(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.
LAW offers our full support to all comrades who have been subjected to lies and slanders during the witch-hunt, especially those singled out by the EHRC report – ie, Ken Livingstone and Pam Bromley.
LAW calls on left MPs, trade union leaders and the organized left to reject the EHRC report and join the fight against the witch-hunt. *Reinstate Corbyn as a Labour MP, reinstate all victims of the witch-hunt to Labour membership.
However, the response of the official Labour left, in parliament and elsewhere, has been unprincipled, cowardly and self-defeating. The Socialist Campaign Group of MPs offered only perfunctory opposition to Corbyn’s suspension. No attempt was made to link Corbyn’s case with other victims of the witch-hunt.
Worse, Momentum for example campaigns for the full implementation of the EHRC report and continues to call for “unity” with Starmer and the right in ‘rooting out anti-Semitism’. Unity with the right is neither achievable, nor is it desirable – the Corbyn leadership should have acted at least as resolutely against the right as Starmer is now viciously acting against the left. This tactic also accepts as truth the lie that the Labour Party has a huge problem with anti-Semitism.
The idea that ‘Anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ is far more than a cynical, manipulative lie – it is an inversion of the truth. Zionism is itself a racist ideology that inextricably ties Jewish identity to the actions of a nation-state.
LAW condemns the politics of appeasement and the pathetic pleas for unity with the right.