RIP Mike Howard – A Jewish Socialist Whose Family Fled from the Pogroms in Poland and Lithuania

Being Jewish Mike was a natural target for suspension from Starmer's Labour Party

Mike Howard was one of eight people who took the Labour Party to court over its disciplinary process for investigating complaints of anti-Semitism. Below I reprint, without permission!, the tribute that Jewish Voices for Labour, of which Mike was a member, paid to him.

Mike was a Jewish Socialist all his life and fought racism and anti-Semitism consistently. He was also an active trade unionist and a councillor till recently on Hastings Borough Council. His suspension from the Labour Party for ‘anti-Semitism’ says everything you need to know about the bogus nature of the ‘anti-Semitism’ accusations which are being levelled at Jews today in Labour today.

The fact that if you are Jewish you are 5 times more likely to be suspended from Labour under Starmer than if you are not says everything you need to know about how genuine was Starmer’s pledge to ‘root out’ anti-Semitism.

Unfortunately this did not start with Starmer.  It was under Jeremy Corbyn that the anti-Semitism witchhunt took off when people like myself were expelled or suspended. Unfortunately Corbyn went along with this bogus narrative until it got him too.  The fast track procedures now being used to expel and suspend hundreds of members were patented by Corbyn and Jennie Formby.

 It is shameful that Corbyn says nothing about the legacy he has left. Instead of lapping up cheap applause and playing the martyr, he should come out publicly and criticise what is happening. Corbyn’s inability to make even one word of direct criticism of Starmer demonstrates that even if he had won the election in 2017 and even if the Labour Right had agreed to vote him in as Prime Minister, that he would have wilted at the first sign of opposition.

Undoubtedly for someone like Mike, as with all of us, to be accused of anti-Semitism when you have spent your life opposing it, is hurtful. That is why the Labour Right, which doesn’t give a tinker’s cuss about anti-Semitism or any other form of racism, make the allegations.  These accusations are deliberately made to cause hurt and distress.

We should contrast this with the readmission to the Labour Party in recent weeks of one of the vilest racists on the Labour Right – Luke Stanger, a friend of Hove MP Peter Kyle, who worked in the office of Joan Ryan, former Chair of Labour Friends of Israel. Apart from multiple complaints of harassment from women in the Labour Party Stanger is on record as saying that Travellers are ‘a nasty blight on society.’

Under Starmer genuine racists are always welcome in the Labour Party whereas anti-racists are expelled.  It is unfortunate that some on the Left such as Jon Lansman, Owen Jones and David Renton, are unable to see through this Zionist campaign of vilification which defames good Jewish socialists like Mike.

We should pay tribute to someone who was a Jewish hero. Those who suspended Mike for 'antisemitism' weren't fit to lick his boots.

Tony Greenstein

Mike Howard – “a true mensch”

Sat 13 Nov 2021

It is with deep regret that we announce that JVL member and long-term fighter for socialism, Mike  Howard died after a short illness, with his close family at his side, in the early hours of Thursday 11th November 2021.

 Many readers of our website will recognise and remember Mike as one of the Labour Activists for Justice (LA4J) who had been treated so abysmally by the Party to which he dedicated more than 45 years of his life. He died a committed socialist and still angry with the Labour Party that had suspended him, a Jewish anti-racist, for antisemitism.

You can get a taste of his anger, his willingness to challenge and a little of his background on this video from a Labour Grassroots show dedicated to those involved in LA4J .

 Mike was born in Hackney in 1952 to socialist parents whose families had fled from the threat of pogroms in Lithuania and Poland.  He always said he learned about internationalism as a child and this informed his philosophy and his activism throughout his life.

He left school fairly early, in part because of antisemitic bullying and was later educated at Newcastle University (where he was active in the National Organisation of Labour Students) and became a librarian.  He was active in the Labour Party Young Socialists in the 1970s – at a time when political education was a major focus – and it was there that he met his wife Dee. In time Mike became (step)father to Dee’s daughter Jenny and they had a son, Robin together.

After graduating he spent some years in the North East then moved to London continuing his work as a librarian.  In Lambeth he was a shop steward and also a Convenor for NALGO (and the Unison) and supported many workers, not least representing the Union in many tribunals.

He was also a committed supporter of Wimbledon Football Club and was involved in turning it into a supporter-owned club remaining in Wimbledon, rather than moving to help the owners to profit.

In Hastings he was well known as an activist, committed to justice for Palestinians and, from 2012-2018 he was an elected councillor in what had mainly been a Tory ward.  He is remembered as an effective councillor, supporting local residents in a number of campaigns as well as doing individual case work and, of course, serving on committees.  He stood down at the 2018 elections to care for his wife.

You can see him talking about his role in Labour Activists for Justice, trying to hold the Labour Party to account and to democratic principles in the video below:

Very many tributes have been received in the first 36 hours after he died which show what sort of a person he was and why he will be so badly missed. Many refer to his appalling treatment by the Labour Party.

Many have commented on how friendly he was and for many younger people and others who joined when Jeremy Corbyn was elected, it was Mike who welcomed them, made sure they were invited to the pub after meetings.  Several have said that they learned so much from him, about the history of the Party and of the wider movement.

Here are some extracts:

Peter Chowney, who was Deputy Leader in Hastings most of the time that Mike was a councillor:

He was a good comrade, and a very good local councillor – the only Labour councillor to successfully defend West St Leonards ward. And a fellow former Hackney Labour Party member! Such a pity he had to spend his last days defending himself against this awful witchhunt. I shall miss him.

Peter Doyle, Jen Pickard and John Pickard – some friends in the North East:

“We are saddened to hear of the sudden and untimely death of Mike Howard, a member of Hastings and Rye Labour Party, in the early hours of November 11. Mike was one of those left-wing members facing suspension by the Party on the spurious grounds of ‘anti-Semitism’, a deeply ironic charge considering his Jewish background. We knew Mike from his time in the Labour Party Young Socialists in Gateshead where we were members and where he was also an active member of the local government union, NALGO.

Mike, who came from a family tradition of socialist ideas, was a Marxist and a supporter of Militant in his days in the North East. He was always a friendly, comradely and cheerful person to know. Mike wrote an excellent article for Left Horizons late last year, on how unfit for purpose Labour’s disciplinary process is, in his own and in other cases… Mike will be a great loss, not only to his family, but to the whole labour movement and those who knew him…”

Simon Hester (local Unite Community Branch member):

I only got to know Mike over the past year but, it’s strange, it feels like I knew him a lot longer. He was such a friendly and welcoming comrade. For socialists of a certain age we have been through so many struggles together it seems to have created an unspoken bond, a shared tradition. I have absolutely no doubt which side Mike was on in the great campaigns against racism, during the miners’ strike, the poll tax campaign, the antiwar movement. Over the past few months I kept bumping into him and Dee at protests over Palestine, NHS pay, refugee rights and the Police Bill. And I won’t forget his outrage and eloquence in challenging the witchhunt of socialists and anti-Zionists in the Labour Party. The movement has lost a principled socialist, an internationalist and anti-racist, and above all, an anti-Zionist Jew. His hope for a socialist future will live on in the growing movements of young people …
solidarity, Simon

Carel Buxton, Chair West Ham CLP (suspended 21 March):

I met him only once and that was at LP conference in 2019 as I recall. Mike made a lasting impression on me because of his warmth, his humour and his clear dedication to socialist ideas. Both of us have roots in the east end and we talked about our great fighting tradition. I still live in West Ham but was born in Hastings, Mike’s life journey was from Hackney to Hastings or rather Mugsborough as we called it. He was a hero of our class and I send you my deepest condolences.

Sarah Gomes-Harris:

Such sad news for the local Labour Party. Such a lovely man, so rooted in the human dignity and decency of socialism and so unfairly targeted and isolated by the party he cherished his whole life…. I wish more people were like Mike Howard… So heartbreaking. Rest with peace, love and power x

Marie Lynam: 

Those who disciplined Mike did a terrible wrong not just to him, but to the justice and bravery contained in his political positions. It is a cruel thing that Mike had to go with this insult done to him, and to everything good he stood for.

Through you, and with my thanks, I send my solidarity to his family and comrades. 

Rica Bird (JVL member; Wirral South CLP):

This is indeed a sad blow, and even more cruel considering his mistreatment at the hands of the Labour Party. Although I didn’t know him, I gather his life has been a gift to all combating oppression and leaves a great legacy for the rest of us to follow.

I keep thinking for those who have been summarily expelled, those suspended, or ‘under investigation’ and those who have simply left, that it is not we who have left the Party, it truly IS the Party has left us!!

In solidarity

Jewish members and others file court claim against Labour for breach of EHRC principles after party tells them: ‘EHRC does not apply to you’

Mike Howard (68) Member of Hastings & Rye CLP. Active Labour Party member for over thirty-five years, holding office in six CLP’s during this time. Twice elected Hastings Borough Councillor. Retired (former office-holding) Unison life member. Unite Community, JVL and PSC. He is a Jewish, lifelong anti-racist whose family escaped the murderous pogroms in pre-war Russia/Poland and fought the fascists in their East London neighbourhood. Mike has suffered real anti-semitism, and finds it completely unacceptable that Labour Party HQ, knowing that he is Jewish, has not responded to his solicitors’ request to drop an anonymous complainant’s accusations of anti-semitism against him which is based on the process the EHRC found was unfair and based on a code the Party will not publish.

Jewish members say Starmer’s pursuit of them ‘makes a mockery’ of claim to be making Labour safe for Jews

We are appalled by the large and growing number of Jewish members of the Labour Party – including ourselves – who have recently been subject to disciplinary proceedings related to alleged antisemitism. This fact alone – over and above the trumped up and politicised nature of the charges – makes a mockery of Keir Starmer’s commitment to ensuring Labour is a safe space for Jews.

It is now abundantly clear that this commitment does not cover discrimination against Jewish socialists. On the contrary, Starmer’s abuse of our Jewish identity and his willingness to exploit antisemitism as a political football is shameful and harmful not only to freedom of expression, but also to the fight against real antisemitism and racism of all forms, both in and outside of the Labour Party.

Graham Bash
Jo Bird
Mike Cushman
Michael Ellman
Michael Howard
Moshe Machover
Diana Neslen
Jonathan Rosenhead
Glyn Secker
Stephen Solley
George Wilmers
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi

Jewish Chronicle Columnist Geoffrey Alderman Nails the Lie that Corbyn is an anti-Semite

The Goebbels/Pollard Technique of Repeating a Falsehood Does Not Make it True

Every week without fail there is another story in the Jewish Chronicle campaign to ‘prove’ that Jeremy Corbyn’s is anti-Semitic. Its editor, Stephen Pollard, is a former editor of the Daily Express and a member of the cold war Henry Jackson Society, a virulently Islamaphobic organisation whose Associate Director is the racist Douglas Murray.

Geoffrey Alderman is a right-wing eccentric and Zionist. He has been a columnist at the Jewish Chronicle since 2002. He is also an academic at the private University of Buckingham. He was rightly condemned when he wrote that ‘Few events... have caused me greater pleasure in recent weeks than news of the death of the Italian so-called "peace activist" Vittorio Arrigoni.’ Vittorio’ was a member of the International Solidarity Movement who was murdered in Gaza.

Geoffrey Alderman

He was once a member of the Board of Deputies but left to the sound of booing and hissing and was called a ‘communal gadfly’ a title that he has somewhat taken to heart since he has compiled an anthology of his writings based on this description.

Alderman’s primary claim to fame is as a Jewish historian. His book The Jewish Community in British Politics was the subject of a concerted effort by the Board of Deputies to persuade him to excise certain parts concerning racism in the Jewish community and in particular that nearly 2% of Hackney Jews had voted for the neo-Nazi National Front.

Above the Zionist Attack on the Labour Party 

When the Anti-Nazi League, a mass anti-fascist group, was created in 1977 to meet the challenge of a growing National Front, which had attracted over 100,000 votes in the GLC elections and large votes in local elections in cities such as Leicester and Bradford, the Board of Deputies attacked it, with what Maurice Ludmer, editor of Searchlight Anti-fascist Magazine described as

‘"all the fervour of Kamikaze pilots... It was as though they were watching a time capsule rerun of the 1930's, in the form of a flickering old movie, with a grim determination to repeat every mistake of that era.’ [Searchlight 41, November 1978]

Another non-story in the Jewish Chronicle - its enemies always 'rant' - the poor dear above had to be 'consoled' after having been told by John Prescott a few home truths

Alderman was one of the few prominent British Jews who criticised the Board of Deputies for attacking the ANL rather than the fascists.

Another non-story in the Jewish Chronicle - they hate the idea that Corbyn meets Jews aren't part of the Zionist clique

What is remarkable about the current wave of anti-Semitism hysteria is the almost complete unanimity of the Zionists about Labour’s non-existent ‘anti-Semitism’ and in particular Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘anti-Semitism’.

The lynch mob has been led by Stephen Pollard. Writing in 2019 in the Daily Mail he stated that ‘It took me a long time before I felt it appropriate to describe Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite.’ This is such a blatant lie that it is a wonder that Pollard's nose hasn’t already grown to twice its size!

Even before Corbyn was elected as Labour leader the Jewish Chronicle was accusing him of consorting with holocaust deniers, such as Paul Eisen. 

All the major Jewish news papers sing the same song - is it any wonder that many Jews respond that 'antisemitism' is a worry though individually they never experience it?

Last July, in their United We Stand editorials, the 3 major Zionist papers in Britain accused Corbyn of posing an ‘existential threat to Jewish life in this country’.  Who else but an anti-Semite could do this?

The Foreign Editor of the Jewish News, Stephen Oryszczuk heavily criticised the joint editorial in an interview with Canary saying that

‘The question is whether there is an intention to taint him. Some are certainly out to get him, but without revealing sources, all I can say is that it’s sometimes questionable where these things come from.’ Oryszczuk described what happened as a ‘character assassination.’

One of the emails sent out weekly by Pollard

Oryszczuk was immediately put on ‘sick leave’ and has I understand been forced out.

Alderman has never been one to pull his punches. In the Spectator he has written a devastating critique of the idea that Corbyn is anti-Semitic.

Freedland and Finkelstein join hands to demonise Corbyn

Alderman first takes issue with Danny Finkelstein, The Times Associate Editor and Tory Peer, who was a Board Member of the Gatestone Institute. The GI promotes Tommy Robinson, Geert Wilders and a whole host of racists, fascists and Islamaphobes. The Gatestone Institute, which is funded by American billionaire Nina Rosenwald, the “sugar mama of anti-Muslim hate”, described Robinson as ‘a British free-speech activist and Islam critic.’ I hate to think what they might have called Hitler. A Jew critic?

Finkelstein criticised Corbyn for not having condemned the anti-Semitism of John Hobson when Corbyn reviewed his book, ‘Imperialism: A Study’ 8 years ago. Alderman is absolutely right when he writes that ‘There was absolutely no need for Corbyn to have drawn attention to them in his foreward.’ It was as he points out 10 lines in a 400 page book.

Pollard has been waging a non-stop war against Corbyn for over 3 years

Alderman demolishes the Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, Joan Ryan MP’s fatuous assertion that

‘‘Over the past three years… the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn has become infected with the scourge of anti-Jewish racism. This problem simply did not exist in the party before his election as leader.’  

Alderman points out that ‘leading socialist activists – for instance Sidney and Beatrice Webb’ were ‘unashamed exponents’ of anti-Semitism.  Sydney Webb described the European continental parties as ‘Jew ridden’ but fortunately this wasn’t true in the British Labour Party because ‘there’s no money in it.’ Alderman was clear:

‘The fact of the matter is that Corbyn has an impressive record of supporting Jewish communal initiatives’

and then proceeds to reel off a whole long list of examples of where Corbyn has supported local Jewish initiatives such as saving the cemetery of the West London synagogue from the developers. Writing that

‘I could fill this entire article with a list of philo-Semitic EDMs that Corbyn has signed since he was first elected as Labour MP for Islington North in 1983.’

Alderman ‘deliberately omitted from this discussion any consideration of Corbyn’s attitude to Zionism and whether anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic.’ and he concludes that ‘the grounds for labelling him an anti-Semite simply do not exist.’

Which is a pretty damning indictment of the fallacious and dishonest campaign mounted by people like Pollard, who is the Joseph Goebbels of the British Jewish community.  Pollard has turned the JC into a Zionist propaganda rag and its circulation has dropped like a stone to less than 20,000, many of them given away.  Which is why the JC is facing severe financial problems.

Pollard made his reasons for mounting the fake anti-Semitism campaign against Corbyn crystal clear last year.  In an article Labour's new guidelines show it is institutionally antisemitic Pollard attacked the attempt to remove or neutralise some of the examples of the IHRA. The problem was that

‘instead of adopting the definition as agreed by all these bodies, Labour has excised the parts which relate to Israel and how criticism of Israel can be antisemitic.’

As we always said the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign was about Israel not anti-Semitism. This has always been Pollard and the Board of Deputies’s only concern. If Corbyn had been genuinely anti-Semitic but pro-Zionist then Pollard would have raised no objection to Corbyn.

In just the same way, the execrable Margaret Hodge has become a hero to the Jewish Chronicle. This is the same Hodge of whom Pollard wrote in the Daily Express that ‘it’s difficult to imagine a more blatant, shameful and utterly contemptible piece of two-faced hypocrisy than the behaviour of Margaret Hodge. ” Except that he wasn’t describing her attack on Jeremy Corbyn as a ‘fucking anti-Semite.’

Of course Pollard’s description of Hodge could not be bettered when it comes to his own behaviour and his selective attitude to anti-Semitism.

When in 2009 the Tories left the European Peoples Party in the European Parliament they formed the European Conservative Reform Group. However the parties that were included in this group included the anti-Semitic Polish Law and Justice Party and Latvia’s For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK. This met with a lot of criticism.

Jonathan Freedland, who was then more vocal about genuine anti-Semitism wrote that ‘there was a time when no self-respecting British politician would have gone anywhere near such people’. He described how Michal Kaminski, the Chairman of the ECR,

began his career in the National Rebirth of Poland movement, inspired by a 1930s fascist ideology that dreamed of a racially pure nation. Even today, the PiS slogan is "Poland for Poles", understood to be a door slammed in the face of non-Catholics. In 2001 he upbraided the president for daring to apologise for a 1941 pogrom in the town of Jedwabne which left hundreds of Jews dead. Kaminski said there was nothing to apologise for – at least not until Jews apologised for what he alleged was the role Jewish partisans and Jewish communists had played alongside the Red Army in Poland.’

Freedland also pointed out that members of the Latvian LNNK party

 ‘have played a leading part in the annual parade honouring veterans of the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS. Lest we forget, the SS were the crack troops of Nazi genocide; the Latvian Legion included conscripts, but at least a third were volunteers, among them men with the blood of tens of thousands of Jews on their hands. It is in honour of those killers that Cameron's new buddies march through the streets of Riga.’

When it comes to a genuine anti-Semite Pollard is all over him like a rash

Pollard you might think would have lambasted the Tories, such is his concern about anti-Semitism. Not a bit of it. The same man who damns Corbyn wrote a response defending Kaminski. Kaminski was

‘one of the greatest friends to the Jews in a town where antisemitism and a visceral loathing of Israel are rife.’

Because Kaminski was a strong supporter of Israel he had to be supported.  And this is the dilemma of Zionism. Most anti-Semites love Israel. The neo-Nazi founder of America’s alt Right, Richard Spencer, even describes himself as a White Zionist and Tommy Robinson described himself as a proud Zionist. So did Norway’s mass killer Anders Breivik. There is nothing incompatible about loving Zionism and Israel and hating Jews. Most of today’s far-Right do. Indeed if you are a genuine anti-Semite then you will also be a sincere anti-Semite.

The only ‘anti-Semites’ that Pollard and co. are opposed to are anti-Zionists.  However there are still some, a diminishing number, of Zionists, who see through their own lies.  One of them is Geoffrey Alderman.

Tony Greenstein

Is Jeremy Corbyn really anti-Semitic?

Geoffrey Alderman

Jeremy Corbyn

8 May 2019

Is Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite? I began researching the answer to this question well before Danny Finkelstein’s recent revelation in the Times that eight years ago Corbyn had written a glowing foreward to a new edition of Imperialism: A Study, written by the radical economist John Atkinson Hobson, first published in 1902.

Context is paramount. That’s why I feel obliged to censure Finkelstein’s exposé. We all know what Hobson thought of Jews and capitalism. But to conclude – as Finkelstein does – that in writing the foreward Corbyn had praised a ‘deeply anti-Semitic book’ is to give a totally false impression of what this influential study is actually about. In a text running to almost 400 pages there are merely a dozen or so lines which we would call anti-Semitic. There was absolutely no need for Corbyn to have drawn attention to them in his foreward.

It’s quite true that the Labour Party that Corbyn leads has been dogged in recent years with incidents in which a significant number of its members, after being publicly pilloried as anti-Semites, have been expelled from the party. Worse than that, earlier this year a group of MPs resigned from the party, citing rampant anti-Semitism and a failure to deal with it as one of the reasons for their departure.

The group included the Jewish MP Luciana Berger, and also the non-Jewish MP Joan Ryan, formerly chair of Labour Friends of Israel. In her resignation speech, Ryan suggested that the ‘huge shame’ of anti-Semitism did not exist until Corbyn became party leader. Criticising Corbyn for ‘presiding over a culture of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel,’ Ryan insisted that ‘Over the past three years… the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn has become infected with the scourge of anti-Jewish racism. This problem simply did not exist in the party before his election as leader.’

Really? After all, hasn’t anti-Jewish racism existed in the party since its creation, over a century ago? In the late 19^th century, wasn’t the trade-union movement (out of ‘the bowels’ of which the party emerged, as Ernie Bevin once graphically observed) positively riddled with such prejudice? Weren’t leading socialist activists – for instance Sidney and Beatrice Webb  – unashamed exponents of it? To point to these irrefutable facts is neither to excuse such racism nor to imply that it wasn’t present in other political parties. Indeed it was and still is.

But my present concern is with Jeremy Corbyn, by which I mean Corbyn the person. For whilst it’s one thing to accuse him of being ‘soft’ on anti-Semitism, tolerating it and even befriending some of its exponents, it’s quite another to level the charge against him personally. What truth – if any – could there possibly be in such an accusation?

The fact of the matter is that Corbyn has an impressive record of supporting Jewish communal initiatives. For instance he was recently supportive of Jewish efforts to facilitate the speedy issue of death certificates by the north London coroner. In 2015 he took part in a ceremony in his Islington constituency to commemorate the founding of the North London Synagogue. In 2010 he put his name to an Early Day Motion (tabled by Diane Abbott) calling on the UK government to facilitate the settlement of Yemeni Jews in Britain. Indeed I could fill this entire article with a list of philo-Semitic EDMs that Corbyn has signed since he was first elected as Labour MP for Islington North in 1983.

In 1987 the West London Synagogue approached Islington Council with a startling proposal: to sell its original cemetery to property developers, destroying the gravestones and digging-up and reburying the bodies lying under them. This cemetery (dating from 1843) was not merely of great historic and architectural interest – in the view of orthodox Jews, the deliberate destruction of a cemetery is sacrilegious. So when Islington Council granted the planning application, a Jewish-led and ultimately successful campaign was launched to have the decision reversed. I was part of that campaign. So was Jeremy Corbyn. Meanwhile, the then-leader of Islington Council (1982-92), whose decision to permit the destruction of the cemetery was eventually overturned, was none other than Margaret Hodge (though it is unclear whether she personally was in favour of the proposal).

I have deliberately omitted from this discussion any consideration of Corbyn’s attitude to Zionism and whether anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic. All I will say here – as a proud Zionist – is that in my view context is, again, paramount.

I will agree that from time to time, as backbench MP and party leader, Corbyn has acted unwisely. But the grounds for labelling him an anti-Semite simply do not exist.

Geoffrey Alderman is Professor of Politics, University of Buckingham.

Luke Stanger – Why has this racist & misogynist not yet been expelled from the Labour Party?

Calling Gypsies and Travellers a ‘Nasty Blight’, targeting Women and Black women especially for abuse and making false accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ is all in a day’s trolling for Lukey

My initial response to Stanger's racist comments

At the end of last year, one of the nastiest of Labour’s right-wing trolls, Luke Stanger, was suspended by the Labour Party. Even by the standards of Labour’s odious Right Stanger is in a league of his own.

His speciality is in targeting women, Black or ethnic minority women in particular. People such as Labour’s  Black council candidate in the Brighton and Hove Council elections, Alex Braithwaite, or Haringey’s Seema Chandwani. It says a lot about the current state of the Labour Party that the target of Stanger’s abuse, Alex Braithwaite, has herself now been suspended.

Another Stanger tweet attacking the only Black candidate in the local elections in Brighton & Hove

Luke claims Jewish ancestry. It seems every non-Jewish racist in the Labour Party is now searching their family tree for a trace of Jewish blood! In reality Luke is about as Jewish as a ham sandwich.

Stanger has a nasty habit of accusing anti-racists of ‘anti-Semitism’ – especially if they are Black or Jewish! As Alexei Sayle, the Jewish comedian, said ‘There can be no greater injustice than anti-racists being accused of racism by racists"

To be fair (and I always try to be fair) Stanger is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. He doesn’t seem to understand that non-Jews accusing Black people of racism and Jewish people of ‘anti-Semitism’ is both racist and anti-Semitic. But what can you expect from a White person for whom racism is simply an abusive epithet to hurl at your opponents?

Luke Stanger with Simon Cobbs (right), founder of Sussex Friends of Israel, a supporter of the neo-Nazi Jewish Defence League, Cobbs has demonstrated with the EDL

What makes Stanger’s behaviour so inexcusable is that there has never been the slightest evidence that he (or the rest of the Labour Right), has ever had the slightest interest in combating genuine racism.

Stanger accuses Jewish group the JVL of 'antisemitism' without a trace of irony - I'm also not a member!

You won't see Stanger protesting outside Yarl’s Wood or Campsfield Detention Centres for asylum seekers which New Labour set up and ran. The idea of him or fellow Zionist trolls campaigning around Grenfell Tower or any other form of state racism would be to indulge in a flight of fancy. Only ‘anti-Semitism’ concerns them.  

And not the kind of anti-Semitism that we are seeing amongst Israel’s best friends in Hungary, Poland or amongst Trump’s supporters.  Stanger’s concern about ‘anti-Semitism’ only arises in the context of criticism of Israel or Zionism. 

Zionist group that supports Tommy Robinson attacks Richard Burgon

Founder and owner of JHRW in a promotional video with Tommy Robinson

Indeed Stanger has taken to retweeting from the far-Right Jewish Human Rights Watch, a group that is neither Jewish nor interested in human rights.  It is led by Manchester solicitor Robert Festenstein, who made a guest appearance in a promotional video with Tommy Robinson.

Given that Joan Ryan's departure broke Stanger's heart, one can only assume he will soon be following her

Stanger learnt the tricks of the trade when he was an intern with crooked MP, Joan Ryan. People may remember Ms Ryan from her starring role in Al Jazeera’s The Lobby when she tried to frame Labour conference delegate Jean Fitzpatrick as an anti-Semite. Unknown to Ryan, the conversation was being taped. The Labour Party had to unsuspend Jean when it became clear that Ryan was a brazen liar.

Joan Ryan has now thankfully departed to the Funny Tinge Group - hopefully Stanger will follow her

Ryan of course was a model of probity. She was forced to repay more than £5,000 in mortgage interest in the parliamentary expenses scandal.  Ryan’s only achievement, apart from being Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, was to claim more expenses than any other MP in 2006-7 having been runner up the previous year. Given the stiff competition this was indeed a remarkable achievement.

It speaks volumes that Stanger praises Lansman's 'thoughtful' speech at the JLM

Stanger is well connected. It’s rumoured that the reason he wasn’t suspended earlier was because of support from Tom Watson.

Despite accusing others of racism, Stanger is quite clearly an accomplished racist in his own right. On August 8^th 2018, in response to a Daily Mail story ‘200 travellers moved from Surrey common invade village SIX MILES away’ Stanger tweeted in response:

‘I am perplexed by how some on the left have any sympathy for such matters. The traveller community are frequently a nasty blight on communities who wreak civil unrest onto areas.’ (my emphasis)

Anyone who doubts the racist nature of this post should substitute ‘Jews’ for ‘travellers’. It met with a strong response from other Twitter users.

Gypsies waiting to be put to death at Auschwitz

Luke’s initial defence was that ‘Highlighting that some in the traveller community cause civil disorder and wreak havoc onto local communities makes me a racist?’ This was disingenuous. Luke didn’t talk about some but all travellers. But even if he had used ‘some’ that would not make the Tweet any less racist. Instead of concentrating on the hounding of travellers and Gypsies from one area to another, the deprivation and attacks they suffer, Luke joined in those attacks portraying Gypsies and Travellers in terms of anti-social behaviour or as the Nazis put it Gemeinschaftsschädlich, damage to the community. 

Stanger doesn't understand why calling Travellers a 'nasty blight' might be racist - perhaps Nigel Farage's Brexit party would be more understanding?

Another attack on Anne Mitchell. The Mark in question is lawyer Mark Lewis, a Zionist solicitor recently fined £12,000 by the Law Society for wishing an early death on his critics! Lewis is a far-Right Zionist and member of Herut UK, the party of Benjamin Netanyahu. This is who Lukey keeps company with when attacking socialists

For someone who professes to be so aware of ‘anti-Semitism’ that he can attack anti-Zionist Jews as ‘anti-Semites’ Stanger is seemingly unaware of Porajmos, the extermination of the Gypsies by the Nazis. Of course that is not so surprising since the Holocaust and the extermination of European Jewry are treated as being synonymous.

Contrary to Zionist mythology and the propaganda of the Holocaust mongers, the Jews were not the only victims of the Holocaust. The Gypsies were murdered in much the same proportion as the Jews. An estimated half a million died in the camps and Nazi ghettos. There were Gypsies in both Warsaw and Lodz, the two largest ghettos in Nazi occupied Poland. But whereas the Jewish Holocaust has been harnessed to the needs of western imperialism and its support for the Israeli state, the Gypsy Holocaust has been all but forgotten. The same is true of the T4 ‘Euthenasia’ campaign which marked the start of the Holocaust. The murder of up to ¾ million disabled people is barely mentioned.

Pamela Fitzpatrick, a Labour candidate in Harrow, is another woman that Stanger became fixated upon

The Holocaust has been the principal ideological justification for the Israeli state. As Israeli Professor Edith Zertal wrote in The Politics of Nationhood [pp. 4, 91] there hasn’t been a war involving Israel ‘that has not been perceived, defined, and conceptualized in terms of the Holocaust.’ Israel has mobilised the Holocaust ‘in the service of Israeli politics.’ 

Even the definition of anti-Semitism which conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Israel receives the largest amount of US aid in the world, all of it military, because Israel is a state which operates as the West’s armed watchdog in the Middle East.

The Gypsies play no such role and are instead the scapegoat of the European Right. Last June the fascist Deputy Prime Minister of Italy, Matteo Salvini promised to expel thousands of Roma and conduct a census of the remainder in a chilling reminder of what happened under Mussolini.

Stanger is 'sick to my stomach' because Seamus Milne is part of Labour's negotiating team with Theresa May in 'constitutionally historic talks'. Clearly Stanger is in the wrong party and should be helped to migrate.

It is because there is no political utility in opposing racism against Gypsies that the Labour Right, not just Stanger, have demonised them. In his Defence after having been suspended Stanger drew attention to the anti-Gypsy racism that is prevalent amongst MPs and Councillors.

John Mann's racist anti-Gypsy booklet

Stanger mentioned John Mann MP in particular. Mann, who famously called Ken Livingstone a ‘Nazi apologist’, issued a pamphlet on Anti-Social Behaviour in which Gypsies were demonised as a social pest and nuisance. 

There is a certain logic in Stanger’s Defence. Why hasn’t Mann been suspended?  However it is no defence against racism to point to the treatment of other racists. It’s like complaining of being prosecuted for speeding and pointing to the fact that other people were also breaking the speed limit.

Romani children who were victims of the medical experiments of Auschwitz Dr Mengele - what Stanger calls a social blight

Stanger has engaged in a non-stop campaign against the Labour Party’s only Black candidate in the local elections in Brighton and Hove, Alex Braithwaite. Why? Because she cast doubt on the existence of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and suggested it had been a means of attacking Corbyn. That is obviously true. Why else would the Mail and The Sun be so concerned about Labour anti-Semitism? Is it seriously suggested that newspapers who employed Katie ‘migrants are cockroaches’ Hopkins are seriously concerned with anti-Semitism? Why is it anti-Semitic to cast doubt on the motives of those who are weaponising anti-Semitism?

A few of the reactions on Twitter to Stanger's views on Gypsies

Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party was never raised until Corbyn was elected Leader. It was only after the 2017 General Election, when to everyone’s surprise, Corbyn achieved the biggest swing to Labour since 1945, that claims began to be made that Labour was ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’. As Bob Pitt observed:

[Luciana] Berger wasn’t alone in undergoing a dramatic conversion to the view that Labour is afflicted by a plague of antisemitism. Back in 2016 Berger’s fellow Independent Group founder Chuka Umunna similarly dismissed suggestions that party was institutionally antisemitic (“I have not seen one incident of antisemitism in almost 20 years of activism within my local Labour Party”), as did Jewish Labour Movement vice-chairs Sarah Sackman and Mike Katz (“neither of us has ever experienced any incidence of anti-Semitism from within the party”), only for all of them to discover just a couple of years later that the Labour Party was riddled with antisemitism from top to bottom.

To people like Stanger and the JLM denying the existence of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party is in itself proof that you are anti-Semitic. It is the same logic that prevailed in the Salem Witch Trials. Denial of the existence of witchcraft was proof that you were a witch! This is the medieval standard of justice that Stanger and the Labour Right employ.

Did Yvette Cooper know she was giving a misogynist and racist a photo opp?

What makes it worse is that whilst Stanger has repeatedly harassed Alex Braithwaite for exercising her freedom of speech other Labour council candidates who hold the same opinions and who, like Alex, oppose the IHRA, have not been targeted. Why? The only conclusion is that they are White.

Alex has now, quite shamefully, been suspended and such a decision increases the likelihood of the Tories retaining a marginal seat. It is shameful that Jenny Formby and Jeremy Corbyn have effected a regime that takes its orders from the Tory Press and Guido Fawkes. Helping the Tories retain a seat is what Stanger calls his ‘love’ of the Labour Party. 

Stanger’s Self-Pitying Whines

What is truly pathetic is how Stanger whines and sobs about how terribly he is suffering as a result of his suspension! He is quite happy to harass others who are vulnerable and for his political enemies to be suspended without good cause but when he is suspended he engages in one long self-pitying whine. He pleads in his Defence that::

I also wish to set out my mental health problems as I believe you should take these into account.

As noted above, I suffer from depression, anxiety and ADHD. I don’t wish to invoke my mental health as an emotive matter. Nor do I wish to use it as a prism with which to contextualise any mistakes I have made.

However, the process my suspension has so far entailed has sent me down into a deep depression and seen my motivation affected. Being so abruptly formally suspended from the organisation that makes up such a significant part of my heart and soul was crushing.

Skwawkbox appeared to know more about the reasons for my suspension than I did, shaking my faith in the integrity of the party’s disciplinary process

This special pleading by someone who has done so much to inflict depression and suffering on others is symptomatic of the Labour Rights self-obsession and sense of victim-hood. A lack of empathy and understanding of how others feel is certainly part of Stanger’s condition but this is not so much a mental as a political affliction. Not once, in his incessant abuse of women in particular has he ever thought about the effects of his own actions on others. In his self-indulgent whine, he tweeted that:

‘I am so desperately sad to be informed that my Labour Party membership suspension has been referred onto the NCC... From the outset this process has been marred with an absence of due process... vindictive spirit... the letter of my formal suspension containing only unspecified allegations in mid-October relating to ‘social media conduct’ to the leak to Skawkbox several weeks later who were given prior notice of my charges before I was... the sense of powerlessness felt by the matter’s unreasonable conduct...’

And so it goes on. Whine after whine, bleat after bleat, moan after self-indulgent moan. It’s strange how the Right only talk about due process when they experience their own treatment of others. Civil liberties are only applicable to them. One person, Carl Sargeant, even committed suicide after being suspended but I don't recall Luke Stanger displaying the slightest interest or concern. One might have an ounce of sympathy for this wretch if Stanger hadn’t done his best to inflict as much pain and suffering on his political foes.

I was suspended for two years for comments I was alleged to have made. I wasn’t even told what those comments were still less who had made the complaints. A letter arrived in the post one sunny spring day in 2016 and when I emailed and rang up Labour HQ I was given no information whatsoever. 

The first that I knew of the reasons for my suspension was when my son alerted me to articles in The Telegraph and Times online two weeks later. Powerlessness? Depression? Vindictiveness? Stanger and his cronies gloated at my suspension and that of many others. They called the Chakrabarti Report a ‘whitewash’ because it called for due process and natural justice.

So you might not be surprised that I don’t feel too much sympathy with Stanger’s plaints. As for Stanger’s mental health problems. I do not accept that his vitriolic, racist and misogynist behaviour are a consequence of his mental health. If Stanger suffers from anything it is a political pathology for which there is probably no cure this side of socialism.

Harris Fitch in the middle with two Sussex Friends of Israel members

On 9^th July in Brighton after an Annual General Meeting that the Left won by 2-1 (& which was almost immediately set aside because of lies by Councillors Emma Daniels and Warren Morgan) there was an ugly incident in a pub afterwards. Two right-wing Labour thugs, one of whom was Harris Fitch, threatened and abused Seema Chandwani and Michael Calderbank who were told “get the fuck out of Brighton now, scum”. They had previously addressed a packed to overflowing Momentum rally at the Brighthelm community centre. The person who pointed out Seema and Michael to these thugs was Stanger:

I was in conversation with two individuals at the bar... I pointed out to them that also in the bar was a man called Michael Calderbank who had previously worked for John McDonnell. I suggested he might have been in Brighton to organise for Momentum’s attempt to win the local party AGM. ... At no point did I foresee what occurred next, which was that the two individuals were abusive and threatening towards Mr Calderbank and his partner, Seema Chandwani. The subsequent offensive conduct by the two individuals was entirely unpredictable...’

And if you believe that you really do believe in Father Xmas. Stanger by his own admission, having targeted Seema and Michael did nothing to restrain his associates.

Stanger blamed the objects of his attacks for 'bullying' him

Stanger claims that he harassed Alex Braithwaite and wrote tweets attacking her candidature ‘because I am extremely concerned about incidents involving antisemitism in my local party, which have been common knowledge in recent years.’ Really?  What incidents? There haven’t been any anti-Semitic incidents in Brighton and Hove Labour Party so why should he be concerned about a non-existent threat?

Of course people criticise Israel and Zionism but that is not anti-Semitism unless Stanger believes that Jews and Israel are one and the same thing.  If so then it is he who is being anti-Semitic because he is saying that British Jews bear a responsibility for the actions of Israel.

More Black women that Stanger has fixated upon

What puzzles me is why someone who has been active in the Labour Party since 2010, and who has had no involvement in anti-racist or anti-fascist activity, suddenly be so concerned about ‘anti-Semitism’? In April 2012 there was a mass mobilisation of hundreds of people in Brighton and Hove which prevented the English Defence League marching through the city centre. We stopped the fascist march. Stanger played no part in this unlike the people he is now vilifying.

One of many tweets from Stanger attacking anti-racist members of the Labour Party as 'antisemitic'

Another person that he has demonised as an ‘anti-Semite’ is Hove Labour Party Executive Member Anne Mitchell. Active in Palestine solidarity and anti-racist work she too has now been suspended. Anne’s offence according to Stanger? 

‘stating antisemitism is being ‘privileged’ against other forms of racism. I am unable to determine how any racism can be privileged against any other and therefore concluded that she in some way is trivialising antisemitism compared to other forms of racism.

The Labour Opposition under Ed Miliband supported the 2014 Immigration Act and Theresa May's 'hostile environment policy' which led to the Windrush deportations of hundreds of Black people. Has Stanger ever raised concerns over genuine issues of racism such as these? Has he or his Labour Right trolls shown any concern over the Grenfell fire which was as much the responsibility of New Labour as the Tories?

Anti-Semitism has been the only form of racism that has been raised in the Labour Party by Stanger and his fellows.  What is this if not privileging anti-Semitism? Jews in Britain are not subject to deportation, do not suffer from Stop and Search or Police violence or over representation in the prison estate. Jews in Britain are not economically discriminated against. Those whose only concern is a non-existent 'antisemitism' related of course to Israel are obviously privileging anti-Semitism.

Stanger attacking the Chair of his CLP as well as Anne

According to Stanger ‘Anne Mitchell has also asked JLM to justify reports of IDF violence.’ Apparently this is ‘invoking a traditional antisemitic trope in suggesting British Jews have split national loyalties that involve Israel or are collectively responsible for the actions of a state they are not usually citizens of.’

The hypocrisy is breathtaking. The JLM sponsored the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism which states that ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour)’ is anti-Semitic.

If words mean anything then this means that Israel is, as it claims to be, the nation state of all Jewish people, including British Jews. That is what Israel’s Jewish Nation State Law claims. Zionist mythology holds that Israeli Jews are part of a world wide Jewish nation. If this is so then Jews in Britain are obviously responsible for what Israel does since they are part of one, world-wide Jewish nation. 

But Anne wasn’t even doing that.  She was querying a Zionist organisation, the JLM which is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation and what its view was on Israeli army violence. The JLM is the British wing of the Israeli Labour Party. The JLM only accepts Zionists, Jewish and non-Jewish, as members. Of course it is perfectly right to challenge it on where it stands on the violence of Israel's military.

So worked up was Stanger that he made a Complaint Against Ann Mitchell. Anne tweeted him: ‘Can we please stop talking as if all Jewish comrades are in agreement and hold similar views, because they do not.’ By conflating the JLM with all Jews it is Stanger who is guilty of the very crime he accuses Anne (& Alex) of.  In her tweet to the JLM she specifically referred to ‘Zionist orgs’.  It is Stanger’s anti-Semitism which translates ‘Zionist’ into ‘Jew’ when as Stanger knows, the worst Zionist racists are, like himself and the neo-Nazi founder of the alt-Right, Richard Spencer, non-Jewish. Spencer even calls himself a White Zionist, an apt description for Stanger.

Further information on Stanger’s sad plight can be obtained from Skwawkbox’s Stanger ‘abusive behaviour’ case referred to Labour’s senior disciplinary committee.

Tony Greenstein