On November 27, a majority of an all-members’ meeting of Labour Against the Witchhunt decided to merge with Labour in Exile Network. We will publish the new communication channels and website here when they are up and running.
Four members of the LAW steering committee resigned following that decision (Jackie Walker, Tina Werkmann, Stan Keable and Kevin Bean) – their statement is here.
The response from the LIEN steering committee can be found here.
Join statement
Following the vote at LAW’s all-members’ meeting on November 27 to merge with Labour In Exile Network (by a vote of 47-27 with 12 abstentions, all votes and motions here), we have decided to resign from LAW’s steering committee.
We cannot support the view that the struggle against the Labour witch-hunt is over, or that “LAW has outlived its usefulness”, as Tony Greenstein, the proposer of the motion to merge, put it. The witch-hunt in the Labour movement is expanding every day and a campaign like LAW still has a vital role to play.
Continue Reading “Why we have resigned from the steering committee of Labour Against the Witchhunt”This is the response of the LIEN Steering Committee to the resignation letter from 4 members of the LAW Steering Committee
To the Resigned Comrades in LAW in response to your email to members dated 30th November 2021.
As members of the LIEN Steering Committee, we would like to respond to your letter to LAW members dated 30th November. It is our view that our response should be shared with members of LAW because we believe that the email to members misrepresents LIEN.
Continue Reading “Response to 4 LAW SC members who resigned”
Full judgement here
Good news for a change: Stan Keable, secretary of Labour Against the Witchhunt, has defeated his employer’s appeal in the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“the EAT”), and that the EAT has upheld the Employment Tribunal’s findings that Mr Keable was unfairly dismissed and should now be reinstated.
The ET’s finding was upheld, that the Council had acted unfairly in dismissing Mr Keable for bringing the Council into disrepute, “when he expressed his political views in a lawful way, entirely away from the working environment, with no connection to thework at the time, even if those views caused offence to some people.”
His barrister, David Renton, commented “This is the first time in nearly a decade that an appeal court has upheld an order that a worker should be reinstated. Hammersmith and Fulham should now do the right thing and let him have his old job back”
Mr Keable was dismissed in May 2018 after attending a rally outside Parliament (“Enough is Enough”) at which both supporters and opponents of then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn were present. Mr Keable was filmed at a great distance from his workplace, and footage of him speaking with another protester was shared without his consent on Twitter, where a journalist gave his words a misleading caption, “Anti-Semitism Didn’t Cause the Holocaust and Zionists Collaborated with the Nazis.” The film was seen by nearly 80,000 people.
He was investigated by Hammersmith and Fulham Council, who refused to put to Mr Keable the case which they then relied on in dismissing him – namely that the words he used were likely to be misunderstood online. Her Honour Judge Tucker upheld the finding of the original Tribunal that Mr Keable’s dismissal was unfair, and that it was wrong of the employer to dismiss him without putting its case to him: “A fair and open procedure, where there is cooperation, genuine and effective communication regarding a disciplinary charge, is far more likely to engender reflection, perhaps regret or expressions of remorse which may in turn lead to better performance in the future, than a hostile, unduly adversarial or closed procedure”. HHJ Tucker also upheld the Tribunal’s findings that Mr Keable should be reinstated.
Following the defeat of the employer’s appeal, R& A solicitors said, “The decision of the Appeal Tribunal vindicates Mr Keable, who faced terrible accusations of antisemitism, which he has shown were false. The employer wanted to make this case about Twitter. They said that what matters is not what a person said but how words are perceived on social media. This judgment shows that they have wrongly punished an innocent man.”
—–
From Dave Renton: My congratulations to Stan Keable, for successfully defeating his employer’s appeal against the Employment Tribunal’s finding that he had been unfairly dismissed and should now be reinstated by his employer Hammersmith and Fulham.
For those who don’t know Stan’s story, he was dismissed in May 2018 after attending a rally outside Parliament (“Enough is Enough”) at which both supporters and opponents of then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn were present. Footage of him disagreeing with an anti-Corbyn demonstrator was shared without his consent on Twitter, where a journalist gave his words a false and offensive caption. The film was seen by nearly 80,000 people. His local MP denounced him, and the Chief Executive of the Council instigated his dismissal.
Stan has a Jewish wife and daughter, was shocked by the allegations. The Tribunal found his dismissal both procedurally and substantively unfair.
The judgment doesn’t give a full flavour of the case run by Stan’s employer which was that while Stan had never actually said that Zionists had collaborated with the Nazis in the Holocaust, what mattered was that that was how his comments would be taken. “This is a Twitter case,” their barrister said, meaning that where people take exaggerated offence on social media, and pose at being outraged, the employer must do what social media wants or its own reputation will be destroyed. The EAT – our leading specialist discrimination court – disagreed. No, they found, you still have to investigate fairly, which means (for example) putting to someone accused the offence for which you seek to dismiss them.
Stan is the Secretary of the group Labour Against the Witch-hunt, all members of which have been excluded from the Labour Party since June. I am sure that group will say that this judgment supports their position that complaints of antisemitism need to be investigated properly. I have made many public criticisms of members of that campaign. However, on this specific complaint – that Labour investigations are getting worse – they are right, and this judgment supports their case that such investigations must in future be done fairly.
In particular, I suspect that para 91 (“A fair and open procedure, where there is cooperation, genuine and effective communication regarding a disciplinary charge, is far more likely to engender reflection, perhaps regret or expressions of remorse which may in turn lead to better performance in the future, than a hostile, unduly adversarial or closed procedure”) is going to be quoted in a lot of other cases from now on.
This is one of an incredibly small number of cases that has come to trial as a consequence of Labour’s antisemitism crisis and (unless I am mistaken) the only one which has been won by someone whose politics are left and anti-Zionist. The fact that Stan has succeeded, in this difficult context, is a huge tribute to him and the way he fought his case.
Finally, I want to say something about the order for reinstatement. Last time I checked, 20,000 unfair dismissal cases are issued each year, 5,000 make it to a final hearing, at which half succeed. Of those 2,500 or so victories ever year, fewer than five every year resulted in reinstatement orders. Not five hundred; five. Almost all of them are appealed by the employer, who usually wins. It is eight years since the Employment Appeal Tribunal last accepted that an order for reinstatement had been rightly made. The fact that Stan won on that issue, too, is again a huge vote of legal confidence in him, and will make life easier in future for every other dismissed worker seeking their own reinstatement.
Well done, Stan, it was a pleasure representing you.
Dave Renton
Comrades should be aware that the Labour Party is now auto-excluding members for clicking ‘Like’. The NEC motion of July 20 2021 listed a number of reasons as to why the Labour Party might ‘auto-exclude’ somebody – but funnily enough, it did not list clicking ‘like’ on a Facebook post put up by the now-proscribed groups. Probably because it absolutely does not proof membership or support for an organisation. Just that you liked one of their posts! How much lower will Keir Starmer and David Evans sink?
…examples of “support” for any of the above organisations for purposes of Chapter 2, Clause I.4.B of the Labour Party Rule Book may include:
a. Membership of any of the four organisations;
b. Standing for election to the steering committee of the relevant organisation;
c. Participating in an all member’s meeting of the relevant organisation;
d. Participating in a working group of the relevant organisation;
e. Contributing written material to the website of the relevant organisation;
f. Donating to the relevant organisation;
g. Encouraging others to join the relevant organisation;
h. Participating in an event organised or hosted by the relevant organisation;
General Background
The NEC meeting on 20th July identified evidence of support for proscribed organisations (based on 2.1.4B) as follows:
…examples of “support” for any of the above organisations for purposes of Chapter 2, Clause I.4.B of the Labour Party Rule Book may include:
a. Membership of any of the four organisations;
b. Standing for election to the steering committee of the relevant organisation;
c. Participating in an all member’s meeting of the relevant organisation;
d. Participating in a working group of the relevant organisation;
e. Contributing written material to the website of the relevant organisation;
f. Donating to the relevant organisation;
g. Encouraging others to join the relevant organisation;
h. Participating in an event organised or hosted by the relevant organisation;
Contrary to a report in the gossip section of the Spectator, LAW does not pursue a strategy of calling on members to leave the Labour Party. As it states in our lead motion to our August 28 members’ meeting: “LAW remains committed to fighting against the witch-hunt and urging the left to stay and fight for party democracy and the refoundation of Labour as a united front of a special kind open to all socialist and working-class organizations. Of course we continue to accept as members not only all those who have been expelled and suspended from the party, but also those who have left the party in disgust. We will continue to campaign against the witch-hunt with forces inside and outside the Labour Party.“
Proposal by Kevin Bean, endorsed by the LAW Steering Committee and the LAW all-members’ meeting of August 28 2021
1. Whilst the exact tempo of events that will shape developments in the Labour Party in the immediate future is unclear, the broad pattern has been established over the last year or so. The Starmer leadership can be expected to continue its attacks on the left to demonstrate his acceptability to the ruling class, the media, and the United States as the captain of a safe second XI. He desperately wants to be prime minister and sees the continued purge as an essential part of his electoral strategy. The targets chosen so far – LAW, LIEN, Resist and Socialist Appeal – have been ritual sacrifices chosen because of their relative weakness, not their strength. Another aspect of Starmer’s strategy is to secure the complete surrender of the ‘official left’ of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs and the Momentum leadership. Their cowardly evasion and ambiguous statements in the face of the intensification of the witch-hunt will not save them.
Continue Reading “Stay and fight: A strategy for the next few months”We’ll be constantly updating this page, so please keep checking back
Let us know if you are a delegate or visitor to conference or if you are coming to Brighton to attend the Resist at the Rialto Event. We are setting up a special email group and WhatsApp group for comrades in Brighton to help plan our various interventions, inside and outside of conference. Email us (info@labouragainstthewitchhunt.org) with the following info:
Protest outside conference venue in Brighton. Called by ‘Defend The Left’, more details to follow.
Continue Reading “Labour Party conference 2021 – what’s going on?”
What has Labour done to YOU? Been on tenterhooks waiting for the repeatedly delayed Forde Inquiry to report? Enough we say!!
Do you have a story of injustice, undemocratic process, or other dirty goings on in Labour? This is your chance to talk back!
As the dwindling resources of Starmer’s Labour continue to be spent paying erstwhile spies and those on short term contracts to search for signs of dissent, “Not The Forde Inquiry” will reconvene to give witness to face to face testimony from victims of the biggest political witch hunt in British history at the Resist Event in the Rialto Theatre, Brighton, during the Labour Party conference this September.
Expect the most unexpected, as Dorothy Walker (Jackie Walker’s allegedly deceased mother), rises once more from her world touring show “The Lynching” to act as judge to your witness. Send an outline of your story in under 300 words to norm6344@gmail.com. We will put your story online, and, who knows, you may even get the chance to put your case in person, on stage, in Brighton!
I have received your communication, in which you demand that I “provide evidence that I am not a supporter” of a group that you arbitrarily proscribed three weeks ago. This is a classic technique practised in all such purges going right back to the original witch-hunts of the seventeenth century. It defies all norms of natural justice. I am under no obligation to prove anything.
Continue Reading “Roger Silverman: My reply to the Labour Party’s “Governance and Legal Unit”…”
Today, Friday August 13, a number of Labour Party members have received letters entitled “Notification of Possible Automatic Exclusion from Membership of the Labour Party” over their alleged association with Labour Against the Witchhunt.
These letters confirm that in order to be considered a member or supporter of LAW, you will have to have committed one of following “acts”:
Continue Reading “How to prove you’re not a witch…?”
On Tuesday 20 July, hundreds of Labour Party members picketed Labour’s London headquarters on Southside protesting against suspensions, expulsions and the proscription of left-wing groups.
Continue Reading “We want justice and democracy – not bans and proscriptions! Protest outside Labour HQ on July 20”
If your organisation/CLP/union branch wants to sign this petition, please email info@defendtheleft.co.uk and we’ll add their name below.
Instead of opposing the reactionary Tory government, the Labour leadership is turning its fire against many of its most committed members. The July 20 meeting of the Labour Party NEC is set to proscribe a number of left-wing groups, including Labour Against the Witchhunt, Labour in Exile Network and Socialist Appeal. The motion includes a proposal to investigate yet more groups for possible proscription.
Apparently, the motion states that membership of the groups is “incompatible with membership of the Labour Party”. The rule book already allows for the exclusion of members who campaign against the Labour Party. These organisations do not do that.
The same cannot be said for right-wing factions within the party that consistently and openly campaigned against Labour under Corbyn’s leadership. Yet none of those groups are threatened with proscription.
This is just the latest salvo in the right’s full-blown attack on what remains of the pro-Corbyn left in the Labour Party. It follows the denial to Corbyn himself of the Labour Whip for more than eight months. It follows the silencing of free speech and democracy across the party with whole branches and CLPs being suspended and whole areas of discussion being suppressed, including legitimate expressions of no confidence in the leadership. Expressions of solidarity with Palestinians have been ruled out of order on the basis of unfounded antisemitism claims. Expulsion is no way to deal with political disagreements.
We should be debating how to end draconian anti-trade union laws, reverse privatisation in the NHS and education, combat racism and discrimination, defend our right to protest, resist Fire and Rehire and cuts in benefits, and many more issues of grave concern to the trade union and labour movement.
We urge everyone who wants to build a united, fighting opposition to the Tories to join together against the attempt by the right to reintroduce a list of proscribed organisations. No doubt, other socialist groups will be added to the list, should this first round of proscriptions go through without a hitch.
Show your solidarity!
Defend The Left – against all bans and proscriptions!https://www.defendtheleft.co.uk
There are alarming reports that the July 20 meeting of the Labour Party NEC will discuss a motion proposing the proscription of four left-wing groups: Labour Against the Witchhunt, Labour in Exile Network, Socialist Appeal and Socialist Resistance (or Resist, there are different reports).
We are holding an emergency meeting tomorrow evening with other Labour Left groups to discuss the possibility of a joint defence campaign. We are also proposing to hold an emergency meeting of all members of Labour Against the Witchhunt next Saturday, July 24 at 6pm to discuss our response to this dangerous development. More details below.
Continue Reading “Defend the Left! No bans, no proscriptions!”
Joint statement by Labour Against the Witchhunt, Labour Campaign for Free Speech, Labour Left Alliance and Labour in Exile Network
Why you should NOT participate in the JLM ‘training sessions’ on antisemitism
A number of Labour Party members and role holders have been invited by general secretary David Evans to participate in online training sessions named “Understanding Antisemitism”.
Here are some reasons why we urge Labour Party members NOT to participate:
1) These sessions will be run exclusively by the Jewish Labour Movement, a pro-Israel organisation that is affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation, whose stated mission is “settling the land”. JLM is the sister party of the racist Labor Party of Israel and was revived in 2015 – explicitly in order to battle Jeremy Corbyn. It has close links to the Israeli embassy (watch The Lobby for proof). It has been doing everything in its power to weaponise false and exaggerated charges of anti-Semitism in order to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. It was the key organisation that pushed for Labour to adopt the discredited IHRA fake definition of antisemitism, which purposefully conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism and has been criticised by its principal drafter Kenneth Stern of having been misapplied in order to “chill free speech”.
2) Just as Israel claims to be the homeland of all Jews, so the JLM claims to be the homeland of all Jews in the Labour Party. Both claims are palpably untrue. You don’t have to be Jewish to join the JLM – you don’t even have to be a member of the Labour Party. JLM very much represents and organises pro-Zionists, but none of the many thousands of secular and anti-Zionist Jews. A balanced training session would have seen trainers from Jewish Voice for Labour, for example.
3) These sessions are unlikely to be run in a democratic manner. The chat is likely to be switched off. If members are allowed to speak – and speak critically – they are likely to not just be reprimanded in the session, but perhaps even be reported to the Governance and Legal Unit. This is what happened to Jackie Walker: She was secretly filmed at a JLM training session, her words were taken out of context and passed on to the disciplinary board, before she was expelled.
We urge comrades instead to organise education sessions that discuss the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism and to pass motions to replace the IHRA with the much better Jerusalem Declaration. It is our view that there should be no hierarchy of racism, and that members should be offered education events, discussions and debates on recognising and combating all forms of racism.
Martin Forde QC launched his inquiry into the leaked report on the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in May 2020. The leaked report appeared to show horrific attempts by the party’s paid officials to undermine the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn – but also many mistakes made by the Corbyn leadership, which made concession after concession to the right, trying to ‘fight antisemitism’.
The Forde Inquiry was first supposed to have reported by mid-July but after successive delays it was announced that publication would be postponed until the completion of an investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office. Many commentators believe Forde’s report is never going to appear because Keir Starmer simply wants to bury the truth.
Speakers include:
Register here
Labour Against the Witchhunt and a number of other organisations have got together to jointly discuss how we can intervene at this year’s Labour Party conference. Like a number of groups, we had our venues cancelled in the run up to the 2018 and 2019 conferences, when pro-Israel supporters wrongly claimed that we were supporting antisemites. In 2019, members of the Labour Left Alliance in Brighton swiftly booked The Rialto Theatre to stage a number of evening events. Register here to be kept informed about the event in September 2021.
This year, we have jointly booked the theatre for a full 3-day festival, where we can freely discuss and, importantly, organise. This exciting initiative called ‘Resist! at Labour Party conference’ will be launched on Friday May 28 at 5pm – register here. Speakers include Kerry-Anne Mendoza, Chris Williamson, Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein.
This motion has been drafted as a model motion to go to Labour Party conference 2021, but it can be tweaked for other purposes. Please note that this has to go through your branch first, then your CLP and needs to be submitted to the NEC by September 13 in order to be heard at Labour Party conference. Remember that a CLP can either submit a rule change (which needs to be submitted by June 11) or a ‘contemporary’ motion like this one.
Continue Reading “Model motion to LP conference: Abandon IHRA and adopt the Jerusalem Declaration”
Joint statement by Labour Against the Witchhunt, Labour Left Alliance, Labour in Exile Network, Rotherham Labour Left and Sheffield Labour Left. To add your organisation’s name, please email info@labouragainstthewitchhunt.org
Of course Howard Beckett was not being racist when he sarcastically wrote that Priti Patel should be deported instead of the hundreds of people who are being sent back every year into war zones, poverty and abject misery. He was tweeting during the ongoing attempts in Glasgow to deport two Indian men on “immigration offenses”, who were later released after hundreds of protestors blocked the van (fantastic video here).
He wrote: “Priti Patel should be deported, not refugees. She can go along with anyone else who supports institutional racism. She is disgusting.”
It is clear that Beckett was in fact criticising the racism of Priti Patel, who we should remember, had to resign once before because of her attempts to schmooze various Israeli dignitaries. He later clarified that, of course, “No one should be deported”. It clearly takes a lot of bad will to purposefully misinterpret his sarcastic tweet as supporting deportations or being racist.
Continue Reading “Statement & model motion: Solidarity with Howard Beckett!”Download the leaflet in PDF format here.
The right to free speech and the right to protest are coming under increasingly brutal attack. Professor David Miller’s job at Bristol University is at stake, because he dared to speak out on Zionism. This is an important test case – should he be sacked, this will result in even more attacks on academic freedom.
The government is already threatening to defund universities who do not adopt the IHRA mis-definition of antisemitism, which even its author Kenneth Stern has described as having been abused to “chill free speech”.
The proposed policing bill would make it illegal to cause “serious annoyance” – with punishment of up to 10 years in jail. Worse than that, the law is to be applied even if “somebody is put at risk” of so-called “serious harm” (like ‘annoying’ somebody) – ie, if no action has taken place. The bill would make it an offence if just one person complains about feeling “serious distress…annoyance…[or even] inconvenience”.
Contributors to the conference on Saturday February 13 included Norman Finkelstein, former Labour MP Chris Williamson (founder Resistance Movement), Graham Bash from Jewish Voice for Labour, anti-apartheid veteran Ronnie Kasrils, suspended CLP chair Esther Giles, Sami Ramadani (Stop the War Coalition), Jamie Stern-Weiner (expert on IHRA) and David Miller (University of Bristol).
The conference established a steering committee, voted for the campaign’s missing statement and a Charter for Free Speech. It has since launched a website, where you can find all videos from the conference – click here.
The legally entrenched right to free expression is being undermined by an internally incoherent “non-legally binding working definition” of antisemitism. Its promotion by public bodies is leading to the curtailment of debate. Universities and others who reject the instruction of the secretary of state for education, Gavin Williamson, to adopt it should be supported in so doing.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that “everyone has the right to freedom of expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. The right is embodied in UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998, section 6 of which expressly prohibits a public authority from acting in a way that is incompatible with that right. Specific protections for freedom of expression at universities were also enacted in the Education Act 1986.
Mr Williamson was legally and morally wrong last October to instruct English universities to adopt and implement the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. He has threatened to punish them with loss of income if they fail to comply. This would be an improper interference with their autonomy.
The definition is often described as “the international definition of antisemitism”, but it has no legislative or other authority in international or domestic law. Noted scholars of antisemitism, including Prof David Feldman, director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London (2 December), have criticised its shortcomings.The IHRA added to the definition illustrative examples of statements that could be antisemitic “taking into account the overall context”. The majority of these examples do not refer to Jews as such, but to Israel. They have been widely used to suppress or avoid criticism of the state of Israel.
The impact on public discourse both inside and outside universities has already been significant. Mr Williamson’s threat should be withdrawn.
Prof Bill Bowring Barrister, Birkbeck, University of London,
Lord Hendy QC,
Sir Anthony Hooper Retired lord justice of appeal,
Michael Mansfield QC,
Sir Stephen Sedley Retired lord justice of appeal,
Hugh Tomlinson QC,
Frances Webber Barrister,
Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC Solicitor
Ronnie Kasrils, is a former ANC freedom fighter, and was Intelligence Minister in South Africa. This article is based on Ronnie’s address to the launch rally for the ‘Campaign for Free Speech’, December 12, 2020. The video from the second session (with Ronnie) is here , the first session can be watched here
The assault on free speech within Britain’s Labour Party speaks like a ghost from my past. I was banned from public speaking in apartheid South Africa almost sixty years ago. My crime aged 23, was advocating votes for all. The apartheid government accused those like me of undermining the safety of whites. When all avenues of peaceful change were blocked, we had no option but to turn to armed struggle. We argued that there was no equivalence between the state violence of the oppressor and the resistance of the oppressed. International solidarity helped bring about the demise of the apartheid system. We empathise with those in the Labour Party today, who are being victimised by a double agenda: for their socialism and defending Palestinian rights. It is astonishing and deplorable that a witch hunt is underway within those ranks – as elsewhere.
Continue Reading “Ronnie Kasrils: Against the witch-hunt!”
No unity with the right! Time to organise for a real fight-back! Plan ahead and start organising shadow CLP structures!
As if it wasn’t bad enough that Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner both spent the ‘International Day of Solidarity with Palestinians’ addressing a meeting of the Zionist Jewish Labour Movement, Starmer used the opportunity to state that Jeremy Corbyn’s factual statement that “the scale of the [antisemitism] problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents” was “just about as bad as you could get”. Clearly, he will do anything to keep Corbyn out of the PLP, if not the party. Angela Rayner helpfully suggested that, “If I have to suspend thousands and thousands of [Labour] members, we will do that.”
Continue Reading “Starmer and Rayner’s all-out war against the left: How we must organise now”(as agreed at our all-members’ meeting on November 21 2020)
LAW congratulates all those CLPs, branches and party members who refused to be silenced and raised a storm of protest over the treatment of Jeremy Corbyn.
Of course, the witch-hunt has never been just about one individual, no matter how prominent. Defence of Corbyn, as a victim of the witch-hunt, must include fighting to reverse the suspensions and expulsions of the hundreds of other victims of the witch-hunt over the last five years. Unless the witch-hunt is defeated, the Starmer leadership may well attempt to complete the Blairite project of deLabourising the Labour Party.
LAW rejects the findings and recommendations of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission report, particularly the proposed ‘outsourcing’ of disciplinary processes. From the start, the aim of the EHRC was to attack the Corbyn leadership, delegitimize any criticism of Zionism and create a situation where the left is either tamed, domesticated, or driven out of the Labour Party. Behind the facade of balance and objectivity, the EHRC is, in fact, an arm of the state – a quango whose board is government-appointed and stuffed full of Tories and open reactionaries such as the ‘liberal Powellite’ David Goodhart. We oppose state interference in the internal affairs of the Labour Party and the wider labour movement.
Continue Reading “Defend Corbyn, Reject EHRC”Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein and Chris Williamson discussed how the left should fight against the ongoing witch-hunt, the EHRC report into the Labour Party – and the terrible response by much of the Labour Left, which continues to call for ‘unity’ with the right.
The report of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is pretty much a damp squib. It is noticeable that the report doesn’t even try to identify what antisemitism is, which after all was its remit.
Nonetheless it did pretty much what it was supposed to do when the pro-Zionist groups ‘Jewish Labour Movement’ and the ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’ first lobbied it to launch an investigation into the Labour Party. It helped to paint the false picture that the Labour Party is overrun with antisemites.
Not one of the EHRC’s nine commissioners is Black or Muslim. They are bankers, lawyers and business executives. Many of them have links to the Conservative Party. Its Chief Executive Rebecca Hilsenrath is a self-declared Zionist. Even Daily Mail columnist Peter Oborne points out “that the EHRC appeared to favour the Conservatives over Labour, and to take Tory Islamophobia much less seriously than Labour antisemitism.”
For almost two years, we read in the entire media that the report would prove that the Labour Party was “institutionally antisemitic” – when that was never its remit. The EHRC investigation centred on whether the Labour Party had committed a “breach of the Equality Act 2010, related to Jewish ethnicity or Judaism, against its members, associates or guests, through the actions of its employees or agents”. And although the pro-Zionist lobby threw pretty much everything it had at the EHRC, the findings of the report can be best summed up as politically biased and a very damp squib.
Continue Reading “The EHRC report: Politically biased, damp squib”
Silence on the witch-hunt should never have been an option! Appeasement does not work!
Jeremy Corbyn was absolutely right in the comments that got him suspended: “One antisemite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents”.
It is a real shame that he did not say so when he could have made a real difference to the witch-hunt and the civil war in the Labour Party. Unfortunately, it was the Corbyn leadership’s silence and complicity in the witch-hunt that made his suspension possible in the first place. Hundreds of socialists and Corbyn supporters have been suspended and expelled for comments that often do not amount to much more than what Corbyn said.
We need to understand that the campaign by the right inside and outside the party was never about fighting antisemitism. It was always a campaign designed to get rid of Corbyn and make sure that the Labour Party becomes once again a safe “second eleven” that could run Britain on behalf of capitalism, and follow the US into any new military adventure.
Sadly, it appears as if Corbyn and his allies still do not understand this basic reality. The six candidates supported by the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance in the current NEC elections have made sure not to mention the word ‘witch-hunt’, or propose any actions on how to stop it.
In a tweet following his suspension, Corbyn writes that, “I’ve made absolutely clear those who deny there has been an antisemitism problem in the Labour Party are wrong. I will continue to support a zero tolerance policy towards all forms of racism.”
Corbyn himself has now become a victim of this “zero tolerance” approach he champions. The fight for socialism is intrinsically linked to a culture of free speech and open debate on all issues – including, importantly, the question of Israel/Palestine.
Labour Against the Witchhunt calls on its members and supporters to vote for the following seven candidates in the current Labour Party NEC elections, which start on October 19.
If only one of them was elected to the NEC, he/she could make a huge difference to the ongoing civil war by openly fighting against the witch-hunt!
Roger Silverman, who has been nominated by almost 70 CLPs, has the best chance of being elected. As an anti-Zionist Jew and member of Jewish Voice for Labour, his election would send a very strong signal that the membership is not prepared to accept the ongoing witch-hunt.
All seven support the Action Programme for the Left of the Labour Left Alliance, in which the candidates commit themselves to a socialist programme and, concretely, to:
Please find below a video produced by the Labour Left Alliance, which explains why this does not present a ‘split of the left vote’.
Continue Reading “NEC elections: Vote for anti-witch-hunt candidates!”
I have now been under “administrative suspension” from the Labour Party for three months and there is no sign of an end. I can’t vote in any elections, I can’t attend meetings or vote in my branch or in my local party at all. I was on the Executive Committee locally so I can’t fulfil any of my responsibilities, which means I can’t help the poor chair to organise fiendishly complicated voting software and Zoom meetings.
We (or I should say “they”) have just had the I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-a-conference and I got excited emails from inclusive sounding groups like Team Labour.
I had an invitation to register for Connected – the on-line substitute for a physical national conference – and thought I must have been forgiven or policy had changed for virtual meetings as I wouldn’t actually be polluting real live people with my physical presence. So I registered and signed up for a couple of events. Welcome emails arrived. Hurray, Labour loves me after all!
We feature below an important open letter from the Labour Left Alliance. One of the candidates in the current NEC elections supported by the LLA, Carol Taylor-Spedding, has outrageously been accused of holding “openly antisemitic view” – simply for stating in a questionnaire that she feels “inspired” by Jackie Walker and that she opposes her expulsion from the Labour Party. The group “Socialists of Colour” even reported Carol to the Labour Party for antisemitism! Clearly, these are no socialists.
Worryingly, the group has recently been set up and is run by another NEC candidate, Jermain Jackman. He claims that he was not involved in either putting together the questions, issuing the outrageous “content warning” ahead of Carol’s replies, reporting her to the Labour Party or informing journalists about the group’s wich-hunt. But the website does not contain anything apart from their NEC campaign and the group’s questions are clearly designed to support Jermain’s campaign.
After we and the LLA started complaining, Jermain eventually sought to distance himself from the website – by removing all names from their online presence (see pictures).
But Jermain continues to refuse to state if he AGREES with the actions his own group has taken. This is of course a hugely important question – surely members have a right to know if Jermain, if elected onto the NEC, will defend members from false allegations of antisemitism – or if he will be the one reporting them. The fact that he can tweet about all sorts of things, but will say nothing on this witch-hunt, speaks volumes.
Please forward this information and the open letter to others on the Labour Left. Continue Reading “Open letter to Jermain Jackman’s “Socialists of Colour””
Download the PDF version of this submission here.
The report ‘The work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014 – 2019’ (the Report), gives us irrefutable proof of the plotting and outright sabotage committed against Corbyn, and the hundreds of thousands who joined the party following his election in 2015, to fight for socialist and democratic change.
It is extremely unfortunate that the Report was only produced in the last days of Corbyn’s leadership. Drawing upon primary evidence it shows serious wrong-doing by senior party officials. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Left to radically transform the Labour Party and effect progressive change, was ruined by the Right in the party. At the same time, supporters of Corbyn were vilified and slandered, their voices silenced and their votes nullified.
Unfortunately, it appears that this was sometimes done with the knowledge, and occasionally even with the active participation of the Corbyn leadership, as in the case of the expulsion of Jackie Walker and the campaign against Chris Williamson.
Politically, the Report maps out an attack on Corbyn and his advisors, who had gained partial control of the NEC in April 2018 when Jennie Formby was appointed General Secretary, by a faction of their political predecessors appointed prior to Corbyn becoming leader. Our submission makes the case against the mistakes committed by both factions within the party machine. Continue Reading “Forde Enquiry: Submission by Labour Against the Witchhunt”
This important event discussed how we can fight back against McCarthyite attempts to stifle debate on the issue of Israel/Palestine – and label those unjustly expelled and suspended as ‘unpersons’ who we are not allowed to share platforms with.
No to (self-)censorship! Discuss how we can fight back and mobilise for free speech in the Labour movement and beyond!
Speakers include Norman Finkelstein, Tariq Ali, Chris Williamson, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, David Miller and Tony Greenstein. Chaired by Tina Werkmann of Labour Against the Witchhunt and Labour Left Alliance.
Download as a Word file here
1. This branch/CLP notes with great concern:
a) Keir Starmer’s July 22 2020 apology and payment of ‘damages’ in six figures to the former Labour Party employees who participated in the dreadful and one-sided BBC Panorama programme on alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party.
b) That the legal advice received by the Labour Party reportedly stated that the party had a very good chance to win the libel case pursued by the ‘whistleblowers’ featured in the programme.
c) That in the wake of this settlement, there are reports of “at least 42 further civil claims” against the party (Daily Telegraph July 24 2020), among them from BBC journalist John Ware and former general secretary Iain McNicol.
d) That the settlement has been used to demand that Starmer withdraws the whip from Jeremy Corbyn.
e) That the ‘leaked report’ quite clearly shows that there was an organised and concerted campaign by right-wingers in the party to undermine and sabotage Jeremy Corbyn and the left. Some of those actively involved in the campaign have now been paid off by Starmer. Continue Reading “Model motion: No confidence in Keir Starmer! No more settlements with witch-hunters!”
LAW Statement June 26 2020
Labour Against the Witchhunt condemns the June 25 sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey from the shadow cabinet. Her ‘crime’ was retweeing an interview in The Independent with the actor Maxine Peake. Repeating a widely circulated but inaccurate story, Maxine commented: “The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.”
However, Israeli training of US police, and the use of such inhuman techniques against Palestinians, have been well documented, for example by Amnesty International and Middle East Eye. Keir Starmer’s charge that any of this is an “anti-Semitic conspiracy theory” is ludicrous. It does underline the fact however that the witch-hunt has precious little to do with fighting antisemitism. It is all about getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn and now all of his remaining supporters and making sure the Labour Party remains a reliable ally from imperialism’s (and, crucially, Israel’s) point of view.
Rebecca Long-Bailey should have refuted the charge, and called out the Big Lie that criticising the Israeli state is anti-Jewish racism. Instead she retreated, tweeting that her praise of Peake was “not intended to be an endorsement of all parts of the article”. But appeasement only invites more attacks.
The agreed wording was not enough, and RLB was instructed to delete both her original tweet and her desperate “clarification”. Four hours after she expressed reluctance to do so “without the issuing of a press statement of clarification”, Starmer sacked her.
RLB’s cowardly capitulation is fully in line with her previous behavior. Her self-abasing endorsement of the Zionist, Tory-led, Board of Deputy’s ‘Ten Pledges’ did not protect her. Nor did calling herself a Zionist and refusing to protest again the witch-hunt or the appalling treatment suffered by the likes of Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein and former MP Chris Williamson.
Starmer’s ratcheting up of the anti-socialist witch-hunt in the Labour Party is unsurprising. It fulfills his promise to show ‘zero tolerance’ of any criticism of the racist ideology of Zionism.
LAW calls out the Big Lie – that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism. LAW calls out the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance cynical misdefinition of anti-Semitism. Acceptance of the Big Lie is nowadays obligatory for career politicians. Loyalty to British imperialism requires loyalty to US imperialism and its attack dog in the Middle East, Israel. Common humanity means we must stand with the Palestinians, who face not only military occupation and lack of elementary democratic rights, but now the threat of another round of ethnic cleansing.
LAW welcomes Momentum’s petition, calling for RLB’s reinstatement. But why did Momentum not organise against the witch-hunt from the beginning? Why did it throw Jackie Walker, Momentum’s former vice chair, to the wolves? And why does it tolerate witch-hunters in its ranks, including at the very top? Momentum has become a career ladder for aspiring Labour politicians.
LAW welcomes the belated “solidarity” expressed for the latest victim of the witch-hunt by the likes of John McDonnell and John Trickett, and the June 26 statement by the Campaign Group of Socialist MPs. They are protesting against the unjust victimisation of Corbyn’s “continuity candidate”. It would have been much better to have fought the witch-hunt from the beginning. How about now extending your “solidarity” to the hundreds of Labour members wrongly vilified, smeared, suspended and expelled? Instead, the Corbyn leadership sought to appease right from day 1.
RLB’s sacking on charges of promoting an “anti-Semitic conspiracy theory” could possibily be the start of a bigger purge. The right will not be satisfied until what little remains of the parliamentary Labour left is purged. It is that or total surrender.
LAW calls upon Labour Party members to stay and fight. Do not resign in protest against Starmer or the cowardice and crass careerism of the parliamentary left.
We demand:
Sign here: https://www.change.org/p/labour-party-reinstate-the-wavertree-4
We believe that the May 29 suspensions of four Constituency Labour Party officers from Liverpool Wavertree CLP (including the chair and secretary) under antisemitism charges are deeply unjust.
The four comrades – Nina Houghton, Kevin Bean, Helen Dickson and Hazuan Hashim – dared to raise political criticisms of their local MP Paula Barker, who had written an article in the Jewish Telegraph, without any prior consultation with the executive officers. She wrote, among other things: “Luciana [Berger] leaving the Labour Party was a shock to many and I find it deeply regrettable that she felt she could no longer stay.” This article was posted on Wavertree CLP’s Facebook page.
Luciana Berger MP, parachuted into the safe Labour seat for the 2010 general election, was one of the most vocal opponents of Jeremy Corbyn, who used her position as MP to publicly undermine and sabotage him at every opportunity. She helped to spread the lie that the Labour Party is overrun by antisemites and thereby fostered the current atmosphere, in which pro-Palestinian campaigners are regularly tarnished and vilified as antisemites – and she particularly singled out the Labour members in her own constituency. In the end she jumped ship and joined the Liberal Democrats, which really could not come as a “shock” to anybody who had followed her political trajectory. Tom Watson declared that she had been “forced out by racist thugs” in her CLP.
Paula, elected with the help of the left, including the Wavertree 4, seemed to support that narrative in her article. The four comrades felt so concerned that they wrote a private letter to Paula, but we understand she simply brushed their concerns aside. Without any decision-making CLP meetings taking place where the comrades could have presented a motion, the four decided to publish their views in the weekly internal CLP bulletin of May 26, which has been functioning as a medium of debate and has been featuring all sorts of local and national events during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The four comrades wrote that, “Paula’s words will most certainly be taken to imply that we, as a CLP, were responsible [for Berger’s departure]. This accusation has been repeated by our political opponents, such as the anti-Corbyn Labour right and the Liberal Democrats on numerous occasions, culminating in Tom Watson’s calumny, under the protective cloak of parliamentary privilege. In the furore that followed, individual officers and members, such as our then chair, were subjected to further abuse and false allegations in the media, all of which were designed to obscure the political differences between Ms Berger and the CLP.”
Clearly, nothing in their letter is even vaguely antisemitic. The four committed the crime of questioning if the local CLP (and the party as a whole) is really overrun by antisemites – that is enough to get you charged with being an anti-Semite yourself!
Of course, members don’t just have the right to criticize their MP – in a truly democratic party it is their duty to do so! These latest suspensions are clearly a serious attack on the right to free speech in the party.
The witch-hunt in Labour started as a campaign to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn. The leaked report has proven beyond all doubt what the right in the Labour Party is capable of – they would rather destroy the party than allow it to be taken over by the left. But sadly, the Corbyn leadership, with the help of Momentum, sought to appease these forces rather than fight them, which allowed the witch-hunt to grow and become even more vicious. No wonder that under Keir Starmer it has been expanded once more – now in an attempt to eradicate the entire Labour left. We know of dozens of suspensions in the last couple of weeks alone, some of them based on a single tweet.
But we will not be silenced! We will continue to oppose attempts to undermine party democracy, censor debate and to equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. And we will continue to demand a disciplinary process that is fair, transparent and just – these latest attacks show how overdue that is. This fight back has only just begun- and will continue until the witch-hunt is defeated!
Please email info@labouragainstthewitchhunt.org if you want to add your organisation’s name to this petition
Labour Against the Witchhunt www.labouragainstthewitchhunt.org
Labour Left Alliance https://labourleft.org
Labour Against the Witchhunt has become aware a new wave of suspensions and expulsions – often for the most absurd reasons. For example, we have seen the full suspension letter the Labour Party sent to Becky Massey, an activist in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and member of the executive committee of Brighton City Labour Party which was then disbanded (as featured in the leaked report). The single charge is her tweet about Chris Williamson, posted six months ago. It reads: “The 99% of people will have the best friend in Chris Williamson as an MP who, if reelected, will work for them. ‘I resigned from Labour to spend more time fighting for socialism.'”
In our view Chris Williamson was wrong to leave the Labour Party, but we can understand why he did so – he had been vilified, smeared and hounded by the press, without a single parliamentary ‘colleague’ coming to his defense (including Richard Burgon and the rest of the so-called Socialist Campaign Group).
Rule 2.1.4. of the Labour Party rule book is of course famously ‘elastic’:
“A member of the Party who joins and/ or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the Party, or supports any candidate who stands against an official Labour candidate, or publicly declares their intent to stand against a Labour candidate, shall automatically be ineligible to be or remain a Party member.”
This “support” is usually interpreted as calling for a vote for a candidate who is standing against a Labour Party candidate. In Becky’s case however, it has been interpreted as ‘tweeting in a supportive manner’. Despite the fact that she fully cooperated and explained that she did not actually call for a vote for Chris, she was expelled after two weeks – without even a hearing.
On the other hand, a number of right-wing Labour honchos who actually called on people to vote for the Liberal Democrats or even the Tories are left untouched. And we are still waiting for any disciplinary measures to be taken against those officials at Labour Party HQ who have been shown in the leaked report to have run an active campaign of sabotage against the party during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
Asa Winstanley of Electronic Intifada speculates that Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner were given a list of names by the Jewish Labour Movement in a meeting earlier in the week. This certainly would go some way to explain the latest wave of suspensions of left-wingers. Mike Cushman, membership secretary of Jewish Voice for Labour, received a ‘notice of investigation’ this week. Another Palestine supporter victimised is David Miller, professor of political science at Bristol University. He was suspended for pointing out that Keir Starmer was “in receipt of money from the Zionist movement, from Trevor Chinn”. This is of course factually correct. Miller is also correct in calling this latest wave a “targeted harassment of socialist members”. Clearly, the right-wingers at the top of the Labour Party will not stop their witch-hunt until all traces of socialism are eradicated.
Publicity is our main weapon in this extremely uneven fight. The steering committee of Labour Against the Witchhunt has decided to call a conference to coincide with the planned release of Keir Starmer’s “investigation” into the leaked report in July. No doubt, it will be a whitewash, focusing on who leaked it rather than the substance of the right-wing smears and campaign of sabotage against Jeremy Corbyn. But we also want to look at the many mistakes made by the Corbyn leadership: The report shows that they decided to support the lie that the Labour Party is overrun by antisemites. They sought to appease the Israel advocacy groups and the self-appointed leadership of “the Jewish community” and behaved as though they believed this lie. In the process they displayed an inability to recognise real antisemitism, while eagerly trying to get rid of Jackie Walker, Tony Greenstein, Ken Livingstone and Chris Williamson, none of whom can be accused of even a trace of antisemitism.
Details tbc, but please click here to register for the Zoom event.
Sign the petition here!
The defeat of Jeremy Corbyn has given the right inside and outside the Labour Party a mandate to press ahead with their campaign against the left. They will not rest until the Labour Party has been purged of all traces of socialism.
The latest manufactured ‘outrage’ of the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council concerns Labour MPs Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Diane Abbott. These comrades spoke in a Zoom meeting organised by Don’t Leave, Organise. This online event was also attended by Jackie Walker, Tony Greenstein – and 550 other people.
Both the BoD and JLC are now demanding that the two black MPs be suspended by the Labour Party “for sharing platforms with those that have been expelled from the Party for antisemitism”.
1) We believe that these expulsions – like the vast majority of others – were hugely unjust and the investigations deeply flawed. Despite forming the cornerstones of the report produced by Shami Chakrabarti back in 2016, due process and natural justice remain absent from Labour’s disciplinary process. While antisemitism and other forms of chauvinism exist in the Labour Party (as in wider society), the number of real antisemitic incidents in the Labour Party has been grossly exaggerated for political purposes.
2) Neither the Board of Deputies nor the Jewish Leadership Council has a democratic mandate to speak for all Jews in Britain, many of whom are very critical of the actions of the state of Israel. The organisations are clearly pro-Israel and work to a political agenda to attack, discredit and destroy any opposition to the systematic and brutal oppression of the Palestinians by the Israeli state. To this end, they energetically encourage the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
3) Furthermore, we note with great concern that Jonathan Goldstein, chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, reports that he had a meeting with Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner where, “it was agreed that no Labour MP should be sharing a platform with anyone expelled from the party for anti-Jewish racism“. The validity of many of these cases is being energetically challenged by many of the accused and their supporters. Furthermore, the leader of the Labour Party is not entitled to make such a promise: The policies and rules of the Labour Party are determined by its members at annual conference. If Keir Starmer has made such an undertaking, he must be reprimanded and ordered to withdraw it.
4) Guilt by association, as demanded by the BoD’s so-called 10 pledges, is a deeply troubling attack on the right to free speech. Already in our party, the witch-hunting right wing have concocted Kafkaesque charges against many members that would be laughed out of court even by the deeply flawed standards of the UK’s legal system. Transparently, this is an ongoing campaign against the left in the Labour Party; it is not a campaign against the scourge of antisemitism!
Therefore, we are putting out this urgent call for solidarity from CLPs and Labour Party branches, from trade unions, Labour councillors and particularly from those Labour MPs organised in the Socialist Campaign Group:
Sign the petition here!
VIDEO: The Labour leadership elections and our tasks (filmed April 14 2020)
After Keir Starmer’s election to leader of the Labour Party, we discussed how we can continue the fight:
* to defend freedom of speech in our party,
* to stop the misuse of trumped up charges to remove left candidates, and
* to reject the IHRA mis-definition of anti-Semitism
We also want to continue to campaign to stop Starmer from implementing the Board of Deputies’ so-called ‘10 Pledges’ – one of his first announcements. Our open letter to Rebecca Long-Bailey on this issue has been signed by almost 5,000 people and a number of organisations: https://bit.ly/2VaLWX3
We also discussed our response to the leaked Labour Party report that was produced in response to the investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and which gives us proof of the warfare and sabotage committed against Corbyn and the hundreds of thousands who joined the party in order to support him in the fight for socialist change.
1) Welcome and opening remarks (co-chair Tina Werkmann)
2) The Labour leadership elections and our tasks
Introduced by Jackie Walker and Graham Bash (both members of the steering committee LAW) and Moshe Machover, honorary president of LAW
As experienced activists in the Labour Party, we knew that the right in the party was plotting against Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters from day one. We knew, because we were the victims of their wrongful suspensions, their expulsions and their public smears and lies, all based on the flimsiest of evidence.
The report ‘The work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014 – 2019’, produced in response to the investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, now gives us irrefutable proof of the plotting and outright sabotage committed against Corbyn and the hundreds of thousands who joined the party to fight for socialist and democratic change.
It is a crying shame that this report was produced only in the last days of Corbyn’s leadership. It is based upon primary evidence showing serious wrong-doing by senior party officials. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the left to radically transform the Labour Party and effect progressive change was ruined by the right in the party.
At the same time, supporters of Corbyn were vilified and slandered, their voices silenced and their votes nullified. Unfortunately, it appears that this was sometimes done with the knowledge and occasionally even with the participation of the Corbyn leadership, as in the expulsions of Jackie Walker and Chris Williamson.
Keir Starmer must ensure the immediate publication of the report and a full enquiry into the facts:
*** The report describes how “the pro-Corbyn left decisively won” at Brighton CLP’s annual general meeting (AGM) in July 2016. Afterwards, two high-ranking Labour officials discussed how to overturn the result: “I say act now and worry about [rules and legal issues] later, so long as we don’t do something that’ll end up f[***]ing everything else up.” Party officials then overturned the AGM’s decisions, the old executive was restored and the local party split into three separate CLPs. (p113)
*** Labour officials discussed how to continue the unlawful suspension of Wallasey CLP, where the left “are properly organised” – in order to save the local right-wing MP, Angela Eagle, from being challenged. (p114)
*** We read that, “in many cases party members at all levels request the suspension of another party member as a way of escalating or indeed resolving a dispute. There is a wrongly-held view that political opponents can be ‘taken out’ of a contest or stopped from attending meetings by making a complaint with the intention of achieving a suspension of that member.” (p533) Clearly, this is exactly what has been taking place, even as recently as during the March 2020 NEC by-election. Half a dozen of the candidates were suspended in the middle of the contest, before any investigation was launched.
*** Sam Matthews, then head of Disputes, was able to single-handedly suspend Glyn Secker (secretary of Jewish Voice for Labour) as recently as 2018 – the case was so weak that he had to be reinstated almost immediately: Following on from a report produced by the disgraced right-wing Corbyn critic David Collier into the Facebook group ‘Palestine Live’ (of which Corbyn was a member), “documentary evidence shows that it was only because James Schneider, Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesperson, urged [Sam] Matthews to take action, that the report was examined at all. Of all the examples of extreme antisemitism in the report, GLU picked Glyn Secker, even though the report did not contain allegations of antisemitic comments by Secker and the report stated ‘Glyn Secker has had minimal interaction on the site’.” (p428)
*** The ‘Disputes’ unit desperately looked for reasons to expel the prominent Israeli Jew Moshé Machover. Because of his background, they found it difficult to charge him with racism: “The anti-Semitism stuff just clouds it in my view”. (p373) Instead, they decided to auto-expel him over his alleged membership of the “Communist Party of Great Britain Marxism-Leninism” (they got the wrong CPGB, incidentally) – but he was able to quickly disprove this claim. As party officials “found themselves inundated with emails about the case, including from Jewish socialist groups”, there was pressure to drop the case and rescind his expulsion. Many other, less prominent members, found it much more difficult to challenge their auto-expulsions.
*** We learn that despite some reforms under Jennie Formby, there are huge, ongoing problems with the way the party handles disciplinary cases. For example, the Governance and Legal unit uses a list of “investigatory search terms” to “vet” members, which includes words like ‘Atzmon’ and “a list of 57 (later 68) Labour MPs and their Twitter handles”. In other words, staff “initiate cases themselves by proactively investigating social media comments by Party members” (p17) to create a body of evidence where no basis for a case exists. The report also makes various positive references to Dave Rich from the Community Security Trust (CST), whose views are still being routinely sought as “expert opinion”. But the CST is not a neutral body – it is a pro-Israel charity, which the Tory government started funding in 2015 and has given at least 65 million pounds since.
*** Jackie Walker’s case was deliberately delayed by McNicol and his staff. They were determined to get rid of Tony Greenstein and Marc Wadsworth first in order to build a campaign to justify Jackie’s expulsion. However, the report also states that, “LOTO [Leader of the Opposition’s Office] wanted Walker to be suspended and had briefed the media to that effect”. (p366) In April 2018, “Jeremy Corbyn and Jennie Formby met with the Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council and the Community and Security Trust” and agreed to their demand that “the Party should expedite Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker’s cases. LOTO and Jennie Formby agreed”. The report quotes questionable evidence by Dave Rich, which implies that Jackie’s views are similar to those of Louis Farrakhan, but omits evidence given by black Jewish Professor Lewis Gordon, a world-leading academic on Jewish/black relations, which contradicts every claim by Dave Rich and supports Jackie’s case.
*** In the case of Chris Williamson, it appears that Jennie Formby was the one driving his expulsion. The report approvingly quotes her long chart sheet against him: “Several of these [complaints], if taken as an isolated incident, may have resulted in no action. However, taken together they add up to a pattern of behaviour that is not only reckless, it has brought the party into disrepute. I would also add that I personally spoke with Chris only two weeks ago and asked him to stop aligning himself with Labour Against the Witchhunt and speaking about antisemitism in the way that he is, because as an MP he does not have the privilege of behaving in the same way as an ordinary lay member does.” (p826)
These examples show just how futile it was of Corbyn and his allies to try and appease the right by going along with some of these injustices – when they should have taken them on in a decisive manner. There can be no compromise, no unity with those who would rather sabotage our party than see a radical Labour movement.
We demand that:
In one of his first actions as leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer has sent a letter to Marie van der Zyl, president of the BoD, promising to “deliver them as soon as possible”.
Click here for a number of model motions you can move in your branch, CLP and trade union branch.
As we pointed out in our open letter to Rebecca Long-Bailey, which has been signed by almost 5,000 people, the Board of Deputies (BoD) is not the representative body for the majority of Jews in Britain, many of whom are very critical of the actions of the state of Israel – unlike the BoD. The BoD is a pro-Israel organisation. It claims, for instance, that the Palestinians in Gaza are “using its civilians – including children – as pawns” in their fight against Israeli occupation and oppression.
The BoD have supported every war, every attack launched by Israel. The BoD is not a neutral body, but one with an evident political agenda: to attack, weaken and destroy any opposition to the systematic and brutal oppression of the Palestinians by the Israeli government. The BoD encourages the conflation of criticism of the Israeli government (anti-Zionism), with antisemitism (hatred of Jews).
The BoD, and its individual officers, have maintained open hostility to Labour since Corbyn took leadership of the party. They organised the ‘Enough is Enough’ demonstration outside parliament in March 2018, which was clearly aimed at weakening and attacking Jeremy Corbyn.
We believe that the BoD’s ‘10 Pledges’ are an outrageous political interference by an organisation that is overtly hostile to today’s Labour Party and everything it stands for. If implemented, these policies would for example, result in the suspensions and expulsions of the thousands of Labour members who have stood in open solidarity with those wrongly accused of antisemitism, including Chris Williamson, Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone and Marc Wadsworth.
Also, it is not for the leader of the Labour Party, or candidates aspiring to be the leader, to commit themselves to such pledges. The policies and rules of the Labour Party are determined by the members of the party via annual conference. By agreeing to these pledges, you are at risk of undermining our democratic processes.
We reject all of the ’10 pledges’, in particular:
Pledge 2: This pledge calls for the disciplinary process to be run by an “independent provider”. No, Labour party members should be judged by their peers only, not by outside agencies with their own political agenda.
Pledge 3: This would hand over confidential details of ongoing disciplinary cases to “Jewish representative bodies”. Which “bodies”? Of course the BoD chiefly mean themselves, because in pledge 8 they reject any engagement with what they call “fringe organisations and individuals”, by which they include principled, non-Zionist organisations like Jewish Voice for Labour.
Pledge 4: This would impose a lifetime ban from membership for what the BoD refers to as “repeat offenders, such as Ken Livingstone or Jackie Walker.” However, Ken Livingstone resigned his membership; whereas Jackie was not found guilty of antisemitism, but “bringing the party into disrepute”. Clearly, neither of them has said or done anything antisemitic (defined as “hatred of Jews”). Not only is this crass harassment of two individuals who have fought against racism for their entire life, it allows an anti-Labour organisation to decide who should or should not be a member of our party.
Pledge 5: This states: “Any MPs, peers, councillors, members or CLPs who support, campaign or provide a platform for people who have been suspended or expelled in the wake of antisemitic incidents should themselves be suspended from membership.” This is gross censorship, which should be rejected by anybody who wants a critical, engaged and thinking membership. This pledge would make it impossible for members to campaign to right a wrong in the party; it could lead to the suspension and smearing of thousands of members who dare to question and criticise what they may perceive to be wrong decisions.
Pledge 6: The Labour Party’s NEC has already adopted the IHRA’s ‘definition’ of antisemitism with all its eleven examples, even though some of those conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Making this “the basis for considering antisemitism disciplinary cases” is yet another insidious attack on free speech – exactly what the definition’s author, Kenneth Stern, has been warning about.
Pledge 7: This pledge seeks to hand the deliverance of “anti-racism training” to the Jewish Labour Movement, a pro-Zionist organisation that was revived in 2015 with the specific aim of undermining and attacking Jeremy Corbyn and the left. JLM (whose members don’t have to be Jewish or Labour Party members) have been instrumental in exaggerating and weaponising the very small number of antisemitic incidents in the Labour movement in order to smear Jeremy Corbyn and the left, by wilfully conflating anti-Zionism with Antisemitism.
We call on all on all socialists, anti-imperialists and Corbyn supporters to stay actively involved in the Labour Party and join us in this campaign against the BoD’s ‘10 Pledges’ and the ongoing witch-hunt against the left in the Labour movement.
1) This branch/CLP notes:
2) We believe:
We therefore call on all candidates in the Labour leadership election to officially distance themselves from these pledges and commit themselves to fight for a Labour Party that values and protects free speech, open debate and stands in international solidarity with the people in Palestine.
This branch condemns the Board of Deputies attempts at interference in the Labour party leadership election by demanding that candidates sign 10 pledges, one of which suggests outsourcing the Labour party’s disciplinary processes to a third party.
Their demands reflect the views of only one section of the British Jewish community, but they seek to proscribe the views of other Jewish groups who don’t agree with them, labelling them as fringe groups to be ignored and discounted.
The Board has been consistent in its support for the Conservative party, fulsomely welcoming the election of Boris Johnson, whose writings and actions expose a racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic mindset, yet they make no criticism of this or the fact that the Tory party members aren’t bound by the IHRA definition
This branch particularly notes that the pledges breach free speech and human rights, and do not include all forms of racism. They do not represent the diversity that exists in our branch or the country as a whole.
Accordingly we call upon candidates to reject this interference and review any decisions to sign the pledges and urge any candidates that have not thus far signed to reject their demands.
This CLP utterly condemns the ultimatum to the Labour Party and its leadership candidates by the Jewish Board of Deputies.
To accept their “Ten Pledges” (attached) would be to put the Labour party under the permanent control of an undemocratic right-wing group and prevent any attempt to speak up for the Palestinian people against a hard-right Israeli government. It is an unprecedented and quite blatant attack on free speech.
We note that:
We call on both the NEC and all leadership candidates to distance themselves from this attack on the Labour Party.
Dear Rebecca (rebecca.longbailey.mp@parliament.uk)
We call on you to reject the Board of Deputies’ 10 Pledges
We address this letter to you, because, unlike Keir Starmer, you state that you intend to “stay true” to Jeremy Corbyn’s “radical socialist vision”.
The Board of Deputies (BoD) is not the representative body for the majority of Jews in Britain, many of whom are very critical of the actions of the state of Israel – unlike the BoD. The BoD is a pro-Israel organisation. It claims, for instance, that the Palestinians in Gaza are “using its civilians – including children – as pawns” in their fight against Israeli occupation and oppression.
The BoD have supported every war, every attack launched by Israel. The BoD is not a neutral body, but one with an evident political agenda: to attack, weaken and destroy any opposition to the systematic and brutal oppression of the Palestinians by the Israeli government. The BoD encourages the conflation of criticism of the Israeli government (anti-Zionism), with antisemitism (hatred of Jews).
The BoD, and its individual officers, have maintained open hostility to Labour since Corbyn took leadership of the party. They organised the ‘Enough is Enough’ demonstration outside parliament in March 2018, which was clearly aimed at weakening and attacking Jeremy Corbyn.
We believe that the BoD’s ‘10 Pledges’ are an outrageous political interference by an organisation that is overtly hostile to today’s Labour Party and everything it stands for. If implemented, these policies would for example, result in the suspensions and expulsions of the thousands of Labour members who have stood in open solidarity with those wrongly accused of antisemitism, including Chris Williamson, Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone and Marc Wadsworth.
Solidarity is surely what the Labour Party stands for? If implemented, the pledges would create an atmosphere of fear, distrust and self-censorship. Is that really the kind of party you want Labour to become?
Also, it is not for the leader of the Labour Party, or candidates aspiring to be the leader, to commit themselves to such pledges. The policies and rules of the Labour Party are determined by the members of the party via annual conference. By agreeing to these pledges, you are at risk of undermining of our democratic processes.
We believe you are on a very dangerous path. Please turn around while you still can. We ask you to reject the ’10 pledges’ and stand with us – for the democratic transformation of the Labour Party into a vehicle for positive change, free speech and open debate.
We reject all of the ’10 pledges’, in particular:
Pledge 2: This pledge calls for the disciplinary process to be run by an “independent provider”. No, Labour party members should be judged by their peers only, not by outside agencies with their own political agenda.
Pledge 3: This would hand over confidential details of ongoing disciplinary cases to “Jewish representative bodies”. Which “bodies”? Of course the BoD chiefly mean themselves, because in pledge 8 they reject any engagement with what they call “fringe organisations and individuals”, by which they include principled, non-Zionist organisations like Jewish Voice for Labour.
Pledge 4: This would impose a lifetime ban from membership for what the BoD refers to as “repeat offenders, such as Ken Livingstone or Jackie Walker.” However, Ken Livingstone resigned his membership; whereas Jackie was not found guilty of antisemitism, but “bringing the party into disrepute”. Clearly, neither of them has said or done anything antisemitic (defined as “hatred of Jews”). Not only is this crass harassment of two individuals who have fought against racism for their entire life, it allows an anti-Labour organisation to decide who should or should not be a member of our party.
Pledge 5: This states: “Any MPs, peers, councillors, members or CLPs who support, campaign or provide a platform for people who have been suspended or expelled in the wake of antisemitic incidents should themselves be suspended from membership.” This is gross censorship, which should be rejected by anybody who wants a critical, engaged and thinking membership. This pledge would make it impossible for members to campaign to right a wrong in the party; it could lead to the suspension and smearing of thousands of members who dare to question and criticise what they may perceive to be wrong decisions.
Pledge 6: The Labour Party’s NEC has already adopted the IHRA’s ‘definition’ of antisemitism with all its eleven examples, even though some of those conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Making this “the basis for considering antisemitism disciplinary cases” is yet another insidious attack on free speech – exactly what the definition’s author, Kenneth Stern, has been warning about.
Pledge 7: This pledge seeks to hand the deliverance of “anti-racism training” to the Jewish Labour Movement, a pro-Zionist organisation that was revived in 2015 with the specific aim of undermining and attacking Jeremy Corbyn and the left. JLM (whose members don’t have to be Jewish or Labour Party members) have been instrumental in exaggerating and weaponising the very small number of antisemitic incidents in the Labour movement in order to smear Jeremy Corbyn and the left, by wilfully conflating anti-Zionism with Antisemitism.
We call on all on all socialists, anti-imperialists and Corbyn supporters to stay actively involved in the Labour Party and join us in this campaign against the BoD’s ‘10 Pledges’ and the ongoing witch-hunt against the left in the Labour movement.
Initial signatories include (all in personal capacity):
Organisations in support:
No, Rebecca Long-Bailey, you SHOULD NOT sign up to the 10 pledges by the ‘Board of Deputies’!
These outrageous demands, pushed by a bunch of Tory-supporting, pro-capitalists, should not just be ignored by any candidate running for the leadership of the Labour Party – but rejected outright as inappropriate interference. Email Rebecca if you think she should change her view urgently: rebecca.longbailey.mp@parliament.uk
The worst of the 10 pledges are:
Pledge 2: Make the disciplinary process “independent”. Independent of whom? The members? Hand it over to the Jewish Labour Movement or the BoD, perhaps? No, Labour Party members should be judged by their peers only. Governance and Legal (formerly the Compliance Unit) – still staffed by many employees hired by witch-finder general Iain McNicol – should be abolished and replaced with a democratic and transparent body, elected by Labour Party members.
Pledge 3: Handing over confidential details of ongoing disciplinary cases to “Jewish representative bodies” – and they don’t mean the Jewish Voice for Labour, of course, which is referred to as “fringe organisations and invidividuals” in pledge 8.
Pledge 4: A lifetime ban from membership for “repeat offenders, such as Ken Livingstone or Jackie Walker.” Ken Livingstone incidentally resigned; whereas Jackie was not found guilty of anti-Semitism, but “bringing the party into disrepute”. Not that the BoD cares.
Pledge 5: “Any MPs, peers, councillors, members or CLPs who support, campaign or provide a platform for people who have been suspended or expelled in the wake of antisemitic incidents should themselves be suspended from membership.” This is pure censorship that should be rejected by anybody who wants a critical, engaged and thinking membership.
Pledge 7: Handing training on anti-Semitism to the Jewish Labour Movement, a Zionist organisation that has been instrumental in weaponsing the miniscule number of anti-Semitic incidents in order to smear Jeremy Corbyn and the left. They have purposely conflated anti-Zionism (criticism of Israel) with anti-Semitism (hatred of Jews).
LAW is very proud to be part of this important new development – please get involved! Sign up your group or as an individual!
The LLA launch conference takes place on Saturday February 22 in Sheffield. Details are available here. Please attend one of the many pre-conference events taking place in order to be eligible to attend.
Ever since Jeremy Corbyn put his name forward to stand as leader of the Labour Party there has been a massive campaign to undermine and remove him by the Tories, elements of the establishment and the right in our own party, with backing from the overwhelming majority of the mainstream media. Of the numerous unfounded smears thrown at Corbyn – being too scruffy, not bowing deep enough, being a Czech spy etc – those around antisemitism have been one of the most consistent avenues of attack.
They have not had everything their own way – Moshé Machover was readmitted to the party after a major campaign and their attempts to move against Lisa Forbes, now the MP for Peterborough, before and after her election have not succeeded. Momentum nationally is no longer on the side of the left in these battles and this has become increasingly clear – as has its own lack of democracy.
There is an urgent need to take steps to unite the genuine, democratic Labour left. We are committed to making this process open, democratic and transparent. We want to involve as many principled local, regional and national Labour left organisations and union bodies as we can.
We are not saying anyone should resign from or disaffiliate from Momentum to participate. But one of our concerns is that if we don’t act now people who joined to support Corbyn will leave in disillusion. The need to move at pace must be balanced with the need to build in a democratic and sustainable way. Two national organisations (the Labour Representation Committee and Labour Against the Witchhunt) and a number of local groups have already signed up to this initiative and we are having positive discussions with many more.
We encourage all comrades not already members of local Labour Left groups to get involved in one or help set one up. We will gladly help you to find a speaker, advertise your meeting or assist in any other way we can.
Labour belongs to us – let’s unite and fight for our party!
So far, at least 29 CLPs, 9 Momentum branches and dozens of trade union bodies and left Labour organisations have come out in solidarity with Chris Williamson MP (we know of couple of other CLPs where it was decided not to publish the successful resolution). Each CLP has an average of 800 members, so you can calculate for yourself how that compares with the very few MPs who have demanded Chris’ scalp.
PLEASE NOTE THERE IS NO BAN ON MOVING MOTIONS IN SUPPORT OF CHRIS: We hear that in a number of branches and CLPs, the chair has prevented the meeting from discussing motions in support of Chris because of apparent guidelines sent out by Labour HQ. We have produced detailed advice to show that this is not the case – click here for more info and details on how to move a motion. Click here for a number of model motions.
Feel free to download, share and use our memes. Continue Reading “Resolutions, statements and quotes in support of Chris Williamson MP”
“The battle is won. The war rages on”.
This is how Chris Williamson has aptly summed up the High Court judgment, which was delivered at Birmingham’s Civil Justice Centre today, October 10 2019. The judge ruled that the Labour Party acted unlawfully in re-suspending Chris on 28 June, and “that there was no proper reason” for doing so.
The judge also confirmed that Chris’ ‘re-suspension’ must have been motivated by media hysteria. The judge said: “it is not … difficult to infer that the true reason for the decision in this case was that [NEC] members … were influenced by the ferocity of the outcry following the June decision.”
In fact, the party’s decision was so unfair as to be unlawful: Chris’ original suspension has been quashed, and all of the allegations presented in that suspension can no longer be pursued against him.
However, in what must be one of the most bizarre twists in Labour’s witch-hunt crisis, Chris remains suspended from the party! A double suspension! How much more Kafkaesque can this witch-hunt get? Continue Reading “LAW statement on Chris Williamson’s court battle: “The battle is won. The war rages on””
Continue Reading “Proposed draft constitution for the Labour Left Alliance”
Sign our open letter to the NEC here
The renewed suspension of Chris Williamson MP, two days after he was readmitted to the Labour Party, is deeply troubling. We are particularly concerned that Keith Vaz’ U-turn seems to have been motivated purely by the pressure coming from the right inside and outside the party. Sadly but unsurprisingly, that now includes Jon Lansman.
We presume Vaz initially judged the case by its merit and found – correctly – that Chris had not said or done anything that could be described as anti-Semitic or bringing the party into disrepute. Vaz quite rightly judged that the evidence did not warrant Chris’s ongoing suspension or his referral to the National Constitutional Committee (which is still dominated by the right).
But Vaz’s U-turn and Chris’s renewed suspension, following the deeply undemocratic and hysterical letter organised by Tom Watson, symbolise how unfair and one-sided the whole disciplinary process really is. The right is calling all the shots – and Labour HQ seems to always do exactly what they demand.
But the right will never be appeased. They will never accept Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, let alone prime minister. They will continue their campaign of sabotage, because he remains unreliable from the ruling class’s point of view, especially given his strong support for the rights of Palestinians.
It is high time that the Labour MPs better reflect the wishes of the local membership. We therefore urge Labour Party members to organise trigger ballots everywhere, particularly in order to deselect the 70 or so MPs who have signed Tom Watson’s letter (below).
Click here to see the long list of statements, resolutions and motions in support of Chris!
Sign our open letter to the NEC here
Today we are celebrating the long overdue reinstatement of Chris Williamson MP. The reality is that he should never have been suspended in the first place!
The allegation that Chris had downplayed anti-Semitism was totally unfounded. His comments, made at a Momentum meeting in Sheffield, were condemned in a deliberate attempt to ruin both the reputation of Chris and Jeremy Corbyn.
Chris Williamson MP actually said: “The party that has done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party. I have got to say, I think our party’s response has been partly responsible for that because in my opinion… we’ve backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we’ve been too apologetic… We’ve done more to address the scourge of anti-Semitism than any other party.”
His comments were clearly neither anti-Semitic, nor denying the existence of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party (as in wider society). But he did quite rightly point to the fact that there has also been a political campaign to “weaponise” accusations of anti-Semitism.
Chris is a target because he is one of the very few Labour MPs who have openly stood up to the witch-hunt of Corbyn supporters and because he has campaigned tirelessly for the much-needed democratisation of the party.
We are deeply concerned that anti-Corbyn right-wingers continue to smear and harass Chris, even after his reinstatement. Ruth Smeeth MP, chair of the rightwing Jewish Labour Movement’s parliamentary group, for example said that he had “demonstrated a pattern of behaviour over a period of many months, seemingly seeking to intentionally undermine, marginalise and harass the British Jewish community and Jewish Labour Party members, which has continually brought the Labour Party into disrepute”.
Despite the departure of Iain McNicol as general secretary, the witch-hunt of left-leaning party members continues. The main target of this campaign is, of course, Jeremy Corbyn himself. But thousands of Labour Party members have been investigated, suspended and expelled, often on spurious grounds. Like Chris Williamson, they are the collateral damage in this campaign to ‘get’ Corbyn.
We call on all Labour Party members to use trigger ballots to challenge saboteurs like Ruth Smeeth, Tom Watson and all those who continue to oppose the positive transformation of the Labour Party.
Here is a guide on how to go about it: https://www.labouragainstthewitchhunt.org/model-motions/how-to-use-the-new-trigger-ballot-to-deselect-your-mp/
Labour Party conference 2018 voted to introduce two separate trigger ballots: one for all the Labour branches of a CLP, another one for all local affiliates (trade unions, socialist societies, cooperative organisations).
Here is how it works (please note that CLPs are still awaiting written guidelines – though MPs seem to have been sent a FAQ, see below):
1) On Monday June 25, general secretary Jennie Formby wrote to all sitting MPs, asking if they want to stand again in any new general election. They will have to let her know by July 8.
2) If the MP replies ‘yes’, the CLP will organise two trigger ballots:
3) If a minimum of 33 % of a CLP’s branches or 33 % of the CLP’s affiliates vote ‘no’ to retaining the sitting MP, a full selection process starts – ie, a democratic contest between different candidates, including the sitting MP. Please note that, according to a FAQ apparently sent to MPs by Jennie Formby at the beginning of July (see below), “the third of branches is calculated based only on the branches that do cast a vote” – which is excellent, if indeed this is how it will be implemented.
4) Only full Labour Party members have a vote in this stage of the process.
For example: A CLP has 10 branches and 10 affiliates. To start a full selection process, EITHER 4 LP branches OR 4 affiliated organisations have to vote ‘no’ when asked if they want to retain the sitting MP.
Click here for some background on trigger ballots and why they are so crucial to remaking the Labour Party. Also, remember that trigger ballots were only ever reformed to stop the much more democratic system of mandatory reselection going through at last year’s conference.
This FAQ was apparently sent to all MPs at the beginning of July (click on the picture to read it better)
Labour Against the Witchhunt deplores the disciplinary action against NEC member Pete Willsman, who has been put under administrative suspension by general secretary Jennie Formby after “a number of complaints, including from NEC members, about Pete’s latest comments”.
Comrade Willsman insists that he made his comments to the American-Israeli author Tuvia Tenenbom “off the record”, which explains some of the clumsy formulations he used in the discussion. It is surely no coincidence that Pete’s comments, recorded in January, have been published at a time where the slow coup against Jeremy Corbyn is hotting up once again.
Nothing Pete Willsman said in these comments is anti-Semitic. He does, however, point to some uncomfortable truths exposed by the excellent Al Jazeera documentary The Lobby, which has been so willfully ignored by the mainstream media. The documentary reveals a systematic effort by the Israeli embassy to infiltrate the Labour Party and highlights the efforts by the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs to label critics of Israeli human rights abuses as anti-Semitic.
This should be the subject of an overdue investigation rather than Pete Willsman’s role in drawing our attention to it. It is an outrage that Labour Party members are being disciplined for correctly stating that much of the anti-Semitism crisis has been manufactured, while anti-Corbyn MPs like Margaret Hodge, Louise Ellman and Tom Watson insult, disrupt, make bogus accusations and work hand in glove with the capitalist media – with no repercussions coming their way. Those making false charges ought to face disciplinary action and should be held accountable for their actions.
A stalwart of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLDP), Pete Willsman has been serving on Labour’s NEC for many decades and is one of the few real allies of Jeremy Corbyn on that body. This is why he has been on the radar of those who will do anything to get rid of Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. We recall how he was secretly recorded at a meeting of the NEC in July 2018, where he can be heard angrily criticising all those who were responsible for so many false allegations of anti-Semitism in the party. His subsequent re-election to the NEC, despite being removed from Momentum’s slate at the behest of its owner, Jon Lansman, shows both his individual popularity and the widespread disillusionment with Momentum for its part in promoting the false ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ narrative.
Pete Willsman’s suspension from the Labour Party should be lifted immediately.
Update: Meet Tuvia Tenenbom, the man who secretly recorded Peter Willsman and leaked the audio to the press just as the latest coup against Jeremy Corbyn is hotting up… Watch the short clip below and then judge for yourself if this really is a “journalist” whose sound recording guy happened to have left the microphone on… or if this does not look like somebody who might organise a sting operation against the most outspoken Corbyn supporter on Labour’s NEC … kind of proving Pete’s point about “interference”.
It is unfortunately no surprise that the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has opened an official investigation into the Labour Party.
Any kind of neutral body would have had to immediately dismiss the complaints lodged by the Jewish Labour Movement and the so-called Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. These organisations have no interest in fighting racism: their only purpose is to get rid of a certain Jeremy Corbyn. They have been blatant in their political opposition to the twice elected leader of the Labour Party – and have actively plotted against him from day one. (Click here for Tony Greenstein’s blog who looks at the reactionary politics of the CAA).
According to The Guardian, the EHRC will investigate “whether the party has unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people because they are Jewish” and if “the party and its employees have committed unlawful acts of discrimination or failed to respond to complaints of unlawful acts in an efficient and effective manner”.
If there has been unlawful discrimination by Labour against Jewish people, it is against Jewish anti-Zionists. Many of those, as well as black members, are involved in the struggle for Palestinian rights, which explains the disproportionate number of expulsions and suspensions of black and Jewish comrades.
However, the recent victory of Stan Keable in his employment tribunal shows what happens when these types of cases are put before a real judge: they are laughed out of court. Stan was fired for stating that in the 1930s the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazi regime – a well documented, if shameful, historical fact. The judge defended the right to express anti-Zionist views – even if they offend people.
Labour HQ should call this campaign what it is: part of the rightwing witch-hunt against Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters. The Labour leader remains an unreliable ally from the ruling class’s point of view, especially given his strong support for the rights of Palestinians.
The expulsion of Alistair Campbell, though welcome, does not change the overall picture. MPs like Margaret Hodge, Louise Ellman and Tom Watson insult, disrupt, make bogus accusations and work hand in glove with the capitalist media – with no repercussions coming their way. Those making false charges ought to face justice at last.
Their outrageous behaviour goes unpunished because of the short-sighted and futile attempts to appease the right. This can only undermine the Corbyn leadership and play into the false ‘Anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ narrative.
THANKS
Thank to my solicitor, David Phillips of R&A Solicitors (Manchester), and pro bono barrister Iqbal Sram, who did a brilliant job. Thanks to H&F Unison steward Bruce Mackay, who represented me at the preliminary investigation hearing, and to Branch Secretary Patsy Ishmael, who accompanied me at the appeal hearing and insisted that my right to a trade union rep of my choice had been illegally denied. Thanks to barrister Dave Renton, who helped prepare me for the disciplinary hearing and Tony Greenstein, who represented me at the disciplinary hearing. Thanks to my witnesses – all Jewish: Hilary Russell, Professor Moshé Machover, Mike Cushman (Free Speech on Israel), Naomi Wimbourne-Idrissi (Jewish Voice for Labour), Pamela Blakelock (JVL), Glyn Secker (JVL). Thanks to my local comrades in Hammersmith CLP and Hammersmith & Fulham Momentum for not believing the nonsense that I was anti-Semitic. Thanks to my comrades in Labour Party Marxist and Labour Against the Witchhunt, who defended me throughout. And thanks to my Esperantist friends who knew that racist “Jew-hate” could not feature in my outlook.
www.labouragainstthewitchhunt.org/uncategorized/stan-keable-has-won-his-employment-tribunal/
We are very pleased to report that LAW secretary Stan Keable has today WON his employment tribunal against Hammersmith and Fulham council. The employment tribunal judge ruled that it was “an unfair dismissal, both procedurally and substantively.”
On April 21 2018, Stan was dismissed from his job with Hammersmith and Fulham Council after 17 years unblemished service as a housing officer, for having “brought the Council into disrepute”, by saying that the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazi regime – a well documented if shameful historical fact.
He said this on March 26, in a conversation in Parliament Square – nothing to do with work – while participating in the Jewish Voice for Labour demonstration in support of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, called in opposition to the rightwing ‘Enough is Enough’ demonstration.
The BBC’s David Grossman tweeted a 105-second video clip of the conversation, retweeted by Tory MP Greg Hands to H&F Council Labour leader Stephen Cowan and then used by the Council to sack Stan.
Unison withdrew support because Stan rejected the bad advice of their regional organiser to plead guilty, throwing away the right to demonstrate and to freedom of speech.
This dismissal was clearly an extension of the McCarthyite witch-hunt against Corbyn supporters in the Labour Party into the area of employment. Hopefully, this judgment will go some way to stop any more of such politically motivated sackings.
The remedy hearing is set for October 2, to determine possible reinstatement and the level of compensation.
Thank you to everybody who has supported Stan in this period!
Read more:
Stan’s open letter to H&F Councillors:
https://www.labouragainstthewitchhunt.org/campaigns/stan-keables-open-letter-to-hammersmith-fulham-labour-councillors-and-party-members/
Mike Cushman – ‘How talking about Zionism can lose you your job’:
https://freespeechonisrael.org.uk/keable-sacking/#sthash.ueizxvgU.xeBSvgDw.dpbs
Tony Greenstein – ‘No criticism permitted’:
https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1203/no-criticism-permitted/
We are deeply worried about the delay to implement the trigger ballots, which Labour Party conference 2018 voted to reform. Trigger ballots are currently the only way in which Labour Party members can exercise some democratic control over their parliamentary representative.
This is particularly worrying with talks of a snap election or, worse, the formation of a national government. No doubt, Jeremy Corbyn would not be invited to join – let alone lead – such a national government, as the vast majority of MPs in the Parliamentary Labour Party have proven over and over again how deeply hostile they are to him and his politics.
The PLP must change and Labour Party members must be allowed to exercise the right to hold their representatives to account! Continue Reading “Sign the petition: No to a national government! Implement the trigger ballot now!”
We welcome Jeremy Corbyn’s fighting spirit in his letter to the Board of Deputies. As usual, the BoD reacted with fake outrage to the ‘news’ that Corbyn wrote a foreword to the hugely influential book ‘Imperialism – a Study’ by AN Hobson.
We particularly agree with this paragraph:
This accusation is the latest in a series of equally ill-founded accusations of anti-Jewish racism that Labour’s political opponents have made against me. I note that the Hobson story was written by a Conservative Party peer in a newspaper whose editorial policy, and owner, have long been hostile to Labour. At a time when Jewish communities in the UK, and indeed throughout Europe, feel under attack, it is a matter of great regret that the issue of anti-Semitism is often politicised in this way.
John A Hobson did not only develop a theory of underconsumption to explain capitalism’s devastating cycles of boom and bust – but he was also the first writer to explain that capitalism, with its need to constantly expand, requires governments to constantly open up new markets to exploit: imperialism.
And while there is a now much-quoted paragraph in the 400 page work that does indeed reflect how anti-Semitism was prevalent and acceptable within the ruling class at the time, this hardly makes it a “deeply anti-Semitic book”, as The Times and The Guardian now claim. Incidentally, in 2011 The Guardian praised the work as “the definitive book on imperialism”. This just shows you how the political narrative around the issue of anti-Semitism has been utterly manipulated and changed in the last few years.
But Corbyn’s two-finger salute comes late, very late. Hundreds of Labour Party supporters have been suspended, expelled or remain under investigation for exactly the same kind of “politicised” and “ill-founded accusations of anti-Jewish racism”, among them Chris Williamson MP, Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein and many, many more. Why won’t he come out in their defence, too? The charges against them have been just as ridiculous.
We also hope that Corbyn will criticise the Jewish Labour Movement in similarly strong terms. After all, they have – once again – used the opportunity to continue their campaign of sabotage: They have called on him to “consider his position” and accused him of having “endorsed antisemitic propaganda”. “Any other member would have been suspended after this. This is why JLM members overwhelmingly passed a motion of no confidence in him and his leadership at our AGM two weeks ago. A fish rots from the head.”
And the Jewish Labour Movement clearly is rotten through and through. For a start, it does not represent “Jewish members of the Labour Party”: you do not have to be Jewish to join it and you certainly do not have to be a member of the Labour Party. Adam Langleben, for example, the newly elected campaigns officer of the JLM, has left the Labour Party with much fanfare in February and is, we hear, supporting Chuka Umunna’s Tinge Party.
Congratulations to Sam Gorst, who has just been elected Labour Party councillor in Cressington – despite a nasty campaign against him.
In the run-up to the local and European Union elections rightwingers in and outside the Labour Party have been busy scrolling through the Facebook and Twitter accounts of Labour candidates in particular. Naturally, they have been hugely successful in discovering ‘problematic’, often historic, posts (that were not considered problematic at all a few short years back).
Sam Gorst, for example, is under investigation for alleged “anti-Semitism”, because it appears he tweeted something “in defence of former London mayor Ken Livingstone”. His accounts have been deleted, but if that is all, then clearly the compliance unit has once again massively overreached. After all, Livingstone resigned from Labour after the NEC decided to readmit him after a one-year-suspension. The right wing – much emboldened by their success with the campaign to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism – freaked out and the Corbyn leadership was in agony over what to do with Livingstone. He resigned to spare Corbyn any more blushes – to no avail, of course. Because Corbyn and his allies have continuously given in to the witch-hunters rather than standing up to them, Livingstone is now ‘known’ to be an anti-Semite (as is Corbyn himself, of course).
Click here to read an article by Moshe Machover on the ‘Ken Livingstone affair’: “The campaign [by the witch-hunters] has been remarkably successful and, of course, the biggest scalp so far is that of former London mayor and former NEC member, Ken Livingstone. What did he say that got him suspended? Hitler came to power in 1932 and “supported Zionism until he went mad”. Of course, he got the date wrong, Hitler came to power in 1933. It was also wrong to personalise the shift in policy. But the point he was making about the Nazi regime and Zionism is basically correct, as I shall demonstrate.”
Ken Livingstone is new honorary president of Labour Against the Witchhunt (alongside comrade Machover) – check out how LAW fought to extract a rare apology from the Mail on Sunday when it maliciously misreported our meeting with him and Jackie Walker on March 25.
Thanks to everybody who complained to the Mail on Sunday about its malicious and misleading article about our meeting ‘Defend the Left’ on March 25. On April 4, the rag has finally apologised to Ken Livingstone (which was printed in the April 7 edition of the Mail on Sunday):
Ken Livingstone said: “A massive thank you to the 1000s of people who gave their support over the last few days & to those who complained to the Mail on Sunday regarding their complete distortion of my recent remarks.
The correction is welcome, but does not change the fact that 1000s of people saw – & other media outlets reprinted – these lies.
We must continue to challenge how parts of the media act, spreading lie after lie, with little regard for the truth, and not be deterred in our campaigning for a better society, for the many not the few.”
The Mail apology reads: “An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that Mr Livingstone had said it was not anti-Semitic to hate the Jews of Israel. In fact he told the meeting the claim he had said such a thing was one of the lies being spread about him. We apologise for this error.”
Continue Reading “Mail on Sunday finally apologises to Ken Livingstone!”
Speakers included Ken Livingston, Jackie Walker and Graham Bash (Jewish Voice for Labour & Labour Representation Committee, personal capacity) and we read out messages of solidarity from Chris Williamson and Ken Loach. Video below
Join our March 26 protest party at the expulsion hearing of Jackie Walker (details to be confirmed, Facebook event here). Should Chris still be suspended, we will of course use the opportunity to demand his reinstatement.
Paul Jonson had been suspended last month by Dudley council after having attended a protest outside the surgery of Ian Austin MP, who in July sent out a tweet stating “Hamas and the Palestinians were responsible for the deaths of 18 Gazans” during the Great Return March in May 2018. Comrade Jonson also published a post on Facebook declaring that “Israel is a racist endeavour” (in response to Labour NEC’s adoption of the ‘working definition’ of Anti-Semitism published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance).
Read Paul’s full statement explaining his case here.
On December 19, the council found that comrade Jonson had “no case to answer” and he was allowed to return to work with immediate effect.
This is an important victory in the fight against the highly politicised campaign that wants to label all criticism of Israel as ‘anti-Semitic’.
We call on all Labour Party members to stay well clear of the Jewish Labour Movement’s latest stunt. The JLM, which is the sister party of the Zionist Labor Party in Israel, has written to CLP secretaries, asking them to distribute their “survey” on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party to all local members. Many CLP secretaries have quite rightly moved this email directly into their Spam folder. If you have been unfortunate enough to have received the email, we urge you to do the same.
It is laughable to claim, as the JLM does, that it has “engaged, in good faith, with the Labour Party to try and solve the severe and ongoing crisis of Labour anti-Semitism”. The JLM has neither acted in “good faith”, nor has it got any interest in solving “the crisis of Labour anti-Semitism”. After all, the JLM has done tremendous work in making rare, isolated cases into a “crisis” in the first place. Hundreds, if not thousands, of supporters of Jeremy Corbyn have been witch-hunted in this campaign, which has nothing to do with fighting anti-Semitism – but everything with getting rid of Corbyn, a committed friend of the Palestinians.
We have seen people being suspended for using the word “Zio” or for expressing their outrage of the horrendous crimes committed by the state of Israel in a confused manner. The vast majority of these people are clearly not anti-Semitic. And yet, they have been publicly labeled as such by the JLM, the Board of Deputies and the despicable Jonathan Sachs, who has gone as far as calling Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite. We know that the JLM has reported many cases to Labour’s compliance unit, often causing great distress to the members concerned.
Socialists in the Labour Party should show up this “survey” for what it is – a clearly biased attempt to exacerbate the poisonous atmosphere of fear and suspicion in the party.
Labour Against the Witchhunt held a successful fringe meeting at the Labour conference. Stan Keable reports
“There can be no greater injustice than anti-racists being accused of racism by racists,” the Scouse comedian Alexie Sayle told LAW’s packed fringe meeting on Sunday night. The potential for a “massive transformation” of the Labour Party and society opened up by “the miracle of Jeremy Corbyn” has overcome Alexei’s longstanding objection to voting. Having grown up in a communist family, he used to say: “Don’t vote, struggle against capitalism”. But, although Jeremy has changed all that, Alexei has not joined the Labour Party. A comedian needs to maintain their independence, he said, to be able to criticise any politician. The witch-hunters can’t expel me because I am not a member, he added, “so they can fuck off!” (The democracy we fight for, of course, includes the right of any Labour member, comedians included, to criticise all Labour leaders.)
Jewish Voice for Labour’s Jo Bird, newly elected four weeks ago as a councillor in Birkenhead, pointed out that she and her comrades had been canvassing for weeks, talking to people about all manner of issues, but “no-one raised the issue of anti-Semitism on the door”. She was appalled by Birkenhead MP Frank Field. He rounded on the rank-and-file party membership within his constituency. He invented accusations of anti-Semitism and bullying. To all those party members falsely suspended and expelled, she said: “You are owed a huge apology. On behalf of the party, I am very, very sorry.”
That moving apology became particularly poignant when 73-year-old Bob Walker, the youngest of the ‘Garston 3’, described how three disabled pensioners were expelled for merely attending a meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition – to discuss socialism. Gerry Tyrell, Tony Lock and Bob were rewarded for their tireless work of knocking on doors and delivering leaflets in all weathers during the 2017 general election campaign by being expelled. They were not told the names of their accusers or the evidence against them. Nor was there any hearing or right of appeal. LAW demands due process before any disciplinary sanction is taken.
Ex-Liverpool councillor Tony Mulhearn called on Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to stand up to the witch-hunters: “No more apologies, no more retreats. When you apologise, you are accepting you did something wrong.” He called out Andrew Marr for the bias he showed that morning while interviewing Corbyn, insistently cross-examining him about anti-Semitism allegations for more than 20 minutes. “Jeremy should have asked Marr who prepares such questions for him”, he said. Moreover, Corbyn should have asked: “Why don’t you show pictures of me on anti-racist demonstrations?” and “Why are Jews who support Jeremy never interviewed?” The smear campaign is “producing fear among Jewish people”, Mulhearn added.
Recalling the “ridiculously long list of charges” he faced in his own expulsion in 1986, comrade Mulhearn reminded us of how that earlier witch-hunt had been politically driven by the “bloated toad” Neil Kinnock. He insisted on getting people expelled regardless of the facts. “A witch-hunt is irrational”, said Tony, “because the decision has already been made”. At that time, John McDonnell had stood firm in his defence, but is now singing a different tune: “We need to be conciliatory, we are a broad church.” As LAW vice-chair Tony Greenstein commented: “Even the broadest church expels atheists. The ‘atheists’ in our party are those who are not, and never have been, socialists.”
Chairperson Annyana Ndukwe of Liverpool LAW and Grassroots Black Left read out a solidarity message from Asa Winstanley of Electronic Intifada, who was unable to join the panel of speakers:
Despite the new leftwing general secretary Labour has, the party bureaucracy is still disciplining members on entirely fallacious pretexts. One comrade in Brighton showed me a letter she received this very month from Labour’s head of complaints, Sophie Goodyear, warning her that several “provocative” tweets she’d allegedly written in 2016 had “caused offence” and that such “abuse” would “not be tolerated” in Labour … One of the three tweets cited was simply the comrade posting the headline and link to my April 2016 article, ‘How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis’ without comment … it seems that at least some in Labour HQ are treating critical journalism like Electronic Intifada as banned publications. (Full text here)
Tony Greenstein, expelled in February 2018, told us how he had also been suspended from the party in 1992 by then general secretary Larry Whitty, now a Lord – “well rewarded for services rendered to the capitalist state”, as comrade Mulhearn put it. Comrade Greenstein emphasised that the witch-hunt is “not about anti-Semitism, it is about removing Corbyn as leader”.
Chris Williamson MP, introduced by comrade Ndukwe as “one of the few MPs who is a true socialist”, confronted the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the party, declaring that he often describes Israel as an apartheid state. He compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the fate of the Cherokees in America. Denouncing the “terrible injustice” being done to Jackie Walker, he condemned the way Marc Wadsworth had been “demonised as a bigot” for merely “asking a question at a press conference”.
Comrade Williamson, advocating mandatory reselection, quoted Ed Miliband’s advice: “If we trusted the members more, we would not have made so many mistakes”. And he laid into Neil Kinnock’s view that the party belongs to the MPs, not the members. As for those MPs who object to reselection on the grounds of employment rights: “It ain’t a job, mate! You are elected as a representative of the party and the people who elected you.”
Calling on Corbyn and McDonnell to wake up and confront the rightwing witch-hunters, comrade Williamson said McCarthyism, like all bullying, only stopped when people stood up to it. “The monster is getting bigger. Stop feeding the beast!”
LAW has also been running a number of stalls in Liverpool, organised a successful emergency lobby of the NEC and the showing of Jackie Walker’s ‘The Lynching’ with actress Jo Martin taking over Jackie’s role.
We, the undersigned, are greatly concerned about recent communication from Labour’s General Secretary Jennie Formby aimed at Facebook groups which have ‘Labour Party’ or ‘Jeremy Corbyn’ in their title (the full letter is below).
We are particularly outraged by the following passage which states “posts and conversations with antisemitic or otherwise discriminatory content” should be emailed to “complaints@labour.org.uk with screenshots and links […] if you believe the individual who has posted them may be a Labour member so that this can be investigated by the Party.”
As Facebook users, we reject any attempt to make us informers to Labour’s dysfunctional disciplinary processes. Social media and Facebook are effective because they allow the exchange of ideas, even if at times clumsily expressed. Most Facebook groups police themselves adequately, without the assistance of a compliance unit, whose targets to date have almost exclusively been
Given the Labour Party’s recent adoption of the ‘working definition’ of anti-Semitism published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which in the words of the Jewish former Court of Appeal judge, Sir Stephen Sedley, is “calculatedly misleading” and the IHRA’s purposeful conflation of criticism of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitism, we have no confidence that free speech to criticise Israel will be guaranteed, if this approach is accepted across social media.
What constitutes anti-Semitism remains disputed. The traditional definition, as per the Oxford English Dictionary is, “hostility to or prejudice against Jews”. The IHRA definition on the other hand takes up over 500 words, many of which refer to Israel.
For example, John McDonnell stated in a recent interview with Jewish News: “What we’re saying is it’s anti-Semitic to oppose a Jewish state”. We disagree. Opposing a state that systematically, and constitutionally, marginalises and demonises Palestinians while subjecting them to discrimination is by definition a form of apartheid. It is not ant-Semitism to state this fact.
Your letter, as an attempt to make Facebook users responsible for the conduct of other group members, displays the same method used by the media to smear Jeremy Corbyn when he did not speak up against (the very few) people posting nonsense in a group he happened to be a member of.
We believe the ongoing witch-hunt against Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters is bringing the party into disrepute. Your email will yet again fan the flames of this toxic climate, leading to ever more malicious and vexatious allegations and complaints.
We believe that open and democratic debate, without fear of being reported, is the best way to educate people and fight prejudice and racism. This new intrusion on free speech can only undermine the extraordinary effectiveness of social media as a tool to support the leader and the left in the party.
We will oppose any attempt to outsource education on anti-Semitism to the Jewish Labour Movement, which is the British wing of the Israeli Labour Party and covertly filmed and leaked a video of Jackie Walker at a closed training event in order to damage the party.
Full communication from Jennie Formby:
I’m writing to you as I understand that you are an admin or moderator of a Facebook group which refers to the Labour Party or Jeremy Corbyn in its title. Continue Reading “Open letter: No Jennie Formby, we will not be informers!”
The September 4 decision of Labour’s National Executive Committee to back the full IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is a gift to the right in party.
The intent of this document is not to define Anti-Semitism – after all, the Oxford English Dictionarymanages that in six words: “Hostility to or prejudice against Jews.” No, its sole purpose is to conflate criticism of Zionism and Israel with anti-Semitism. Most IHRA examples refer to Israel and the IHRA definition is labeling anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic.
In their identical front pages of July 25, the Jewish Chronicle, the Jewish Telegraphand Jewish Newsopenly stated that, “Had the full IHRA definition with examples relating to Israel been approved [by the NEC], hundreds, if not thousands, of Labour and Momentum members would need to be expelled.”
Including Jeremy Corbyn, of course. At long last, the witch-hunt in the Labour Party has reached its main target. For the last three years, vastly exaggerated claims that the Labour Party is awash with anti-Semites have been used to attack the left. But Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein and hundreds of other Labour Party members were little more than collateral damage.
This vicious campaign, orchestrated by the pro-Zionist lobby and the right in the party, never had anything to do with fighting anti-Semitism – but everything with getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn. His pro-Palestinian views and socialist policies make him unacceptable to both.
And now the NEC – on paper dominated by the pro-Corbyn left – has given in once again. Momentum owner Jon Lansman has been lobbying for the adoption of the full IHRA – and he presumably was behind moves to stop even Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘personal statement’, which would have qualified some of the ‘examples’. But Corbyn was told that there “wasn’t a majority for it”.
But even this latest capitulation will not stop the campaign of the right, as Margaret Hodge has already proven: A day before the meeting, she said accepting the full IHRA definition, without any caveats, would not be enough to stop her and others from attacking Corbyn: “I think the moment has passed. The problem is that Jeremy Corbyn is the problem.”
One thing is for certain. The IHRA will not stop the fake anti-Semitism campaign. On the contrary the NEC’s decision has given it renewed strength.
It is time to take a principled stance. The joint demonstration on September 4 by Jewish Voice for Labour, Labour Against the Witchhunt and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network was magnificent. Over 200 people turned up to show their opposition to the IHRA and to demonstrate their anger at the false accusations of anti-Semitism. A number of Momentum groups were present, as Lansman slunk in without saying a word. Click here for our report.
There is still time to bring this witch-hunt to an end. But Jeremy Corbyn and his allies have to stand up to the enemies of the democratic Labour left:
Labour Against the Witchhunt has been lobbying Labour’s NEC meetings since February, for its three basic aims – rejection of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism (because it conflates anti-Zionismm with anti-Semitism), abolition of Rule 2.1.4.B (which allows party apparatchiks to expel members without due process, and is arbitrarily used against the left), and abolition off the hated Compliance Unit (which implements arbitrary instant suspensions and expulsions). Today, September 4, the lobby of the NEC’s special meeting to deal with the so called anti-Semitism crisis in the party, was much enhanced as the lobby was also called by Jewish Voice for Labour, Free Speech on Israel, Camden Momentum, Labour Representation Committee and the recently formed ‘Back the NEC Code’ – launched in frustration at Momentum’s total failure to defend Corbyn from the rightwing anti-Semitism smear campaign. Continue Reading “NEC lobby: no to IHRA, yes to freedom of speech!”
On September 4, the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party will be discussing the adoption of ALL examples of the definition on Anti-Semitism published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
Most of these examples are designed to conflate criticism of Israel with Anti-Semitism. If adopted, they would, for example, ban the description of Israel as a racist state. We believe that adopting these examples would be major defeat for the left.
That is of course what this whole campaign is about: to get rid of Corbyn and his supporters and to stop the transformation of the Labour Party into a vehicle for socialist change. For this, we need a culture of open debate and criticism, not a culture of fear and censorship. As socialists, we must defend the right to openly criticise the crimes and injustice committed against the Palestinians.
We call on NEC members to resist this pressure from the right in and outside the party. We are therefore joining other organisations and groups in calling for a mass protest outside Labour Party HQ.
LAW’s leaflet for the event is available here in PDF format.
More background information:
Pete Willsman, stalwart of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD), is the latest Corbyn supporter in the crosshairs of the right in the Labour Party. Incredibly, in this witch-hunt they are supported by the likes of former left-winger Owen Jones, who calls on people not to vote for Willsman in the forthcoming NEC elections. To make matters worse, Momentum’s leadership has today (August 2) decided to withdraw support from comrade Willsman. It is bad enough dealing with the right in the party – but when the left gets involved in firing shots at its own side, we are in serious trouble!
Clearly, nothing Willsman said at the July NEC meeting was even vaguely anti-Semitic. He has been a staunch supporter of the left within the party for decades and deserves the full support of all genuine socialists and democrats in the Labour movement.
We urge all Labour Party members to vote for him in the current NEC elections. We find it more difficult to call for support for the other eight candidates put up by Momentum. But although we strongly criticise how undemocratically this slate has been put together and believe that quite a few of the candidates on the list have been supportive – or at least silent – on the ongoing witch-hunt, we cannot run the risk of giving the right another seat on the important leadership body.But clearly, the methods employed in choosing the candidates – and some of the candidates – stink to heaven.
If you are a member of Momentum, please send letters of protest to ncg@peoplesmomentum.com and laura.parker@peoplesmomentum.com
Below, a statement issued by Walter Wolfgang:
“I came to Britain as a refugee from Nazi Germany, with a strong and continuing commitment to Judaism, and still attend my synagogue regularly. I have been a member the Labour Party for 70 years. As a former member of Labour’s National Executive Committee myself, I have served with Pete Willsman and know him to be a committed anti-racist and a strong supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. I am dismayed that Pete is under attack at the very time when the ballot for the NEC is taking place, and despite his deep and public apology. Pete Willsman is a staunch champion of party democracy. I will be voting for him, and urge Labour Party members to do likewise.”
LAW Statement, July 9 2018:
Labour’s Anti-Semitism Code of Conduct
The Labour Party’s new Anti-Semitism Code of Conduct, issued last week, was clearly intended to put an end to the campaign of false allegations of anti-Semitism. Instead it has achieved the precise opposite. The Code has been the subject of a fierce attack by Zionist organisations and the mass media. It has also caused confusion amongst our allies, some of whom have welcomed it.
The campaign of false allegations is not driven by a failure to define anti-Semitism but is a politically motivated attack by the Right and supporters of Zionism. The Code will not prevent the weaponisation of anti-Semitism by those whose primary concern is defence of Israel, right or wrong. The expulsion of Tony Greenstein, Marc Wadsworth, Cyril Chilson and others was the product of a deliberate smear campaign aimed at the Corbyn leadership. Those who believe that the Code marks the end of the false anti-Semitism campaign against the Labour Party are sadly mistaken. Continue Reading “Muddying the water: LAW statement on Labour’s new Anti-Semitism Code of Conduct”
Please support Stan Keable’s campaign for reinstatement. Stan, secretary of Labour Against the Witchhunt, has been sacked for stating an historically verifiable fact. And now his union (Unison) has let him down too. He has been advised of how much a barrister would cost to represent him at an employment tribunal. Please give generously and spread this message. Thank you!
https://www.gofundme.com/ReinstateStanKeable
On April 21 2018, I was dismissed from my job with Hammersmith and Fulham Council after 17 years unblemished service as a housing enforcer, for having “brought the Council into disrepute”, by saying that the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazi regime – a well documented if shameful historical fact.
I said this on March 26, in a conversation in Parliament Square – nothing to do with work – while participating in the Jewish Voice for Labour demonstration in support of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, called in opposition to the rightwing ‘Enough is Enough’ demonstration.
The BBC’s David Grossman tweeted a 105-second video clip of the conversation, retweeted by Tory MP Greg Hands to H&F Council Labour leader Stephen Cowan and then used by the Council to sack me.
Unison has withdrawn support because I rejected the bad advice of their regional organiser to plead guilty, throwing away the right to demonstrate and to freedom of speech – so I need funds for a barrister and potential legal costs to challenge my political victimisation at an employment tribunal, as well as for campaigning for reinstatement.
My dismissal extends the McCarthyite witch-hunt against Corbyn supporters in the Labour Party to the area of employment. Don’t let me be the first of many political sackings.
Please give generously. Any surplus funds will be passed to Labour Against the Witchhunt (LAW) for campaigning.
Read more:
My open letter to H&F Councillors:
https://www.labouragainstthewitchhunt.org/campaigns/stan-keables-open-letter-to-hammersmith-fulham-labour-councillors-and-party-members/
Mike Cushman – ‘How talking about Zionism can lose you your job’:
https://freespeechonisrael.org.uk/keable-sacking/#sthash.ueizxvgU.xeBSvgDw.dpbs
Tony Greenstein – ‘No criticism permitted’:
https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1203/no-criticism-permitted/
It is clear from reports such as John Rentoul in The Independent that Ken Livingstone’s resignation was not voluntary but the result of pressure exerted by Jeremy Corbyn and his close associates. We refer in particular to Shami Chakrabarti’s disgraceful attack on Livingstone on BBC’s Sunday Politics (May 13),when she threatened she would quit the Labour front bench if Livingstone was not expelled. Chakrabarti has not only ignored her own recommendations on natural justice and due process but she has also destroyed her own reputation, as a former Director of Liberty, for a belief in freedom of expression.
Nothing Livingstone was alleged to have done could in any way be described as anti-Semitic. His remark that “Hitler supported Zionism” is confirmed by a host of Holocaust historians. If he gave offence to supporters of Israel and Zionism it is because of the appalling record historically of Zionism when it comes to fighting real anti-Semites. Continue Reading “LAW statement: Corbyn was wrong to pressurise Ken Livingstone into leaving the Labour Party”
Mike Cushman reports how Stan Keable (LAW secretary) has been sacked by Hammersmith and Fulham Council for a private conversation when he attended the Jewish Voice for Labour Parliament Square rally on 26 March. This article first appeared on Free Speech on Israel.
Stan engaged in a discussion with a Zionist during the Parliament Square rally, a conversation that happened to be recorded by the BBC and broadcast. During the one on one discussion Stan talked about the historically undisputed collaboration between the Nazis and the German Zionist leadership. At no time did Stan make any, even remotely, antisemitic.
Hammersmith and Fulham Tory MP Greg Hands circulated the video of the conversation, publicised on Twitter and then referred it to the New Labour Leader of the Council. That letter, which was the first public association of Greg with the Council was made public. This linking of Greg with the Council was the sole basis of the charge of ‘bringing the council into disrepute’. Hands publicised Stan’s link with the Council and then this publicising was, itself, used as the basis for dismissal. An offence that only existed because the complainant had caused it to exist. Continue Reading “Mike Cushman: How talking about Zionism can lose you your job”
Labour Against the Witchhunt strongly condemns the outrageous decision to expel Marc Wadsworth after a two-day hearing in front of three right-wing members of Labour’s National Constitutional Committee.
Marc is the latest victim of the politically motivated witch-hunt against Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters. Marc Wadsworth, a lifelong campaigner against racism, has been smeared and his reputation tarnished, first by the vile and false allegations against him and now, to top it off, by this deeply unjust verdict. Following 22 months of trial-by-media, our comrade had very little chance of receiving a fair hearing – and he did not get one. Continue Reading “LAW statement on the expulsion of Marc Wadsworth”
Great turnout today at the Labour Party expulsion hearing of anti-racism campaigner Marc Wadsworth outside Church House. Credit to Chris Williamson MP who spoke as a witness on behalf of Marc, while Ruth Smeeth MP was ‘accompanied’ into the hearing by a number of right-wing MPs.
Protestors appealed for due process to be applied – which would have to lead to Marc being totally exonerated and reinstated to full membership. He is one of the many victims of the witch-hunt against Jeremy Corbyn supporters. Solidarity, comrade Marc! His hearing is scheduled to last two days.
Click here for a report in The Guardian.
As socialist members and Labour Party supporters, we are firm opponents of all forms of racism, fascism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all other kinds of oppression. Many of us have been actively campaigning against them for many years, often alongside you, John McDonnell and other comrades.
We know anti-Semitism exists in society and needs to be combatted. But we are seriously worried about the current climate in the Labour Party, where anycriticism of the actions of the state of Israel is now immediately conflated with anti-Semitism. But anti-Zionism does not equal anti-Semitism.
Continue Reading “Sign this open letter to Jeremy Corbyn and the left on the NEC”
Intrepid opponents of the Labour purge of pro-Corbyn supporters braved freezing weather to be on a lobby of the party’s National Executive Committee today. They included members of Grassroots Black Left, the Labour Representation Committee, Jewish Voice for Labour, Labour Party Marxists and Brighton and Hove Momentum. Organised by Labour Against the Witchhunt (LAW), the high-spirited demo sighted party leader Corbyn, his political advisor Katy Clark and Campaign for Labour Party Democracy secretary Peter Willsman, an NEC member, going into the meeting at Labour’s Southside headquarters in central London. But, mysteriously, despite the people on the lobby being outside the office block an hour before the NEC meeting started, no more members of Labour’s 39-strong ruling body, where the Corbyn-backing Left recently took control, were seen – suggesting they may have slipped into the building from a back entrance to avoid being questioned. The campaigners chanted: “Stop the witch hunts”, “End the suspensions”, and “Implement Chakrabarti now”.
Former Momentum vice-chair Jackie Walker, who has been suspended by Labour for almost two years, said: “We welcome the resignation of general secretary Iain McNicol and his replacement today by Jennie Formby, a Jeremy Corbyn supporter whom LAW has critically supported. Things are definitely changing in the party, but they are not changing fast enough for a lot of members who remain suspended or expelled based on trumped-up or false charges or simply because they are active supporters of Corbyn.”
Grassroots Black Left’s Marc Wadsworth, the veteran anti-racist campaigner suspended by Labour in June 2016 whose expulsion hearing is on April 25, was on the lobby with Walker and Tony Greenstein, who, despite being Jewish, has been expelled on a false charge of anti-semitism. Wadsworth said: “We demand that the recommendations of the 2016 Chakrabarti report in respect of natural justice and due process are implemented without any further delay. The NEC’s failure to so far make the long-overdue changes has brought the party, that prides itself on upholding justice for all, into disrepute. The divisive purge of Jeremy Corbyn supporters has prevented and discouraged new members from getting involved in party life, while costly Labour resources have been wasted in persecuting some of the most energetic and effective campaigners for social change.”
March 11 2018
Labour Against the Witchhunt (LAW) welcomes Jon Lansman’s decision to finally listen to his party comrades, including Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, and withdraw as a candidate for the General Secretary post.
We are mystified as to why Lansman, who purports to back the greater representation of women at all levels of the Labour Party, ran against Unite’s Jennie Formby in the first place. LAW critically supports Formby for the job. We are concerned about her record on Labour’s NEC where it appears she has, as recently as last week, failed to oppose the witch hunting of Jeremy Corbyn supporters by right-wingers who have weaponised false claims of anti-semitism despite Formby herself being the target of such smears. Nobody in the Labour Party can truly be a socialist if they support the purge and that includes the future general secretary.
Lansman, given his record in abolishing all democratic structures within Momentum and imposing a new constitution, is unfit to be Labour General Secretary.
He got rid of the right of Momentum’s “liberation strands”, such as Momentum Black Connexions/Caucus, to have direct representation on the leading national bodies of Momentum. More recently, he closed down Momentum’s youth group. This demonstrates his serious lack of commitment to the self-organisation of oppressed and disadvantaged groups in the Labour Party.
Labour Against the Witchhunt believes that Lansman lacks the democratic credentials necessary to become general secretary of the Labour Party, especially in view of previous General Secretary Iain McNicol’s purge of thousands of pro-Jeremy Corbyn Labour Party members and the particularly those as a result of false accusations of anti-semitism and others based on members’ alleged “support for other organisations” using rule 2.1.4.B.
The Labour Party now needs a General Secretary who will put a decisive stop to the witch-hunt who will make sure that all disciplinary charges are dealt with fairly, swiftly, transparently and with the presumption of “innocent until proven guilty”.
Jackie Walker was suspended from Labour membership on trumped-up charges of anti-semitism, following Lansman’s pre-emptive action in removing her as Momentum’s vice-chair, and, at the time, making plain his sympathies with the Zionist Jewish Labour Movement who have championed the witchhunt in order to purge the party of Corbyn-supporting anti-Zionists.
Lansman’s constitution for Momentum bars from membership all those expelled by the Labour Party’s compliance unit. This rule that has been used exclusively against left-wingers. Lansman has since come out in support of keeping the rule (2.1.4.B) in Labour’s constitution.
He has also opposed our demands for the abolition of the Compliance Unit. We believe that all disciplinary matters should be dealt with by elected representatives.
Labour’s next general secretary should ensure the NEC immediately implements the recommendations on the party’s disciplinary procedure made by the Shami Chakrabarti Report of June 30 2016.
We believe that Unite’s Jennie Formby would be the best choice for general secretary. As a supporter of the rights of the Palestinians people we think her election would send a powerful political signal. We hope that her tenure would mark the beginning of the end of the witch-hunt.
Steering Committee
Labour Against the Witchhunt
Some of us are members of Momentum, some have never joined – and some of us left the organisation after January 2017, when its leader Jon Lansman abolished all democratic structures and imposed a new constitution, riding roughshod over the organisation’s members.
It should be noted that, as part of this coup, Lansman abolished the right of Momentum’s “liberation strands” to have direct representation on the leading national bodies of the organisation. Among the consequences of this was the breaking up of Momentum Black Connexions/Caucus. More recently, he closed down Momentum’s youth group. This demonstrates his serious lack of commitment to the self-organisation, self-determination and autonomy of disadvantaged groups in society.
As a consequence of Lansman’s behaviour, Labour Against the Witchhunt believes he lacks the democratic credentials to become the kind of general secretary that the Labour Party now needs in order to heal the wounds inflicted by Iain McNicol’s divisiveness. As general secretary, McNicol was directly in charge of the discredited compliance unit and thereby responsible for the purge of thousands of pro-Jeremy Corbyn Labour Party members. The automatic and instant expulsions and suspensions overseen by McNicol – especially those based on alleged anti-semitism and those based on members’ alleged “support for other organisations” using rule 2.1.4.B – have brought the party into disrepute. They have prevented and discouraged new members from getting involved in party life, while valuable resources have been wasted in persecuting some of the most energetic and effective campaigners for social change. Continue Reading “Why we cannot support Jon Lansman’s Labour Party general secretary bid”
For videos from the event, click here.
Continue Reading “Ken Loach: “This witch-hunt is a complete nonsense””
Around 40 supporters (and a few witches) showed up today, January 23, to help us lobby the Labour Party NEC to demand an end to the witch-hunt against left-wing and pro-Palestinian Labour members. Expelled and suspended members (amongst them Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and Tony Greenstein) spoke to NEC members and lots of press. Continue Reading “LAW’s lobby of the Labour Party NEC”
Launched on October 21 2017, LAW is already celebrating a success – pressure from members, Branches and CLPs CLPs led to the reversal of the expulsion of emeritus professor Moshé Machover, one of a long line of socialists and Corbyn supporters expelled or suspended on bogus charges of anti-Semitism. He is now honorary president of Labour Against the Witchhunt.
The claim that anti-Semitism is rife in the Labour Party is untrue. It is a weapon the Right has consistently used against the Left. The ‘anti-Semitism’ smear campaign and witchhunt is used to block criticism of Israel’s settler-colonialism, its persecution of the Palestinians and its racist, apartheid practices. False anti-Semitism accusations are used to bolster support for Israel’s role in the Middle East. Israel receives more military aid from the USA than all the other countries in the world put together, over $4 billion a year. Continue Reading “Launched on October 21 2017, LAW is already celebrating a success”
