Why Labour Against the Witchhunt & Labour-in-Exile-Network Should Merge

 With the Collapse of the Corbyn Project there is a clear choice between Building a Socialist Movement or Retreating into the Politics of Sectarianism 

Ken Loach absolutely DESTROYS Keir Starmer (doubledown.news)

Starmer and Evans are conducting a scorched earth policy inside the Labour Party. They are determined to complete what Blair began, making the Labour Party safe for capitalism. That is why, on July 20^th Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour-in-Exile-Network were proscribed. It is on that basis that Ken Loach, Jo Bird and many others have been expelled.

Any socialist of note, indeed anyone who sticks their head above the parapet, is likely to be expelled. But whereas the Labour Party is now a ‘hostile environment’ to socialists, racists like Trevor Philips (‘Muslims are a nation within a nation’) and Luke Stanger (‘travellers are a nasty blight on society’) are quietly readmitted to the Labour Party. Anti-racists and socialists are expelled on the pretext that they ‘undermine the Labour Party’s ability to campaign against racism’ even though Labour under Starmer has done nothing about racism.

Recent expulsions include Graham Bash, Editor of Labour Briefing with 53 years of membership, and Cllr. Jo Bird, both of whom are Jewish. Pamela Fitzpatrick, a much respected Councillor in Harrow and a member of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy has also been expelled.  Pamela made a number of complaints about people like Stanger abusing and harassing her and the Labour Party’s response has been to expel the victim and readmit the abusers.

Very few politicians tell the unvarnished truth but never can there be two leaders of the two main parties, Starmer and Johnson, who suffer from truthophobia. Both of them, quite literally, have an allergic reaction to telling the truth. 

As Skwawkbox noted ‘Just days after Keir Starmer told a Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) gathering that his would be a party for all Jews’, Jo Bird, a Jewish councillor in Wirral was expelled. Indeed if you are Jewish in the Labour Party you are 5 times more likely to be expelled for ‘anti-Semitism’ than if you are non-Jewish!  This is the parallel universe of the Labour Right. Anti-racist Jews aren’t Jews.

The blame for this state of affairs can be laid at the feet of Jeremy Corbyn and Lansman’s Momentum. It was they who accepted the false ‘anti-Semitism’ narrative of the right-wing, that Labour was ‘overrun by anti-Semitism’. It was they who supported the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism. It was Corbyn and Lansman who supported the expulsion of Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone, Chris Williamson and myself.

Starmer and Johnson leapt to the defence of Israel's racist Ambassador

We are now seeing exactly what the Right meant by ‘anti-Semitism’ – a defence of the nakedly racist Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely and the expulsion of Jewish anti-racists from the Labour Party.

Hotovely was the person who, as Chair of the Knesset’s Womens Committee, invited the overtly fascist Lehava group to give testimony. Lehava, like the Jewish Nazis they are, oppose Jews and Arabs having personal/sexual relationships and they go hunting for Arabs in ‘Jewish areas’ in order to beat them up. This is the vile creature that Starmer and Angela Rayner defended.

Starmer was elected on the basis of 10 Pledges, which were based on the Corbyn Manifesto. Since his election he has abandoned every single pledge. Pledge number 1 was to reverse the Tory cuts to Corporation Tax.  When the Tories did increase it Starmer opposed it!

Ken Loach Interview with The Canary

Jo Bird spoke for many when she said that

‘I’m delighted the Labour Party has expelled me today. I’m free from fear about speaking and meeting with other people.... This racist Labour Party is dying as a vehicle for social justice.’

Ken Loach said of his expulsion that ‘it’s like leaving an abusive relationship’.

As thousands continue to stream out of the Labour Party and hundreds, if not thousands, fall foul of the witchhunt, a responsibility rests upon 2 of the 4 proscribed groups, Labour-in-Exile-Network and Labour Against the Witchhunt to organise, both those who are still inside the Labour Party and those who are now outside the party into a coherent socialist movement as opposed to a separate party.

Whereas Gordon Brown went from Stalin to Mr Bean, Starmer has gone from Mr Bean to Stalin

That is why the two All Members Meetings (All Members Meeting) this Friday and Saturday of LIEN and LAW are so important and I urge people to attend.  At these meetings motions will be proposed that the 2 organisations should merge. If you are not already a member of one or both groups then you should join now. You can join LIEN here and LAW here.

Luke Stanger, a vile racist and friend of Hove's right-wing MP Peter Kyle (Vice Chair of LFI) is readmitted to the Labour Party

LIEN’s Steering Committee has voted in favour of merger or consolidation of both organisations, since LIEN was in many ways an outgrowth of LAW. At one time 3 members of the LAW SC were also on LIEN’s SC . However LAW’s Steering Committee, under the influence of Labour Party Marxists, has come out against a merger with only myself, out of 6 members, in favour of merging with LIEN.

Trevor Phillips - another genuine racist readmitted to the Labour Party

At the LAW AMM on July 24 a motion was passed to ‘explore the merging of Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour In Exile Network’. Moved by Tina Werkmann (who has since changed her mind) the motion read:

 This meeting believes that:

1.   Unity is strength. While there are obvious political differences in the history of both groups, the composition of both memberships and some campaigning priorities, we believe that both groups have enough in common politically to justify a possible merger.  

2.   Such a merger would send out a strong signal to many of those who are feeling disheartened and politically disoriented by the current trajectory of the Labour Party. 

3.   It might encourage more people and groups to join our merged organisation. 

4.    This meeting therefore resolves to start exploring a merger process between both organisations...

 At a joint LLA, LAW and LIEN members and supporters meeting on October 14 a motion moved by Tina Werkmann stated:

Unity is strength. While there are obvious political differences in the history of the three groups, the composition of their memberships and some campaigning priorities, we believe that they have enough in common politically to start bringing their forces closer together by setting up joint campaigns, joint educational events and joint meetings of the respective leaderships.

Amendment number 8 moved by me stating that

A merger of LAW and LIEN in the light of the recent proscriptions and attacks on the left in the Labour Party would be extremely welcome

was passed by 43-25. Amendment 6 by Diana Isserlis calling explicitly for a new socialist movement passed by 44-31.

Amendment 4 moved by Roger Silverman calling for

the establishment of a common transitional movement uniting socialist activists both within and outside the Labour Party

was passed by 61-15.

Amendment 3 moved by Diana Isserlis calling for a new organisation to

co-operate with forces inside and outside the Labour Party, pursue campaigns linked with the wider socialist movement, build a socialist movement including those inside and outside the Labour Party

was passed by 45-26 and Amendment 2 from me calling for the new combined organisation ‘to organise shadow CLPs to include ex-members and current members of the Labour Party’ was passed by 54-11.  By way of contrast a wrecking amendment from LPM, deleting half of the motion was heavily defeated by 58-12. 

The amended motion was passed by 63-11. In other words except for the hard core supporters of LPM just about everybody else agreed with the strategy of merger.

The LPM, which is the Communist Party of Great Britain, which produces the Weekly Worker. It is a small group of around 30-40 members which has stayed approximately the same size since it was formed from The Leninist over 30 years ago.

Their strategy, if it can be called that, is to form a mass revolutionary Marxist party which will, with the support of the unions, force the Labour Party into becoming a ‘united front of a special kind’.  In the meantime LPM simply writes off the hundreds of thousands of people who joined the Labour Party after the victory of Jeremy Corbyn and the millions who voted for the 2017 manifesto as having the ‘wrong’ politics. There is a complete failure to understand what the Corbyn project represented and how to build on it.

LPM is therefore fiercely opposed to such a merger or indeed any attempt to build the left other than temporary alliances with already existing left groups like CLPD or LRC in the Labour Party. It dismisses all attempts to build anything outside the Labour Party as a Labour Party Mark II.

At the November 9 Steering Committee Stan Keable submitted the following motion:

The LAW steering committee resolves to withdraw from the recent joint meetings with the steering committees of Labour in Exile Network and Labour Left Alliance, and to end LAW’s participation in joint all members and supporters meetings.

The joint steering committee meetings, while nominally favouring continuing the struggle in the Labour Party, have in fact been dominated by proposals to orientate away from Labour, to give up on the struggle within Labour, and to attempt to create an alternative movement or party based on the failed politics of Corbynism, aiming to keep together the thousands of disillusioned comrades at all costs. Far from rearming and rallying the left, we believe such a project will only add to the widespread demoralization and disorientation of the Labour left that already exists.

However, we wish those comrades well, and will seek to co-operate with them wherever possible. Meanwhile, LAW has a tremendous job on its hands in fighting the ongoing witch-hunt.

Unsurprisingly at the LAW All Members Meeting this Saturday LPM will move Motion 2 which is titled:  Reject liquidation of LAW! Keep the focus on Labour! 

The merger or consolidation of LAW and LIEN is called ‘liquidation’ a favourite word in sections of the left. The motion is the height of unreality. It fails to take account that the atmosphere of McCarthyism and vitriol inside the Labour Party, the harassment and bullying of activists has produce a situation where over 150,000 members have simply left with thousands more likely to do so.

It is crystal clear that there is little or nothing that LAW can do to combat the present witchhunt. As Ken Loach said ‘democracy is dead inside the Labour Party.’ In a situation where Labour Party apparatchiks manipulate and make up the rules to get rid of their enemy, where nobody on the left can even become a councillor or MP anymore, it is impossible to fight the witchhunt. There are no hearings before panels anymore because there are no hearings. Thanks to Corbyn and Formby fast-track expulsions have become the norm.

In the present situation the question is whether we can build a new movement from amongst those who were part of the Corbyn movement. The LPM prefers to inhabit a sectarian ghetto of 30-40 to the more difficult task of organising with people who will not always share hard line Marxist politics.

What they are advocating, behind their talk of Solidarity with all victims of the Labour witch-hunt! Step up the fight! is nothing less than an abandonment of any fight whatsoever.  Given that virtually no supporters of LPM are even inside the Labour Party their resolution is pure wind, rhetoric without any purpose.

As LIEN says on its website

The main aim of the Labour In Exile Network is to keep together all those who were mobilised and enthused to support Jeremy Corbyn for leader to continue the fight for democracy and socialism. This includes those who remain in the Labour Party, those who have been unfairly suspended or expelled in the last five years and those who have resigned from the Labour Party in despair of the party’s direction of travel under Keir Starmer and Dave Evans.

There is nothing whatsoever in this which is incompatible with the aims and purpose of LAW.

At the meetings on November 26 and 27 Esther Giles and myself will be moving a motion calling for the ‘consolidation  of Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour-in-Exile-Network into one organisation’.

There will therefore be a clear choice facing members as to whether or not to continue the fight against Starmer, but not necessarily on Labour Party terrain since that has now become enemy territory.

The stance of LPM raises wider questions. How does the Marxist and anti-capitalist left build in a situation which is anything but revolutionary. Is the Bolshevik model the only one for Marxists today? Why is it that there has been no workers’ revolution since 1917? Is the working class of the West potentially revolutionary? What is the relevance of modern movements such as Black Lives Matter to revolutionary change? Does the pending climate catastrophe dictate a change in tactics and strategy?

However when you are obsessed with what dead Bolsheviks said or didn’t say a hundred years ago, such questions seem otiose.

Whatever your views please come and have your say and if you are not a member of both organisations then it’s not too late to join!

Below is an Open Letter to Members of Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour-in-Exile-Network from Carel Buxton, Roger Silverman, Esther Giles and myself to members explaining why we think that a merger of LIEN and LAW is necessary.

Tony Greenstein

NOT THE FORDE INQUIRY! Why Starmer Sought to Hide and Cover Up Racist and Sexist Abuse & Corruption Amongst Labour's Senior Staff

 Despite Packing the Forde Inquiry With his  Sycophants Starmer Decided to Suppress it

Register here for The Not The Forde Inquiry

The Forde Inquiry was set up at in April 2020 as a result of Labour’s Leaked Report which demonstrated conclusively that senior Labour staff had consciously set out to sabotage the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.  The Report was aiming to issue its report early in 2021. 

The Leaked Report, which was clearly commissioned by former General Secretary Jennie Formby (perhaps her only real service to the left during her tenure) demonstrated that senior Labour officials, led by General Secretary Iain McNicol and his unattractive enforcer John Stolliday, ran an unofficial  general election campaign in support of right-wing MPs at a secret HQ during the 2017 General Election campaign.

The Report, in perhaps its only humorous moment, illustrated the grief and tears of these sordid and wretched hacks as Corbyn increased his majority. They were openly disappointed, some in tears, when Corbyn unexpectedly gained not lost seats. McNicol warned his fellow bigots that they were in for an uncomfortable few months.

Unfortunately it took Corbyn another 8 months to force McNicol's resignation despite the fact that, in anticipation of a coup, McNicol had cancelled the passes of Corbyn's office on the night of the General Election. It was a sad commentary on Corbyn's tenure as leader that he refused to confront the Right even as he was betraying his own comrades like Chris Williamson.

Keir Starmer - Labour's Leader In Need of a Personality Transplant

The Leaked Report  included outrageous examples of racist abuse, homophobia, anti-Semitism (ironically) sexism and electoral sabotage by party officials.  In short utter corruption.

Starmer however made his displeasure clear. Not at the behaviour of McNicol, Stolliday, Emily Oldknow and all the other crooks and bigots who Labour employed at great cost.  His anger was directed at those who had compiled and leaked the Report.

The Forde Inquiry was filled with Starmer loyalists and right-wing toe rags.  Yet despite this Starmer has desperately attempted to kick the Inquiry into the long grass. The latest pretext for delay is that it might conflict with the Information Commissioner’s inquiries.

Over a year later the Forde Inquiry still hasn’t reported. Many people believe Forde’s findings are being suppressed because the party’s leadership wants to bury the truth. But we’re not going to let that happen.

That’s why we’re holding the “Not The Forde Inquiry”, to give people the chance to say in public what they would have told the inquiry if they’d had the chance.

Starmer is Labour’s most dishonest leader ever. A born liar who campaigned as a unity candidate and the moment he was elected began undoing Corbyn’s legacy. First Rebecca Long Bailey was sacked as Shadow Education Secretary for retweeting Maxine Peake’s references to Israeli Police training their US counterparts in how to choke, strangle and otherwise incapacitate Black people.  This was, apparently, an ‘anti-Semitic conspiracy theory’.

Whilst standing for leader Starmer hid the fact that his campaign was financed by a plethora of right-wing businessmen and hedge fund managers such as Martin Taylor, (£95,000) Clive Hollick (£50,000) and Trevor Chinn (£50,000), a major funder of Labour Friends of Israel and an Executive Member of BICOM, the main pro-Israel propaganda organisation in Britain.  Zionist supporters constituted a large chunk of Starmer's campaign funding but Starmer refused to divulge the source of his donations until the election campaign was over. As Bob Pitt noted:

those party members who voted for Keir on the basis of his assurances that he would continue Labour’s radical political trajectory might ask themselves whether they were well and truly suckered.

Because the Forde Inquiry looks as if it will never report, Labour in Exile Network has organised an alternative Forde Inquiry, namely Not the Forde Inquiry which will take submissions from people who have been at the centre of the witchhunt.

Rebecca Massey (under the flag) and Anne Mitchell (second from right) who was also expelled from Hove Labour Party

They include:

Jackie Walker – the Black-Jewish former Vice Chair of Momentum who was stabbed in the back by Jon Lansman at the behest of the Jewish LabourMovement whose 'sister party', the Israeli Labour Party, has just gone into a coalition government in Israel with the far-Right.

Chris Williamson        the former Labour MP who was attacked as an ‘anti-Semite’ by the JLM. Chris was stabbed in the back by Jennie Formby and betrayed by Jeremy Corbyn who failed to stand up for him.

Graham Bash    the Editor of Labour Briefing, an Executive Committee member of Jewish Voices for Labour who has also been suspended.

Leah Levane     a Jewish councillor for Hastings, Leah is co-Chair of Jewish Voices for Labour. Remarkably she doesn’t appear to have been suspended (yet!).

Tina Werkmann          Secretary of Labour Against the Witchhunt and active in Labour Left Alliance has been expelled.

Rebecca Massey         was expelled on the explicit instructions of the Board of Deputies – this fact was uncovered when a document was obtained through a subject access request.

Contributions also encouraged from attendees at this event

If you have information relevant to the inquiry please email info@labour-in-exile.org. Whistleblowers are particularly welcome!

The inquiry will also hear a special message from film director Ken Loach

Over 450 people have already registered for Saturday's 'Not the Forde Enquiry' meeting at 7pm, which is being run in conjunction with the Labour Left Alliance and Labour Against the Witchhunt. The Morning Star covered the event and above you can see a video interview with LIEN's Norman Thomas that was shown on RT.

Register

https://tinyurl.com/npcjv7ws

Join LIEN

https://membermojo.co.uk/lien/

ALSO

Saturday 12 June, 5-7pm

Join our workshop on shadow CLPs: What are they? And how are they run?

A workshop to discuss the feasibility and possibility of creating Shadow CLPs around the country where we can affect and influence party business and policy from a left, democratic socialist agenda both from within the Labour Party in collaboration with exiles and members and from the outside with direct action and community projects and involvement.

We will have testimonies and examples of current examples of similar activities and how we can work together, using ideas and suggestions already in use and ones we can brainstorm together to build our numbers strength, effectiveness and efficiency .

Key speakers will include

• Kevin Bean, from Liverpool Wavetree - one of the Wavetree 4 suspended and expelled last year
• Carel Buxton from East Ham CLP
• Mike Kennard from North East Cambridgeshire CLP
• Terry Deans from Plymouth Moor View CLP, suspended V Chair of CLP and Branch Secretary.

There may be other key speaker contributions to be announced. Contributions as always are encouraged from the floor.

If anyone else would like to ensure a spot to contribute their experiences and ideas, please contact Terry Deans at terrydeans@hotmail.com or by FB messenger.

Saturday 12 June 2021 at 5-7pm

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88043023072

Meeting ID: 880 4302 3072

Appeasing Your Enemies and Repeatedly Apologising is not a Strategy for Survival

If Corbyn is to survive he needs to FIGHT BACK – and get a BACKBONE 

There was NO REASON to apologise for chairing a meeting at which  Auschwitz survivor, Hajo Meyer Compared Israel to Nazi Germany

Corbyn's speech 8 years ago condemning the siege and Israel's attack on Gaza is now being used to attack him - Corbyn's past is being used to attack the present - that is why he must defend his past not apologise or run away from it

For the first time in over two years I fear for Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party.  As Theresa May's hold over the Tory Party and her problems with Brexit mount, the desperation of our ruling class to place the Labour Party in 'safe' hands grows.  That is the clue to the Zionist attacks on Labour over non-existent 'antisemitism'.

Walter Wolfgang, former NEC member and refugee from Nazi Germany, gives his full support to Pete Willsman unlike the Scab Leader of Momentum, Jon Lansman

What possible reason could there be for the entirely artificial story that surfaced this week about a meeting Corbyn chaired eight years ago? It is clear that there is a systematic campaign, fronted by Zionist and pro-Israel organisations, supported by our yellow press and the BBC, to oust Corbyn.

For over two years I have traversed the country speaking at public meetings. One point above all I have stressed is that it is not me, Jackie Walker or Ken Livingstone who were the main targets of the anti-Semitism witchhunt.  We were collateral damage. The real target was and is Jeremy Corbyn.

Lansman  plays the role of a 5th columnist, a scab

These past few weeks have borne this out. It is Corbyn himself who is in their line of fire.  Margaret Hodge’s calling Corbyn a ‘fucking anti-Semite and a racist’ was not a sudden rush to the head. It was premeditated and coordinated .  It gave the cue to the Jewish Chronicle to launch an all out attack last week on Corbyn, in consort with two other Zionist papers.

Jon Lansman continues to play a treacherous role. Momentum's lack of any democratic structures means it is incapable of stopping him. Momentum’s National Co-ordinating Group is unable to restrain him.  Having removed Pete Willsman from the JC9 slate, without any consultation, Lansman now defends Margaret Hodge. 

Lansman would prefer to have Labour First's arch-Zionist Luke Akehurst elected to the NEC instead.  Akehurst, Director of We Believe in Israel, supported Israel's murder of 130 unarmed demonstrators in Gaza recently.  Lansman's scabbing behaviour is shameful.  The time is soon coming when Lansman, and  Owen Jones will call for Corbyn to resign. Momentum is rapidly losing its raison d'être.

This week marked a new low in the Zionist campaign to remove Corbyn.  Israel’s black propagandists alighted on a public meeting held at Parliament’s Portcullis House 8 years ago by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.  Before the local elections the excuse was a long erased mural. This week the Jewish Chronicle, no doubt fearing that Corbyn may not be around this week, sought out dirt about John McDonnell.  Revealed: John McDonnell signed Early Day Motion welcoming launch of extreme anti-Zionist group in the form of an Early Day Motion he had signed welcoming the formation of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. The only problem with this ‘revelation’ is that 26 other MPs signed it, including one Tory! Naturally The Guardian reprinted this story about McDonnell's EDM welcoming the formation of IJAN. It also published a speech by Corbyn 8 years ago comparing Israel's siege and attack on Gaza to Leningrad.  

The principal speaker at the meeting 8 years ago was the late Hajo Meyer, a Dutch Jew who survived Auschwitz. For Hajo Never Again meant never again for anyone, not just Jews. Corbyn’s suggestion that he was chairing a meeting where the speakers were people he strongly disagreed with is about as believable as Trump’s ‘misstatement’ at the press conference with Putin. It lacks all credibility.

The Jewish Chronicle launches the latest attempt to launch a coup against Corbyn

This meeting has been public knowledge for years but now anything and everything is being dredged up in order to attack Corbyn. You don’t have to be a member of MENSA to work out that those who are behind this latest ‘revelation’ are not interested in anti-Semitism.  Their only concern is removing Corbyn.

Until Corbyn develops a backbone and starts standing up for what he believed then he will continue to be rocked by these accusations. There is plenty more of this stuff for the media to  dig up.  It is now crystal clear that this 'antisemitism' nonsense is about Israel and Zionism.  

I don’t know whether Seamus Milne, who is Corbyn’s adviser has taken leave of his senses but the best indeed the only way of dealing with this was to stand firm, not apologise and say that Hajo Meyer had every right to make a comparison. Note a comparison is not the same thing as saying Israel and Nazi Germany are identical.

Comparisons with Nazi Germany are two a penny. They are not in the least anti-Semitic. Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of My Lai, the village in Vietnam where the Americans murdered over 200 villagers, remembered that one of the soldiers who took part began his story by saying “It was a Nazi-type thing.” Comparisons  with the Nazis are normal when evaluating particularly horrendous deeds. Nazi Germany didn't spring from nowhere.  It was a consequence of West European capitalism, including its colonial empires and the racial sciences that developed, including eugenicism.

Benny Morris, an Israeli historian, in Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited describes how, in November 1948, Eliezer Peri of the leftist Mapam, received a letter describing a massacre at al-Dawayima. There were ‘hundreds’ of dead. Agriculture Minister, Aharon Cisling referred to a letter he had received about the atrocities declared: ‘I couldn’t sleep all night ... This is something that determines the character of the nation ... Jews too have committed Nazi acts.’ ‘The children they killed by breaking their heads with sticks. There was not a house without dead’, wrote Eliezer Kaplan, the Jewish Agency Treasurer and later Minister of Finance. Perhaps this too was anti-Semitic?

As I showed in a recent article there are hundreds of comparisons that Israelis themselves make between their actions and those of the Nazis.  There is nothing in the slightest anti-Semitic about this.  It merely reflects the fact that Israel, because it claims its lineage from the Holocaust and what the Nazis did, has a special duty not to emulate them.  It is a means by which this racist settler state can be held to at least some human norms.

What is so depressing is that Corbyn isn’t able to figure this out for himself.  Whether it is just stupidity or political cowardice I leave it to others to discern.  Today Corbyn has an article in The Guardian I will root antisemites out of Labour – they do not speak for me. It repeats all Corbyn’s previous errors and more, not least in accepting that there is an anti-Semitic problem in the Labour Party. A political friend, Brian Robinson was impressed by the article.  I wasn’t.  I reproduce the exchange below:

Corbyn's article in The Guardian 

Dear Brian

thank you for sending me a copy of your response to Jeremy Corbyn's article in the Guardian.

I do not agree that it is a 'very powerful and well thought out statement.'  Quite the contrary it is pathetically weak and will do nothing to stem the present attacks which I assume is its purpose.

It rests on a fallacy, namely that there is widespread anti-semitism in the Labour Party. There isn't.  One idiot who believes that Hitler was much misunderstood does not mean that the party is antisemitic. Every party is entitled to its quota of idiots. The Parliamentary Labour Party is full of them. The 'antisemitism' campaign was got up even before JC became leader.  It will only end when Jeremy resigns and the Right resume what they see as their rightful place at the helm.  Those who believe otherwise are fooling themselves.

I should though add that the campaign against JC, although it is waged in the interests of Israel and our alliance with the United States, is being waged in the name of 'the Jewish community.'  If Jeremy is toppled as leader then many people are going to blame Jews for what has happened.  The campaign of the Zionists to remove Jeremy as leader, because that is what it is, can only stir up anti-Semitism, which I suspect is the intention of many of them. 

Historically Zionism has never had any problem with genuine anti-Semites. Their great benefactor Lord Arthus Balfour was a prime example.  As Prime Minister in 1905 he was responsible for introducing the Aliens Act preventing the immigration of Jewish refugees from Czarist Russia. He was personally antisemitic. However he was also an ardent Zionist. That is why today Israel is best friends with the antisemitic regimes in Hungary, Poland and the Vizigrad 4.  It is also why the alt-Right in the United States can combine anti-Semitism with ardent support for Zionism. Its neo-Nazi founder Richard Spencer even describes himself as a White Zionist.  Much like Tommy Robinson and his fans!  After all, if you are a fascist or anti-semite what is there not to like about Israel?

Jeremy forgot to mention such minor matters as the recent visit by Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban to Israel. Orban even paid homage to the holocaust dead in Israel's Yad Vashem propaganda museum, in a sickening display of piety and hypocrisy. This despite trying to rehabilitate Admiral Horthy whom he described as an 'outstanding statesman'. Horthy was the pro-Nazi leader of Hungary who dispatched 1/2 million Jews to Auschwitz.  But at least Netanyahu and Orban can agree that they both hate that archetypal Jewish financier, George Soros.  Why Netanyahu's son, Yair, even drew a cartoon of Soros - widely praised by the Daily Stormer and David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK.

The attack of the 3 Zionist papers on Jeremy as an 'existentialist threat' to the Jewish community was part of a wider campaign to remove him from the leadership.  The far-Right editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard called Jeremy an anti-semite as did the departing President of the Board of Deputies, Jonathan Arkush.  If Jeremy wasn't so busy trying to appease his accusers he might work out why he too is now being accused of being antisemitic.

For a long time the Board of Deputies and the various Zionist groups pretended that the campaign against 'antisemitism' in the Labour Party had nothing to do with Israel and Zionism.  Yet what other purpose is there in their desire to adopt unadulterated the IHRA 'definition' of antisemitism other than to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism? That is why 7 of the 11 examples relate to Israel.  The Oxford English dictionary definition of antisemitism, 'Hostility to or prejudice against Jews' consists of 6 words.  What possible reason is there to adopt a 500+ word 'definition'? As the distinguished former Court of Appeal Judge, Sir Stephen Sedley, who is himself Jewish, observed the IHRA 'fails the first test of any definition: it is indefinite.

Why did Jeremy Corbyn follow Theresa May in adopting this definition which  Professor David Feldman, who was part of the Chakrbarti Inquiry and Director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism has described as 'bewilderingly imprecise?' Does JC really believe Theresa May is interested in a 'definition' of antisemitism that Viktor Orban and the Polish regime can sign up to?  It is this kind of idiocy by Corbyn that is responsible for his current problems.

A number of us have been expelled or suspended because of the false anti-semitism campaign.  It is no coincidence that it is Jewish and Black anti-racists who were the main target of this campaign. As I have repeatedly said in the past 2 years, this campaign was not about me or Jackie Walker or Ken Livingstone.  The real target was Jeremy.  Yet despite this he decided to keep silent as the Compliance Unit went about their witchhunting work.

Of course if some people hold to the idea that being an anti-Zionist is a form of anti-semitism it all makes sense, which is why Corbyn's appalling apology for a meeting 8 years ago, when a holocaust survivor, Hajo Meyer, drew comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany, was so absurd.  How long is Jeremy going to go around apologising for his past instead of having the backbone to stand up to his accusers and defend his actions?  Of course Jeremy didn't dissociate himself from what Hajo said at the time. I was at the meeting. Hajo a survivor of Auschwitz was in a very good position to understand that just as the Nazi state first separated the the Jews and then murdered them, so Israel is also segregating and separating its Palestinian citizens.  The fact that they are not also murdering them, or at least not on the scale of Nazi Germany, should not be a cause for celebration.

Corbyn is wrong to say that Zionism is not a form of racism.  What else can a settler colonial movement and ideology be that sought to displace the indigenous population?  'A land without a people for a people without a land' is not an expression of comradely solidarity.  Zionism in alliance with British colonialism established a militarised settler state in Palestine.  It discriminated from the beginning in evicting the Palestinians first from the economy and then from the country altogether.  What do you think the Jewish National Fund was?  A benevolent society? Its whole existence was based around the idea that it would only redeem land for the benefit of Jews. If you want to know more then I refer you to the Government's Hope-Simpson Report in 1930 into the riots the previous year in Palestine.

My worry is that by continually appeasing his accusers Jeremy is discrediting himself.  Instead of appeasing and apologising he should stand up to those whose real agenda is defence of the Apartheid State in Israel.  Jeremy mentions the Jewish Nation State Law, Israel's equivalent of the Nuremburg Laws, but he draws no conclusions about the inherent nature of racism in Zionist Israel.  In Germany the Jews were stripped of their German citizenship and thus nationality.  In Israel there is only a Jewish nationality and the Jewish Nation State Law makes it clear that only Jews in Israel have national rights which means that the individual rights of Israeli Arabs are less than those of Israeli Jews.  Because Israel is the nation state of Jews, all Jews, wherever they live, Arab citizens are thus the equivalent of resident aliens.

Unfortunately during all his time in the Palestine solidarity movement, Jeremy seems to have understood nothing about the cause of Palestinian dispossession and the permanent military regime that they face. That is what Zionism is about. Jeremy's bleating about a two state solution is pathetic.  Two states is not going to happen and never was going to happen and today it is clear to all with eyes to see that it cannot happen.  In the words  of Tzipi Hotoveli, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister 'this land is ours. All of it is ours.'  What part of this does Corbyn not understand? Who or what does he think is going to be the agency for this two states?  Does not Jeremy understand the significance of Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital? Two states is a pretext to perpetuate the present military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, an occupation that is now 51 years old. That is why Labour Friends of Apartheid Israel supports 2 states.

No Brian the article is terrible.

Tony

Congratulations, Jeremy, on that very powerful and well-thought-out statement being your article in the Guardian.   An extremely difficult and highly fraught moment, as you don't need me to tell you, but you've got the balance right.

I'm not a Labour party member but I vote Labour and hope to do so in the next election whenever it comes and like many other Jews I have been deeply upset, and quite frightened, by the wholly unmerited abuse and misrepresentation to which you, and the party, have been subjected.  I'm sure some of my fellow-Jews are sincere in their expressions of anxieties even though I believe those anxieties to be unwarrented and no doubt based on all-too-true history;  however I'm equally sure that the majority of those who are Zionists are opportunistically exploiting accusations of bogus antisemitism, and cynically at that, partly as apologists for Israel and partly in attempts to rescue the Tory party and prop up the present, and failing, socio-economic system.

The various bodies that claim to speak so loudly (dare I say noisily) on behalf of some supposed homogeneous entity, "the Jewish community" are not in fact so speaking.  They do not for example represent me, nor my friends and comrades in such groups as Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Free Speech on Israel, the Jewish Socialist Group, Jewish Voice for Labour, Independent Jewish Voices, and others.

You have right on your side, so keep strong!

With good wishes and in solidarity

Brian Robinson

Dr Brian Robinson (Retired NHS psychiatrist)

PRESS STATEMENT from the INTERNATIONAL JEWISH ANTI-ZIONIST NETWORK UK (IJAN UK)

For more information contact:
Michael Kalmanovitz tel: 07722 926562  email: UK@IJAN.org

IJAN is an international network of Jewish people opposed to imperialism, militarism, apartheid and genocide. We support the liberation of the Palestinian people, and the right of return for those driven from their homes and their land by Israeli occupation and ethnic cleansing. IJAN has active chapters in Argentina, Canada, France, Spain, the UK and the US.

In 2010, IJAN and the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign organised the Never Again – For Anyone speaking tour with 85 year-old Jewish Auschwitz survivor Dr Hajo Meyer, this included the meeting in the House of Commons on Holocaust Memorial Day, 27 January.

Dr Meyer spoke on “The Misuse of the Holocaust for Political Purposes”, and Dr Haidar Eid, who participated in the meeting from Gaza via speakerphone, on the situation in Palestine.  They compared the dehumanisation of Jewish people in Hitler’s Germany pre-1941 and the dehumanisation of Palestinian people in current day Israel and occupied Palestine.  Throughout the tour, Dr Meyer received standing ovations – many hearing for the first time important truths about Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

The meeting Never Again – For Anyone was a coming together of many communities which have faced dehumanisation, racism and genocide. Speakers were Armenian, Bangladeshi, Irish, Native American, Roma, Rwandan, Tamil, as well as people with disabilities, and a speaker on the Slave Trade from Africa to the Americas and the revolution which ended slavery in Haiti.

Dr Meyer said:

‘My great lesson from Auschwitz is: whoever wants to dehumanise any other, must first be dehumanised himself. The oppressors are no longer really human whatever uniform they wear.’

The event attracted leading Zionist figures Louise Ellman MP [then and now, Vice Chair of Labour Friends of Israel], Jerry Lewis [then Vice President, Board of Deputies] and Jonathan Hoffman [then Co-Vice Chair of the Zionist Federation], and Christian Friends of Israel.

Most of them had clearly not come to listen. They barracked both Dr Meyer and Dr Eid, and one of them, Martin Sugarman, had to be escorted out by the Commons security; on his way out he stunned everyone by giving the Nazi salute and shouting "Sieg Heil".

Following the deaths of more than 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza in July 2014, a letter from survivors of the Nazi genocide and hundreds of their descendants, called for “a full economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel”.  The letter reads:

“Genocide begins with the silence of the world . . . We must raise our collective voices and use our collective power to bring about an end to all forms of racism, including the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people.”

“Never again” must mean NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE!”  Dr Hajo Meyer was the first to sign on.  The letter was published in the New York Times on 24 August 2014, the morning after he died.

Following this year’s Israeli massacre of Palestinians during their Great March of Return, our members recently initiated and circulated a statement calling for an arms embargo, and an open letter to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, signed by over 100 Jewish people, many of them distinguished, including Prof Moshe Machover, Michael Rosen and Sir Stephen Sedley, condemning BoD’s support for the massacre and refuting its claim to speak for all Jewish people in Britain.

We welcome the letter from distinguished Palestinians defending their “inalienable rights” and refusing “attempts to silence public discussion” (Guardian 31 July), and the comment from Jewish former Appeal Judge, Rt. Hon. Sir Stephen Sedley (Guardian 27 July):

“. . . both Jews and non-Jews in the UK are entitled, without being stigmatised as antisemites, to contend that a state that by law denies Palestinians any right of self-determination is a racist state, or to ask whether there is some moral equivalence between shooting down defenceless Jews in eastern Europe and unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza.”

For a more detailed report of the Never Again tour, see Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s statement here.

There is also an article in the latest issue of Labour Briefing NEC slate: vote for Peter Willsman which includes a statement from Walter Wolfgang, a former member of Labour's National Executive Committee, who people were remember was physically assaulted at a Labour Party conference for heckling Jack Straw.  Walter came to Britain as a refugee from Nazi Germany and, unlike Jon Lansman or Luciana Berger (because there is very little difference between the two) is able to discern what is and is not anti-semitism.

Under Tony Blair the stewards act like fascist thugs as they removed "Walter Wolfgang, a refugee from Nazi Germany, for quietly heckling war criminal Jack Straw

WHY I WILL BE VOTING FOR PETE WILLSMAN”

STATEMENT FROM WALTER WOLFGANG

I came to Britain as a refugee from Nazi Germany, with a strong and continuing commitment to Judaism, and still attend my synagogue regularly.  I have been a member of the Labour Party for 70 years. As a former member of Labour’s National Executive Committee myself, I have served with Pete Willsman and know him to be a committed anti-racist and a strong supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. I am dismayed that Pete is under attack at the very time when the ballot for the NEC is taking place, and despite his deep and public apology. Pete Willsman is a staunch champion of party democracy. I will be voting for him, and urge Labour Party members to do likewise.