Open Letter to Chris Ward, MP for Brighton Kemptown

You Say You Share My Anger Over Gaza – If That’s True Then You Will Resign as Starmer’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, Bag Carrier & Fixer

UN says it still hasn't been able to distribute any aid in Gaza

Chris Ward is the Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown, which was a Tory seat from 1950 until it went Labour in 1964 when Dennis Hobden won by a margin of 7 votes after 7 recounts.

This was the first time any Sussex seat had been won by Labour and it owed a great deal to the personality of the Labour candidate, Dennis Hobden who was a son of the working class. Hobden was the son of a train driver and worked most of his life in the Post Office.

In 1966 when Harold Wilson won a landslide victory by 98 seats Dennis only held on to Kemptown by 831 votes. In 1970 he was defeated by Andrew Bowden, the self-styled pensioners' champion. Bowden held the seat till 1997 when he disgraced himself after well founded allegations of having received a £5,000 cash bribe from Mohamed al-Fayed.

I knew Dennis when I was in the Labour Party in the 80s when he was considered on the left though it was hard to pigeonhole him. When a row blew up over a statement of the then councillor Richard Stanton who defended the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel as a legitimate target, it caused a storm amongst the Labour Right. Hobden was staunch in Richard’s support when others on the left, including Militant, were found wanting. Hobden was also a freemason!

In 2010 Simon Kirby won the seat for the Tories by 1,328 votes and in 2015 by 690 votes. In 2017 he was overwhelmed by the Corbyn surge when Lloyd Russell-Moyle overturned a small majority to win by nearly 10,000. The Labour Party in Brighton was the largest in the country.

An Israeli soldier in the world's most moral army looking for a baby to kill

Brighton was at the centre of the Corbyn movement. When the local District Labour Party held its AGM in July 2016, Momentum held a pre-meeting in Brighthelm Community Centre. It was the largest meeting I had ever seen at the Centre. People then moved on to the AGM at City College where the Left won all the officer posts by a margin of 2-1.

Unfortunately Corbyn had done nothing about Labour’s right-wing civil service. John Stolliday, the head of the Compliance Unit and Council leader Warren Morgan immediately moved to have the results cancelled on the basis of fabricated allegations of spitting.

Although Russell-Moyle was elected in 2017 and re-elected by over 8,000 in 2019 he proved a great disappointment, shifting from left to right as the political winds changed direction. As Bob Dylan noted, you don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows and Moyle was nothing if not a political weatherman.  An opportunist who was ultimately defeated by his own opportunism.

Gaza's landscape could be that of Nagasaki

The removal of Moyle in 2024 and the imposition of Chris Ward, the ex-Starmer aide and political lobbyist who worked for Hanbury Strategy, who had no discernible support in the local Labour Party, was an example of the dishonesty of the current Labour leadership. Hanbury Strategy specialised in lobbying for the gambling and fossil fuels industry.

Lewis Aaron on Rejecting Starmer Labour's Request for Social Media Help

As Andy Winter wrote,  ‘can you imagine a less appropriate candidate for a seat in Brighton and Hove?’

Allegations from eight years ago have been made (against Moyle), from before he was an MP. The timing that these allegations have surfaced go well beyond suspicion. While ... they may be serious or they might have no substance whatsoever, it shows control-freakery of the worst kind by Starmer and his henchmen and women.

Ancient allegations against Moyle were cynically resurrected, having originally been rejected, thus enabling the leadership to have a pretext for suspending him. Similar behaviour by Jennie Formby, Corbyn’s General Secretarym in suspending Chris Williamson in 2019 met with Moyle’s approval. Literally Moyle was hoist by his own petard.

Chris Ward experenced a 7% swing against him and the Tory had a 14% swing against her as the Green candidate Elaine Hills came within a whisker of the Tories. As befits a former crony Ward was appointed Starmer’s PPS.

Victoria Derbyshire Demolishes Gilad Erdan, Israel's UN Ambassador

I recently signed a petition to MPs including Chris Ward. Some weeks later I got an email from him telling me ‘how angry’ he was ‘at the frankly intolerable humanitarian situation in Gaza’.

The strange thing about his email is that not once did the word ‘genocide’ cross his lips. So I thought I would send him an email!

Dear Chris Ward,

You wrote (16 May) that

I share your anger and outrage at the frankly intolerable humanitarian situation in Gaza and much of the occupied territories’.

I am pleased to hear that we agree on so much because we didn’t last October when I wrote to you. You say that

Israel's decision to block aid into Gaza - and to effectively starve a civilian population that is already suffering terribly – is both cruel and completely indefensible.

                                    

Aamer Anwar Crushes Sky TV Presenter

I agree. However I note that you avoid using the word ‘genocide’. Perhaps you can tell me what else is starvation other than an intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, which is the Geneva Convention definition of Genocide?

Words are cheap. What counts is what you don't say not what you do say.

Israel has been imposing a starvation blockade on Gaza since 2 March. Since 7 October it has waged a war on the Palestinians in Gaza whilst doing its best to prevent aid whilst lying to the contrary.

Moshe Feiglin, an ex-Likud MK's genocidal comments

At the start of Israel’s attack on Gaza Defence Minister Yoav Gallant declared that

‘I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed’ adding that ‘We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.’

It was not as if Israel’s leaders hid what their intentions were. Genocidal statements were made from Netanyahu down. Throughout this whole period you, Lammy and Starmer remained silent.

Law for Palestine has documented over 500 examples of genocidal statements. Israel's Ministers made explicit their desire to ethnically  cleanse and settle Gaza. For example Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said, on 28 January 2024 at a conference calling for the resettlement of Gaza:

We must establish settlements. We need security forces. We need to settle this land because it’s our land.

This despite the decision of the International Court of Justice that Israel’s occupation of Gaza was illegal. Gaza belongs to the Palestinians not Israel. When Russia made far more convincing claims to parts of Ukraine, with the agreement of the people of Crimea and the Donbass, Britain and Europe immediately slapped sanctions on Russia. Why the double standards?

‘Massacre’: Dozens killed by Israeli fire in Gaza while collecting food aid

Even when aid was allowed in Israel did its best to stop it being distributed and we had the flour massacres when starving people, queuing for food, were murdered by Israel in cold blood. Even today, Israel is still blocking aid and the entry of aid lorries.

Bursting Netanyahu's 'Lies'; Point-By-Point Fact Check Of Israeli PM's U.S. Congress Speech

Nothing Israel’s government says can be trusted. They are proven liars. They murdered 5 year old Hind Rajab after falsely assuring Red Crescent paramedics that they would be safe if they rescued her from her parent’s car where the rest of her family lay dead. When the paramedics reached Hind a tank opened fire killing them all.

Israel Deliberately Kills Kids - Hind Rajab's Murder Exposed As DELIBERATE

Sky News investigates slaughter of Palestinian family fleeing fighting

Israel’s lies about the murder of 15 Red Crescent workers are well known. Israel first claimed that the ambulances had approached ‘suspiciously’ without their lights on. When this was disproved by footage from a mobile phone found on one of the dead aid workers they switched to their usual lie -  they were members of Hamas. Yet this government has continued to take the word of Israel’s genocidal leaders and army on trust.

Lammy greeting Israel's No. 1 War Criminal

On Tuesday David Lammy criticised the ‘intolerable’ and ‘extremist’ Israeli blockade and offensive. Indeed he employed almost every adjective except the one that was most appropriate. Israel’s starvation blockade of Gaza is genocidal. Are you prepared to call Israel’s policy, which is the same as the policy of the Nazis in the Polish Jewish ghettos, a Genocide?

New video contradicts Israeli account of Gaza aid convoy attack

I am not interested in how angry you are. I am more interested in what you intend to do. Lammy’s measures were pathetically inadequate – suspension of trade talks not trade. Nothing about halting arms supplies to continue the genocide. Token sanctions on settlers in the West Bank. All mouth and no trousers. Are  you prepared to speak out and demonstrate that your anger is more than a form of words?

I want to ask you a few questions, bearing in mind you are in a unique position to make a difference being the PPS to Starmer.

i.              Will you call for the immediate halt of all RAF flights overflying Gaza which provide intelligence to Israel’s killers? Will you call for the end of any military co-operation with the IDF?

ii.           Will you support and call for the prosecution of any British citizen who is found to have fought in Israel’s genocidal army?

iii.        Will you call for a complete end to the arms trade with Israel?

iv.        Will you make it a criminal offence to trade with the settlements? You say that ‘There also needs to be an end to Israeli settlement building.’ Good. Let’s impose sanctions on trade with them.

v.           Will you demand that the UK enforce the arrest warrants of the International Criminal Court  against Netanyahu and Gallant

          The MORONS who control Youtube removed this video because they said it breached their 'hate' policy.   It seems a video exposing the racism of Israeli school children's singing songs about how they hate and want to kill Arabs is the same as encouraging it.

vi.        Will you call for an end to the attacks on the Palestine solidarity movement and the libel that opposition to Zionism equals anti-Semitism?

vii.     Will you call for the Government to jettison the IHRA which equates opposition to genocide with anti-Semitism?

viii.  Will you call for sanctions on Israel as and until it becomes a state of its own citizens rather than an apartheid, Jewish Supremacist state where Arabs are subjects not citizens?

ix.        Will you also call for the removal of Hamas from the list of proscribed ‘terrorist’ organisations? It is clear that it is Israel not Hamas who are the terrorists. 

What is happening in Gaza is a continuation of the Nakba in 1948 when 750,000 Palestinian  refugees were driven from their homes to create a ‘Jewish’ state. Israel has recently invaded Syria and Lebanon in order to capture more territory without justification following the fall of Assad.

What is happening in Gaza is not a consequence of October 7 but a continuation of the Zionist project of ethnic cleansing and genocide that began in 1948. October 7 was no different from the slave rebellions and anti-colonial resistance of the past. As Omar Bartov, the Israeli holocaust scholar wrote in Infinite License:

'On January 12, 1904, the Herero people of German Southwest Africa—today’s Namibia—launched a series of attacks on scattered German farms in the territory... the German settlers who had begun to arrive in the late nineteenth century increasingly encroached on their grazing lands.

The rebels destroyed many of the farms and killed more than a hundred settlers, mostly sparing women and children. For the settlers the rebellion served as a final proof of the need to eradicate the Herero, whom they described as “baboons.” ...  the German governor appealed to Berlin, which sent some 10,000 soldiers. By August they had crushed the Herero fighters. In October the German commander, Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha, issued what has come to be known as his Vernichtungsbefehl (extermination order) to those who remained:

.... Any Herero found inside the German frontier,... will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. Most of the Herero were shot or died of thirst and hunger in the desert to which they had been expelled. Several thousand were taken to forced labor camps....

Germany’s famous Vergangenheitsbewältigung  (coming to terms with or overcoming the past) was about the Holocaust, not long-forgotten colonial crimes. Only in 2021 did the German government officially apologize....

That remote genocide at the dawn of the twentieth century shares some remarkable similarities with the campaign of ethnic cleansing and annihilation prosecuted by Israel in Gaza. Israel saw the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, in much the same way that the Germans saw the Herero attack 119 years earlier: as confirmation that the militant group was utterly savage and barbaric, that resistance to Israeli occupation would always incline toward murder, and that Gaza’s Palestinian population as a whole should be removed from the moral universe of civilization.'

“GAS CHAMBERS” In Gaza: Prominent Israeli Demands “HOLOCAUST”

Those who define Israel’s genocide, as Lammy did, in terms of fighting terrorism or Israel’s ‘right of self-defence’ are justifying what Israel has done. It is futile to ask Israel not to complete the Endlosung (Final Solution) of the Palestinians. Lammy and Starmer, by making October 7, rather than the Nakba, the reference point are justifying Netanyahu’s extermination of the Palestinians in exactly the same way as those who supported the genocide of the Herero.

There is no difference, apart from 120 years, between the German genocide of 1904 and the Zionist genocide of 2024. When Nissim Vaturi, the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, says that there are ‘no innocents' and that Gaza should be ‘burned now’ or when MK Galit Distel Atbaryan calls for ‘Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth.’ they are following in the footsteps of Von Trotha and Himmler.

When Israeli Channel 14 producer, Elad Barashi, posted on X:

‘Good morning, let there be a Shoa (Holocaust) in Gaza.’ and writes ‘I can't understand the people here in the State of Israel who don't want to fill Gaza with gas showers... or train cars... and finish this story! Let there be a Holocaust in Gaza.’

he is not an outlier. He is reflecting majority opinion among Israeli Jews.

When Israeli Jews were asked whether they supported or opposed the idea that Israel should allow the transfer of humanitarian aid, food and medicines, to Gaza residents, 68% of them said they were opposed to allowing in aid, even if Hamas and UNWRA were excluded from its distribution. 

The exterminationist mentality of Israel’s Jewish citizens is crystal clear. Israel is now echoing Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Jews. Israel is a settler colonial state with the facade of democracy. It is an ethnocracy and far from supporting its ‘right to exist’ we should be calling for its dismantlement in order that the Palestinians can live.

If your anger is genuine Chris Ward, given that Starmer is a ‘Zionist without qualification’ you have no choice but to resign as his PPS. It may be the one good thing you have done in your political life.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Greenstein 

Loyal Russell-Moyle, Praises Starmer Despite Being Removed as MP for Brighton Kemptown

As Pastor Niemoller Observed, When You Allow Them to Pick off Everyone Else Then There is Noone Left ‘To speak out for me’

Getting to Know Starmer

No-one was happier than me when, in June 2017, Lloyd Russell-Moyle gained Brighton Kemptown for Labour with a majority of nearly 10,000.

In happier times

I had canvassed and delivered leaflets for Moyle throughout the campaign despite the fact that in March 2016, I had been suspended from the Labour Party as part of the ‘anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt. It was despite the fact that Moyle had secretly written to the Labour Party’s witchhunters urging that my expulsion be sped up. And not withstanding the fact that the local Labour Party, which Moyle chaired, had urged my reinstatement.

When I received evidence, via a Subject Access Request, that Moyle had been writing to the Labour Party nationally, secretly and without telling anyone he wrote back on 23 August 2016 informing me that:

I am of a firm belief that one should say things publicly which are kind, and if you are unable to say that then one must be quite [sic] and say nothing on blogs and social media, esp about members. This is relevant when it comes to other members. I believe that attacking other members for taking (what you might believe is the wrong view) publicly brings the party into disrepute and it is an attempt to intimidate people from not saying anything. 

Admirable sentiments to be sure, but not quite at one with his subsequent actions! Nonetheless I accepted his ‘half apology’. I later discovered that Lloyd had posted abusive comments about me on Facebook! 

UK Lawyers 4 Israel Attacking a Barrister's Right to Free Speech

I was the first Jewish member of the Labour Party to be suspended and then expelled as part of the false‘anti-Semitism’ campaign orchestrated by the genocide supporters of the Jewish Labour Movement. Although I was the first Jewish member to be expelled I was by no means the last. Today if you are Jewish you are 5+ times more likely to be expelled for ‘anti-Semitism’ from the Labour Party than if you are not Jewish.

Lloyd’s suspension as a candidate clearly came as a surprise to him. Just last week he wrote to me, as one of his constituents, saying that now the election has been called he ‘will become the Labour and Co‑operative Parliamentary Candidate for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven.’ But it was not to be.

The claims by Starmer’s apparatchiks that Lloyd was suspended because of an 8 year old complaint are risible. If the complaint has taken so long to be submitted it clearly must be suspect. There was nothing to stop the Labour Party allowing Lloyd to stand whilst at the same time investigating this complaint.

50 people turned up to a rally in support of  LRM

A personal statement. pic.twitter.com/UaL2Y6WeMW

— Lloyd Russell-Moyle 🌹🏳️🌈 (@lloyd_rm) May 29, 2024

Yet what was Moyle’s reaction to his removal as Parliamentary Candidate?  Unbelievably he issued a statement in which he said:

I wish Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, and the Labour team the best of luck and hope to be celebrating Labour wins across Sussex and beyond on election night.

One can imagine Moyle advising his executioner about how best to chop off his head and at the same time suggesting he put in for a payrise. Uriah Heep has nothing on Moyle.

Of course when it comes to members of the Labour Right Starmer has been extremely tolerant. Only this week Elaine Cohen, a Jewish member in Birmingham, resigned because Starmer had allowed Khalid Mahmood to be a member of the Shadow Cabinet despite him having covered for his lover and office manager’s sadistic abuse of domestic violence victims.

The evidence of domestic violence and abuse was not challenged at Cohen’s employment tribunal case against Mahmood. Starmer also had no difficult in allowing two Shadow Cabinet members to remain in post despite allegations of sexual harassment against them.

Former Black Councillor on Starmer Labour Racism

Starmer had even less difficulty reinstating Neil Coyle MP who was suspended by Parliament for racial abuse of a British-Chinese journalist Henry Dyer, as well as genuinely anti-Semitic comments and bullying.

Clearly if Moyle had been a genuine racist as opposed to an ‘anti-Semite’, then he would have been waived through the selection process given that Starmer has a fondness for genuine racists like Coyle. The problem for Moyle was that he came from the left and then spent his parliamentary career in  a headlong retreat from socialism.

Moyle’s last radical speeches – Labour Party Conference 2021

What probably did for Moyle’s parliamentary career was the last radical speech which he made, at the 2021 Labour Party Conference in Brighton when he declared that Starmer wasn’t fit to be leader of the Labour Party and his facial approval of his audience’s disdain, when he said that Starmer was a ‘nice man’.

Inexplicably Starmer's chief genocidaire blocked me!

Yet, as I wrote, no sooner had Moyle apologised for supporting the purge of socialists from the Labour Party than he recanted! With Moyle it was a case of one step forward and a gallop backwards.

In 2020 the JLM attacked Moyle for comments he made in 2009, when he chaired the Woodcraft Folk, remarking that Zionism was a ‘dangerous nationalist idea.’  A perfectly innocuous remark you might think but the Labour left, including Corbyn and McDonnell, refused to recognise that Zionism was not some form of fluffy Jewish identity. It was an ideology and movement of ethnic cleansing and now genocide.

In response to the attack by the JLM, Moyle declared:

“I am completely and unreservedly committed to supporting [Labour leader] Keir Starmer and [deputy leader] Angela Rayner’s pledge to rid the party of antisemitism. I have met previously with the Jewish Labour Movement and will be reaching out to them again now,” 

It was on Palestine that Moyle capitulated. In 2018 he attended a solidarity party intended as a send off to the heroes of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. It included Divina Levrini, a principled Swedish musician - the complete opposite of Moyle. Despite being seriously ill Divina took part in the flotilla, being savagely beaten and deprived of her medicines by the sadists who form the backbone of Israel’s military police state. Soon after Divina died.

In subsequent years Moyle rowed back on his previous support for the Palestinians, denying that Israel was an apartheid state, opposing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions as well as supporting Starmer’s ‘antisemitism’ witchhunt of which he too is now a victim.

Irish MP Speech

I mention all of this because a friend in Brighton PSC, David Rogers, wrote to Moyle in June 2020 after being suspended from the Labour Party, asking for his support. In response his secretary wrote on 17 June telling David that

‘Lloyd believes that anti-semitism has no place in the Labour Party and is pleased to see Keir acting so proactively to demonstrate this.’

The implication being that David was anti-Semitic. David responded on 21^st June telling Moyle that he found his response

‘chilling and sadly confirmatory of my fears that ambition and career advancement have overtaken principle and ethics.’

It was an abject surrender to the false and defamatory 'antisemitism' charge that he is now a victim of. Lloyd had long since abandoned all principles and ethics in a vain attempt to mollify Starmer and his cronies. All to no avail.

On 5 January 2024 Moyle’s PA, Chloe Farrant, wrote to David expressing Moyle's opposition to the Boycott of Israel.

Lloyd is opposed to a policy of adopting BDS against individual nations and always have been. It wrongly singles out nations and is counterproductive to the prospect of peace.

There is a difference between applying consistent ethical principles in legitimate criticism of foreign governments and what, in recent years, some individuals and organisations have tried to do: seek to target Israel alone; hold it to different standards from other countries; question its right to exist; and equate the actions of the Israeli Government to Jewish people and in doing so, create hate and hostility against Jewish people here in the UK. That is completely wrong.

Irish politician Thomas Gould delivers one of the greatest speeches in modern history…

“I hope you burn in hell Netanyahu”…🔥 pic.twitter.com/aVKiR4WEku

— Pelham (@Resist_05) May 31, 2024

Presumably Moyle would have opposed sanctions against Apartheid South Africa for similar reasons and 90 years ago he would have opposed the Boycott of Nazi Germany alongside the Tories.

Note how Moyle equated sanctions against Israel with ‘hate and hostility against Jewish people here in the UK.’ Some would say equating British Jews with Israeli apartheid was anti-Semitic! But Moyle denied that Israel was an apartheid state despite copious evidence including reports from 3 human rights organisation – Amnesty International, B’tselem and Human Rights Watch.

When Netanyahu declared that Israel was “not a state of all its citizens” but solely its Jewish citizens, after the 2018 Jewish Nation State Law was passed, he was declaring that officially Israel was an apartheid state. Moyle however was having none of it.

Those miserable politicians who, despite all the evidence, refuse to call out Israel for what it is, deserve our contempt. Moyle was one such creature. He refused to accept that Israel was an Apartheid and now genocidal state, because it didn’t suit his career. A state where different laws apply to different ethnic groups is the quintessential definition of apartheid.

In the course of 7 years as an MP I have posted a number of blogs in respect of Moyle (see below). But despite this I would, albeit reluctantly, have supported his bid for re-election if he had stood as a socialist independent, because in my eyes a defeat for Starmer is the most important task in this election. The Tories are sunk but a hung parliament would be the best result of all. Yet such has been Moyle’s retreat that he is incapable of breaking free of his embrace of Starmer.

The issue on which I broke with Moyle and when I told him that I would not vote for him was over Julian Assange whom he refused to support. Although he refused to provide any reasons it is clear that they were related to the false allegations of rape that had been made.

A statement from the former candidate for Brighton Kemptown, Nancy Platts, who was given an online interview in a bid to replace Moyle, revealed that during her interview Michael Crick tweeted that Chris Ward, a former adviser to Starmer, had already been selected by an NEC panel.

Clearly the whole ‘selection’ process, from which Kemptown members were excluded, was a charade. Platts had agreed to take on all Moyle’s employees thus avoiding redundancies. Starmer had other ideas.

Step forward Chris Ward of Hanbury Strategy, a group that lobbies for the gambling and fossil fuel industries. Ward was parachuted in as candidate over the objections of local members. This is the contempt that Starmer has for members. Before becoming leader Liar Starmer pledged to respect local democracy but like the rest of his pledges they have gone with the wind.

*sigh of relief* https://t.co/JU7z30HvlN

— Faiza Shaheen (@faizashaheen) February 27, 2019

Faiza Shaheen

The other shock was the decision of Starmer’s Stormtroopers to deselect Faiza Shaheen in Chingford and Woodgreen. Unlike Moyle she has made it clear that she is  prepared to stand independently and she has gone onto the political offensive, unlike Moyle. Contrast Moyle with Faiza. She has resigned from the Labour Party.

Also unlike Moyle it is clear that Faiza was dropped because of her support for Palestine. Her ‘crimes’ were based on 15 tweets from 2014.

One of the more recent posts she liked, and which was flagged by the NEC, was from 12 May 2024, where Philip Lemoine, a PhD candidate and writer at the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI), said:

"Every time you say something even mildly critical of Israel, you're immediately assailed by scores of hysterical people who explain to you why you're completely wrong, how you’re biased against Israel.”

“Honestly I’m so shocked right now, to be treated this badly”

Faiza Shaheen, who was set to stand for Labour, describes hearing that her candidacy had been pulled over liking a series of Tweets which she claims Labour said would frustrate its campaign#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/JtMIywDz2N

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) May 29, 2024

Faiza poured her heart out in no uncertain terms and made it clear how callous and cruel was the decision to move her and the way it was done, whilst she was out canvassing.

However Faiza is no anti-Zionist. She is on the soft left. When confronted with ‘liking’ a tweet by a US academic who referred to the “Israel lobby” in a sketch on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show Shaheen’s “like” prompted a complaint from the JLM.

NEW: @faizashaheen tells me she's considering standing in Chingford as an independent. She says she wants to do it "for the right reasons."

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) June 2, 2024

When asked whether she could see why the tweet was offensive, she said: “It plays into a trope and I absolutely don’t agree with that and I’m sorry about that.” What she should have said was that the Israel Lobby was a fact and there’s nothing wrong in pointing out facts.

When news broke on February 27 2019  that the staunch Palestinian supporter and opponent of the witch-hunt, Chris Williamson MP, had been suspended by the Labour Party Shaheen tweeted “*sigh of relief*”. One can only hope that now she has been subject to a similar injustice that she disowns that tweet and recognises what this minute scrutiny of social media for any disloyalty to Israel is really about.

Diane Abbott

A word should also be said about Dianne Abbott. She has been treated abysmally by Starmer but she has done herself no favours for demeaning herself. Abbot is not the heroine that many make out.  Politically she has rarely said anything about Palestine. I can remember a conversation with her at the beginning of her parliamentary career when she was extremely cagy about supporting their struggle.

Granted she is ill but the way to respond to Starmer’s racist treatment of her was to go tell him to go screw himself. Instead she begged and pleaded to be readmitted to the PLP. She even went on the JLM’s ‘anti-Semitism training’ which is nothing more than a course designed to equate anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Diane should have refused on principle to go on a Zionist ‘training course’.

It would have been all to the good for Diane to have stood as a socialist independent and defeated the imposed Labour candidate.

Dianne Abbott has never recognised Zionism for what it is. A racist ideology in which ethnic cleansing is integral to its desire for a racially pure ‘Jewish’ state. Unfortunately her friend Jeremy Corbyn has also never bothered to understand what Zionism is about.

The Morning Star is right to call for the unions to call a halt to the purge. They have the numbers on the National Executive Committee but with racist scabs like Sharon Graham of Unite and Gary Smith of the GMB to say nothing of UNISON’s Blairite General Secretary Christine McAnea, this is highly unlikely. We need to replace the utterly useless scabs and war mongers in charge of our trade unions.

Owen Jones on Faiza Shaheen’s Defenestration

At this stage it is impossible to guess how this general election is going to turn out, other than the fact that Tories are unlikely to be returning to government.

My own guess is that there is going to be a very low turnout and I also suspect that Labour’s lead is going to shrink considerably. In a bid between the genuine Tories and the wannabee Tories the former will always have the advantage, despite their very low poll ratings at the moment. One thing I am sure of is that the projections at the moment of over 400 Labour seats may be wild overestimates.

Previous blogs on Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Lloyd Russell-Moyle is a Synonym for Lies, Deception, Treachery and Back Stabbing

No one Better Represents the Opportunism and Lack of Principle of the Campaign Group of MPs than Brighton Kemptown MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Lloyd Russell-Moyle – the Double Barrelled Hypocrite who was imposed as Chair of Brighton & Hove Labour Party