansing, as ‘our sister party’.  For the Jewish Labour Movement to talk about racism is akin to the Yorkshire Ripper lecturing people about violence against women.  It says something of the retreat that Corbyn has made since he was elected that the JLM was even given the time of day.  There is little excuse for Corbyn’s behaviour.  In his 30+ years working with the Palestine solidarity movement he was repeatedly criticised as anti-Semitic and when he first stood as Labour leader he was attacked as being an associate of Paul Eisen, a holocaust denier. See e.g. Jeremy Corbyn's 10-year association with group which denies the Holocaust

For all the huffing and puffing, the JLM have suffered a severe reverse.  There is no sympathy in Labour’s ranks for their preposterous false ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign.  No one in the Labour Party seriously believes that there is an anti-Semitism problem.  It is a hyped up campaign perpetrated by the Tory media and the BBC.  With the excellent result of Labour in the General Election, the JLM's false anti-Semitism campaign has been sidelined.  It has been demonstrated to have no effect on Labour's voters.

Skwawkbox version of proposals before NEC - the proposal on the right was carried

According to Ann Black, a right-wing member of Labour’s NEC the following proposal was agreed:

No member of the Party shall engage in conduct which in the opinion of the NEC is prejudicial, or in any act which in the opinion of the NEC is grossly detrimental to the Party. The NEC shall take account of any codes of conduct currently in force and shall regard any incident which in their view was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; or sexual orientation as conduct prejudicial to the Party. ... The NCC shall not have regard to the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions.

According to Skwawkbox, Black is wrong.  The phrase ‘was motivated by’ was removed.  It has been replaced by ‘which in their view might be reasonably seen to demonstrate hostility or prejudice based on age...’.  It is unfortunate because the key thing about racism is indeed the intent or motivation of the accused.  It makes it easier to bring disciplinary charges.  The previous rule, which allowed for ‘the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions’ has had added to it, the words ‘except in any instance inconsistent with the Party’s aim and values, agreed codes of conduct or involving any prejudice towards any protected characteristic.’  It has the fingerprints of Shami Chakrabarti all over it as it uses the objective test of reasonableness.  However this is a far cry from the attempt to frame people for racism when they are clearly not.

Despite their bluster and spin, it is clear that the JLM has suffered a serious defeat. Their attempt to close down debate in the Labour Party about Palestine, using ‘anti-Semitism’ as the excuse, has been rebuffed.  Articles in The Canary and Skwawkbox plus the willingness of people like Chris Williamson MP to speak out turned the tide against the JLM.  What they are engaged in is face saving.  What they wanted was the automatic expulsion of anti-Zionists on the say so of Zionists who posed as ‘victims’.  

Jewish Labour Movement Original Proposed Rule Change

Add an additional sentence after the first sentence:

‘A member of the Party who uses antisemitic, Islamophobic, racist language, sentiments, stereotypes or actions in public, private, online or offline, as determined by the NEC, shall be deemed to have engaged in conduct prejudicial to the Party.’

Add at the end of the final sentence after “opinions”:

…” except in instances involving antisemitism, Islamophobia or racism”

Insert new paragraph E:

“Where a member is responsible for a hate incident, being defined as something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on disability, race, religion, transgender identity, or sexual orientation, the NEC may have the right to impose the appropriate disciplinary options from the following options: [same as D]”

see Did the Jewish Labour Movement get its way over Labour Party rule changes?

Letter from 112 Labour Party members to Jeremy Corbyn

It is time for Labour to say Goodbye to Labour Friends of Israel

Update:  People are still writing in saying they support this - so I am updating it continuously as many people feel strongly about allowing a lobby funded by another state to interfere in the internal workings of the Labour Party

I have just sent the following letter, from 112 members of the Labour Party/Momentum to Jeremy Corbyn MP.  In the light of the four Al Jazeera programmes on the penetration and destabilisation of the Labour Party (including the National Union of Students) by the Israeli Embassy, with the use of large sums of money, we call on the Labour Party to make a clean break with the Labour Friends of Israel.

LFI are not a normal group of party members seeking to win people to their point of view but an extension of the Israeli state and its Embassy in London.  It uses any manner of dirty tricks and black propaganda against its opponents in order to whitewash the Apartheid State of Israel.  It is as unacceptable for the LFI to use the £1+ million to subvert the democratic processes of the Labour Party as it would have been for the Apartheid government of South Africa to have done so 20 years ago.

Joan Ryan MP, Chair of LFI, wants to know where the loot is

Shai Masot, the Israeli Embassy agent has over £1m to disperse for dirty tricks, propaganda and of course MP visits to the land of Apartheid

The slush fund has been approved but is not yet in the bag as it were

Joan Ryan MP, Chair of Labour Friends of Israel makes a joke, delighted at having bagged over £1m in slush funds

Michael Rubin, LFI's parliamentary officer boasting of his work with the Israeli Embassy

Tony Greenstein

corbynj@parliament.uk

jeremy.corbyn.mp@parliament.uk

Jeremy Corbyn MP

Leader of the Labour Party

House of Commons

London SW1 1AA

Dear Jeremy,

We write as Jewish and non-Jewish members/ supporters of the Labour Party and Momentum.

We welcome the fact that you have called for a Government  inquiry into the revelations in the recent series of programmes by Al Jazeera TV.  However the programmes also raise very serious questions for the Labour Party, not least its relationship to Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement.  We understand Free Speech on Israel has already called for a Labour Party Inquiry into the implications for the Labour Party.  We endorse that call.

In the second programme Joan Ryan MP, LFI Chairperson asks Shai Masot, the Israeli Embassy’s Political Officer, who was caught trying to ‘take down’ Government Ministers:

‘What happened with the names that we put into the Embassy Shai?  To which Masot replies ‘Just now we’ve got the money.  It’s more than £1m, it’s a lot of money...  it’s not physical, it’s an approval’ to which Ryan jocularly responds ‘ I didn’t think you had it in your bag!’.

The LFI’s Parliamentary Officer, Michael Rubin was filmed boasting that he was trying to take-down the democratically elected President of the National Union of Students, Malia Bouattia.   Rubin claimed to work “with the ambassador and embassy quite a lot”.

Joan Ryan in the third Al Jazeera programme was seen to concoct a wholly false allegation of anti-Semitism against a Labour Party conference delegate, Jean Fitzpatrick, who had come to ask Ms Ryan what LFI’s support for a 2 State Solution meant in practice and what they were doing to achieve it.  Getting no answer, Jean said that LFI had a lot of money, which is clearly true, a lot of prestige and that a friend of hers had got a good job at Oxford University on the basis of having worked for LFI. 

None of this was remotely anti-Semitic yet Joan Ryan had no hesitation in transforming this into getting a ‘big job in banking and the City’ and an ‘anti-Semitic attack’.  On the basis of this Jean was suspended from the Labour Party.  Subsequently the charge was dropped but this is an example of how false charges of ‘anti-Semitism’ have been concocted.

The reason for making false accusations of anti-Semitism, such as that against Ms Fitzpatrick, is to deter criticism of Zionism and the Israeli state.  Those who make these false claims of anti-Semitism are deliberately jeopardising Labour’s chances of electoral victory. 

Although LFI purports to support a 2 State Solution it is clear, as Jean Fitzpatrick demonstrated, that this is a smokescreen for its uncritical support for Israel’s military occupation and settlement of the West Bank and Gaza.  At no time has LFI ever condemned or criticised the Occupation or the Settlements.  LFI supports the 2SS  knowing that it will never happen but also knowing that it will make them appear as reasonable and even-handed rather than an uncritical supporter of Israeli expansion and racism.

Prior to your election as Leader of the Labour Party you had never addressed a meeting of the LFI.  At the 2016 Conference you addressed the LFI fringe meeting for the second time.  It is clear from the Al Jazeera revelations that LFI operates as an emanation of the Israeli state within the Labour Party.  We saw this clearly when Shai Masot introduced Al Jazeera’s reporter, Robin Harrow to people as the Chair of Young LFI, a non-existent organisation.

If you continue to speak at LFI meetings you will be taken to be endorsing a group which favours continued settlement expansion and which opposes their dismantlement.  You will also be interpreted as  lending support to those who wage war on Palestinians living inside Israel.  Only last week a Bedouin village in the Negev, Umm al-Hiran, which had been there for 60 years, was demolished by bulldozers from the Jewish National Fund.  One resident was killed by police gunfire. 

Despite Palestinians occupying only 2% of the Negev, the Israeli government and the Jewish National Fund sought, as part of the programme of Judaisation, to demolish an Arab village in order to make way for the Jewish town of Hiran.  This is comparable to, if not worse than, the demolition in the 1970’s of Black ‘squatter’ camps in Soweto.

Neither LFI nor the JLM, which are always eager to accuse supporters of the Palestinians and opponents of Zionism of ‘anti-Semitism’ have anything to say about apartheid in Israel.  Ha’aretz newspaper recently warned, in an editorial ,that with the proposed annexation of Ma’aleh Adumim, ‘Israel will cease to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, and officially become an apartheid one’.

Ha’aretz also referred, in the same editorial, to the Israeli Labour Party ‘opposition’, of which the Jewish Labour Movement is the British wing:  ‘It is pointless mentioning the opposition at this stage, since the dead cannot speak’.

We would urge you to cease giving any support to the Labour Friends of Israel and not to speak at any future fringe meetings of theirs.  Both Tony Benn and Eric Heffer resigned from LFI in 1982 as a result of its support for the invasion of Lebanon.  Over the past quarter of a century they have not changed.

Yours sincerely,

        Barry Ackerman                       Enfield CLP                                                  

Jane Airs                                    Riverside CLP Liverpool

John Airs                                    Riverside CLP Liverpool

Peter Angell                                Castle Point CLP      

Ben Armstrong                           Brighton Momentum/Hove CLP

Clare N. Ayton-Edwards            Kenilworth & Southam (Warwickshire) CLP     

Georgina Baidoun                      Milton Keynes CLP 

Hilary Barker                              Penrith CLP             

Abdul Basīr                                Brighton Pavilion CLP   

Peter Bloomer                            Selly Oak CLP
Haim Bresheeth                          Hornsey and Wood Green CLP           

Tarin Brokenshire                       Cambridge CLP       

Andrea Burford                          Leicester East CLP   

Jackie Cairns                              Preston Labour Party      

Neil Cameron                             Sheffield Central CLP    

Valerie Gene Cane                     Brighton & Hove Momentum    

Marilù Cavaliere                         CLP: Luton South    

Ches Chesney                             Berwick-upon-Tweed CLP         

Brian Chinnery                           Enfield Southgate    

Mollie Collins                             Momentum and CLP South Dorset         

Andy Coombes                          Stroud CLP              

Graham Coupe                           South Norwood CLP

Patrick Darnes                            Congleton CLP        

Deborah Darnes                         Congleton CLP        

John Davies                                Liverpool Riverside CLP          

Helen Dickson                               Liverpool Riverside CLP
Theresa Dunningham                 Central Suffolk & North Ipswich CLP   

Sally Rebecca Eason                  East Surrey CLP       

Simon Milner-Edwards               Withington CLP       

Pete Firmin                                 Hampstead & Kilburn CLP        

Jenifer Flintoft                            Meon Valley CLP/Portsmouth Momentum

Philip Foxe                                 Enfield South gate CLP  

Christopher Fraser                      Rushcliffe CLP        

Craig Fraser                                Cheltenham CLP      

Suzanne Gannon                        Vice Chair Membership, Colne Valley CLP       

Daphne Gilbert                           Hexham CLP/Momentum          

Lynda Gilbert                             Milton Keynes North CLP          

Tony Goss                                  Torbay CLP             

Val Graham                                Chesterfield CLP     

Judy Granville                            Hove CLP                

Tony Greenstein                         Brighton Kemptown CLP

Jenny Hardacre                          South Cambridgeshire CLP

Dr. James Hall                            South Cambridgeshire Constituency Labour Party

Martin Hall                                 Wythenshawe and Sale East CLP           

Abe Hayeem                              Harrow East CLP     

Jeremy Hawthorn                       Liverpool Riverside CLP
Rosamine Hayeem                     Harrow East CLP     

Professor Dave Hill                    Brighton and Hove Momentum

Simon Hinds                               Islington North         

Doug Holton                               Hackney North and Stoke Newington CLP        

Carole Hope                               Tewkesbury CLP     

Anna Hubbard                            Southport CLP          

      Steve Jansky                               North West Cambridgeshire CLP/Momentum    

Helen Jenner                              Otley and Yeadon CLP/Chair Leeds UNISON

Peter Jenner                                Otley and Yeadon CLP  

Helena Kearns                            Northern Ireland Labour Party

Chris Knight                               Streatham Momentum Group,

Kay Lawrence                            Torfaen CLP            

Marie Lynam                               Hamsptead and Kilburn CLP    

Doug Macari                               Canterbury CLP and Momentum           

Professor Moshe Machover        Hampstead and Kilburn CLP

Dr Alan Maddison                      Houghton and Sunderland South CLP

Miriam Margolyes OBE              Lambeth Constituency Party & Vauxhall CLP   

Helen Marks                               Riverside CLP          

Becky Massey                            Hove CLP

Patricia McCarthy                      Milton Keynes CLP
Kathy McCubbing                           East Reading CLP

Steve Mckenzie                          Bexhill and Battle CLP   

Tricia Neda McLaughlin             Gillingham and Rainham CLP    

Ellen McNay                              Sunderland Central CLP 

John Metson                               Durham City CLP    
Anne Mitchell                             Hove CLP                

Brian Mogford                            Gower CLP              

Brendan Morgan                         N. Ireland CLP         

Wendy Morgan                           Aberconwy CLP      

Elizabeth Morley                        Ceredigion CLP/Momentum       

Suresh Nesaratnam                      Milton Keynes         

Dr Joseph O' Neill,                      Cheshire West CLP
James O’Sullivan                        East Worthing and Shoreham CLP         

Gill Page                                     Richmond (Yorkshire) CLP

Pam Page                                    Brighton Kemptown CLP

Frankie Patterson                        Gosport CLP            

Allan Pearson                             South Ribble CLP     a

Nicola Pratt                                 Coventry South CLP

Claire Pyper                                South Birmingham Momentum  

Daniel Read                                Portsmouth CLP       

Janine E Reed                             Islwyn CLP              

Joan Rudderham                        Coventry North West CLP         

Professor Richard Seaford          Exeter CLP              

David Selzer                               City of Chester CLP 

Sam Semoff                                Riverside CLP
Lynda Sergeant                           Riverside CLP          

Mehrnaz Shahabi                        Bristol West CLP     

Paul Stygal                                  Rochford & Southend East CLP

Jean Sullivan                              Warrington South CLP   

Anne Tanner                              Cardiff West CLP    

Max Tasker                                Clwyd West CLP     

Andrew Thompson                     Birmingham Ladywood CLP/Momentum/LRC  

Julian Townsend                        Camberwell and Peckham CLP  

Gareth Walker                            Tottenham CLP         tr

Jackie Walker                             Thanet CLP

Clive Walder                              Birmingham Northfield Momentum       

Adam Waterhouse                      Southampton and Romsey CLP 

Daniel Waterman                        International Member Labour Party       

David Watson                             Walthamstow CLP   

Ian Watson                                 Edinburgh Pentlands CLP          

Sarah Wilkinson                          Ludlow CLP           

Eric Willoughby                         Editor, Palestine Media Digest    

Sara Wood                                  Hampstead and Kilburn CLP     

Ken Willingale                            Southend West CLP  h

Charley Young                           Ceredigion CLP       

Sue Young.                                 Ceredigion CLP        

Saying that LFI have lot of money is an anti-Semitic 'trope' - even though it's true!

This used to be called 'verballing' when the Police made up a confession

Inventing an anti-Semitism allegation - they call them 'tropes' probably because they think the victims are dopes

Jean Fitzpatrick, the LP delegate accused of anti-Semitism never even mentioned the City of London but in the hands of these racist frauds she didn't stand a chance

If you oppose Zionism and Israeli racism, it is a 'trope' - their favourite word