Jon Lansman stages a Coup D’état in Momentum as the National Committee is cancelled by the Steering Committee

The  Long Awaited Founding Conference of Momentum Will Be a Virtual Conference!

Jon Lansman, Momentum's founder is determined not to share power with the membership

Matt Wracks Speech on Momentum at the LRC Conference from Percivale Productions on Vimeo.

In his farewell speech to the House of Commons Tony Benn repeated one of his most famous sayings concerning democracy and accountability.  It is particularly relevant at the present time given Jon Lansman’s coup against Momentum’s membership.

‘In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.’ 

These are the questions we should be asking of Jon Lansman and those on the Steering Committee who voted with him –does your power derive, to whom are you accountable and most importantly how do Momentum members rid themselves of your misleadership?

Jackie Walker - removed as Vice-Chair of Momentum by Jon Lansman and friends despite the overwhelming opposition of Momentum members and branches

On the evening of October 27, Jon Lansman, the sole director of ‘Jeremy for Labour’ company (renamed from Momentum Campaign Ltd in the summer), called an emergency meeting of the Momentum Steering Committee for the evening of October 28 – i.e., with 19 hours’ notice. Some members, such as Matt Wrack and Jackie Walker, were not able to attend at such short notice.  The meeting decided, by six votes to three, to cancel the November 5 meeting of the National Committee which was scheduled to take decisions on the organisation of Momentum’s founding conference in February 2017.   

It was the February National Committee meeting which elected the Steering Committee for the following six months, i.e. up to August.  Therefore what has happened is that Momentum’s Steering Committee, a lower body, has just voted to disallow the higher body from meeting!  Clearly constitutional theory is not Lansman’s forte!   

It also decided that the first Momentum conference should be in the ethernet, a virtual reality conference.  It would have no physical manifestation.  There would be no meeting hall, no delegates, no debates, just an atomised membership who  would vote on the different proposals put before them.  And who would decide the structures that allow such a vote?  Well you guessed it.  The same Jon Lansman and his coterie who have decided that, come what may, they can’t be removed.  Hence why Momentum’s Companies are in the sole name of Lansman, who is sole director.

Since the National Committee elected the Steering Committee it is unconstitutional for the latter body to effectively abolish the body which elected it.  It recalls the famous poem "Die Lösung" (The Solution) of Bertold Brecht after the workers’ uprising in East Berlin in 1953:

After the uprising of June 17th

The Secretary of the Authors' Union

Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee

Which said that the people

Had forfeited the government's confidence

And could only win it back

By redoubled labour. Wouldn't it

Be simpler in that case if the government

Dissolved the people and

Elected another?

In an email issued by Momentum to ‘key people’ “in local groups the decision was justified by the fact that “some Momentum members, groups and regional network meetings had raised concerns about the organisation of the 5 November National Committee meeting, the process leading up to it and democratic representation and participation for Momentum members more broadly”.  We are not told who these people are nor what were their concerns were.  Still less were we told whether they had called for the NC not to meet.

If it is true that people had concerns about the November NC then this is entirely the fault of the self-same committee that is now shutting down our democracy altogether.   This body gave branches and regional committees almost no time to meet and discuss proposals for the conference or to choose delegates for the November 5 meeting. In fact, most members have not even seen the various proposals on the future of Momentum and how the conference might be run.

One member, one vote

Lansman also pushed through a motion which stipulates that the conference must be organised via a system of “online voting for all members” – the full 20,000 of them! The merits or otherwise of the various forms of representation for the conference was to be decided by the November 5 National Committee which has now been conveniently cancelled.

An excited email sent to all members on 29^th October from Momentum centrally informs us that, “Over the coming months, members will propose their ideas on Momentum’s aims, ethics, and structure. We will use digital technology to ensure that all members can be involved and shape Momentum’s future.”

This is the very opposite of democracy. It is designed to atomise individual members and undermine conference as the collective decision-making body of Momentum. It underlines the extent to which sections of the left have internalised the defeats of the past decades.  It is Thatcher’s union ‘reforms’ writ large.

To add to the confusion, it is unclear precisely what Lansman and his allies are actually proposing. Jill Mountford takes a guess that “it seems what they mean is that delegates to Momentum conference will not take any decisions but votes will instead be taken by an online ballot of all members afterwards.  This is bizarrely reminiscent of Blairism, bureaucratic manipulation veiled in plebiscitary pseudo-democracy.”

This is worse than anything Tony Blair managed to foist on the Labour Party. How can we ever again gripe about the bowdlerising of Labour Party conference democracy if we acquiesce to the travesty that Jon Lansman and his cohorts are trying to foist on to us? 

We are still in the dark as to how motions might be proposed to conference. The original Lansman plan required an initial 50 signatures for a motion to progress further. After several more hurdles had been vaulted, 1000 signatures would be required for a motion to be heard by conference. Many branches and regional committees have criticised this, calling for the threshold to be lowered. It is very likely that the National Committee meeting of November 5 would have overturned restrictive stipulations like these and challenged many more of the plans of Lansman and co. 

Clearly it is much better to just stop the NC from meeting at all!  On 29^th October I received the following email, as did other Momentum  members.  It is a classic example of deception dressed up in the language of false bravado.  I omit the final flowery paragraph:

Dear Tony,

Momentum has had a big first year. We’ve established over 150 local groups across the UK, run national campaigns, formed the backbone of Jeremy’s incredible second leadership campaign - and now we have over 20,000 members.

Momentum helps the Labour Party to become a more open, democratic and campaigns-focused organisation. We need to be member-led ourselves. You must decide the future of your organisation.

Yesterday, Momentum’s Steering Committee voted to start the process of ensuring that Momentum becomes a truly democratic member-led organisation, reflecting the new kind of politics.

Over the coming months, members will propose their ideas on Momentum’s aims, ethics, and structure. We will use digital technology to ensure that all members can be involved and shape Momentum’s future. This process will culminate in our first national conference, with online voting for all members, in February.

In solidarity,

Team Momentum

It is a classic in Orwellian hyperbole and double think.  It talks about a member led organisation when the proposals from the SC are designed to achieve the exact opposite.  The decision of the SC to distribute the arguments of those opposed to these proposals were conveniently overturned as Lansman fondly imagines that if he doesn’t distribute them people won’t oppose know about them!  Dictators far more intelligent than Lansman have harboured similar illusions!  Momentum groups are up in arms, not only about this but the removal of Jackie Walker as Vice-Chair.  

The Statement Below is a precis from Labour Party Marxists

The last 48 hours have seen all hell break lose in Momentum.  It is essential that Momentum members and branches hurry messages and resolutions into Momentum centre to condemn this latest attempt to shut down democracy in the organisation. 

At the heart of what has happened lies a deep, morbid distrust of the members and democracy. As SC member Jill Mountford put it in her report: “Sam Wheeler and Jon Lansman spent far too much time arguing that local groups and the regional committees were undemocratic and unrepresentative.” 

Momentum branches are forbidden to send emails to all Momentum members in their area. All communications must be routed through Momentum nationally, presumably so the content can be vetted.

·         Momentum branches have been told not to bring their members together in constituencies and wards to work to maximise their political impact in these geographical units of the party. This makes it very hard to effectively cohere the Labour left in these locales. The official reason for this restriction is that the Labour Party does not allow the affiliation of organisations with a ‘mirror' structure, as the rule book dubs it. But then, Momentum is not affiliated to the Labour Party, it is not a party. Its members should be working together in cohesive units, sharing experiences and discussing in their democratic local forums the direction of their national organisation. 

·         Apart from sending out insipid campaigning news, the Momentum leadership does not communicate with its members. There are no minutes, no reports, no agendas of the organisation’s committees. Some “key contacts”, as they are dubbed, in some branches sometimes receive a little information. A few of these comrades forward this intel to some other people some of the time. In effect this has helped to create local cliques that monopolise key information. The vast majority of Momentum membership have no idea of who runs their organisation, what decisions they take and how. 

Momentum’s claim to represent some sort of clean “new kind of politics” is starting to look very much like the old type of politics – decisions taken before  meetings have even convened, a disregard of basic constitutional principles, an existing clique trying to preserve its own power.  In fact the  behaviour of Jon Lansman, Sam Tarry and co. seems to resemble nothing so much as the behaviour of Iain McNicol and Tom Watson.   They are the very antithesis of democratic socialism.

The London Momentum regional committee on October 29 voted by 31 to 0 (with 2 abstentions) for the following motion.  For a Report see here

This meeting of the London Momentum Regional Committee censures the National Steering Committee for cancelling the meeting of the National Committee that was scheduled for 5 November and agreeing a method of organising the national conference without waiting for the National Committee to discuss it.

We do not recognise the legitimacy of the Steering Committee to make these decisions. We call for these decisions of the National Steering Committee to be rescinded and for the NC to proceed as originally scheduled on 5 November.

 

2) The Labour Representation Committee:  

LRC national conference  passed this resolution at its October 29 conference:

LRC AGM condemns the decision of yesterday's Momentum SC to cancel the scheduled NC for 5th November and its decision to abandon a delegate conference in February.

3) Model motion from Labour Party Marxists:

This meeting condemns the decision by a hastily convened emergency meeting of the Momentum Steering Committee on October 28 to cancel the November 5 meeting of the National Committee. This NC was scheduled to decide the organisational details of our first national conference in February 2017.

Important decisions on the future of Momentum should involve as many members as possible. Six people on the national Steering Committee (a body that was supposed to be re-elected in August 2016) have decided to stop branches and regional committees to have their say on the future of our organisation.

We call for the National Committee meeting, re-arranged for December 10, to go ahead. It must discuss and make decisions on all issues pertaining to the organisation of our conference, including voting arrangements, delegate credentials and ratios, the future composition of the National Committee, etc.

 Jill Mountford who is a member of the Momentum Steering Committee has blogged on what happened at the meeting of 28^th October because of course Lansman and co. would not dream of distributing minutes or a report of the meeting.

Momentum Steering Committee cancels 5 November NC, but we win vote for new date (including who voted how)

* For cancelling 5 November: Jon Lansman, Darren Williams, Sam Tarry, Marsha Jane Thompson, Christine Shawcroft, Sam Wheeler.

Against: Jill Mountford, Michael Chessum, Cecile Wright.
Abstaining: Martyn Cook.

** For calling a new NC in December: Darren Williams, Martyn Cook, Cecile Wright, Jill Mountford, Michael Chessum, Christine Shawcroft.

Abstaining: Jon Lansman, Marsha Jane Thompson, Sam Wheeler, Sam Tarry.

I must confess to being surprised by the vote of Christine Shawcroft who is part of the split in Labour Briefing.  She voted for the removal of Jackie Walker as vice-chair of Momentum but I took that to be  because of bad blood between the groups.  This vote is inexplicable. 

Another member of the Momentum Steering Committee, Michael Chessum, explains his vote against Lansman’s proposals.

‘What do you call it when an executive votes to abolish the legislature?...

Momentum's steering committee met tonight in a meeting that was called with less than a day's notice, ostensibly to consider delaying the National Committee meeting which was due to meet on November 5th. I went to the meeting prepared to oppose the move (it's already 6 months since our democratic structures met) and expected to find myself in a minority. The NC was due to discuss (among other things) the composition and processes for Momentum's February conference, which would in turn decide our structures. In advance of it, local groups and regions had patchily met to discuss various proposals.

But my initial concerns were blown out of the water. Instead, the meeting not only voted to postpone the NC to December, but to bypass the NC entirely and make the decision that Momentum's conference should effectively not happen (instead being a live streamed national gathering), and momentum's structures decided by e-ballot. This was in a meeting called with 19 hours notice.

A lot of this was justified with an attitude of "it can't possibly be undemocratic to let all members vote, so pack up your deliberative structures and democratically agreed processes". Now I don't know about anyone else who's been around the Labour movement for more than 5 minutes, but I've heard that strain of logic before - and i dont mean from the left.

Now even if you think that literally all of the organisation's decisions should be taken by OMOV (personally I favour a mixed system with both OMOV and delegate meetings; but I can quite see how with a complex conference structures debate you might want a delegate debate rather than an atomized online vote), but whatever your view, this is just an outrageous, farcical way for that decision to be made.

Momentum is fantastic - and so are many of the people who frankly found themselves on the wrong side on this - but I really worry about the left sometimes, and how some bits of it have absorbed the modus operandi of blairism during the wilderness years.

Jackie Walker has also issued a statement:

"I am making a statement on the working of the Momentum Steering Committee.

Up till now, despite others commenting freely, and often in an uninformed way, I have agreed to be silent. However, events of the last few days have changed this.

'Almost immediately after the Jewish Labour Movement began to tweet against me after the training event, a 'senior member' of Momentum joined in, briefing the press, in particular a Guardian journalist, Joan Elgot. Interestingly those tweets have since been removed, though screenshots have been taken. This was very soon followed by full articles, both in the on-line and paper version, which said "The Guardian understands her removal from the post is likely to be confirmed when the committee meets on Monday. A spokesperson for the left wing grassroots movement, which was set up to support Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the party, confirmed members wanted her to go." I was also informed by the Guardian, as were others on the Steering Committee, at the same time as the Guardian Leadership, the date and outcome of the meeting to remove me. Included in this same article were comments by Manuel Cortes, Gen Sec of the TSSA, threatening to remove Momentum from TSSA premises if I were not removed. This came, I believe, soon after Cortes had publicly called me a rabid anti-Semite, or something to that effect.

While the press may have known when the meeting to remove me would be, as well as the result, I was given only 48 hours notice of the hearing and no details either of how it would be run or what the charges were against me, despite repeated requests. The extraordinary spectacle of a group of trades unionist treating a comrade in a way THEY would not accept had they been representing me as trades unionist was shameful to our movement. No statement was taken from me or from anyone who had been at the JLM training event. The irony is the SC used evidence from the same media sources that had recently condemned Jeremy as an incompetent, an antisemite and a terrorist.

After this kangaroo court, I asked for a complaint of this process to be forwarded to the NC and for an investigation to be launched about the leak. A meeting of the SC voted against giving me access to the NC. I know who leaked, as do many people on the SC.

As to the most recent example of the lack of democracy of the SC, on Thursday at 10:30pm I received a notification of an emergency SC meeting. There was no mention of a discussion on how the conference would be run. A number of people could not make, or would not agree to come to such a meeting. A number of people, including myself and Matt Wrack, protested as to undemocratic process. Some members agreed to phoned in. Imagine my shock the next morning at being informed both that the NC was to be postponed and that the decision had been made by the SC that conference votes would be made on line. This occurred even though at least 2 papers were outlining different process of voting at conference had been tabled for discussion at the (now cancelled) NC.

The sovereign body is the NC. The SC is there to implement their decisions. This is an outrage.

The two examples I describe here are just the most well known of a general culture of disdain which too many members of the SC have supported. It is crucial that this changes.’ 

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

Caught passing information to the Compliance Unit - Moyle deprecates social media abuse unless he is doing it

Lloyd Russell-Moyle specialises in conflict resolution but seems to cause more conflicts than he resolves

What can one say about someone who wrote to me on 22^nd August saying that

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

Admirable sentiments to be sure, but not quite at one with his actions!

Just over a week ago, in conversation with others including Sam Wheeler, a member of the Momentum Steering Committee and one of those who caved into the Jewish Labour Movement’s racist witch-hunt by removing Jackie Walker as Vice-Chair was not quite so restrained. Another participant was Joe Riches, a councillor and Yorkshire regional organiser of the Jeremy for Labour campaign who told Sheffield Momentum not to hold a stall at a Corbyn rally and was told where to go.  Indeed Moyle's comments fit squarely into the definition of abuse that has got thousands of Labour members suspended.  Moyle wrote:

‘I am the chair of his clp [District Labour Party in fact] and can tell you he is an abusive, unpleasant little man.  I have told him that to his face.  He alienates people who should be his natural supporters... he has gone about bullying the (Jewish, 17 year old) chair of our young labour group... abusing cllrs and being disruptive at meetings even when the “left” was winning.  There was not a right wing coup Brighton but an authoritarian move from the national office to suspend when the left was elected....’

A classic example of do what I say rather than what I do

i.                    Moyle obviously finds my height of some significance.  Perhaps I should also associate being a liar with having ginger hair!  It has about as much logic.

ii.                  Moyle said nothing to my face because he is one of those people who is polite to someone's face and then goes gossiping when their backs are turned.    

iii.                There is no truth in the allegation that I bullied anyone.  Yes I suggested to the Chair of Young Labour in Brighton when he announced to the world that he was joining the JLM that he was joining a group that defended ethnic cleansing.  Should age protect young people from the implications of their actions or should one patronise them and refuse to discuss 'adult' topics even over twitter?  Perhaps we should have been politer with 15 and 16 year old National Front supporters according to this same logic?

iv.                Likewise I pointed out to Progress councillors Caroline Penn and Emma Daniels, who also joined the JLM that they were joining an organisation which supports Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian territories and that its methods include minor things like the beating up and torture of 12 year old children and shackling and depriving them of liberty without access to their parents.  Unsurprisingly Daniels, Penn and 17 yr old Joe were all Owen Smith supporters.

v.                  It is a lie that I have disrupted any meetings, but what is one lie among many?

vi.                The idea that there wasn’t a right-wing coup in Brighton is fanciful.  It was the false allegations of Moyle’s councillor friends which enabled the national party to intervene and suspend the Party.  

Russell-Moyle is one of those fairweather Corbyn supporters whose only firm principle is the need to advance his own career.  Despite policy being passed by the local party opposing my suspension, Moyle has repeatedly written to the Compliance Unit urging them to take swifter action and to ensure that they have a water-tight case for expulsion.  Being a believer in openness, honesty and transparency, he didn't think of copying me into the correspondence.

A heavily redacted e-mail from Moyle to the Compliance Unit

Moyle served as Chair of the DLP for little over 6 months.  During that time he managed to alienate most members.  At one meeting Clare Wadey, herself a member of the Executive, challenged Moyle’s high-handed and undemocratic behaviour such that he ordered her from the meeting.  When his ruling was put to the vote it was overwhelmingly defeated.   On another occasion he tried to use procedural rules he had invented to prevent an emergency motion in support of the Doctors' strike.  Again he lost.

What provoked Moyle’s ire?  Primarily my response to a fatuous Executive statement on anti-Semitism issued at the height of the fake anti-Semitism hysteria.

The statement began ‘Following the recent reports of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party’.  It tookas its starting point the fake and contrived campaign against ‘anti-Semitism’ that Progress, John Mann and the right-wing media concocted. 

It then confused what it calls ‘revisionist history’ i.e. Holocaust denial with ‘(making) links between the Nazi regime and the demand for a safe homeland’ i.e. Zionism.  Zionism was not a demand for a safe homeland, it was a movement for a Jewish settler colonial state in a land where it was intended that the indigenous population, the Palestinians, would be ethnically cleansed.  Leading Zionists such as Arthur Ruppin were quite clear about this at the time.  Zionism was a movement to establish a state of Jewish racial supremacy not a state whose primary purpose was saving Jews from the Holocaust.  That was why David Ben-Gurion in reaction to the Kindertransport, which the Zionists opposed, after Kristalnacht told the Mapai (Israeli Labour Party) Central Committee on 7.12.38 that:

If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel.

This quote can be found in the official biography of Ben Gurion, 'The Burning Ground: 1886-1948' by Shabtai Teveth on p.855.   The whole chapter, entitled 'Disaster Means Strength' on the Nazi Holocaust and Zionism is worth reading for the cynical Zionist attitude that saw the Holocaust as a golden opportunity for advancing Zionist claims to a Jewish state.  In fact their attitude differs little from their exploitation of the Holocaust for Zionist purposes today.

Moyle's statement on 'anti-Semitism'  repeats for a second time that there is a growth in anti-Semitic attacks in Europe, a dubious proposition in itself.  It then informed people that ‘Anti-Semitism is a distinct form of racism’.  Another meaningless statement since all forms of racism are distinctive in their own way.

As a classic example of the muddle headedness of the Labour Right on Palestine the statement then went on to declare that ‘Recent increases in people using "Zionist" as a substitute for "Jew" cannot be tolerated in our Party or our communities.’  Perhaps Lloyd and co. were unaware that it is the Zionists who assert that being Jewish and Zionist is one and the same.  For example in this week’s Jewish Chronicle there is an article Board criticises pro-Palestinian Soas students’ anti-Zionism event in which Marie van der Zyl, the Board of Deputies of British Jews vice-president, said:

 “For the vast majority of British Jews, political, cultural and religious affiliation with the state of Israel is a fundamental part of their Jewish identity.’

The occasion for this statement was the fact that students at the School of Oriental & African Studies had invited non-Zionist Jews to a meeting to discuss the differences between Zionism and Jews.  The Zionist Board didn't like this since it spends most of its time trying to confuse the two as well as closing down any meetings with which it doesn't agree!  In Israel dissidents are simply interned, subject to 6 months administrative detention without trial, which sometimes lasts for years.  In Britain they simply try to prevent free speech.  It is a constant theme of Zionists that being Jewish and Zionist is one and the same and hence anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is also the same.  Except of course for the thousands of Jewish anti-Zionists who are 'self-hater's, a term borrowed from the Nazi lexicon.  According to the Nazis, German anti-fascists also hated themselves since they denied the primacy of 'race' and 'nation' hence they hated themselves since, for fascists, a person only exists to serve the nation/race.

The article starts ‘The Board of Deputies has condemned a planned event by a pro-Palestinian student group which aims to separate anti-Zionism from antisemitism.’  Quite understandably, the BOD wishes to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, i.e, hatred of Jews with support for the Palestinians.  Lloyd was not however calling out Zionists who deliberately conflate  the terms ‘Zionist’ and ‘Jew’.

Having muddled up just about everything it was possible to muddle, the statement went on to say that ‘The existence of Israel and its peoples right to self determination should not be questioned more than anyone's right to a nation.’  What Moyle omitted to say (or more likely was too ignorant to have inquired into) is that Israel is not just another state, but a Jewish state in which racism is enmeshed in the fabric of the state – the Israeli state is the most racist state in the world.  This is because it is the only active settler colonial state today in the world.  It is a state consisting of Jews and non-Jews.  There is according to Zionist ideology no Israeli nation – the Israeli courts ruled against this in George Tamarin v State of Israel in 1972 and again in Uzi Ornan v State of Israel in 2013.

In the latter case Ha’aretz noted that the Supreme Court’s ‘statement that there is no such entity as an Israeli nation strongly echoes the statement by Golda Meir when she was prime minister that “there is no Palestinian people.” 

One of Moyle's redacted emails

In Tamarin Justice Agranat ruled that ‘the desire to create an Israeli nation separate from the Jewish nation is not a legitimate aspiration. A division of the population into Israeli and Jewish nations would … negate the foundation on which the State of Israel was established.’  In plain English, as a Jewish state, Israel is a state not only of its own Jewish citizens but Jews living outside the state, like myself.  The problem with Israel, uniquely amongst states, is that it is not a state of its own citizens but a state of Jews, be they citizens or not.

So the concept of the right of Israeli people to self-determination is a nonsense.  There is no Israeli people.  Zionism refuses to accept such a notion.  Ipso facto there cannot be Israeli self-determination. See Discrimination is legal, there are no Israelis: Reading the Supreme Court’s decisions on Israeli nationality.  Of course I wouldn’t expect Moyle to understand any of this since he takes pride in his ignorance.

The final part of Moyle's statement was that ‘many tens of thousands of Israeli citizens criticise their government on a daily basis through democratic processes.’ is simply making a virtue out of stupidity.   The anti-Zionist and anti-racist Left in Israel probably doesn’t even comprise more than a thousand Israeli Jews.  That was the situation in South Africa where anti-apartheid whites were a tiny handful. Israel is a state where there is a permanent state of emergency, where torture is regularly used (mainly against Palestinians) where segregation in education, land, employent is the rule and where even Israeli Palestinians live there as guests, on suffererance.  In the Occupied West Bank the situation is an openly apartheid one since there are two different legal systems - one for Jewish settlers and one for Palestinians.

Moyle might be forgiven his ignorance except that he reacted to my letter criticising his statement by writing to the Compliance Unit asking them to speed up my expulsion.  Unfortunately for the hapless Moyle, I gained access to his letters via a Subject Access Request.  True LP HQ did blank out his name but it wasn’t difficult to discern that there was only one rat who would write as an informer to the Compliance Unit.  To Russell-Moyle the Compliance Unit is a neutral body implementing Labour Party rules, even if they occasionally get it wrong, rather than a body which interprets and uses the rule as part of the campaign against supporters of Jeremy Corbyn. 

The fact that the Compliance Unit and LP Headquarters have, in a vain attempt to stop Jeremy Corbyn being elected, expelled, suspended or otherwise deprived of their vote thousands of Labour Party members is of no account.  The fact that his own Party has been suspended means nothing.

One only need contrast the behaviour of Moyle with that of Kathy Runswick and Paul Davies, Chair and Vice Chair of Wallasey CLP who have fought the Compliance Unit on behalf of their parties rather than acting as a second-rate member of the Stasi.

I wrote to  Moyle when I first discovered that he was an informer.  Being in a forgiving mood I offered him an opportunity to apologise and I would not publicise the matter.  In response Moyle wrote that:

‘Tony, 

I wrote to the regional office on a number of occasions about differnt members. Generally I take and took the view that conflicts should be handled in a clam, friendly and local manor and not escalated to national office. 

After the investigation was started and after a number of phone calls with Mr Gregson on your behalf asking him to expedite the process, be open and transparent I wrote to him on the following matters:

1.       Abuse of other members

2.       Speed of investigation

3.       Revelation of accusation/making the case watertight

I believe point 2 is mutually agreeable by all, that any case must be quickly dealt with and I have repeated this call a number of times. 

I believe that point 3 is in hindsight poorly worded from myself, but is an attempt to get across that you must be told what you are being accused of and that any case must be clear cut and not smoke a mirrors. I believe that you often try and run rings around people on the political stance, when in essence the complaint it actually about your unpleasant behaviour. In this regard, whist i'm no expert, I think a case based only on anti-semitism would not stand up against you, but your behaviour is something to be desired. 

Point 1 is my concerns at your ongoing abuse on social media to our members from yourself. Your are not the only members who I have written to Harry Gregson about their use of social media, including members of the current executive who I have had to pass on their writings after complaints have been made. 

Once a formal complaint has been made to the Party, I pass on all infomation I have on that person to the national office for them to investigate because its effectually taken out of my hands. 

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

This works both ways and I can assure you I have made complaints and reported abuse on all sides. 

You will note that I not once challenged or asserted that you were an anti-semite, in fact the very opposite, I believe that the party shouldn't pursue any political case against you, because it could well fail. I do however believe that your behavior to other comrades (even if you don't consider them comrades) is intolerable and must stop. 

I hope that you can accept my limited apoligy for point 3 being poorly worded, and I hope that you will understand that whilst I don't regard you as an anti-semite, I do believe that to style, tone and manor which you comment to be very unpleasant and to have no place in the Labour Party. 

On this, I believe that people can change, they can reform and that support for you to understand how human being should talk to each other in professional communications could help you. 

Yours

Lloyd

As a result of this grudging half-apology I decided to let the matter rest until the Facebook comments above surfaced.  Again I offered Lloyd the opportunity to apologise and explain himself.  Clearly he felt incapable of either offering an explanation or an apology, hence this post.

By his own definition, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, if he has any integrity left, will shortly be referring himself, of his own volition to the Compliance Unit!

Politically the conclusion to be drawn from this is that there is a layer of soft-Corbyn supporters and low level officials and councillors who believe that the Labour Party machine is a neutral instrument that can be captured intact and then used against other socialists in the Labour Party.

Tony Greenstein