Campaign for Free Speech holds Packed Zoom Meeting - 'Say No to Labour McCarthyism

400 people listen to Norman Finkelstein, Tariq Ali, David Miller, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein and Chris Williamson

For the past 5 years the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and other Zionist groups have intimidated venues and the owners of meeting halls into cancelling meetings on Zionism and Palestine. Only a brave few, like the Rialto Theatre in Brighton, have withstood the threats and abuse that those standing up to these racist freaks bombard them with.

Notoriously last September Waterstones bookshop cancelled the book launch of Bad News for Labour (whose co-author Prof. David Miller was a speaker tonight) because of the threats and abuse they received – all in the name of fighting ‘anti-Semitism’. The CEO of Waterstones, James Daunt later admitted that Waterstone’s decision had been wrong and that customers had reacted strongly against the decision.

Anthony Silkoff - the Board of Deputies Censorship Officer

The Board of Deputies even had a full time worker, Anthony Silkoff, doing little else but attempt to close down free speech on Israel and Palestine. It was called ‘interfaith’ work.

Last year in Brighton the MP for Hove, Peter Kyle and a host of Zionist trolls abused and threatened 3 venues – the Brighthelm Centre, the Holiday Inn and the Quaker Friends Centre – into cancelling a meeting with Chris Williamson. In the end we were forced to hold an open air meeting with Chris in Brighton’s Regency Square where over 200 people turned up.

The Board of Deputies Tweet Attacking the Rialto - everything they attack is 'hate' - yet these opponents of 'hate' tweeted in support of Israeli snipers killing unarmed demonstrators in Gaza - nothing hateful there!

So the Zionists must be gnashing their teeth in fury as meetings double and triple the size of our normal meetings on Palestine and Zionism are being held with almost monotonous regularity featuring international speakers like Norman Finkelstein. 

All of the Zionist efforts to close down free speech were in aid of the fight against ‘anti-Semitism’ of course.  Naturally their targets were on the Left not the Far Right.  So eat your heart our Zios! 

The COVID-19 crisis has at least had one good side-effect.  People have turned to Zoom in the absence of physical venues and meetings and far more people have tuned into listen to our ideas.

I won’t even attempt to summarise last night’s meeting, but everyone who went said that it was excellent.  It was ably Chaired by Tina Werkmann of the Labour Left Alliance/ Labour Against the Witchhunt and it featured 7 speakers in all.  Ken Livingstone was forced to pull out for medical reasons but we hope to feature him in a future meeting.

Tina has slightly edited the video but we hope that if you didn’t attend last night that you will take the time to watch it. Norman Finkelstein was his normal controversial self and there was a vigorous debate between the panellists. Unlike Zionist meetings we do debate and aren’t afraid of the free exchange of ideas.

We were also not opposed to Zionists attending and maybe learning something but when Luke Stanger, a troll who is currently suspended from the Labour Party for harassment of women and calling Gypsies and Travellers ‘a nasty blight on society’ began abusing everyone as ‘anti-Semites’ he was removed.

Petition

We are also sponsoring a petition for Labour Party members to sign saying that they will not abide by the Board of Deputies’s 10 Commandments, the 5^th of which is that

‘Thou shalt not speak on the same platform as anyone who has been expelled or suspended as part of the ‘anti-Semitism’ witchhunt.  Those disobeying the Zionist gods will be suspended forthwith from the Labour Party.’

All those who believe in freedom of speech on Israel and Palestine and who reject the idea that we should not criticise Israeli Apartheid should sign. Starmer’s support for censorship on the question of Palestine, all in the name of combating ‘anti-Semitism’ stands in stark contrast to his refusal to discipline and remove from the Shadow Cabinet Rachel Reeves, a Labour MP who tweeted praising Nancy Astor, an MP who openly supported Hitler’s persecution of the Jews, whom she called ‘killers of christ’.  It seems that the only form of anti-Semitism that Keir Starmer has nothing to say about is the kind that consists of hostility to or hatred of Jews.  Strange that!

Tony Greenstein

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=GzqTWpPI5Qw&feature=emb_logo

Whatever else The World Transformed is about it isn’t transforming the world

Open letter to WTF Why was Chris Williamson not invited to speak this year and why was the Witchhunt and Israel/Zionism kept off the agenda?

Since Liverpool in 2016 The World Transformed has held what it describes as a politics, arts and music festival running alongside the Labour Party Conference. This is of course to be welcomed since the Labour Party isn’t exactly well known for its theoretical sophistication or its embrace of grassroots campaigns against the many manifestations of capitalism.

The Rialto - Brighton's Free Speech Centre during the Labour Party Conference

I was myself a volunteer at TWT in Brighton in 2017. Granted it runs many interesting debates and speakers, there is one flaw at the centre of its operations which, in the light of developments in the Labour Party has been a gaping hole. The fight against the Right in the Labour Party, the state driven attempts to destabilise the Labour Party and in particular Zionism and Palestine.

WTF in the Old Steine Brighton

Socialism for WTF stops at the borders of the UK and Europe. Any understanding of colonialism and imperialism is not part of transforming the world because if it was then the question of Israel’s attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of the Labour Party, via the Jewish Labour Movement, would be on the agenda.

For 4 years the Right in the Party have been waging a bogus campaign whose basis is that the Labour Party is smitten by anti-Semitism.  As the campaign to adopt the IHRA ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism last September demonstrated, the campaign was really about support for Israel. The IHRA’s has 11 illustrations of anti-Semitism, 7 of which are about Israel.

You might therefore think that the WTF might want to hold a few sessions on Zionism and Palestine.  Israel is, after all a self-declared Apartheid state. Its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly declared that Israel as a Jewish state is only a state of its Jewish citizens.  That is the classic definition of Apartheid.

Yet despite this the WTF has completely ignored Zionism, Palestine and the accompanying witchhunt of Palestine solidarity activists and assorted socialists. The reason being that WTF came out of Momentum and is still subject to Jon Lansman’s deleterious influence.

Although I had tickets for this year’s WTF in Brighton I was occupied with organising a Free Speech Centre in the centre of Brighton at The Rialto Theatre.

Because of Zionist threats to prevent Chris Williamson MP and indeed any anti-Zionist or pro-Palestine meetings taking place during Labour Party Conference, we decided to make alternative arrangements including a Free Speech Tent in Regency Square. The ‘we’ being members of the newly formed Brighton and Hove Labour Left Alliance which came out of the moribund Brighton and Hove Momentum.

For example the original venue for Jewish Voice for Labour’s fringe meeting at The Jury’s Inn was cancelled after Zionist pressure and the usual threats and abuse. Labour Against the Witchhunt were forced to keep the venue for their fringe meeting, at the Mercur Hotel, until just an hour before.

On August 8^th we were forced to hold an outdoor meeting in Brighton’s Regency Square with Chris Williamson after the Zionists had conducted a campaign of abuse against the Holiday Inn Hotel and the Friends Meeting House in Brighton, both of which cancelled the venue.  This was triggered off by Hove’s right-wing MP Peter Kyle who ‘persuaded’ the Brighthelm Centre to cancel the original meeting with Chris Williamson.

So when TWT sent me a PR puff congratulating themselves on how well they did I decided to send them the response below!

To info@theworldtransformed.org

Dear TWT,

Thank you for your report. Despite having tickets I was unable to attend any sessions because I was involved in organising Brighton's Free Speech Centre at The Rialto Theatre, Dyke Road.

Because of the attempt of Israel's supporters, otherwise known as Zionists (a word banned at WTF) to close down the free speech of Chris Williamson MP and Jackie Walker amongst others, we set up a Free Speech Centre through whose doors over a thousand local people and conference attendees, including Ken Loach, came.

Not only did we put on people like Chris Williamson and Jackie Walker and other suspended and banned persons (shades of South Africa?) in the Labour Party but we also hosted, at very short notice last Monday a book launch for Bad News for Labour by Pluto Press. 

The same Zionist groups which have been behind the fake anti-Semitism campaign in the Labour Party - the Jewish Labour Movement, Labour Friends of Israel, the Israeli Embassy, turned their attention to preventing the launch of Bad News for Labour by 5 distinguished academics - Professors Greg Philo and David Miller, Antony Lerman, Mike Berry and Justin Schlosberg. To their shame Waterstones CEO in New York, James Daunt, taking orders from the hedge fund which owns them, Elliot Advisers, cancelled the book launch.

As Greg Philo said, preventing a book launch is just a step away from burning books. If in fact WTF stood for changing the world or even basic democratic rights such as Free Speech and Freedom of Association, we would have asked you to host the event. Unfortunately you have run a million miles from challenging the 'antisemitism' smear campaign against Jewish anti-Zionists, anti-racists and Palestine solidarity supporters. You have consistently failed to allow groups like Free Speech on Israel, Jewish Voice for Labour etc. to have meetings at WTF. Your cowardice goes before you.

The fact is that TWT is nothing of the sort. Nice discussions and interesting theoretical debates divorced from any real change. When the Israeli Embassy and the advocates for the world's only Apartheid State seek to close down debate in this country and secure the expulsion and suspension of socialists in the Labour Party, including Jewish anti-Zionists such as myself and Jackie Walker, the so-called TWT demonstrates that it is little more than Lansman's poodle.

You said you hosted activists from all over the world yet you refused to host anti-Zionists in this country.  You cannot be unaware that Israel has been the bulwark of repressive and anti-Semitic regimes the world over? For example:

It was no accident that the first trip of Brazil’s fascist leader Bolsonaro was to Israel. The first trip by a Philippines President to Israel was that of Duterte, its genocidal leader and self-declared admirer of Hitler. Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary who described Admiral Horthy, the war-time ruler of Hungary who presided over the deportation of half a million Jews to Auschwitz, as an ‘exceptional statesman’ is also a recent visitor to Israel and Netanyahu’s good friend.

Stephen Bannon and of course Donald Trump are also self declared Christian Zionists. Indeed even Richard Spencer, the neo-Nazi founder of America’s alt-Right describes himself as a White Zionist. But to your backer Jon Lansman the word ‘Zionist’ is equivalent to ‘Jew’ and therefore verboten.

Israel is also in the forefront of arming the Burmese regime, the neo-Nazi Ukrainian Azov battalion and other repressive regimes. See Ha’aretz 9.9.18. Rights Groups Demand Israel Stop Arming neo-Nazis in Ukraine yet the question of Israel and Zionism is out of bounds when it comes to setting WTF’ agenda.

I can only hope that next year you gain enough courage to defy Lansman and stand up for Free Speech on Zionism and Palestine. Although I fear that next year may be too late as the purpose behind the anti-Semitism smears is the removal of Jeremy Corbyn.  By next year their ambition may have been achieved thanks to cowards such as yourselves.

In Solidarity

Tony Greenstein

The World Transformed via gmail.mcsv.net 

11:44 (5 hours ago)

Dear comrades,

What an amazing time we’ve had this year. 100s of hours of debates, workshops, parties and gigs were attended by over 6,000 people. We heard from activists all over the world, not only on how we win the general election, but how we continue to radically transform the world afterwards.

TWT19 was the biggest festival of political education in a generation. Senior MPs shared the stage with grassroots activists and the country’s most cutting-edge DJs and musicians shared a lineup with the world’s most skilled campaigners. Across four days we learned, discussed, debated and danced together in nightclubs, churches, parks and community centres throughout Brighton.

What’s more, at this year’s Labour Party conference, ideas that TWT played an instrumental role in popularising, such as a 4-day working week and a green new deal, have now become official Labour Party policy. In 2016, that was simply unthinkable. By being part of TWT, you are helping to make the unimaginable a reality.  

We've now cleaned up after the parties, disassembled the socialism sign and taken down the magic money tree. But the work doesn’t stop here. Our movement has a huge task ahead of us. We must win the next general election and ensure that any Corbyn government commits to a radical policy agenda.

You can help The World Transformed continue to build our movement by becoming a part of the TWT supporters network. TWT is run largely by a team of volunteers, who commit vast amounts of energy and time in order to help grow our movement. By joining the supporters network, you can help TWT become a sustainable project that’s capable of paying more people and supporting political education all year round. Plus, you’ll get a free ticket for next year’s festival.

Very soon, we’ll be launching a new year-round political education project, so keep an eye on our social media channels for further information on this. In the meantime, thank you so much for helping to make TWT19 so special. We couldn’t have done it without you.

In solidarity,
The World Transformed

Victory for the Right to Free Speech and Debate over the Apologists for Israel – Brighton & Hove Says No to Israeli style ‘Democracy’

Chris Williamson MP and Jackie Walker defy Peter Kyle and the Zionists to speak to a packed audience at the Rialto

From left to right - Anne Mitchell, Greg Hadfield (Chair), Chris Williamson and Tina Werkman

 

 

The day started off with the erection of a ‘Free Speech’ tent in Brighton’s Regency Square.  Actually it was a gazebo but it served the same purpose. We erected our banners and gave out hundreds of leaflets and met with an overwhelmingly warm reception from local residents.

However we did spot Luciana Berger the ex-Labour Zionist now Liberal MP with a bunch of suits and Jewish Labour Movement delegate and thuglet, Ella Rose.

Chris Williamson speaking

The Zionists, who despite most of them being born here, fail to understand the meaning of free speech, were once again outmanoeuvred. They had promised to stop us organising a meeting with Chris Williamson and Jackie Walker and they failed miserably.

According to the Zionists free speech in Brighton is a dire threat to Brighton’s Jewish community, who are ‘baited’ by having anti-Zionist opinions being aired in public.  Clearly they prefer the near unanimity of public opinion in Israel to Britain.

At 1.00 we packed away the gazebo and retired for drinks on the seafront before making our way over to the Free Speech Centre at the Rialto.

Despite hundreds of abusive tweets from the Zionists aimed at the Rialto along the lines of ‘how can you remain neutral between racism and anti-racism, Zionism and anti-Zionism’, the Rialto held firm. Unlike the Brighthelm and other venues they refused to allow abusive phone calls and tweets to deter them.

The Free Speech Gazebo

All of the tweets, without exception, accepted and assumed that those of us meeting at the Rialto and organising a series of events around socialism, Palestine and free speech, were somehow racist.  The irony is that it is the defenders of Israeli Apartheid who are accusing others of ‘racism’.

In the 1970’s when active in anti-fascist work, we were regularly accused of being ‘anti-White’ racists by the National Front. There is no difference to being accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ by the Zionists. Israel is a ‘Jewish’ State which openly says it is a state of its Jewish not its non-Jewish citizens yet it is us who are accused of ‘anti-Semitism’.

It is a world turned upside down when racists accused their opponents of racism! Israel is a state that forbids its 20% Arab population having access to 93% of the land, whose Rabbis openly call Palestinians animals and where there is a constant air of incitement led by the Prime Minister himself.  Israel is a state where rabbis even say that Hitler was right even if he got the wrong victims.

We were fortunate in finding owners of a venue with more backbone that the Brighthelm Centre in Brighton which cancelled the initial Chris Williamson meeting, the Methodist Centre which insists on equality between the occupier and the occupied and even the Friends Meeting House which has buckled under the pressure.

Events which we organised today included a showing of Jackie Walker’s film, The Witchhunt.  This film was supposed to be premiered at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool last year but it was disrupted by a bomb scare.  It has already been shown in Brighton earlier this year but to an audience at a secret location.

Today was the first open showing of the film and we are repeating the showing on Monday at the Rialto for those who missed the meeting.

A member of the audience speaking during the extensive question time

The next big event was the Chris Williamson meeting at 7 pm which was livestreamed.  Anne Mitchell of Hove CLP spoke.  Anne has been suspended by the Labour Party and she is being recommended for expulsion without a hearing because she tweeted a few comments in opposition to Israel’s crimes.  Greg Hadfield chaired the meeting and made a number of points about the attack on free speech.  Jackie Walker spoke at length about her own experiences and Tina Werkmann spoke for Labour Left Alliance and Labour Against the Witchhunt. Greg Hadfield also auctioned 2 original prints of a Steve Bell cartoon which the Guardian banned.

The meeting was packed to the rafters with people. A number of people, including myself spoke from the floor.  I emphasised that we face an unprecedented situation of a direct attack on freedom of speech and we have to react accordingly. We cannot allow the supporters of a racist apartheid state to close down free speech.

After the meeting we all retired downstairs in the Rialto for drinks.  The venue is really an excellent one, hitherto unknown and we are thinking of setting up a socialism film club here.

This week has not been cheap as the expenditure included hiring the Rialto and other expenses such as paying for an Events License for the use of Regency Square. This was made possible through a grant from a sympathetic charity which believes in free speech.

Tony Greenstein

It's difficult to know where to start with these tweets - they assume that the users, including Jews, are racists and antisemites - never does it enter their tiny minds that supporters of Israel's naked apartheid are the racists

Sebag Montefiore leads the way with stupid comment 'do you really think that antisemits have decent moral views' what the hell does this mean, leaving aside that it was the Zionists who have most in common with antisemites

'If you are neutral in situations of injustice' waxes idiot Mark Lewis - where is the injustice in having to listen to anti-racist opinions - this moron quotes Archbishop Tutu about neutrality in situations of oppression forgetting that the Archbishop condemns Israeli Apartheid as worse than that in South Africa 

It's a tribute to the power of brainwashing that these idiots all assume that we were antisemitic or racist  - Steven Gray quotes Pastor Niemoller without ever one understanding what was said

More idiocy from SFI - there is no such thing as 'left wing antisemitism'

This is the same Zionist Board who justified the murder by Israeli snipers of unarmed demonstrators

More hysteria from Fiona Sharpe, a bigot and an Islamaphobe and also a perjurer who racially abused a Palestinian on film

Chris Williamson MP Defies Zionist Intimidation and the Lies of Peter Kyle to Speak in Brighton

A Magnificent Victory for Free Speech – the Voice of Anti-racism and Anti-Fascism Will Not Be Silenced By Thuggery and Intimidation

When the newly formed Labour Left Alliance was recently formed little did we expect that our opponents on the Labour Right and in the Zionist lobby would move heaven and earth to prevent Chris Williamson MP speaking at our first public meeting.

Peter Kyle, right-wing nominally Labour MP for Hove

Brighton & Hove Momentum give their support to the meeting

Two weeks ago ‘Labour’ MP for Hove, Peter Kyle, pressurised the Brighthelm Church and Community Centre into cancelling our booking of their main hall. Liar Kyle stated that ‘“our city should not be a welcoming place for people who bait the Jewish community or sow seeds of division.’

The only person ‘baiting’ the Jewish community was Kyle himself. Instead of giving the real reasons for not wanting Chris Williamson to speak – the witchhunt, austerity, fake anti-Semitism – he used the Jewish community as a political battering ram.

Kyle has been unable to point to one single thing that Chris Williamson has said which is anti-Semitic. All that he has done is to call out the fake anti-Semitism campaign against mainly Black and Jewish members of the Labour Party.

Chris Williamson’s response, that “When Peter Kyle was still in nappies, I was an active member of the Anti-Nazi League, physically confronting foul racists and anti-Semites in the National Front.” said it all.

Email from Holiday Inn

The next venue to be targeted was the Holiday Inn which had accepted our booking. The Zionists and their friends in the Labour Party engaged in crude and violent intimidation. Abusve phone calls were made calling the staff ‘cunts’ coupled with two men who came in to warn the receptionists that there would be ‘consequences’ if the meeting went ahead forced the hotel into cancelling the booking.

Chris Williamson, Greg Hadfield & Tony Greenstein

They sent Greg Hadfield, who had booked the meeting an email which made it quite clear that the reason for cancellation was that

‘Over the past 24 hours, our hotel and employees have been subject to abuse and threats from members of the public on the phone, on email and on social media outlets.’

Disingenuous statement by national Quakers and response

Finally today the Zionists and Labour Right learnt that we had booked the Friends Meeting House as a backup. Although we have had excellent relations with the local Quakers unfortunately the Quakers nationally were pressurised by the Zionists and they stepped in and forced the cancellation of the meeting.

The tweet put out by the Quakers nationally was disgraceful. It implied that the reason for cancelling the booking was anti-Semitism, when no one has or could point out anything Chris Williamson has said that is even remotely anti-Semitic. It was a thoroughly disingenuous tweet.

In other words it was an act of cowardice by people who aren’t prepared to back up what they say with evidence.  Of course they didn’t accuse Chris of anti-Semitism they merely implied it.  Doubly dishonest.

At 1 pm on Thursday we learnt of the cancellation and I have to confess that I was beginning to think that we might have to accept defeat.  Full marks to Greg Hadfield who had the wits about him to hire an outside PA.  Coupled with the good weather it was decided that we would hold the meeting outdoor in Regency Square in the finest traditions of the labour movement.  Regency Square is a grand place and is, as its name implies, a place of some architectural interest.

At 6 pm we gathered at our pre-arranged meeting point by the Odeon cinema. It had been intended to redirect people to the Friends Meeting House.  Instead we redirected people to Regency Square. When people learnt of what had happened and the cancellation of yet another venue, they were outraged.  Quite rightly people felt angered that a lobby group for a foreign state, Israel, was preventing them attending a meeting to listen to a British MP. Out they poured as we sent never ending groups along to Regency Square, which was 5 minutes away.

Right-wing weirdo Lukey Stanger

At 6.30 an email was sent to our email list telling people where the new venue was. The Zionists meanwhile met outside Brighton Town Hall and we were told that they would be marching to the new venue. In fact the only person to turn up was Lukey Stanger who is         suspended from the Labour Party for harassment of women and claiming that Travellers are a ‘nasty blight’ on society.

Although Zionist stragglers turned up they kept to the fringers and shied away from disrupting a crowd of between 150 and 200 people.  Given that the Friends Meeting House lecture theatre holds only about 100 people, we had inadvertently been given, free of charge, a larger space with which to accommodate people.

After the cancellation of the Holiday Inn room, which held 195 places, we were seriously worried that we could not fit everyone in to the Friends Meeting House. Regency Square however is large enough! It was also the scene of a meeting in July 2016 when Jeremy Corbyn spoke at the overflow to a meeting in the nearby Metropole Hotel.

Chris spoke for about half an hour, primarily on socialist economics and monetary theory whilst refuting all the allegations of anti-Semitism. As he pointed out, he had physically fought the National Front and similar anti-Semites when the Labour Right had argued that even fascist were entitled to freedom of speech,  Right-wing Labour has never opposed the fascists.  They only oppose anti-racists and anti-imperialists under the guise of anti-racism.

Asa Jansson, an academic from Sweden spoke next and she drew the parallels between the rise of fascism in her own country and what is happening today in Britain. It was a careful and thoughtful speech from someone who was in at the beginning of Brighton and Hove Momentum before it swung to the Right.

There were a number of speakers from the audience including myself. One of them, a woman, asked all people of Jewish origin to come and stand by the ‘Jew baiter’ Chris Williamson and about 8 people did so.  Presumably we are the ‘wrong sort of Jew’ i.e. we are not racists or Zionists.

When I spoke I made the point that those who accused us of racism are the very people who introduced the ‘hostile environment’ policy and Windrush, both of which began under New Labour. I also made the simple point that Peter Kyle’s differences with Chris Williamson and Jeremy Corbyn have nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is simply a smokescreen.  Kyle’s objections are to do with his support for the involvement if private health care companies in the NHS, to his support for academies, PFI and all the other New Labour/Tory policies which led to 2 successive general election defeats in 2010 and 2015.

I also dealt with the argument that Labour has an ‘anti-Semitism’ problem by way of an analogy.  There are undoubtedly a few paedophiles in the Labour Party just as there are a few people with anti-Semitic ideas.  However no one suggests that the Labour Party therefore has a paedophile problem so why do they say it has an anti-Semitism problem? The answer is Jeremy Corbyn and his proposals, mild though they are, for a redistribution of wealth.

Over 150 people attended this wonderful outdoor meeting.  There was a determination amongst people that we would not be silenced or prevented from meeting.  That the littler Hitlers and petty dictators who had sought to prevent us meeting would and did fail. As I said in my speech, 40 years ago the National Front had tried to stop the Left in Brighton meeting.  They failed then and those who tried to stop us meeting, the Kyles and the Fiona Sharpes of Sussex Friends of Israel have failed now. Unfortunately the Quakers when it came to standing up to powerful lobbies simply folded. 

Tony Greenstein