Brighton’s ‘Left’ Labour Councillors Endorse the Purge of Socialists by accepting False Anti-Semitism Allegations against 3 former Councillors
In May 2019 Labour became the largest party on Brighton & Hove Council. It gained 20 seats to the Green’s 19 and ran the Council. The response of the right was to make false allegations of anti-Semitism resulting in the suspension of Kate Knight and Anne Pissaridou and an ‘investigation’ into Nicki Brennan.
Kate
resigned from Labour and Nicki Brennan soon followed. Instead of defending their
colleagues Council leader Nancy Platts and now Labour Group leader John Alcock
chose to side with the right. This whole affair was orchestrated by Peter Kyle,
MP for Hove, ex-leader Daniel Yates and Fiona Sharpe of Sussex Friends of Israel, a group
whose co-chair Simon Cobbs has demonstrated with the EDL.
The
result was that the Green Party became the largest group and took control of
the Council. The allegations were part of the war against the left by Starmer,
as detailed in Labour’s Leaked Report. The Forde
Inquiry into that report has been put on ice after Starmer bought off those
Labour officials who had spent their time undermining Corbyn.
The
result, after the Green Party won a
byelection is that the Greens now have 20 seats to Labour’s 17 (or 16 depending
on the position of Anne Pissaridou).
None
of the 3 councillors are anti-Semitic. Nicki was investigated for having participated
in a picket of the Council in October 2018 when the Council decided to support
the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism.
Kate was suspended for saying that
anti-Semitism had been weaponised against the left and Anne for sharing a post referring to the
Rothschilds and saying that it was an ‘interesting
article’.
The use of the IHRA to attack critics of Apartheid
Israel and supporters of the Palestinians has even been condemned by the person who drafted
it, Kenneth Stern, in testimony to Congress. He stated that ‘The definition was
not drafted, and was never intended, as a tool to target or chill speech.’
Strangely enough Rachel Reeves tweet praising Nancy Astor, a notorious supporter of Hitler and the Nazis didn't merit any disciplinary action by Starmer, who became angry when it was raised at Labour's NEC
That
is why a group of academics, supported by over hundreds of other, mainly Jewish
academics, drew up the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism.
Unlike the IHRA, the JDA is about anti-Semitism not a defence of Israel or
Zionism.
Daniel Yates, right-wing former Labour and Council leader - a privatisation enthusiast who confines his anti-racism to 'antisemitism'
Kate’s
offence is denying that there ever was an anti-Semitism problem in the Labour
Party, a point of view held by 70% of Labour members. They call it ‘denialism’.
Free speech on the issue has been banned. Israeli ‘democracy’ has now been
imported into the Labour Party. Racists like Daniel Yates and Peter Kyle,
Hove’s MP, know very well that there is no substance to these allegations of
anti-Semitism, hence they seek to ban any contrary narrative.
Unfortunately
Anne decided to confess. She is reported as saying:
“I am deeply
sorry for my actions and any distress I have caused to the Jewish community.
It
is well known that many victims of false allegations decide to confess. False
confessions are a subset of criminology. In 1989 the Central Park 5, who were
Black, confessed to the rape and murder of
a white jogger. Trump took out adverts in the New York Times calling for their
execution. In 2014 they were awarded $41 million compensation. They were wholly
innocent.
In
the 1930s the victims of Stalin’s purges nearly all confessed, see the Innocence Project. You create a
paradigm in which the existence of ‘anti-Semitism’ is accepted as the taken for
granted norm and if you challenge it you are some kind of freak. Hence why
Momentum and much of the left shies away from challenging Starmer.
However
Anne should have saved her breath. Jews in Brighton and Hove were not concerned
with her post. The only group that was concerned was Sussex Friends of Israel, (aka Sussex
Jewish Representative Council). In December 2004 SFOI organised a meeting with an Israeli speaker,
Mordechai Kedar, who advocates raping Palestinian women at times of war. That
is who Yates, Kyle and Appich’s friends are.
Instead
of Anne apologising to the Jewish ‘community’ SFOI should apologise to women in
Sussex for hosting an advocate of rape.
Contrast
that with Luke Akehurst, on Labour’s National Executive who works for We
Believe in Israel. In 2018 Akehurst openly supported the Israeli army using
snipers to kill unarmed protestors at the Gaza fence. Over 300 were killed,
including 50 children. Has Akehurst been suspended or expelled? Of course not.
Racism against Palestinians or Muslims in Labour is rewarded not punished.
Anti-Semitism
is simple. The Oxford English dictionary defines it as ‘hostility to or prejudice against Jews.’ the JDA defines it as ‘discrimination,
prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews.
It
should be obvious, even to the most cowardly Momentum supporter or Labour
Councillor that opposition to Apartheid is not the same as anti-Semitism.
Historically most Jews opposed Zionism as form of
Jewish anti-Semitism (its belief that Jews are one nation/race whose ‘real
home’ is in Israel not where they live.
I have therefore decided to write
an Open Letter to John Alcock, the co-leader of the Labour Group with Carmen
Appich. Carmen is an open Zionist/racist. Alcock, who was a supporter of
Peoples Assembly, presumably still says he is a socialist
Addendum
Open Letter to John Alcock
Dear John
Alcock,
It
is said that‘those whom the gods wish to
destroy they first drive mad’. It is difficult to find any other
explanation for the Labour Group’s political suicide. The decision to force two
councillors to leave the Party and a third to inhabit the political equivalent
of purgatory resulted in the Green Party becoming the largest group on Brighton
and Hove Council and gaining office.
From
20 councillors in 2019 Labour went to 17 today (in reality 16). The
allegations of anti-Semitism are so fraudulent that they make Philip Greene seem
honest by comparison. Nicki Brennan’s ‘crime’ was holding a placard calling
Israel an apartheid state on a lobby outside a Council meeting in
October 2018.
If
Brennan’s actions were anti-Semitic then so were those of B’Tselem, Israel’s human rights
group and Human Rights Watch which this year described
Israel as an Apartheid State. There is copious evidence for this.
For
example Israel’s 90 strong Olympic team in Tokyo contained not a single Israeli-Palestinian
despite them constituting 20% of Israel’s population. Why? Because Olympic
standard sports facilities, like so much else, are not located where Arabs live
in Israel.
Israel has vaccinated most of its Jewish population
yet it refuses, contrary to the Fourth Geneva Convention to vaccinate
Palestinians living under occupation. In Jerusalem Israel seeks to ethnically
cleanse Palestinians in East Jerusalem on the grounds that their homes were
abandoned by Jews in the 1948 war.
However homes in West Jerusalem that Palestinians abandoned cannot be
reclaimed. That is what a ‘Jewish’ state means.
There is barely a dictatorship in the world that Israel doesn't supply with arms or whose military Israel doesn't train
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the leaders of the ANC
have described Israeli Apartheid as worse
than that in South Africa. Yet today in Labour Israel is seen as the equivalent
of Reagan’s city on the hill and its opponents castigated as anti-Semites.
Jewish Voices for Labour has just issued a report
showing that Jewish members of the party are being disproportionately
singled out for disciplinary action. Whereas 0.29% of Labour members have faced
accusations of anti-Semitism, the proportion of Jewish members subject to false
accusations is 1.4% - 6 times higher. Even worse 6% of JVL members are being
subjected to false accusations of anti-Semitism
– 20 times the average rate.
What kind of campaign against anti-Semitism is it
which singles out Jews? It should be obvious to even the most stupid Labour
councillor that this is about Zionism and Israel not anti-Semitism. As JVL note:
It appears that as a
population share, almost five times more Jewish than non-Jewish Labour members
have faced complaints of antisemitism which have been investigated. We estimate
that Jewish JVL members have been subject to actioned antisemitism complaints
at a rate 20 times greater than non-Jewish Labour members;
In November Keir Starmer will be the guest
of honour at the Labour Friends of Apartheid Israel Annual Dinner. Starmer previously
described
himself as a ‘Zionist’ i.e. a Racist Without Qualification. The same
Starmer who pulled
out of a Ramadan even after being told to by the Board of Deputies, because
one of its organisers supported a Boycott of Israeli dates and CAGE, which
defends prisoners.
Of
course if you have to defend arresting Palestinian children as
young as 12, blindfolding and beating them whilst denying them access to
lawyers or their own parents, whilst Jewish children are afforded full legal
protection, then it’s easier to cry ‘anti-Semitism’.
Kate
Knight’s ‘offence’ was ‘denialism’, a Kafkaesque word that means denying that
there is a problem of Labour anti-Semitism. It’s akin to being prosecuted and pleading
innocent only to be told by the judge that this is proof of your guilt! It is
the ‘justice’ practiced under Hitler and Stalin.
‘Denialism’ is what those who conducted the witch
trials in 17th century Salem, New England practised. As Elizabeth
Reis wrote:
“During examinations,
accused women were damned if they did and damned if they did not. If they
confessed to witchcraft charges, their admissions would prove the cases against
them; if they denied the charges, their very intractability, construed as the
refusal to admit to sin more generally, might mark them as sinners and hence
allies of the devil.”
The only women who were hanged at Salem were those who
denied their guilt. You and Cllr Nancy Platts, have learnt your trade well.
Platts, who
formerly worked in Corbyn’s office, makes Judas seem like a model of probity
and loyalty. A year ago she said
that she was ‘deeply sorry to the Jewish
community on behalf of the council’s Labour Group.’ What for? An innocuous
Facebook post that Anne Pissaridou shared 5 years ago?
Former
leader Daniel Yates, the man who helped implement TTIP
as part of the government’s privatisation agenda in the NHS, went one further.
He said that he was ‘ashamed of being a
Labour city councillor’. Yates can rest assured that he’s not the only one
who is ashamed of the fact that he is a Labour councillor!
Nancy Platts, former Labour leader who handed control of B&H Council to the Greens, makes political cowardice into an art form
But if
you and Platts want to do some apologising, then I’m more than happy to help
you. You could start by apologising to the Palestinians for having supported
the Balfour Declaration in 1917, even
before the Liberals and Tories under Lloyd George. The British Empire gave
Palestine, which did not belong to them, to the Zionist Organisation to ethnically
cleanse.
You could
also apologise to Black people for Alan Johnson, Blair’s Home Secretary, having
pioneered the use
of the term ‘hostile environment’ when describing Labour’s immigration policy.
John Mann, the author of the fake antisemitism campaign brought out a pamphlet explaining how to deal with the anti-social problem of Gypsies
And you
could also apologise for having supported the Immigration Act 2014 which led to
the Windrush
Scandal. Just
6 Labour MPs voted to oppose it. Strangely enough Tom Watson, John Mann,
Louise Ellman and those behind Labour’s false ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations
abstained.
Another
apology is due for Labour’s recent
reinstatement of Trevor Phillips. Philips believes
that Muslims are ‘a nation within a
nation’ and that allowing a non-Muslim child to be adopted by Muslims is ‘akin to child abuse.’ Just imagine that Pissaridou or Knight had said this about Jews? The heavens would have fallen
in yet neither you nor any Labour councillors, still less Kyle, have seen fit
to comment.
Free Speech in the Labour Party has been abolished - all in the name of fighting 'antisemitism'
As Rachel
Shabi wrote
in the Independent ‘The stench of
Islamophobia in the Labour Party is getting stronger’. And the stench of
hypocrisy from you and Platts is also becoming overpowering.
Despite his openly racist remark about Travellers Starmer and Evans have made no attempt to expel Luke Stanger - only 'antisemitism' merits expulsion
You could
also apologise to Brighton’s Gypsies. 3 years ago Luke Stanger, a member of
Hove Labour Party and friend of Kyle and Cllr. Henry, tweeted
that Travellers ‘were a nasty blight on
society.’ Stanger was suspended
in 2019. He has also sexually harassed a number of women. Why hasn’t this
racist reprobate been expelled?
Ann
Mitchell, a member of Hove Labour Party Executive was expelled for tweeting
that ‘privileging anti-Semitism above
other forms of race hatred is nothing to be proud of’ and quoting Asa
Winstanley’s ‘the
Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis.’ There
was nothing racist about what she said. She spoke about the Israel lobby, a
veritable fact, yet she was a victim of the fake anti-Semitism campaign.
Why is it,
when there are so many groups to whom Labour owes an apology that only one
group, Jews, receive an apology? It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that
Jews are being used as a political football as part of an altogether different
agenda, which is support for Israel and its role in British foreign policy in
the Middle East. Jews are a prosperous section of the White community. They are
not oppressed.
Jews are
neither economically discriminated against nor the subject of state racism.
Back in 1961 Geoffrey Alderman’s The Jewish Community in British
Politics found
that 40%
of British Jews were to be found in social classes A&B compared to less than
20% nationally.
Tom Watson went out on a limb to defend racist Labour MP Phil Woolas
I am unaware
of the name of the Jewish Geoffrey
Alderman Stephen Lawrence. Nor am I aware of
any Jews deported in the Windrush Scandal. Driving whilst Jewish is not an
offence. Jews are not subject to stop and search or disproportionately
imprisoned. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Labour’s concern over
‘anti-Semitism’ would disappear if Jews were Black and there were no ‘Jewish’
state in the Middle East.
Of course
if Sussex Jewish Representative Council (Sussex Friends of Israel), the Board
of Deputies are genuinely concerned about anti-Semitism they have a
very simple remedy. The next time Israel attacks the Palestinians they can issue
a joint statement condemning the attacks and informing people that British Jews
condemn Israel’s actions. Furthermore that British Jews bear no responsibility
for the actions of a ‘Jewish’ state. Until then they should put up or shut up.
Like many neo-Nazis Tommy Robinson is a strong supporter of Zionism he was given a hero's welcome at this demonstration
What happened though is that as soon as the
latest attacks on Gaza started the Board of Deputies rushed
to support them and then organised
a demonstration in support of Israel’s genocidal attack which killed 67
Palestinian children. It is little wonder that Tommy Robinson turned
up to a hero’s welcome. The death of over 260 Palestinians must have seemed
like Xmas come early.
Genuine
Labour anti-Semitism has always been the property of the Labour Right. It was
not the left wing which was responsible for thousands of Jews being sent to
Auschwitz but Peter Mandelson’s grandfather Herbert
Morrison. Morrison refused to admit all but a trickle of Jewish refugees from
Nazi occupied Europe. [Excuses Excuses The Failure to Amend
Britain's Immigration Policy Lesley Clare Urbach].
Ramsay MacDonald wrote after a visit to Palestine in
1922 about
‘the rich plutocratic Jew, who is the true economic
materialist. He is the person whose views upon life make one anti-Semitic. He
has no country, no kindred... he is an exploiter of everything he can squeeze.
He is behind every evil that Governments do... He detests Zionism because it
revives the idealism of his race.’
Isaac Herzog, former leader of the racist Israeli Labor Party, the 'sister party' of the Jewish Labor Movement
And where was this published? In a pamphlet by Poalei
Zion, (today’s JLM!) Far from opposing anti-Semitism, Zionism with its belief
that Jews are not at home where they live, is its greatest supporter.
John Alcock, you are no more than the bag carrier for
the Labour Right. You could at least have left the dirty work to your co-leader
Carmen Appich, a racist Zionist. Appich’s only claim to fame is calling
Kate Knight a ‘bitch’ when she assumed that she was muted on Zoom. Yet what was the reaction of Platts?
She was said
that ‘Cllr Appich apologised for the
"horrible mistake" and has promised that it will not happen again.’
Well
Anne Pissaridou has also apologised. Why the difference in treatment? Zionists
like to extract their pound of flesh. In Israel over 300 families of
Palestinians murdered by the army are unable to bury the bodies of their loved
ones because Israel has stolen the bodies. The latest victim is an 11 year old
boy gunned down this week. Zionists live
up to the worst caricatures of the anti-Semites.
Racist Labour MP Phil Woolas was defended by Tom Watson, John Mann and all those involved in the fake 'antisemitism' allegations
Brighton Momentum spent over 2 years gaining a
majority on Labour’s Campaign Forum putting forward left candidates such as
Amanda Evans, Nick Childs and John Alcock. Yet today it is impossible to
differentiate between Momentum and the Right on the Council. They have merged
into one. As Orwell wrote:
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and
from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
You are not the only left councilor to have made the
journey to the right. It is a well travelled road. It is noticeable that all of
the Momentum supported candidates – Amanda Evans, Nick Childs and others – have
remained silent.
Tommy Robinson standing on an Israeli captured tank - what the Labour Right can't answer is what it is about Israel that the far-Right so loves
But there are councilors who stayed true to their
principles and remained true to their principles and socialistm. Francis Tonks,
a former miner and mayor, who is now over 90 and Jack Hazelgrove, broke ranks
with their colleagues over plans to transfer the council’s
housing stock to an ALMO. In a ballot in February 2007 of Council
tenants 77% rejected New Labour’s privatisation
plans under Council leader Simon Burgess, today part of Lloyd Russell-Moyle’s
team.
You have chosen to go along with these utterly fake
allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ by the supporters of Israel, the world’s only
Apartheid state. Both you and the Momentum supported councillors should hang
your heads in shame. Assuming you understand the meaning of the word.
In solidarity
Tony Greenstein
