The Jewish Chronicle is Heavily Criticised by the Independent Press Standards Organisation for Lying about Audrey White and Refusing to either Retract the lies or Co-operate with an Investigation

‘Liar’ Lee Harpin, the JC's Political Correspondent was Previously Arrested for his part in the Hacking Scandal at the Daily Mirror

Audrey White is a legend in her own lifetime. A woman who has fought oppression, sexual harassment and bigotry in all its forms all her life. Lee Harpin, the Jewish Chronicle’s Political Editor, who lied about her repeatedly, has spent his journalistic life defending racism and ethnic cleansing. Harpin isn’t fit to shine Audrey’s shoes.

This week the Jewish Chronicle has been forced to print the adjudication of IPSO, albeit 5 months late. IPSO is normally seen as the tame creature of the newspaper industry. It is some measure of the Jewish Chronicle and its Editor Stephen Pollard’s contemptible behaviour that IPSO has criticised them in such strident terms.

The Jewish Chronicle printed 4 articles, which consisted of a series of lies, about Audrey White. They were

 “Ex-Militant Tendency activist accused of bullying Louise Ellman lied about date of birth to rejoin Labour”, published online on 25 February 2019 – now deleted

“Plot to oust MP Ellman spearheaded by a former member of the Trotskyist Militant Tendency”, published online on 25 February 2019. This article is still online

“Bullied’ Louise Ellman nears exit”, published in print on 1 March 2019; - deleted

“Labour MP Dame Louise Ellman ‘considering her future’ in party amid rumours of more resignations”, published online on 1 March 2019 Arendt still online

The articles alleged that Audrey had:

1.      been “expelled” from the Labour Party in the 1980s

2.       “lied” about her date of birth on her application to re-join the Party in 2015, “on the day Jeremy Corbyn became leader.”

3.      been “amongst a group of militants who repeatedly interrupted” their MP Louise Ellman while she delivered a speech at a constituency meeting.

4.       “received a number of formal warnings from the Party over allegations of bullying against Party members “,

5.       “falsely claimed that a Labour councillor was under investigation by the police for having ‘cruelly taunted’ a ‘disabled pensioner suffering from cancer’”. One article reported that the complainant had been a member of the Socialist Party.

The Jewish Chronicle employed the Jonathan Freedland ‘defence’ viz. that it had relied upon ‘confidential sources’ for its claims.

All the allegations proved to be false. When Audrey sent the Jewish Chronicle proof that their allegations were lies they simply refused to print any correction.  That was why IPSO, normally seen as a fangless poodle added the following rider:

Independent Press Standard Organisation Ruling against Jewish Chronicle

The Committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s handling of this complaint. The newspaper had failed, on a number of occasions, to answer questions put to it by IPSO and it was regrettable the newspaper’s responses had been delayed. The Committee considered that the publication’s conduct during IPSO’s investigation was unacceptable.

The Committee’s concerns have been drawn to the attention of IPSO’s Standards department.

In the past 4 years, the Jewish Chronicle has waged such a, deceitful, distorted and downright dishonest campaign against Labour Party activists and Jeremy Corbyn. The Jewish Chronicle has quite knowingly accused a host of anti-racists of anti-Semitism. It is therefore no surprise that at the end of the day they and ‘Liar’ Lee Harpin simply resorted to inventing facts.

'Liar' Lee Harpin

It has been one of the minor themes of this McCarthyist campaign that Louise Ellman and Luciana Berger, two Zionist Labour MPs, were forced out because they were Jewish. The reality is that they were not wanted because of their right-wing Zionist politics. Many of the people seeking their removal were themselves Jewish including my friend, the late Sam Semoff. Little facts like these never got to make it into the pages of the JC, which is an expensive propaganda sheet.

Without the efforts of Councillor Nick Small, Liverpool might have a new hospital 

One of the people propagating the lies about ‘anti-Semitism’ in Riverside was Ellman’s best friend, Councillor Nick Small. Small has been at the centre of the ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations. It was Small who directly intervened in 2011 with the Legal Aid Board to stop them funding Sam Semoff, who was pursuing a judicial review against the government decision to put the rebuilding of the new Royal Liverpool Hospital out to PFI. The contract was given to Carillion, a get rich quick company who went bankrupt last year. Much of Carillon’s building work turned out to be below standard. See Remembering Sam Semoff – an American in exile fighting to defend the NHS

Small was successful and Sam was forced to drop his legal action. The hospital is still waiting to be built. According to the Health Service Journal the Royal Liverpool University Hospital Trust is seeking an extra £300 million because of the actions of Nick Small. The hospital was originally estimated to cost £335 million. If anyone should have been expelled from the Labour Party it was Councillor Nick Small, the neo-liberal cuckoo in the Labour Party.

Small objected at one meeting of Riverside Labour Party to the suggestion of Helen Marks, herself Jewish, that if there is an increase in anti-Semitism it is clear that it is the actions of Israel, which describes itself as a Jewish state, that is at least in part, responsible for that increase. Small called this anti-Semitism when in fact it’s so obvious that it barely needs stating. The 2010 Incidents Reports of the Community Security Trust stated that:

The year 2009 saw a record number of anti-Semitic incidents as a consequence of reactions to the Gaza conflict at the beginning of that year,which acted as a ‘trigger event’ affecting the incident totals for January, February and March 2009.  

The full Report of Jewish Voices for Labour’s investigation into the Jewish Chronicle’s lies can be read here.

‘Liar’ Lee was also involved in the hacking scandal at the Daily Mirror and he was at one point arrested by the Police. Over the past few years Harpin has repeatedly lied and traded in disinformation. He has become a practitioner in the dark arts of Black Propaganda, as part of the Jewish Chronicle’s Fake Anti-Semitism Campaign. The full IPSO decision can be found here.

I had the privilege to meet Audrey when I was doing an interview with RT’s Sputnik. Audrey was nominated as one of BBC Radio 4’s ‘100 most influential women of the century’ (for defending women from sexual abuse in the workplace). Audrey was also heavily involved in raising money for a plaque dedicated to the 49 Liverpool Councillors who were surcharged for defying the Tory Government and bankrupted in the 1980’s. She invited me to attend the unveiling of the plaque at the Casa Club in Liverpool on the eve of the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool in 2018.

The Committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s handling of this complaint. The newspaper had failed, on a number of occasions, to answer questions put to it by IPSO and it was regrettable the newspaper’s responses had been delayed. The Committee considered that the publication’s conduct during IPSO’s investigation was unacceptable. The Committee’s concerns have been drawn to the attention of IPSO’s Standards department.

Audrey White made her name in 1983 when she became a pioneer in the fight against sexual harassment at work. She was the manager of a clothing store in Liverpool. When her area manager sexually harassed four women in her team, she complained – and was sacked.

The staff were too scared of losing their jobs to stand up for her. Audrey began picketing the store the next day. The picket was maintained, with banners and petitions,  from opening to closing time for five weeks. ‘And no one crosses a picket line in Liverpool!’

‘On the picket we had dockers, car workers, staff from unemployed centres, union members, local activists.’

We didn’t even know the phrase ‘sexual harassment’ back then.

We learned how bad things were: women came up to us on the picket and said, “I had a wonderful job but my boss would do this, so I had to leave.” And, “I didn’t go along with what the boss wanted, so I got demoted”. When the company finally agreed to meet with us, they wouldn’t discuss the sexual harassment complaints, even though I’d got statements from the girls. They claimed I’d been sacked because I wasn’t ‘bubbly’ enough.

Once we lined up pickets at the Manchester and London stores, the company relented. I remember phoning the pickets from London and saying, “You can take the pickets off because we’ve won!”

My story shows that a woman can win – even a woman in a shop in 1980’s Britain.

In 1988, Audrey’s story was made into a film – Business As Usual. Here she is with Glenda Jackson, who played her character. See

Audrey White - Fighting back against sexual harassment

 

PRESS RELEASE FROM MERSEYSIDE PENSIONERS’ ASSOCIATION

– Nov 28, 2019

Anti-Labour smears of Jewish Chronicle exposed by Independent Press Standards

Merseyside Pensioners Association welcomes the findings of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) in upholding the complaint by one of our members against the Jewish Chronicle for publishing smears and falsehoods against Labour activists in Liverpool.

Audrey White, who was nominated as one of BBC Radio 4’s ‘100 most influential women of the century’ (for defending women from sexual abuse in the workplace) was targeted by the Jewish Chronicle with a litany of lies and falsehoods reported by Lee Harpin – an ex-News of the World journalist arrested in connection with the phone-hacking scandal.

Harpin penned four separate articles containing incendiary and unsubstantiated claims discrediting the 68-year-old pensioner and Labour activist from Liverpool, Riverside. IPSO’s committee stated that “the publication’s (Jewish Chronicle) conduct during IPSO’s investigation was also unacceptable” and has been escalated to IPSO’s Standards Department.

The “significantly misleading claims” published by Harpin and the Jewish Chronicle included the accusation that Audrey (and other activists) had ‘bullied’ local MP Louise Ellman by acting as “a group of militants who repeatedly interrupted the MP” during a constituency meeting; as well as claims that Audrey had “lied about her age” to re-join the Labour Party; was previously “expelled from the Labour Party” and a “former member of the Socialist Party.”

Evidence provided to IPSO, including a recording, exposed these reportings to be patently false and “significantly misleading.” Malcolm Kennedy ex-Lord Mayor of Liverpool also fed the smears by ludicrously comparing one Labour constituency meeting to a ‘Soviet show trial’ — audio recordings of the event found that this too was “significantly misleading” and that constituency meetings were not “rowdy” as characterised by the paper.

The Jewish Chronicle also reported that Audrey had made a “false claim” that a local Labour Councillor was under police investigation for taunting a disabled Corbyn-supporting pensioner who suffers from cancer. Evidence from Merseyside Police’s Hate Crime Unit provided to the Press Standards Investigation concluded that it was “not false to make this claim” and that the publication had provided a “serious and misleading impression of Audrey’s conduct towards Labour politicians.” This conclusion is particularly welcomed by our organisation as the “disabled pensioner” is critically acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Phil Maxwell, a valued member of the Merseyside Pensioners Association.

The findings make clear that the reporting of the Jewish Chronicle and journalist Lee Harpin fall far below the professional and ethical standards expected of journalists working today — particularly as pertains to accuracy and fact-checking (the most basic principles of reporting).

Merseyside Pensioners Association has itself been a target of the Jewish Chronicle and we condemn the personal attacks, fake news and fabrications employed by this journal (and others) to peddle the narrative that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party has been overrun by ‘militants’ and/or is ‘institutionally anti-Semitic.’ Tragically anti-Semitism continues to exist across society (as well as all major political parties) and politically motivated misreporting of this nature undermines serious efforts to tackle racism in all its forms.

The adjudication in particular exposes the divisive and politically-motivated tactics being used by certain areas of the press and Labour Party to promote the impression that Louise Ellman MP was ‘bullied‘ out of the Labour Party by local activists. Not only does irresponsible journalism like this smear innocent people, it creates division within our communities and tarnishes the reputation of our city (Liverpool) — a city all-too-familiar with the willingness of powerful and unaccountable newspapers to slur ordinary people (without reply).

The MPA congratulates Audrey in persevering with a nine month struggle to clear her name and we look forward to the Jewish Chronicle publishing the remedy as mandated by the ruling. We also ask for a suspension of these kind of politically motivated press-smears against Labour activists, as we fight an election for the Corbyn-led Labour government our country needs.

See also

IPSO hammers Jewish Chronicle for attacks on Labour supporter – and its conduct during investigation

Press regulator slams Jewish Chronicle for ‘misleading’ and ‘inaccurate’ stories about a Corbyn supporter

Remembering Sam Semoff - a giant of the Liverpool Labour Movement

Sam was a Jewish Anti-Zionist and an anti-racist to the last

It was in January of last year that my close friend of over three decades, Sam Semoff, an American Jew who came to live in my home town, Liverpool, passed away.  At the time I wrote an appreciation of Sam.

Sam’s headstone has now been placed over his grave and that gives me the ideal opportunity to remind people of Sam, a comrade and a friend who stood and fought, despite ill-health, the witch-hunt in Liverpool carried out by the detestable Zionist ‘Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside (and Tel Aviv North), Louise Ellman.  At least her sidekick, the equally detestable Blairite Luciana Berger, has departed for the TIGs.

Sam was a dedicated fighter for the NHS. He fought the privatisation of the NHS and the rebuilding of the Royal Liverpool hospital which has now been severely affected by the bankruptcy of Carillon. Sam faced concerted opposition from right-wing Labour figures in 2013 when he brought a judicial review against the use of Carillon.

Joe Anderson, then the Leader of the Council, now Mayor of Liverpool said:

"My message is ‘Bog off Semoff’. We have had enough delays and interference in so many projects within this city. “Quite frankly it annoys not just me but literally thousands of people. “This is about the health of the people of this city, and is not for some individual with his own political and ideological reasons to jeopardise the services meant for the people of this city."

Here you see the reactionary politics of those who abandon any semblance of socialist politics in order to espouse the philosophy of ‘if it works then use it’.  This was the philosophy of Blair.  Employ the private sector if it helps clear waiting lists in the NHS. The alternative, expanding the existing state sector of course was not an option.

This is how you get privatisation by stealth and opportunists like Joe Anderson and Nick Small espoused with ‘if it work’ principle. Forget the politics, we will use any means, even if it involves a PFI and a corrupt cowboy company like Carillon. Six years later Anderson was singing a different song. Anderson told the Liverpool Echo that

‘This building is a monument to corporate greed - if you give the private sector free reign within the public sector then profit comes before quality and that's exactly what we've ended up with.

"We need an open public inquiry that looks at what went wrong and how it happened - because this is just obscene."

Anderson didn’t have the decency to apologise for the comments he made disparaging Sam’s motives , suggesting he was putting his own socialist principles before the needs of ordinary people, and retract them.  People like him constitute the detreitus of the Labour Party and reformism.

Even worse than this particular skunk was Cllr. Nick Small. As Greg Dropkin wrote when Sam brought an application for Judicial Review, Louise Ellman’s sidekick and a prominent figure in the current witchhunt approached the Legal Aid Board in order to cut off Sam’s funding.  This action guaranteed the disaster of this failed scheme. It has set back the new building by years at vastly increased public expense. The whole construction that Carillon carried out was botched.

Nick Small is the human equivalent of a viper, today pointing the finger at other socialists in the Labour Party – all with the approval of Jenny Formby and Labour’s regional mafia.

I also reprint an obituary which Sam’s daughter Shela wrote for The Guardian.  Perhaps one of the few decent things that paper has done in the past four years.

We will continue to remember this doughty fighter for the working class and the oppressed everywhere.  The Zionist skunks and scabs like Joe Anderson and Nick Small will only be remembered for their obeisance and servility to the rich and powerful.

Time to Deselect Louise Ellman MP for Liverpool Riverside and Tel Aviv North – Apologist for Israel's Occupation Forces

Louise Ellman - Supporter of Israeli Child Abuse - Night Time Arrests, Beatings and Incarceration of Palestinian Children

On the 6^th January 2016 the House of Commons held a debate on Child Prisoners and Detainees: Occupied Palestinian Territories. 

Louise Ellman MP - more the MP for Tel Aviv North than Liverpool Riverside

During this debate there was one Labour MP who was determined to defend the Israeli military.  Every excuse for torture, the beating of children, the night-time arrest of children, when they are hauled out of bed, blindfolded and handcuffed in painful plastic cuffs, was made by Ellman. 

Councillor Nick Small - right wing witch hunter and red baiter 

Children Under Arrest by Israeli Military

Ellman repeated Israeli army propaganda without even once attempting to question whether the Israeli army might be lying.  An army whose statements have repeatedly been show to be fabrications when video evidence has been produced, when its soldiers have brutally attacked cameramen, murdered wounded prisoners and physically attacked children in broad daylight.  Louise Ellman appears to be more the MP for Tel Aviv North than MP for Liverpool Riverside. 

Ellman made 3 contributions. 

Cllr. Nick Small on the left - being wined and dined by Balfour Beatty - a blacklisting building company who he purports to condemn on other occasions - is a supporter of the abuse below

Hundreds of terrified Palestinian children are arrested each year - it could not happen to a Jewish child

 In the first she stated that ‘the context in which these situations occur is an organised campaign conducted by the Palestinian authorities of incitement, to try to provoke young Palestinians to carry out acts of violence towards other civilians, some of which result in death, including the death of young children?’ 

Children walk to school past soldiers who are watching them with gun pointed

Note how the context is not Israel’s 49 year military occupation, nor the systematic use of violence by the Israeli army, the night time arrests of children etc.  It is ‘incitement’ by the Palestinian authorities of ‘young Palestinians’.   The violence of the Occupier is instead transferred onto the shoulders of the  Occupied.

Palestinian children and youth do not need to be ‘incited’ to know they live lousy lives under a permanent military occupation.  This is the standard text of those who believe the Israeli occupation is the most benign in history and that Palestinians just love seeing their land confiscated, their houses demolished, their economic prospects blighted. 

Jewish Chronicle does its best to portray criticism of Ellman as 'anti-Semitic'

It is in any case an Israeli propaganda lie.  The Palestinian Authority is a collaborator with the Israeli military.  It has done its best to prevent attacks on the Israeli military.

It doesn't matter how young or small they are

Not satisfied with this, Ellman continued thus: 

‘I note my hon. Friend’s comments that a child should not be detained, and I assume that she means in any circumstances. Suppose a child was involved in an act of violence that resulted in the deaths of other human beings. That is what has happened with young Palestinians throwing stones—people have been killed. In those circumstances, surely she thinks that there should be detention.’ 

One notes that Ellman doesn’t call for the arrest of the Israeli military killers because of course, in her eyes, the occupation is legitimate and the Israeli Police and Miliary are merely agents of law and order.

In a third contribution Ellman asks 

‘Does my hon. Friend really believe that the solution to this horrendous conflict between two peoples—the Israeli and the Palestinian people—can be found by encouraging individual child Palestinians to commit acts of violence against other human beings?’ 

Ellman’s is the voice of the traditional colonialist who never sees or hears the violence of the occupier and who is only concerned by the resistance of the occupied.  For Ellman it is Palestinian children who commit violence and the Israeli military, which raids houses at night when people are sleeping, which is perfectly innocent.  An army which stands by when settlers attack Palestinian villagers and attacks them when they fight back, is above and beyond criticism as far as Ellman is concerned.

The debate was led by Sarah Champion, Labour MP for Rotherham.  Champion described how 

‘in June 2012, a delegation of leading British lawyers published a report on children held in Israeli military custody. That independent report was facilitated and funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and, based on a number of undisputed facts, found that Israel was in breach of six of its legal obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child and two obligations under the fourth Geneva convention. The report also concluded that if allegations of abuse referred to the delegation were true, Israel would also be in breach of the absolute prohibition against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’

Eight months after the UK report was published, UNICEF released its own assessment of the military detention system for children. UNICEF concluded that,

"the ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized throughout the process, from the moment of arrest until the child’s prosecution and eventual conviction and sentencing”.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that, “it would study the conclusions and work to implement them through on-going cooperation with UNICEF”.

Similar statements have been made previously following the UK report.  Amongst the issues that British officials raised, were ‘the use of painful plastic ties to restrain children, arresting children in the middle of the night in terrifying military raids, and the mandatory use of audiovisual recording of all interrogations.’  Despite promises to the contrary, in February 2015, UNICEF issued an update to its original report and noted that allegations of “alleged ill-treatment of children during arrest, transfer, interrogation and detention have not significantly decreased in 2013 and 2014”.

​Paula Sherriff, Labour MP for Dewsbury, spoke and described how she visited the West Bank in September 2015 having been briefed by Military Court Watch.   Sherriff spoke of ‘the significant disparity between treatment of Palestinian and Israeli young people, including lack of legal representation and parental support, allegations of widespread abuse and having to sign confessions in Hebrew, among many others?’  Most Palestinian children don’t understand Hebrew but they are expected to sign a confession in a language they don’t understand.

Sara Champion responded that ‘The disparity between the two legal systems includes, for example, a maximum period of detention without charge of 40 days for an Israeli child and 188 days for a Palestinian child.’  

Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, spoke of how ‘warm words to encourage Israel to act differently are not working. Does she agree that it is now time for action? For example, the UK could call for the suspension of the EU-Israel association agreement, which has a clause saying that if there are human rights abuses, there is a right to suspend the agreement. How can the agreement still be in place with that human rights clause when Israel completely ignores human rights concerns year after year?’ to which Sarah Champion agreed.  ‘That recommendation is superb and there are others.’

Jo Cox, the MP for Batley and Spen, who was murdered by a fascist last week, made a short contribution:

“I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. She will be aware that evidence from Military Court Watch suggests that 65% of children continue to report being arrested at night in what are described as terrifying raids by the military. Will she comment on that worrying fact?”

All Ellman’s statements were assertions lacking even the slightest evidence.  Ellman is and always has been an echo chamber for the Israeli military.  Despite appearances to the contrary, Ellman is not stupid but malevolent.  The torture and beatings by the Israeli army, which refuses to record its interrogations, which refuses access to lawyers or even parents to accompany their children, is acceptable to Ellman.

If Liverpool Riverside has any integrity or principles as a constituency, it will take steps to deselect Ellman.  She is in a long line of politicians who saw in colonialism a benevolent force.  There were also those in the Labour Party previously, like the former Minister Ray Gunther, who supported Apartheid.  Ellman is a supporter of Israeli Apartheid and the necessary military force that is required to uphold it.

3 members of the Liverpool Riverside constituency, who questioned Ellman on her pro-Zionist activities have now been placed under investigation.  They are being accused of, wait for it, ‘anti-Semitism’.  In other words concern for Palestinian children and their harrowing treatment by the Israeli military and criticism of their apologist Louise Ellman, is anti-Jewish. 

Of course  this is yet another example of a false accusation of ‘anti-Semitism’.  Ellman normally, when she reports to her constituency, deliberately omits to mention her Zionist work so they asked her what she was up to.  By all accounts she didn’t like being interrogated on her work for Israel as, understandably, it is indefensible.

On April 16^th an article Activists 'hell-bent' on attacking Jewish Labour MP at constituency meetings appeared in the Jewish Chronicle.  In this a right-wing, red-baiting councillor, Nick Small, said: “I found these comments offensive and believe that they have no place within the broad church of the Labour party.”  Defence of the Palestinians is ‘offensive’ according to this racist.  Small is an extreme right-winger who is a friend of blacklisting building company, Balfour Beatty. [see Liverpool Councillor Nick Small & his ‘blacklisting’ friends]

Small continued:

“There are a tiny but vocal group within our CLP who seem hell-bent on attacking our MP in an orchestrated, horrible, personalised way. They are trying to create an atmosphere of intimidation and hostility that is making many members, particularly Jewish members, feel deeply uncomfortable.  Mr Small said he had lodged a complaint with the party.’ 

No doubt Ellman did indeed feel uncomfortable at the fact that she was forced to answer for her defence of Israeli war crimes.

The Jewish Chronicle described an ‘orchestrated campaign’ against Ellman which Small said had created an “intimidating and hostile” atmosphere for Jewish members.  The Jewish Chronicle continued:  ‘The verbal attacks have taken place during the past two months at constituency meetings at which Mrs Ellman was present. A small group of hard-left activists have attended the sessions to attack her, repeatedly asking questions about her position on Israel.’  Holding your MP accountable is, in the eyes of the Jewish Chronicle, a crime.  The article finished with an unsubstantiated assertion that on ‘at least three occasions, antisemitic remarks were made.’

Ellman is a disgrace to the Labour Party.  She should be deselected immediately.