In July Lowkey was Cancelled from the TUC’s Tolpuddle Festival as a Result of False Allegations of Anti-Semitism by Gary Smith, General Secretary of the GMB

Smith Did the Israel Lobby’s Dirty Work Targeting a Black Opponent of Israeli Apartheid with a Series of Zionist Lies

It was only in August that I wrote a blog Focus on the Corrupt GMB with an emphasis on General Secretary, Gary Smith. Smith is unfortunately in a long line of right-wing misogynists, racists and general reactionaries to hold the post.

On 16 May 2022 Smith took time out of his busy schedule selling out his members, to write a letter to the Regional Secretary of South Wales TUC, calling for Lowkey, the well known Black anti-racist to be cancelled at the forthcoming Tolpuddle Festival in July.

This is GENUINE racism unlike the fake 'antisemitism' that the Zionists shout about, usually involving Israel

This is of course understandable. Lowkey has been one of the foremost advocates for the Palestinians and opponents of Zionism, whose project in Israel is now led by open fascists.

You might think that the GMB had better things to do than support the Zionist lobby’s witchhunting of a Black anti-racist rapper. However you would be wrong. The GMB under Gary Smith takes a particular pride in being a symbol of racism, sexism and militarism in the trade union movement. Politically it is bankrupt.

In August 2020 the GMB was found, by a Report that it was forced to commission, to be institutionally sexist. It found, paragraph 3 that:

The immediate trigger for the investigation was the receipt of an undated letter addressed to Barbara Plant, the President of the GMB. The letter contained allegations of a “serious sexual assault (rape)”, drug use and sexually predatory behaviour, by a senior man within the GMB.

The letter also alleged that a number of named people were aware of the incident (the alleged rape) and those included senior members of staff.

Gary Smith, a careerist who was originally based in Brighton - he wouldn't know what anti-racism was if it bit him on his nether regions

Karen Monaghan QC, who wrote the report, hinted very strongly that the union was also institutionally racist. At paragraph 115, although strictly beyond her terms of reference, Monaghan observed that:

I was also contacted by a number of people from Black and minority ethnic groups. They recognised that this investigation is concerned with sexual harassment but wanted to draw to my attention the very real and serious problems that exist for members and employees from Black and minority ethnic groups. Having read written communications and spoken to some who contacted me, I am satisfied that the GMB is not a comfortable place to be for many employees and members from Black and minority ethnic groups.

Tim Roache - previous GMB General Secretary resigned under a cloud

The unnamed ‘senior man’ within the GMB is believed to be Tim Roache, the former General Secretary and as vicious a right-winger as Gary Smith. Roache resigned abruptly in April 2020, just 5 months after having been ‘reelected’ and at the same time as Monaghan began her investigation.

Despite these damning findings, Labour List asked, in April 1921, ‘Has anything changed in the GMB after the report on institutional sexism?’ It went on to inform readers that

A number of staffers have reached out to LabourList to tell us they believe things are “worse”, not better.

LabourList can reveal today that a group of women working at the GMB have lodged a formal dispute with the organisation, as they say the grievances of female staffers are not being heard fairly.

Who is responsible for the implementation of the Report if not the General Secretary, Gary Smith. However I understand that Smith too is currently under investigation for sexual harassment and he might therefore not be best suited to take this forward.

However this has not stopped Smith, an ardent Starmerite from launching a McCarthyist attack on Lowkey on behalf of the Apartheid State’s lobby in this country.

Gary Smith's Lying Letter

Lowkey has been a dedicated fighter against racism and oppression, in particular Zionism and Israeli apartheid. It was this last which motivated Smith. The ‘anti-Semitism’ that Lowkey was accused of is of the kind that got Chris Williamson suspended, in other words a deliberate distortion of what Lowkey actually said. Indeed it is far worse than what happened to Chris Williamson

Smith’s letter was full of lies and innuendo. Smith had ‘severe doubts about the suitability of Mr Dennis (Lowkey) as a performer at the TUC’s Tolpuddle Festival. Smith gave 3 reasons:

According to Gary Smith, mentioning Israel's supply of weaponry to neo-Nazis is 'antisemitic' - the truth has now become antisemitic

Lie No. 1    Lowkey had ‘promoted conspiracy theories’ that Israel had plotted to promote conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

What Lowkey has done is to highlight Israeli arms shipments to Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov battalion. Highly embarrassing to the Zionists but anti-Semitic? If this is anti-Semitism then presumably the article in Ha’aretz Rights Groups Demand Israel Stop Arming neo-Nazis in Ukraine is also anti-Semitic. Ha’aretz noted that:

In the past, Israel has armed anti-Semitic regimes, such as the generals’ regime in Argentina, which murdered thousands of Jews in camps while its soldiers stood in watchtowers guarding the abducted prisoners with their Uzi submachine guns.

According to a freedom of information petition to Israel's defense ministry from last January, Israel also armed Bolivia's military regimes, knowing that Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was part of the regime.… Barbie's death squads used Israeli Uzis….

The Azov militia was established in Ukraine following the Russian invasion of the Crimean peninsula in 2014. The militia’s emblems are well-known national socialist ones. Its members use the Nazi salute and carry swastikas and SS insignias.

Moreover, some of them openly admit they have neo-Nazi sentiments and that they are Holocaust deniers. One militia member said in an interview that he was fighting Russia since Putin was a Jew. An Azov sergeant said that he was a national socialist, although he was not in favor of genocide, and as long as minorities in Ukraine did not demand special rights he would have no problem with them.

 The militia’s founder, Andriy Biletsky, (stated).

“Our nation’s historic mission at this critical juncture is to lead the final march of the white race towards its survival” Biletsky has said. “This is a march against sub-humans who are led by the Semite race.” According to reports by human rights groups militia members are suspected of war crimes, torture and sexual violence.

This kind of anti-Semitism is of no concern to Israel or its defenders here. Lowkey highlighted how corrupt Ukrainian oligarch, Igor Kolomoisky who funded Zelensky’s Presidential victory in 2019 is a citizen of 3 countries – Israel, Cyprus and Ukraine – as well as being the main funder of the Azov Battalion.

Lie No. 2    Lowkey ‘had appeared recently alongside the disgraced figures of Chris Williamson and David Miller on Iranian state television.’

What you might ask is anti-Semitic about that? Many people have appeared on Press TV e.g. Jeremy Corbyn. That should not be taken as support for the regime. Smith has appeared on the BBC which has a far bloodier record for condoning western war crimes.

Lie No. 3   Lowkey’s third ‘crime’ was having given voice to ‘9/11 conspiracy theories.’

Even if he had supported 9/11 conspiracy theories it would not be anti-Semitic. But Smith lied again.

What Lowkey did do was to adapt Adrian Mitchell’s poem ‘To Whom It May Concern (Tell Me Lies About Vietnam) and in it mention Building 7, which was not hit by the planes in 9/11 but nonetheless collapsed. It was even published in 2009 on Stop the War Committee’s website.

Why this should be construed as anti-Semitic. But when you’re desperate to defend an apartheid regime which tortures and sexually molests children, which executes journalists and which openly refuses to recognise that Palestinians have any rights, then of course ‘anti-Semitism’ is all you have got left.

It is no surprise that Gary Smith has become the Zionists’ errand boy. The GMB is to the fore in the trade union movement in demanding an expansion of the War Budget so that even more billions are taken away from the NHS and social security and ploughed into Trident.

Smith’s letter was pretty thin gruel compared to the expense-paid dinners that Gary Smith consumes. Any semi-literate and politically aware TUC bureaucrat would have chucked this in the bin.

Kevin Rowan - another TUC bureaucrat whose main task is ensuring constitutional stability and stopping workers challenge capitalism

Not however Kevin Rowan, who has spent most of his working life at the TUC, first as Northern Secretary for 10 years and since April 2013 as Head of Services. From University to TUC bureaucrat.

https://youtu.be/wv8J_Pv6RS0

On 17 September 2022, in response to a query from a member of Brighton and Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Kevin Rowan of the TUC wrote:

Following the invitation to Lowkey to perform at Tolpuddle, comments he made regarding the religious heritage of President Zelensky were brough to our attention [he doesn’t say who by!]. Those statements are not congruent with the TUC’s opposition to anti-Semitism.

Well of course, if Lowkey had attacked or criticised Zelensky because he was Jewish then that would be anti-Semitic. But it was just another lie. It’s almost as if today’s Zionists get special training in a school for liars, but then again why bother when there are so many gullible fools like Rowan and Smith around?

There is no foundation to this allegation. Rowan is the TUC’s Head of Learning and one might have hoped that before opening his big mouth he might have taken the trouble to find out the facts.

In fact, when Russia invaded Ukraine last February, using the excuse that it was ‘de-Nazifying’ Ukraine media pundit after media pundit rushed to assure us that there were no Nazis in Ukraine. Their refrain was ‘Zelensky himself is Jewish.’

Media pundits like the BBC’s Ros Atkins repeatedly emphasised Zelensky’s Jewishness. Above is a series of clips from different media pundits, each emphasising Zelensky’s Jewishness in order that they could kosher the rag tag neo-Nazi militias that had been integrated both into Ukraine’s army and its state structures.

What was Lowkey’s ‘anti-Semitic’ response? Did he blame the conflict between NATO/Ukraine and Russia on Zelensky being Jewish? Not at all. He merely stated that Zelensky’s Jewishness was irrelevant to whether neo-Nazis were operating, with western support, in Ukraine. How is this in any way anti-Semitic? 

The Union of Jewish Students however was determined to run with these lies. Responding to a tweet by LBC’s far-right Political Editor, Theo Usherwood, they claimed that poor little fragile Jewish students would be put under intolerable stress if they had to listen to a Black man perform songs that might upset their racist souls.

‘How are Jewish students supposed to feel included in the wider student movement when NUS chooses this figure to perform?’

Unfortunately, as with UJS’s targeting of NUS’s Black President Shaima Dallai, who was sacked, NUS caved in again.

Instead of having the courage to tell UJS to fuck off back to their Apartheid Laager, NUS cancelled Lowkey. In other words White students claiming to be oppressed take precedence over Black students who are oppressed.

The Union of Jewish Students is one of the last bastions of ‘left’ Zionism in Britain. Except that there is nothing left about it. The only role that ‘left’ Zionists have today is in koshering their neo-Nazi counterparts in Israel because the Labour Zionists are almost completely eliminated from the Knesset.

UJS has embedded in its constitution support for Zionism and the Israeli state. It is affiliated to the settlement funding, land thieving World Zionist Organisation. Clause 2.1.1. of its Constitution states that one of its Objects is

inspiring Jewish students to make an enduring commitment to their Jewish identity, Israel, and the community.’

UJS is funded by the Israeli state. If anything NUS should register it as a foreign agent and treat it accordingly.

On 18 September I sent an email, as Secretary of my Unite Branch, to Nigel Costley who is Regional Secretary for South-West TUC, which includes Tolpuddle. I concluded my letter by saying:

Lowkey is a well-known Black anti-racist performer. To no platform a Black person at the behest of the supporters of apartheid, could be construed by some as an act of racism in itself.

I should add that I have met Lowkey on a number of occasions and I have never experienced anything in the way of anti-Semitism. I am myself Jewish and probably a better judge of what is anti-Semitic than Gary Smith or indeed you, so I would welcome clarification of what Lowkey is alleged to have said and not just hearsay or rumours.

Referring to Rowan’s letter I asked, given the allegations of anti-Semitism, ‘I would like to know exactly what these comments were.’ Of course Costley is another TUC bureaucrat. The idea of answering to ordinary union members or justifying their actions is something alien. Given his inability to provide any answers he responded:

If you were at this year’s festival you will have heard music supporting Palestine, stalls, a discussion session for solidarity with Palestine and supporting comments from the main stage.

The festival has a proud record of such support.

We are not, however, going to debate which musicians did or did not appear on the programme.

It was of course no answer. It is irrelevant which other musicians appeared. The whole point of solidarity with the oppressed is to defy the demands of racists not to accede to them. When it comes to standing up to Zionist racism the TUC is a wet blanket.

Background

The background to this is that Gary Smith and the GMB are as thick as thieves with the Jewish Labour Movement, which works closely with UJS. The JLM proudly declares that it is the ‘sister party’ of the ethnic cleansing Israeli Labor Party. 2022 has been the most deadly for Palestinians since 2005 yet it is the one year in the last 20 that the Israeli Labor Party has been in a governing coalition.

It is the year when Shireen Abu-Akleh, the Al Jazeera Journalist was executed by the Israeli military, as all independent investigations (CNN, Forensic Architecture, B’Tselem, NYT) have shown. It has been a year when all Palestinian human rights organisations were banned. It has been the year of unbridled violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, the burning of crops, the demolition of homes and the murder of over 60 Palestinian children. Yet throughout all this the JLM has been silent and complicit. Yet these are the racists that Gary Smith embraces.

Gary Smith and the GMB purport to support the Palestinians yet when the Zionists cry ‘anti-Semitism’ Smith has jumps to his fee and does their bidding. If Smith had any shame then an apology would be due to Lowkey for defaming him.

Unfortunately most trade union leaders are a parasitic caste living a good life at the expense of their members. Not for them the average wage of a worker.

Last year UJS and the Board of Deputies tried to cancel Ken Loach, the world famous film producer who 25 years ago produced a play Perdition telling the truth about the Kasztner Affair in Israel. For 4 long years (1954-8) the Israeli state was convulsed by the Kasztner trial which led to the downfall of Israel’s second government.

Kasztner was the leader of Hungarian Zionism and he made a deal with Adolf Eichmann – ‘allow me to save 600 leading Zionists on a train out of Hungary and we will help you round up the remainder of Hungary’s half a million Jews.’ That was it in a nutshell and it therefore meant suppressing the Auschwitz Protocols which 2 escapees from Auschwitz had brought to Slovakia and had written down their experiences of Auschwitz.

Not surprisingly UJS termed referring to historical facts about Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis as ‘anti-Semitic’. The JLM made similar accusations about Ken Livingstone who referred to the Nazis supporting Zionism.

Zionism today doesn’t like to be reminded of its crimes during the holocaust such as when they actively opposed the rescue of Jews to destinations other than Palestine, as my recent book Zionism During the Holocaust explains.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Lowkey is a Patron of Palestine Solidarity Campaign but you would hardly know it. Apart from having signed a petition in his support PSC seems to have done absolutely nothing to fightback against the continued witch-hunting of people like Lowkey and Shahd Abusalama. It is about time that Ben Jamal, PSC’s Director who is reputedly on £50,000 a year, started defending activists in this country rather than trying to appease the trade union right.

The GMB is affiliated to PSC. It has policy in support of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions. It has also done absolutely nothing to implement this policy. It is dead in the water.  But for the price of an affiliation PSC has refused to criticise Gary Smith or the GMB.

One wonders when the docile sheep who make up PSC’s membership might find their bark and demand action from an organisation that seems to be concerned more with building its own organisation than building solidarity with the Palestinians.

Meanwhile back in Brighton and Hove Unite SE/6246 branch has passed a motion condemning the TUC’s cowardice in the face of the Zionist accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ and Brighton and Hove District  Trades Union Council has passed policy on condemning their banning of Lowkey and instructed the Secretary to write to the TUC demanding no further recurrence.

It would obviously be good if other trade union branches and trades councils could do likewise.

Tony Greenstein 

Shop Steward Expelled for ‘anti-Semitism’ by a Racist and Corrupt Trade Union

The GMB Expels Pete Gregson using the IHRA Definition of ‘Anti-Semitism’ which even its author, Kenneth Stern, has Disavowed

When Labour’s National Executive decided on September 4^th 2018, to adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which conflates anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, Peter Gregson launched his own petition:

The IHRA has been savaged by a host of academic and legal scholars. It is incoherent, open ended, uncertain, illogical and barely literate.

The petition which attracted the ire of the GMB and Rhea Wolfson

According to Geoffrey Robertson QC, the renowned human rights barrister, the IHRA definition is, ‘not fit for purpose’.  Sir Stephen Sedley, the Jewish former Court of Appeal Judge wrote that the IHRA ‘fails the first test of any definition: it is indefinite.’ Hugh Tomlinson QC declared that the IHRA had

a potential chilling effect on public bodies which, in the absence of definitional clarity, may seek to sanction or prohibit any conduct which has been labelled by third parties as antisemitic without applying any clear criterion of assessment

The GMB under Gary Smith has acted as a scab union effectively inviting Peter's employer to dismiss him

The actual IHRA definition itself is 38 words, the salient part of which states that ‘Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews which may be defined as hatred of Jews.’ What is a ‘certain perception’? Who knows. If anti-Semitism may be defined as hatred of Jews what else might it be defined as? And if anti-Semitism is to be defined in terms of hatred what about someone who simply dislikes Jews but doesn’t hate them. In short the definition is useless as an analytical tool. It is no wonder that David Feldman, who was Vice-Chair of the Chakrabarti Inquiry and Director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism described the IHRA as ‘bewilderingly imprecise.’

The IHRA definition provides 11 illustrations of ‘anti-Semitism’ such as ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.’

In order to make their case stick, the GMB has to lie about Peter's beliefs accusing him of being  a holocaust denier - this accords with Zionist attempts to invent holocaust denial where it doesn't exist

This is the section that Peter Gregson defied with his petition. This illustration is a good example of the incoherence of the definition. There is no connection between the first and second halves of the example. It is a non-sequitur. It is quite possible to support a Jewish right to self-determination and still believe that Israel is a racist state. The language is a good example of bad fourth form English. How can the existence of anything be an endeavour?

Criticism of a union official is impermissible for a cossetted bureaucracy

There is a simple definition of anti-Semitism in the Oxford English Dictionary which, unlike the 500+ words of the IHRA is only 6 words long: ‘Hostility to or prejudice against Jews’ which also catches attitudes that fall short of hatred. As Tony Lerman, a distinguished expert on anti-Semitism and former Director of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research wrote:

‘The more the definition is held up to the light and subject to public scrutiny, the more we see holes and cracks in its flimsy fabric. Not only is there now overwhelming evidence that it’s not fit for purpose, but it also has the effect of making Jews more vulnerable to antisemitism, not less...’

The drawback of the OED definition for the Zionists is that it doesn’t mention Israel. As the inauguration today of Yair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s new President shows, most fascists, racists and bigots are also ardent supporters of the Israeli state.

Even the person who drew up the IHRA, Kenneth Stern, has become disillusioned at the misuse of his definition, which was never intended to brand people as anti-Semites. In written testimony to the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee he wrote that:

The definition was not drafted, and was never intended, as a tool to target or chill speech on a college campus. In fact, at a conference in 2010 about the impact of the definition, I highlighted this misuse, and the damage it could do.

Labour’s NEC adopted the IHRA as a way of buying off its Zionist critics. What it has done is to create a whole new set of problems around the rights of free speech. It is no accident that the GMB, which has traditionally been pro-Zionist has been the first to try and implement the IHRA. Traditionally the GMB has been corrupt, racist and politically backward.

Rhea Wolfson

Peter Gregson was suspended because of his petition when former Labour NEC member and the Glasgow GMB Organiser, Rhea Wolfson put in a complaint about ‘anti-Semitism’. He was accused of ‘anti-Semitic’ harassment of Ms Wolfson.  It is very clear from his statement that all he ever did was engage in political polemic. Nothing that he said was remotely anti-Semitic or indeed abusive.

Gary Smith - represents all that is wrong in  British Trade Unionism - the idea of a fair hearing is alien to someone who acted as judge and jury in his own cause, having organised the kangaroo court too

I wrote on the 28^th November to the GMB’s Scottish Regional Secretary, Gary Smith, who was handling the case offering to be a witness in the case.  I happened to know Gary some years ago in Brighton when, as Secretary of the Unemployed Centre, we had organised support for the workers at the Hollingdean Refuse Depot who had occupied the site as part of the campaign to get rid of SITA, a French company which the Labour council had brought in to run the refuse collection. The dispute was successful. At that time Gary was a radical young organiser.  Clearly as he has climbed the GMB’s greasy ladder he has abandoned his radicalism which included support for breaking the law.  Now he is just another apparatchik.

I pointed out to Smith that he could not be both the Prosecutor, the person organising the hearing and deciding who could be called and what would be allowed by way of a defence. I received no reply to this or another email.  Smith had clearly decided that Peter was guilty and he was not going to allow ‘grandstanding’ i.e. any attempt to mount a defence. On the day of the hearing a Rabbi who had travelled up from Manchester at his own expense was barred from the hearing.

The whole procedure that Peter faced has been wholly unfair as the letter from his solicitor Daniel Donaldson explains. Donaldson explicitly calls the GMB disciplinary  tribunal a ‘kangaroo court.’ In his letter of 17^th December to Smith he states, reiterating my own correspondence that:

You are a member of the GMB regional committee, you have conducted the investigation, you have determined the procedure and you are also prosecuting my client before the same committee. This approach to a disciplinary is inherently unfair and therefore unlawful.

This is the kind of justice that they are used to in Rhea Wolfson’s racial paradise in Israel , but it is contrary to British notions of natural justice and due process.

As I said to Smith, this hearing would make a kangaroo hang its head in shame. Gary Smith has become just another right-wing official in the GMB, a union which is a byword for corruption. Peter Gregson is the only shop steward for 24,000 members in the whole of the Lothian NHS. If Gary Smith was actually doing his job instead of harassing the only shop steward that does exist he would ensure that the GMB had some measure of shop floor organisation in peoples’ workplaces. Smith seems completely unconcerned about the effect of expelling Peter on the GMB’s own (lack of) organisation.

In reality GMB officials have never been particularly concerned about the effectiveness of representation for their members. Their main concern has been such mundane matters as how best to claim and inflate their expenses. Living on a far higher salary than their members they are cut off from life on the shop floor.

What is particularly reprehensible is that a member of the union has been expelled for calling out a state which is clearly racist.  I gave as examples to Smith the fact that in Israel Palestinian (but not Jewish) children as young as 12 are routinely detained, usually in night time raids on their homes.

We have recently had the obscene case of the lynch-mob murderer of an asylum seeker sentenced to 4 months imprisonment whereas a 16 year old girl, Ahed Tamimi, was sentenced to 8 months for daring to slap a heavily armed soldier.

As the National’s Martin Hannan reported Pete Gregson was suspended for describing Israel’s actions in ethnically cleansing Palestine of some 700,000 refugees as racist. To the corrupt and racist barons of the GMB ethnic cleansing by a settler colonial state is perfectly acceptable whereas criticism of it is racist. 

This is the upside down world of Gary Smith and the GMB’s General Secretary Tim Roache who on the basis of a fraudulent ‘election’ in 2016 backed Owen Smith in his challenge to Jeremy Corbyn.

Peter Gregson’s petition has now secured over 1,200 signatures from members of the Labour Party. Given that Israel’s Knesset earlier in the year passed the Jewish Nation State Law which explicitly grants national rights to one section of the population, Jews and denies them to non-Jews, it is difficult to know how else to describe the GMB’s decision to expel Peter Gregson other than racist. In the words of Ha’aretz’s Mordechai Kremnitzer, the ‘Jewish Nation-state Law Makes Discrimination in Israel Constitutional’.  What is it that Gary Smith or Tim Roache don’t understand about that? How else do you describe opening fire on unarmed demonstrators in Gaza, killing over 200 and wounding 20,000 with the use of high velocity ammunition?

Although Labour Against the Witchhunt didn’t support Peter’s petition because of problems with its wording we recognise that it represents a significant opposition in the Labour Party to the attempt to curtail if not abolish freedom of speech.

Of course the corrupt and racist GMB has never had freedom of speech. The regional barons ruled without opposition. The union exists primarily for the benefit of its highly paid officials not its membership. However even Roache and co. will have difficulty defending this particularly iniquitous decision. If Peter’s expulsion is not revoked then GMB members should join another, genuine trade union.

To see Pete’s website and his page on the IHRA and his Petition please click here

The letter of expulsion is here.  It is fundamentally dishonest. It alleges that Peter is guilty of ‘accusing Israel of inventing or exaggerating the holocaust’ and goes on to say that ‘For our Union holocaust denial or claiming the holocaust was exaggerated is simply unacceptable.’ The only problem is that this is a lie. Nowhere has Pete denied that the Holocaust occurred or that it was exaggerated. Peter specifically refers to the 6 million who died (though the actual figure will never be known). What he has said, which is true, is that Israel uses the Holocaust for political purposes and that it is used to counter Palestinian claims to justice. Which is what Jewish academic Norman Finkelstein, amongst others, wrote in The Holocaust Industry.

Tony Greenstein

Peter's press release on his expulsion

My third email to Gary Smith

Victory as Keith Henderson Defence Fund Reaches Its Target - Tim Roache, GMB Gen. Secretary Tried to Bankrupt Union Member

The Fight for Democracy in the GMB Union 

Experts in attacking socialists and socialism

Some 6 weeks ago I posted an appeal on this blog for people to contribute to the Defence Fund of Keith Henderson, who had been an official of the right-wing GMB union.

I am pleased to say that the costs of £12,000 have now been met and that Keith Henderson won’t be rendered homeless by Tim Roache, the unelected or barely elected General Secretary of the GMB.

Keith Henderson - Victimised GMB Member

Below is a statement by Keith Henderson on some of the corrupt practices that took place around the election of Tim Roache for General Secretary.  An election in which only 4.4% of the membership took part.  An election in which determined efforts were made to keep Keith off the ballot paper.

Over the summer I exchanged tweets with Tim Roache over the ‘ballot’ of GMB members which decided to support Owen Smith against Jeremy Corbyn.  Barely anyone in the GMB voted for Smith, most of the ballot papers never reached the members but the result that Tim Roache wanted, support for New Labour’s candidate was obtained.

Read what Keith has to say about what was tantamount to ballot rigging in the GMB’s election.

Tony Greenstein

Tim Roache - did his best to prevent a socialist opposing him in General Secretary elections

Statement By Keith Henderson 

All legal costs have now been paid in full. I would like to take this time to thank everyone who donated to the appeal fund and give special thanks to John McDonnell and the LRC for all their support over the last five years. 

Everyone who donated will be aware that in September 2013 the Watford Employment Tribunal made a Judgment that I had suffered unlawful direct discrimination by my employer, the GMB trade union, on the basis of my left wing democratic socialist beliefs. The GMB has successfully appealed against this decision, right up to the Court of Appeal, which meant I had to pay the GMB costs of £12,000.

The Court of Appeal was of the opinion that the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) Judge could make a substitute finding of fact without hearing any further evidence or referring the case back to the Watford Employment Tribunal to seek clarification on their Judgment. 

My lawyer’s still believe this is wrong and the case should be referred back to the original Employment Tribunal Panel for clarification, but, it will cost too much money to pursue the case any further so I have had to accepted this decision.

Looking on the bright side Socialism is now a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 as a result of this case. This is a permanent gain for the labour movement that has been won.

This case will go down in the history books as having made the law to show discrimination against someone on grounds of left wing socialist beliefs is a breach of the equalities legislation and is therefore unlawful, that in itself is very important.

Paragraph 62 of the EAT judgment, which still stands, states

” At paragraph 48 it concluded that I am a ‘left-wing democratic socialist’ and held the beliefs identified. Moreover it found that “there were clear outward signs of those beliefs being manifested… particularly clear from the picketing incident…” The Tribunal concluded that left-wing democratic socialism is a protected belief for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 and this conclusion is not challenged on this appeal.”

Socialism is now a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.

It was outrageous that the GMB's right wing bureaucracy argued in court that there should be less protection in the law for a philosophical belief in democratic socialism as opposed to a religious belief. The GMB was arguing for less protection for socialists in the workplace. Thankfully they were unsuccessful. 

Despite this in a statement published by the GMB on 11 October 2016, the current barely elected GMB General Secretary, Tim Roache said “This is complete vindication for GMB. Mr Henderson has wasted time and money that belongs to our members by continuously pursuing a case which everyone knew had no merit. GMB will never allow anyone to drag our name through the mud, which is exactly what Mr Henderson tried – and comprehensively failed – to do."

This is a somewhat disingenuous statement from the current General secretary of the GMB to make. It was the GMB bureaucracy at each and every stage of the legal proceedings, time and time again, that spent union members money by having two barristers and two solicitors at each appeal hearing when I just had one junior barrister on a pro bono (free of charge) basis.

If it had really been the GMB's intention to avoid costs and save administrative time and tribunal time, involved in remitting the case back to the employment tribunal, as they claimed, this could have been achieved by asking the tribunal to reconsider the various matters that it relied on in respect of the appeal, (a process that used to be called a review), instead of which a disproportionate appeal was launched by the GMB effectively trying to buy themselves justice with union members money.

The GMB could have avoided paying out any money in legal costs when John McDonnell MP tried to secure a resolution to this dispute by agreement, but, Mr Roache rejected this after initially agreeing to it. Under Mr Roache's leadership of the union it was decided to spend nearly £30,000 in additional legal costs by going through with the appeal when the most they could get back from myself was £12,000.

This was not the first time that the unelected leadership of the GMB had an opportunity to settle the case. Over the course of the employment tribunal itself there were several attempts by myself, my lawyer and John McDonnell MP to broker a settlement.

Instead Sir Paul Kenny (the General Secretary at the time) refused all attempts at conciliation. Preferring instead to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of GMB members money on legal costs in an attempt to crush me.

It appears that the manifestation of my democratic socialist principles in acting on a members decision to place a picket on parliament, (on the day of action in the course of the public sector pensions dispute in 2011), had so offended the principles that drive and motivate the unelected bureaucracy of the GMB that a vendetta was launched against me.

It might have been this or the fact that my close comrades had administered a website pointing out that Sir Paul Kenny had never won a general secretary election in the GMB (losing the only one he had ever stood in back in 2003), yet he had been the general secretary for almost a decade (at the time). Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly as we were later to find out, nobody had ever secured enough nominations to get onto to the ballot paper to force Sir Paul Kenny to face another election.

Perhaps it was the fact I had co authored a draft manifesto arguing that the GMB should be democratised that had upset the unelected incumbents at national and regional level. Arguments that power finance and other resources should be devolved to a workplace and a branch level didn't play well with those whose employment depends on power, finance and resources remaining at a national and a regional level.

Perhaps it was the allegations of nepotism that upset the unelected bureaucracy of the GMB. It is a well known fact in the union that Warren Kenny, the son of Paul Kenny is now employed as the unelected London Regional Secretary.

It could have been any of these reasons or a combination of some or all of them that drove the leadership of the union to spend huge quantities of the members money on legal fees in an attempt to discredit me.

In addition it is the case that if it wasn't for the efforts of all of you comrades in coming to my assistance in helping to raise the £12,000 necessary myself and my family would have been made homeless as a result of the relentless drive with no expense spared to discredit me.

Once again many thanks to all of the comrades who helped out.

We still achieved a historical victory in making socialism a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and that is what we should take from this legal battle. Every shop steward who is victimised in the workplace for representing their members should bear this in mind.Now moving onto the up coming appeal being heard by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) regarding the GMB General Secretary election 2015.

The GMB General Secretary election 2015 in my opinion was a bureaucratic stitch-up of monumental proportions. 

The report Electoral Reform Services on the election for the General Secretary of the GMB, issued on 12 November 2015, declared: 

Number of voting papers despatched: 610,023, Number of voting papers returned to the scrutineer: 26,658, Turnout: 4.4%, Number of votes found to be spoiled or otherwise invalid: 170, Total number of valid votes to be counted: 26,488. Tim Roache was declared the winner with 15,034 votes (56.7%) and Paul McCarthy got 11,454 (43.3%).

Tim Roache had been elected to the highest office in the third biggest union in the country, a union that wields massive influence in the Labour party, on the votes of 2.4% of the membership. The bureaucratic centralism of the GMB leaders, and particularly under the most recent leadership of Sir Paul Kenny, had led to a mass alienation of almost the entire membership.

I attempted to stand in the election on the basis of a socialist Manifesto (already referred to), which outlines the mechanics of reintroducing democracy, accountability and devolution of power in the GMB. Having contacted my branch to ask if the members of the branch could be informed of my intention to stand and to obtain their permission to do so and the branch nomination, in the first instance, moves were made by the unelected bureaucracy of the union to prevent my candidature.

Having made repeated requests my branch secretary and branch president were finally informed that the election had been called and what the timetable was. This was three weeks into the nomination period with the regional office claiming that the official notification to the branch had been sent to the wrong address.

Never the less a branch meeting was hastily organised and members were informed that I was seeking their nomination. The secretary and president were ordered by the unelected regional secretary to withdraw the notification claiming that it was in breach of the by-laws governing the election.

This they refused to do and both were suspended and subsequently disciplined. (Barred from holding office in the union for two and three years respectively) for breaching the rules that governed the election and for failing to comply with an instruction from the unelected regional secretary.

The by-law that the secretary and the president were said to have breached was by-law 13 that said that candidates could not communicate in writing or by electronic mail to promote their candidature.

As I was not a candidate and was seeking enough nominations (you required 30 branch nominations) to become a candidate it appeared to me that there was a grotesque manipulation of the rules and guidelines going on to prevent me or any other rank and file member from seeking nominations to stand in the election.

I sought to make my case within the union structures but to no avail.

Reluctantly I was forced to go to the Certification Officer because all my avenues of appeal were exhausted within the GMB. 

Once again the unelected/ barely elected bureaucracy in the GMB used members money to hire a Queens Council (QC) to defend their case while I had to rely on a junior barrister working on a pro bono (free) basis.

The GMB had reversed it's decision to discipline the secretary and the president of my branch, clearly on the advice of their QC. They won their internal appeal within the GMB. The original defence that the GMB had put to the certification officer in response to my complaint was then altered.

We were not allowed to alter our complaint as the certification officer deemed that our barrister submitted it to late.

Given that the certification officer must have been aware that my barrister was working on a pro bono (free) basis, would have had no solicitor support, unlike the GMB's QC and would have had other paid work to attend to, to deny me the opportunity to amend my case after allowing the GMB the right to amend theirs was most unfair

Since then a discrimination expert, barrister Nick De Marco, from the Blackstone chambers has come forward and offered to represent me on a pro bono basis at the appeal against the certification officer's decision that has been lodged at the EAT.

The facts of the case are as follows.

The Certification Officer made a decision on my case in March 2016 and decided to reject my complaints. My lawyer’s believe the reasons for rejecting my complaint are inadequate and perverse. 

This is some background to the case.

1) I wished to stand for the position of General Secretary in the 2015 election. On 6 June 2015, the GMB published a number of by-laws governing the election, one of which prohibited candidates from certain communications in relation to the election (by-law 13).

2) I believed that this by-law was unlawful in that it prohibited lay members such as himself from contacting other branches to seek nomination. I made a complaint to this effect and was assured by the GMB that the by-laws were legal. I sought nomination from my own branch (only), during which process the GMB suspended and later removed two officers of my branch for breaching by-law 13, by circulating a newsletter advertising my intention to stand. The election concluded on 12 November 2015

3) During the election period, I believed that - and the GMB acted as though - by-law 13 applied not only to candidates but also to persons in my position i.e. potential nominees. The GMB's initial formal response to the Certification Officer reflected this. The GMB applied by letter on 5 February 2016 to amend its case to state that by-law 13 applied to candidates only and not to me. I only learnt of this amendment on 11 February and sought at the hearing on 01/03/2016 to amend my complaint accordingly. Permission was refused.

My grounds of appeal are:

(1) Unlawful failure to exercise discretion. The Certification Officer misdirected himself in law by failing to exercise his discretion, in the interests of justice and a fair hearing, to grant permission for amendment, further or alternatively;

(2) Procedural unfairness in breach of natural justice. The same failure to grant permission to amend was in the circumstances unfair, further or alternatively;

(3) Perversity. The decision was in the circumstances one which no reasonable Certification Officer properly directing himself could have reached.

In the opinion of my lawyer these are some of the reasons below we have a chance of this appeal being successful.

1) The Certification Officer considered my actions before by-law 13 was introduced, which cannot be relevant to his or the GMB's understanding or application of it.

2) The Certification Officer determined that I made no attempt to contact other branches “regardless” of the correct interpretation of by-law 13, which contention is illogical where by-law 13 evidently and necessarily operated on the GMB's understanding and the GMB's behaviour.

3) The Certification Officer failed to engage with the effect of the removal of the branch officers on my understanding of by-law 13 as applied by the GMB; and noted but did not answer my reasonable explanation for my failure to approach other branches, i.e. that I was waiting for the outcome of an official complaint which I had made to the GMB's Central Executive Council (CEC) seeking deletion of by-law 13.

At a recent rule 3 (10) hearing before the EAT that took place on 28th October 2016, an EAT Judge ruled that my appeal did have merit and should be immediately laid down for a full appeal hearing. Therefore, we have a real chance of getting an enforcement order that GMB General Secretary election has to be rerun, this could happen as early as next year in the summer.

I believe that this is why the current general secretary, Tim Roache, the man with a two point four per cent mandate,  has continued with the slur and smear campaign initiated by his predecessor Sir Paul Kenny, the man with no mandate whatsoever. Mr Roache has issued a statement attacking me in a further attempt to try and discredit my name as he knows that I could be a challenger for his position. If the turnout and the vote matched the last election (and it is my intention if the election is rerun that is not the case), the successful candidate would only need 2.5 per cent to storm to power with an increased mandate. 

Therefore it comes as no surprise that Mr Roache is very concerned about a potential challenge to his position. 

There can be no doubt that because of this the smears and distortions will continue.