Showing posts with label Pamela Fitzpatrick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pamela Fitzpatrick. Show all posts

4 July 2024

Whatever You Do Don’t Vote For Starmer – Vote Socialist Independent or Failing That the Green or Workers Party

Whatever the Results We Have to Build a Socialist Alternative not Resort to Racist Dog Whistles Like Galloway

Four and a half years ago, I wrote an eve of poll blog after campaigning for Chris Williamson in Derby North Labour’s Election Campaign - Expect the Worst – Hope for the Best. I summed up

How then will Labour fare in the election?  This is probably the most difficult election to call. I fear a Tory majority but there may well be a hung parliament though if the Lib Dems continue to slide in the polls that may be less likely. What is clear is that there is no surge to Labour. I cannot see a Labour victory or an increase in the present number of seats. By failing to see that the British Establishment would do all they could, in conjunction with the United States and Israel, to ensure that an anti-imperialist would not become Prime Minister the Left has to face the future with a Labour Party minus Jeremy Corbyn.

In previous elections I had little difficulty in predicting the outcome. In 2015 I wrote a blog Miliband’s Labour Seeks the Safety of Consensus Politics in which I said:

In last week’s Brighton Independent I had an article which suggested that Miliband was determined to lose.  Of course he’d like to win but he refuses to break from the consensus behind austerity.... Labour is going to face a wipe-out in its Scottish bastion because they are perceived as the ‘red Tories’. ...

My prediction?  The Tories will be the largest party.  Labour plus the SNP should be within spitting distance of the magical 324 need for an overall majority.  Hopefully the Lib-Dems, the most disgusting and unprincipled party of all will suffer heavy losses.  UKIP is unlikely to gain more than 2-3 seats and the Greens will keep their one seat.  Who forms a government?  Miliband might unless he proves particularly stupid.’

Like most people I was taken by surprise by Cameron’s narrow majority.

In 2017 contrary to all those who believed that Labour’s election campaign would be a rerun of 1983 under Michael Foot, I foresaw that the Tory campaign under ‘strong and stable’ Theresa May would crash, which it did. 

Sir Kid Starver was the first person to welcome my expulsion. the first Jewish person, from the Labour Party in February 2016

On April 20, when May had a 21% lead in the polls I wrote in Labour Can Win if Corbyn is Bold – the Key Issue is Poverty and the Transfer of Wealth that:

It was Harold Wilson who said that a week is a long time in politics.  Seven weeks is a political eternity.  Theresa May has taken a gamble that her 21% lead will hold.  It is a gamble that she may yet come to regret.

There is only one direction that her lead can go and that is down.  Once her lead falls then a snowball effect can take over.  What is essential is that Labour marks out the key areas on which it is going to base its appeal.  The danger is that Corbyn is going to continue with his ‘strategy’ of appeasing the Right and appealing to all good men and women.  If so that will be a recipe for disaster.

No election is guaranteed to be without its surprises.  Theresa May is a cautious conservative.  She is literally the product of her background, a conservative vicar’s daughter.  Reactionary, parochial and small-minded, she is a bigot for all seasons.  What doesn’t help is that she is both wooden and unoriginal.  The danger is that Corbyn tries to emulate her.


On June 3 in General Election - Is Labour on the threshold of victory? I foresaw a hung parliament, or even a Labour victory, was possible.

I do not have a crystal ball.  My initial predictions, that there would or could be a hung parliament was based on my assessment of the situation.  This is still quite possible as the Tories are widely detested for  their attacks on the working poor, people on benefits and the continuous privatisation of the NHS.  They are seen as the party of a vicious class rule, which is what austerity is about.

That does not, however, mean that the Tories will necessarily be defeated.  People do not vote in line with their class interests.  The whole purpose of the patriotic card, used by a succession of ruling class scoundrels from Pitt to May, is to blind people to their real interests.  It is saying that British workers and the poor have more in common with the rich and the ruling class than they do with each other.  The Tory press of course is doing its best to foster illusions in Strong and Stable.

David Lammy Meeting his Constituents


Labour could still become the largest party but I also sense a vigorous fightback by the Right.  It seems that one part of the prediction I made will not come true.  The Lib-Dems are not going to gain enough seats to prop up another Tory coalition  At the moment they are tipped to win just one extra seat.  By ruling out any form of pact with Labour under Corbyn, the Lib-Dems have guaranteed their own irrelevance.

We could be in for a period of political instability such as we have not known for 40 years.  This is one of the hardest elections to call.  A Tory government is still possible if it cobbles together a coalition of the Lib-Dems & the Ulster Unionists-DUP.  Even a majority Tory government cannot be ruled out.

What then will be the result tomorrow? Again I have to confess that predicting the results of any election is not easy. It is clear that Starmer’s rebranded Tory Party will win the election, although I have a feeling that the majority will not be as large as predicted.

Tanushka Mara, Socialist Independent Hove

What is clear is that this has been the dullest election in decades with no real differences between Tory and Starmer Labour. I expect the turnout to be down.

The Lib Dems should pick up disaffected Tories though I doubt that it will be above 50 as has been predicted.

I also expect the Green Party to keep Brighton Pavilion and possible gain one or two more. We are told the Reform party will win up to 5 seats. That is possible though I hope not. Farage certainly annoyed the imperialists with his perfectly reasonable explanation that NATO and the United States provoked Russia into invading.

The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 was provoked by the US placing nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey which were then matched by Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. So it is obvious why Russia didn’t want a nuclear alliance on their borders.  Farage was savaged, called a Putin lover etc. so that may have an effect on their election chances. 

Picket of 'Killer' Kyle MP for Hove


My concerns are different. Which of the bourgeois and pro-capitalist parties comes out on top is to all intents and purposes irrelevant. Whether it is Sunak or Starmer who becomes Prime Minister, racism, imperialism, poverty, exploitation and war will continue. They are Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Starmer has been ruthless in purging the Labour Party of socialists and left-wingers. Would that Jeremy Corbyn had had half as much bottle he wouldn’t have been fighting as an independent today.

Will Corbyn win in Islington North?  He should do but the polls say otherwise. Let us hope so. However Corbyn has mishandled the withdrawal of the Labour Whip like everything else. When it was clear he would not have the Whip reinstated he should have resigned from the Labour Party and stood in a by–election for the seat. As it is he has an uphill fight. I wish him well against his corrupt opponent

Why I’m against mass immigration

I also hope that George Galloway holds Rochdale but I fear he won’t. I hope he wins because of genocide in Gaza not because I agree with him on much else. His attempt to compete with Farage and the Tories on immigration is despicable.  I have come in for some criticism from my comrades for supporting him but in my view genocide in Palestine outweighs virtually any other consideration, witness Sunak’s ill-judged attack on him when he won the by-election.

A message I sent to George Galloway today

Galloway’s comments in the video above are a disgrace. Immigration doesn’t lower wage levels nor does it prevent people getting doctors’ appointments or children getting places in schools. This is racist scapegoatism at its worst.

What prevents people getting GP appointments is the lack of doctors we train plus the reduction in what we pay them.  Funding for GP practices has been slashed by £350 million in real terms since 2019, House of Commons Library research shows. It was 6.9% lower in 2022/23 compared to 2018/19, once inflation is taken into account. The average funding per patient was £165 in 2022/23, a real terms cut of £12 per patient over the past four years. In other words nothing to do with immigrants.


The same is true of nurses, whose bursaries the Tories stole in order to enrich their cronies. The NHS has been defunded, part privatised and the money transferred to military expenditure.  Indeed but for overseas doctors and nurses the NHS would be in a worse state than it already is.

The same reactionary arguments were used when Jewish refugees came to Britain in the 19 and 20 centuries. The answer to low wages was trade union organisation not immigration controls. Three times in the 1880s the TUC called for ‘anti-alienist’ immigration controls because they preferred not to fight. Jewish workers however formed their own trade unions and launched strike after strike – including two mass tailors strikes in 1889 and 1912 alongside dockers strikes in the same years. That is how wages are raised.


However much you control immigration it won’t affect the export of capital, which is why it is such a bankrupt argument. Unless members of the Workers Party reign Galloway in it is destined to become a pariah on the left.

 ‘Patriotism’ and immigration controls sit uneasily with socialism. Patriotism means the working class doffing their cap to their rulers and dying in their wars. National socialism is a contradiction in terms.

In this video Galloway is compared, quite rightly to Farage, Jenrick and Braverman. This appeal to racism with all the dog whistles about fighting age men and 3 star hostels and ‘illegal migrants’ rather than refugees suggests that Galloway inhabits a very dark place.

A Side Of George Galloway You Have Never Seen?

“We have already, and its only February, 65,000 people unchartered, undocumented, unvetted. We have no idea who they are, we know most of  them are men, and most of them are fighting age men at that, who are now being put up in three star hotels sometimes a little better even than that at the expense of the public potentially for ever more when our forces cannot interdict a single one of the boats bringing illegal migrants or Refugee claimants for asylum - we can’t know which until their cases are heard and their cases have a backlog of hundreds of thousands.”

However there is a brighter side to this election and that is the number of anti-racist, socialist candidates.

Andrew Feinstein in Starmer’s constituency, Leanne Mohamad against Wes Streeting, Pamela Fitzpatrick in Harrow West, Sam Gorst in Liverpool Garston, Faiza Shaheen in Chingford and Wood Green and our own wonderful Tanushka Mara in Hove amongst many others I haven’t named.

I was initially despondent about their chances but having taken note of the vibrancy of the campaigns I am hopeful that they will garner a very sizeable vote even if they don’t win. From these campaigns we have the opportunity to rebuild the left but if Galloway continues as he is and the Workers Party doesn’t reject this scapegoating, racist appeal to the most backward section of the working class then Galloway will play no part in rebuilding the left.

I hope that Chris Williamson, who is standing in Derby North, as Deputy Leader of the WP, will make his own position clear on the question of our opposition to demonising asylum seekers, racist dog whistling and attempting to blame our social ills on migrants rather than the tax dodging rich, the Tories’ COVID  cronies and privatisation.


Below is a list of independent candidates and I would also add Samar Ammar in Birmingham Bromsgrove, see here. There are also others including Craig Murray in Blackburn, Chris Williamson in Derby North and Jody McIntyre in Birmingham Yardley. See Pink Floyd star flying in to back Workers Party's Craig Murray.

There are also 40 TUSC candidates standing, which is the Socialist Party’s electoral front, including ex-MP Dave Nellist, who I support. The full list can be found here.

A full list of Workers Party candidates is here but I wouldn’t endorse all of them, eg. I support Sammar Amar in Bromsgrove not Aheesha Zahir who has also made anti-refugee remarks. I support critically the WP candidates, in so far as its Manifesto doesn’t include the racist nonsense that Galloway has been spouting about refugees.

Let’s hope for a  better tomorrow.

Tony Greenstein

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29 November 2021

Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour-in-Exile-Network Vote to Merge into a Single Organisation

 A Single Anti-Witchhunt Organisation Committed to Build Shadow CLPs Can Only Strengthen the Fight Against Starmer


Fringe Meeting at 2018 Liverpool Conference (left to right) - Jo Bird, Tony Greenstein, the late Tony Mulhearn, Anya Ndwuke (chair), Chris Williamson, Alexei Sayle

Last Friday night members of Labour-in-Exile-Network voted by 31-8 to merge with Labour Against the Witchhunt. The following night LAW, at its first All Members Meeting for 3 months also voted to support a merger, albeit by a narrower but decisive majority of 47-27 with 12 abstentions.

The successful Resist at the Rialto events in Brighton during the Labour conference were organised jointly with LIEN, LAW and Resist

Members of both organisations voted to form a single organisation dedicated not only to fighting the witchhunt but to campaign on a broader basis. We have an NHS that is being privatised, a Police Bill which is a massive encroachment on civil liberties, a Nationality and Immigration Bill which will result in more deaths in the Channel. The idea that the only game in the town is the Witchhunt is an obsession. Starmer has just given a speech to Labour Friends of Israel saying that the Israel of pogroms against Palestinians is a ‘rumbustious democracy’.

It is unfortunate that the majority of the LAW Steering Committee, having lost the argument and the vote have resigned rather than accepting the view of LAW members. Their argument is summed up in this week’s Weekly Worker that we are ‘Deserting the Fight’. No comrades we are refusing to allow the fight against Starmer and his neo-liberal politics to be confined to simply machinations in the Labour Party.

Motion 1 in favour of the merger was passed with one amendment. The second motion, opposing the merger, moved by supporters of Labour Party Marxism therefore fell automatically.

At a time when thousands of Labour Party members are either under ‘investigation’, suspended or expelled, it makes obvious sense that two organisations that agree on all the fundamental questions facing socialists, inside and outside the Labour Party, should merge. The Left has been historically weakened because of unnecessary splits over minor points of theological doctrine.

2019 Fringe Meeting with Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker, Alexei Sayle and Chris Williamson

Opponents of the merger, primarily Labour Party Marxism argued that there is still much work to be done fighting the witchhunt. That is true but conditions have changed massively since the Corbyn witchhunt began in 2016. This point was made eloquently in an introductory speech by Graham Bash, the recently expelled Political Officer of Jewish Voices for Labour and someone who was a member of Labour for 53 years.

Graham emphasised that the scale and reach of Starmer’s witchhunt is bigger than anything that the Labour Party has ever experienced in its history. Previously particular groups like Militant were targeted.  Now it is anyone on the socialist left who speaks out against the leadership. People like Pamela Fitzpatrick of CLPD, a well respected local councillor in Harrow, the recipient of abuse by right-wing trolls, has been expelled whilst her abusers have got off scot-free. The suspension of a previous Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is itself unprecedented.

LAW picket of Jackie Walker's Disciplinary Hearing

When nearly all the Left capitulated to the false ‘anti-Semitism’ attacks LAW was virtually alone in standing up to the Zionists and and people like Margaret Hodge. We organised pickets of the disciplinary hearings of Marc Wadsworth and Jackie Walker, organised well-attended fringe meetings at Labour Party Conference and gave support to Ken Livingstone, Chris Williamson and others.

We also led, with JVL, the campaign against the adoption by the Labour Party of the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism with a large picket of the NEC meeting in September 2019 which adopted the IHRA.  We warned then that far from putting the ‘anti-Semitism’ attacks to bed they would increase in volume.

Jo Bird's reaction to her expulsion, that she is glad to get out of the Labour Party, is a typical reaction. Labour Party Marxists simply don't understand that people don't want to stay in Labour's poisonous cavern

Unfortunately Corbyn and Jennie Formby chose not to listen to us and they embarked on a policy of appeasement of the Right. At meeting after meeting I repeated the same message that the expulsion of Jackie, Marc and myself was not about us – we were collateral damage – the real target was Corbyn himself. That should be clear even to the most venal and stupid member of Momentum, even to Jon Lansman, now that Corbyn himself has lost the Whip.

When you don't like the way members voted you describe it as a 'hostile takeover' - this is the attitude of the trade union bureaucracy to democracy in the unions 

The throwing under the bus of Chris Williamson, Ken Livingstone and many others like Pete Willsman and Christine Shawcroft, simply whetted the appetite of Margaret Hodge and the JLM. When Corbyn opposed Open Selection he signed his own death warrant. When he and Formby proposed ‘fast track’ expulsions they laid the basis for Starmer’s purge and Corbyn’s own suspension.

But the opponents of merging the two organisations wanted people to believe that LAW today is the same as it was 2-3 years ago. That simply is not true.  In the past 6 months LAW has done relatively little other than with LIEN. On LAW’s own website there is no activity registered since the Resist at the Rialto in late September. The fact is that there is next to nothing we can do to fight the witchhunt inside the Labour Party because there is no democracy left.

LAW has no branches today - it has a passive membership

On July 20th LAW and LIEN organised the well attended picket of Labour’s NEC at Southside and during the Labour Party conference we organised a whole series of alternative events at the Resist at the Rialto in Brighton. It makes sense to merge into one group.

You only need to look at the Wikipedia entry for LAW. It lists a whole series of our activities but stops in May 2019. The reality is that LAW has been on a life support system for the past two years. Before the last AGM membership had plummeted by one-third. Ironically the only thing that restored LAW’s previous membership was Starmer/Evans decision to proscribe LAW!

The Steering Committee which has met fitfully in recent months has failed to involve members in its work or bring them aboard. There are no separate working groups or strands. Members are just passive observers. LAW is not the campaign it was when we had regular monthly All Members Meeting. Members of the Labour Party are reluctant even to be seen on pickets or demonstrations when that will be taken as support for LAW and instant expulsion.

The preamble to the first motion began with Ken Loach’s statement:

‘democracy is dead in the labour party...this is a political vacuum, this is the biggest challenge to the left in my lifetime,  we do need a new political movement, across the whole left, inside the Labour Party and outside, it’s got to be ready to become a party when the time is right.... Otherwise we fragment. People are leaving and we will fragment. At this critical moment when you have this mass of people just driven out of the party where are they going to go? If we miss this opportunity it is a very black outlook.’

What then were the arguments of opponents of the merger? LPM has always taken the position that there is nothing in between the Labour Party, a bourgeois workers party in their eyes, and a revolutionary Marxist Party. All or nothing and they get nothing.

The late Tony Mulhearn - one of the heroes of the Liverpool Council refusal to set a rate in the 1980s, who came under attack from Kinnock

The CPGB didn’t always take this position having participated first in the Socialist Alliance, Respect and Left Unity. The CPGB/LPM have never explained the change in their tactics from opposition to ‘autolabourism’ to a devotion to labourism! In 1997 they refused to support a vote for Labour at the General Election. Now they damn anyone who even thinks of standing against Labour!

Ironically the first person to propose a merger wasn’t me but Tina Werkmann. I urged caution! At the LAW AMM on July 24 a motion ‘to explore the merging of LAW and LIEN’ was passed. Moved by Tina it read:

 This meeting believes that:

4.     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.  

5.     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. 

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

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

A Zionist Without Qualification

At a joint LLA, LAW and LIEN members and supporters meeting on October 14 Paragraph 6 of a motion Bringing the Left together moved by Tina was identically worded to Para. 4 above! Para. 7 of the same motion was almost identically worded to Para. 5 above.

A number of other amendments moved by Roger Silverman, Diana Isserlis and myself made Tina’s motion even more explicit.

For reasons that are not clear, Tina reversed her position and put out a paper Why a merger between Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour In Exile Network is a bad idea Tina wrote:

There are a number of reasons why I personally oppose a merger at this moment in time, despite the fact that I initially proposed ‘exploring a merger’ between the groups. Yes, unity is strength, but this unity has to have a serious political purpose if it is to be effective. I would be very much in favour of building a democratic and socialist movement based on the revolutionary politics of Marxism. But that is not what is being discussed here, far from it.

But Tina knew back in July and October that neither LIEN nor LAW were revolutionary Marxists. What changed? A clue can be found in the accusation that the LIEN Steering Committee lacked ‘political incoherence.’ This incoherence ‘reflects the fact that the organisation has no clear political programme.’ Well neither LIEN nor LAW has such a programme. The point is to develop a program of ideas. 4 months ago that wasn’t a problem. Why now?

I understand why LPM opposea a merger. They consider that they, all 30 or so of them, are that organisation. In a motion to the LAW Steering Committee of 9th November Stan Keable proposed:

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. ... we believe such a project will only add to the widespread demoralization and disorientation of the Labour left that already exists.

The LPM motion to the LAW All Members Meeting meeting of 27th November LPM stated that:

We reject the proposed merger of LAW with the Labour in Exile Network, which we believe would effectively liquidate LAW and add to the widespread demoralization and disorientation of the Labour left that already exists.

LPM have always had a consistent policy, at least since the election of Jeremy Corbyn, that they reject the formation of any broad socialist group outside the Labour Party. Especially with those who espouse ‘the failed politics of Corbynism.’

Instead I was belaboured with the fact that I was in a minority of 1 on the LAW Steering Committee in favouring a merger. However the meeting on Saturday wasn’t particularly impressed either by Tina’s change of heart or LPM’s implacable opposition to anything smacking of what they call a Labour Party Mark 2.

What I didn’t expect was the bad faith reaction of both LPM and Tina to reject a democratic decision of LAW members and simply resign and refuse to implement the decision. On the LAW Steering Committee Whatsapp group Tina posted:

This feels very much like a hostile takeover and the only outcome is that it will close down LAW. Pretty shitty outcome.

On the LAW Facebook page Tina declared that the proposal to merge was a ‘Hostile takeover, really. Not sure it serves any purpose apart from closing down LAW.’ To which I responded that:

‘The Steering Committee opposed the merger. The members voted for it. Yes the members have taken LAW over as they realise it was going nowhere fast. Labour Party Marxists wanted to preserve LAW in aspic as a trophy that does very little.

You remind me of Bertold Brecht's satirical poem "Die Lösung" (The Solution) in which he portrays the East German communists, after crushing the 1953 German Workers Uprising of wanting to abolish the people and start again

Leaving aside the fact that Tina herself was proposing what she now calls a ‘hostile takeover’ this is unbelievably arrogant. LAW’s Steering Committee was clearly unrepresentative of the membership. It is the members who have taken it over. This reaction is similar to the reaction of the Labour Right in 2015 to the ‘hostile takeover’ of the Labour Party by the Corbynistas!

This is the language of a Board of Directors of a company to a takeover bid by some venture capitalist. It demonstrates a contempt for democracy. Instead of asking why, repeatedly, I have been in a minority on the Steering Committee yet not at All Members Meetings, Tina blames the members! Bertold Brecht captured this brilliantly in his poem The Solution.

It is often said that whatever their political differences, Trotskyist and Stalinist groups often have a very similar attitude to democracy. One only has to look at the SWP with its self-perpetuating leadership.

The reality is that socialists and socialism are being driven out of the Labour Party by Starmer – all in the name of fighting anti-Semitism! The opponents of the merger, instead of accepting that they were defeated, are now trying to make the creation of a unified organisation that much more difficult. The only people to gain from their actions will be Starmer and co. I would therefore appeal to them to pull back.

The creation of a unified organisation is not the ‘liquidation’ nor the closing down of LAW. There is nothing LAW could have done that it can’t do in a merged organisation. LIEN is obviously committed to fighting the witchhunt and always has been.

LIEN already has a Witchhunt Analysis Group amongst 7 other groups. LIEN is already far more active over the witchhunt than LAW. There is obvious room for an 8th Anti-Witchhunt group.

At a time when Starmer has declared to the Labour Friends of Israel that the Israeli Military State is a rumbustious democracy, what is needed is a little more respect for democracy in our own ranks!

Tony Greenstein

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