Table of Contents
We republish here an article by a comrade who – like many others – has come under immense public scrutiny during the ongoing witch-hunt. It’s a long statement, but definitely worth a read. He eloquently explains that the campaign against him clearly has much to do with the local civil war in the party and we agree with him when he writes:
“Real antisemitism is a foul scourge, and we will continue to confront it. But using racism as a political weapon diminishes real racism and makes it harder to confront when the genuine article surfaces.
It’s time that the Labour leadership and all those who genuinely support Corbyn take a stance in defence of those wrongly accused, and start to take action against the slanderers.”
1. My Suspension.
Two weeks ago I was informed of my suspension from the Labour Party, who allege I may be in breach of rule 2.1.8, which apparently relates to social media posts. I do not yet know what the substance of the charges against me are. However, The Jewish Chronicle (JC), The Sun and the website of the Campaign Against Antisemitism (a pro-Israel advocacy organisation feeding the antisemitism witch hunt) have all published co-ordinated attacks on me, alleging I am an antisemite and Nazi apologist. These attacks have come after the JC spoke to our Liverpool Riverside MP and right wing councillors in our Constituency Labour Party (CLP). Before the arrival of specific charges from the Labour Party, at which point I will be effectively muzzled, I am issuing this statement.
2. Myself.
My name is John Davies. I have been a member of the Labour Party in Louise Ellman’s constituency of Liverpool Riverside since the autumn of 2015. I have been a member of my union, British Actor’s Equity, since 1982. I have also been a member of ASTMS (briefly) and The Writer’s Guild. Prior to joining the Labour Party I was a well known member locally of Liverpool Friends of Palestine. I was elected to our CLP Executive as Trade Union Liaison Officer in 2015. At that time I was the only pro-Corbyn voice on our CLP Exec.
I stepped down a year later as my partner and I were planning to adopt, and my time would be severely limited. I wanted to remain active as a Labour Party member in our local area, as far as my parental responsibilities would allow – my partner works full time. I wanted, and still want a Labour government. Six months later, in early 2017, my partner and I adopted a little girl. Her history involves serious issues of safeguarding. At the urging of my partner, and in the light of my relatively high social media profile, I adopted a different Facebook name at that time. I will refer to this again later.
I was elected Chair of St Michael’s branch (the largest of our CLP’s seven branches in Riverside, with 550+ members) in spring 2018.
3. Our MP.
Mrs Ellman is a hard working MP, with a good reputation as a diligent MP on local issues. Unfortunately however, she has also been a consistent critic of Jeremy Corbyn and has been one of the most high profile figures fuelling the antisemitism witchhunt. This stems from a political outlook that sat comfortably in the Labour Party’s Blair/Brown years and from the fact that she is also the pre-eminent defender of Israel within the Labour Party. Mrs Ellman is a former Chair of Labour Friends of Israel.
4. Liverpool Riverside CLP.
Since 2015 there have been a number of questions asked of Mrs Ellman at CLP meetings, regarding her role in defending Israel in parliament, and on the media, as well as many questions on other matters. These questions about Israel have resulted in numerous articles in the press, most notably the Jewish Chronicle and The Times, in which it was alleged that antisemitic behaviour was rife in our CLP. Allegations were made that Mrs Ellman faces a monthly grilling on Israel/Palestine, that she was blamed for the policies of the Israeli government, even that she faced threats of violence. Detail around these assertions has always been sparing or non-existent.
In the winter of 2016/17 the Party launched an investigation into bullying and antisemitism in Riverside, and the CLP was temporarily shut down. This came on the back of an anonymous report on the right-wing Guido Fawkes website, alleging extremist infiltration, antisemitism and bullying. The Times contacted me, saying they were going to run a story about my role in recruiting young Muslim extremists into the Party, and that they would name me. This was just before our adoption process was to be completed. I challenged and answered questions, and the story was pulled. I had actually written about how the Labour Party needed to connect more with grassroots groups, activists from different campaigns, including Save Sefton Park Library, and the BAME and Muslim communities around Princes Park. The Times and Guido Fawkes were attempting to twist this suggestion for a grassroots orientation into portraying me as some kind of ISIS recruiter.
Six people were interviewed for the Labour Party investigation, but no charges were brought. Most of them were of, or approaching pensionable age.
A report, only recently leaked to the Jewish Chronicle, saw the CLP re-organised from being an all-member voting CLP, to a delegate based CLP. This system enabled the right-wing, anti-Corbyn faction to retain control of the executive for an extra year, through its understanding of the delegate system. However, by the following year, 2018, Corbyn supporters had learnt the ropes and the right-wing was decisively defeated, and a broadly pro-Corbyn Exec elected.
During the past three years, Mrs Ellman has regularly gone to the press to demand our CLP is shut down and/or action is taken against supposed antisemites in our CLP. She has continued to make frequent public criticisms of Jeremy Corbyn, encouraging the idea that Jeremy Corbyn is a racist. She has used her parliamentary immunity to make high profile attacks in parliament against a number of innocent Party members, falsely accused of antisemitism. I believe these include the black Jewish activist Jackie Walker, black activist Marc Wadsworth, and Chris Williamson MP. In a World at One BBC Radio interview recently, she was posed the following question by John Humphries: Do you think Jeremy Corbyn is genuinely antisemitic? She replied: I think that Jeremy will have a lot of thoughts without registering that that is antisemitic. Mind reading is a useful skill in an MP.
5. The last three months.
The use of the right-wing media by our MP and supportive right-wing councillors was consistent from 2015-2018, but it has come to a head since January, 2019. In January Mrs Ellman had made false accusations against Jackie Walker in parliament, claiming – in the immediate run-up to Jackie’s Labour Party disciplinary hearing, and in contravention of any notions of due process – that Jackie was on a par with the US Muslim antisemitic preacher, Louis Farrakhan. At February’s Riverside CLP monthly meeting I therefore asked Mrs Ellman, after her Parliamentary Report had been heard in polite silence, if she would feel able to repeat this slander without the protection of parliamentary immunity. Mrs Ellman side-stepped the question. Another member, Audrey White, also questioned Mrs Ellman. Audrey has also since been pursued by the right-wing press, and has been named.
6. Speaking to the press.
It is custom that differences within the Labour Party are first discussed internally. Going to the press is seen as a serious step. However, from the day pro-Corbyn supporters joined Riverside CLP, his opponents have used every opportunity to go to the anti-Corbyn press and to lie and slander. The response to the February 2019 meeting was no different.
Two days after the meeting, on February 25th, an article appeared in the Jewish Chronicle completely misrepresenting the CLP meeting, implying incompetent chairing and alleging bullying and unruly behaviour at CLP meetings. Despite an audio recording taken on the night showing that Mrs Ellman had been listened to respectfully, the Jewish Chronicle claimed:
“Ms White … was amongst a group of militants who repeatedly interrupted Dame Louise, who is vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel, as she delivered her report to members of the Liverpool Riverside Constituency Labour Party (CLP) on Friday evening.”
The recording shows that during the five and a half minutes Mrs Ellman spoke there was one brief, polite question of clarification from one member, and for the rest of it Mrs Ellman was listened to in complete silence. She received a smattering of polite applause at the end. So the claim of repeated interruptions is a barefaced lie.
The article also attacked me, claiming:
“Another Riverside member at the forefront of the campaign of bullying and intimidation against the MP is John Davies.”
No detail was provided of the nature of my alleged bullying but councillor Malcolm Kennedy, provided a comically lurid description of the meeting: “Mr Kennedy, a local councillor, compared the atmosphere at the meeting to a ‘Soviet show trial'”.
The article also made claims about the report produced after the Party investigation into Riverside CLP. We now know that the 2017 report found there were no grounds for charges of antisemitism or of bullying. This does not stop the JC from reproducing vague allegations presented to the investigation by persons unknown concerning unspecified bullying, which the investigation chose to ignore – and to present them as established fact:
“The JC has also obtained a copy of the unpublished report into incidents of antisemitism in Liverpool Riverside, written by senior party staff. It states that Dame Louise was “physically threatened”, called a “JLM [Jewish Labour Movement] bitch” and made to endure “obsessive interrogations” about Israel-Palestine at every meeting. It found members “feared for their own or others’ physical safety”.
This falsifies the investigation report, which only quotes allegations from unnamed sources, and doesn’t ‘state’ anything. It is not clear from Mrs Ellman’s allegations – which I find appalling – whether the physical threats and antisemitic comments occurred at Riverside CLP meetings. If they were, surely it would be straightforward to press charges? If they didn’t, why are they being mentioned in relation to our CLP?
The JC also repeats a false allegation which has become central to the right’s attack on pro-Corbyn supporters in the CLP. Mrs Ellman, it is claimed, is interrogated about Palestine at every meeting:
“It also revealed that at every meeting of the local Party “a significant proportion of each meeting is given over to intense questioning on Israel from the floor following the MP’s report.”
This allegation is easily disproved. An examination of the minutes for the eighteen months from the autumn of 2015 shows there was a debate on Israel/Palestine on only three or four occasions, and these did involve questions of Mrs Ellman. But monthly, ‘intense questioning’? Hardly.
These questions were in the context of frequent contributions from Mrs Ellman on high profile media and in Parliament regarding Israel, and continuing, repeated allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party.
In another JC article in the same week (24.2) the conduct of this same February 25th CLP meeting is again made to sound like a hostile mob:
“Dame Louise Ellman is tipped to be the latest MP to defect from Labour after being barracked by supporters of Jeremy Corbyn during a stormy meeting of her Liverpool Riverside constituency party on Friday night.”
So our MP’s speech is now supposed to have been received with barracking! As I say above, the recording reveals silence when Mrs Ellman is listened to. So councillors – specifically Councillor Malcolm Kennedy – and our MP are lying about the nature of our meetings to a Tory Party supporting paper. I would be interested to know what other members of my constituency think about these lying accounts of our meetings.
Mrs Ellman has continued to go to the Tory press and make further attacks on specific local members:
“The vast majority of members are under the spell of a Corbyn cult…. There is no clear way to the spell being broken.” THE TIMES 29.2.19
There were further attacks – three at least – on Riverside pro-Corbyn activist Audrey White, in The Jewish Chronicle.
Unfortunately, our CLP Exec responded to all this by merely issuing a general letter requesting that members do not speak to the press, as if we have a general problem with members running to the Jewish Chronicle. This behaviour is actually limited to our MP, her agent, Councillor Nick Small, and leading right-wing councillor, Malcolm Kennedy. The Executive’s failure to censure the culprits or to challenge the JC’s false reporting of the party’s investigation report has predictably emboldened the right-wing, and they returned to the JC a few weeks later. With a compliant CLP Exec, it was clear that the right were now confident of getting key opponents suspended. The result was a slanderous attack on myself in the Jewish Chronicle, and later The Sun.
6. The Jewish Chronicle attack on myself (17.3.19)
It is far easier to concoct lies than to unpick them. However, a number of the accusations in the Jewish Chronicle of April 17th, 2019 are vile slanders and have to be challenged, which requires some detail. If I were a wealthy man I would be making use of the libel laws. I’m not, so I have to beg your patience and ask you to read.
A. Let’s start with the headline:
Coronation Street and Hollyoaks star suspended by Labour over ‘vile’ attacks on Jewish MPs.
Leaving aside the hyperbole of calling me a ‘star’ of Coronation Street, I did not attack ‘Jewish MPs’, I criticised MPs supportive of Israel. This group includes people of various religions and none.
B. The JC then half-quotes me from a Facebook thread from May of last year. It is part of a very long thread on the page of the new Vice Chair of the pro-Israel Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), Stephane Savary. I don’t know yet, but I suspect that some of the wild accusations it contains will surface in the Labour Party investigation. This particular half quote is an attempt to insinuate that I am claiming Ruth Smeeth MP has dual loyalties, and implies I am suggesting that part of those split loyalties are with Israel. They claim:
“John Davies — chair of the St Michaels branch of Liverpool Riverside Labour Party — said the “prime interests” of Jewish MP Ruth Smeeth were not with Jeremy Corbyn’s party but “elsewhere”.”
The JC, Ms Smeeth, Mrs Ellman and owner of the Facebook page, Stephane Savary, have taken my comment out of context to imply I make ‘traditional anti-Jewish tropes about duel (sic) loyalty’. I actually say in my comment that Ruth Smeeth’s “prime interests are neither socialism or the Labour Party – they lie elsewhere”. I stand by that.
The fact that Ruth Smeeth is Jewish is irrelevant, and I don’t reference it, nor do I mention Israel. I mention her in this thread discussion about alleged antisemitism and the role of the JLM in the Labour Party because Smeeth is a powerful critic of Jeremy Corbyn. She has also been instrumental in demonising Marc Wadsworth, a black activist for several decades, and others. The fact that she worked for an important Israel advocacy organisation, BICOM, is important. I mention it because it is part of her political history and therefore relevant.
When the JC remove most of my comment, leaving only ‘lie elsewhere’, it is to imply geography and to impute that I am arguing that Ruth Smeeth has dual loyalties purely because she is Jewish and/or an advocate for Israel. This is a lying imputation. I do not mention Ms Smeeth’s Jewishness. I suspect that Ms Smeeth has many ‘loyalties’ pulling her in various directions: her personal life, her career, her political outlook, her political ambitions, her political friendships, her lengthy advocacy for Israel. The pull of socialism, in my opinion at least, is probably not a major factor. Her being Jewish is completely irrelevant to all that.
C. Two other comments of mine are also edited, cut from context and stuck together in an effort to distort meaning. This is called an amalgam. In the thread I state:
“I don’t think that all Jews who identify as Zionists, liberal or otherwise, are necessarily racist. I do however think that liberal Jews, who want their Israeli cake but don’t want to be perceived as racists, have a big problem. How do you argue for a Zionist theory which isn’t racist?”
I think it is clear that I am talking about those Jewish Zionists who are critical of many Israeli government actions – like the Zionist Jews on this Savary thread who are in the JLM. I make it clear in the first sentence that, despite their espousal of Zionism, I don’t think they are necessarily racist. I am pointing out, however, the contradiction facing people like them who, whilst claiming to be anti-racist, and actually being actively progressive on many issues, find themselves supporting a state whose government has just introduced a nakedly racist Nation State law. Squaring that circle is the problem they face.
But the Jewish Chronicle reports it thus:
“Mr Davies — an actor who has appeared in Coronation Street and Hollyoaks — also suggested Jews who identify with Israel ‘have a big problem’ and justified historical comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany.”
The edit suggests I simply think that Jews who support Israel ‘have a big problem’. This distortion is then made worse by amalgamating my distorted phrase with a comment about Nazi Germany. The implication is that I am a person who equates Nazi Germany with Israel, and who thinks Jews have a problem!
Elsewhere on Facebook threads I have made it clear that I do think we have to make comparisons in order to make sense of history. Surely understanding historical processes depends on contrasting and comparing different epochs and movements. And it is certainly the case that there are, increasingly, features of Israeli society which have tragic echoes: separate roads for the different ethnic/religious groups, marriage laws designed to ‘protect’ the purity of one ethnic group, different property laws for Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, the crowding of large populations into small areas (eg Gaza), calorific calculations to guarantee the bare survival of an imprisoned population etc..
Many Jewish people have themselves commented on the unpleasant echoes these laws evoke. One, Marianne Blum, a French survivor of the holocaust, expressed it in these moving and brave words:
“They were at least eight hundred, walking to an unknown destination like blind people. The soldiers looked human, no one was shouting or beating, they were just accomplishing their “job”. The same scenario was repeated in Deheishe (near Bethleem), in Qalqilya or Wadi Salqa (near Deir El-Balah).
The prisoners were taken to a factory fenced off with barbed wire by the army and there, on the arm of each man, with a special ink, the soldiers printed a personal number.
Men from sixteen to forty taken just because they belong to a special category of people, numbers written on the arms, picture taken by the army or the soldiers themselves.
My mother, grandmother and grandfather were in the concentration camps during the second war because they were struggling within the Belgian Resistance. What would they think if they were still alive?
What do you think, you whose speech is full of words like humanism, democracy, human rights or war against terrorism?
Accuse me of what you want, I don’t care: I don’t want to be guilty of silence.
Barbarity is barbarity.”
Recognising echoes, limited (or powerful) similarities with the past, is our way of facilitating analysis and understanding of the present. As Norman Finkelstein, the great Jewish American academic puts it, quoting his holocaust survivor mother: “Always compare!”
But to say that Israel and Nazi Germany are directly comparable would be idiotic. It would also be an insult to the six million. Their deaths, and those of hundreds of thousands of Roma, gay and disabled people and socialists, were the calculated and measured output of a state organised extermination industry. That – and many other distinguishing features – make direct, general comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany pretty meaningless. That’s why I never make that direct comparison.
D. The JC article also says that it now ‘understands’ that I have been suspended – interestingly, they understood this before I was informed of the fact by the Labour Party.
E. Jumping forward in the JC article, we get to Ruth Smeeth’s contribution to this series of lies. Actually the word lie doesn’t do it justice. It’s a foul piece of sewage.
Ms Smeeth states:
“This man and his vile views have no place in the party that I have dedicated my life too [sic].”
Ms Smeeth doesn’t know me, and I doubt she has ever read a word I’ve written. But this doesn’t stop her reaching for new extremes in ludicrous accusation:
“These traditional anti-Jewish tropes about duel [sic] loyalty and the disgusting justifications of Hilter’s [sic] stance towards Jews are simply unacceptable—the Labour Party needs to take action.”
NOTE “…disgusting justifications [plural – JD] of Hitler’s policy towards the Jews.”
Think about this for a moment. As far as I understand it, Hitler didn’t in the end have so much a “stance towards Jews”, as a meticulously planned policy of industrial genocide towards them.
Ms Smeeth is claiming that I justify that – that I support the gassing, the shooting, the burning of Jews, and all the other associated horrors of the Final Solution – and I’ve justified it repeatedly! I support the policy of Wannsee, and the creation of the death camps?
What planet is Ms Smeeth on? I am appalled by this. To deny or belittle the holocaust would be bad enough, but this? Really?
I have marched many times since the early 1980s against racists. And I have intervened quite energetically on a number of occasions when I have spotted holocaust denial material on the net.
F. One of the contributors to the Stephane Savary thread which the Labour Party will use to expel me is a regular blogger about antisemitism in the Labour Party, Steve Cooke. I have already mentioned him earlier. I disagree with much of what he says, but he is honest and engaging, and doesn’t indulge in abuse. He wrote a blog last year which sought to unpick the journey of one LP member, John Pocock, which ended up in holocaust denial. He spotted that I, under my name Johnny Beggs, had intervened. I copy this from Steve Cooke’s blog, with his permission, which can be found here:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1088795190163320833.html…
The section relevant to me is copied in two snips. Cooke writes:
His [John Pocock’s friend – JD] friend ***** ***** argued the numbers who died in the Holocaust had been exaggerated because “many people have benefited from the situation”. These views were robustly challenged by another commentator – respect to Johnny Beggs! – who explained why they were antisemitic:
SEE THREAD SNIPS AT BOTTOM
5(contd) On a slightly comic note, some of the JLM members on Stephane Savary’s thread have stumbled upon this exchange. Does it make them pause to think, to maybe withdraw the accusations of antisemite? Not a bit of it. They just scratch their heads and splutter uncomprehendingly, “Bizarre!”
G. I can’t go into all the lies in this JC article for reasons of space, but I must say a word about Stephane Savary, whose Facebook page this discussion took place on. He accuses me of the following:
“John Davies directed his attacks at me poured [? Sic] because I am a Jewish Labour member.”
To repeat, I am not interested in Mr Savary’s religion, and do not mention it in this very, very long thread. He lyingly imputes a racist motivation for my political disagreements with him. He goes on:
“Some of his claims about Hitler and the disloyalty of Jewish MPs are more suited to the far-right than to someone who claims to be a left-wing supporter of Jeremy Corbyn.”
This is slanderous nonsense. What claims about Hitler? Where? I make none, other than to challenge those who seek to either exonerate or diminish Hitler’s role in the holocaust. Mr Savary is a liar.
I do mention the Havara agreement made between Nazi leaders and some Zionist leaders, which had the effect of undermining the anti-Nazi economic boycott established by Jewish anti-fascists in the USA. This is an unpopular subject for Zionists, and there is an attempt to make it a no go area for discussion. But this agreement is a matter of established historical record and has been written about by such well known, pro-Israel historians as David Cesarani.
It is a fact that the Havara Agreement caused a huge uproar amongst American Jewry, most of whom regarded the agreement by some Zionist leaders to a lifting of the Jewish economic boycott of Nazi Germany as a terrible mistake. It allowed for exports of agricultural goods to Palestine at preferential rates in exchange for a lifting of the boycott and the resulting strengthening of the Nazi economy. Of course, this was only a limited agreement for a limited period, and it didn’t change Hitler’s fundamental hatred of Jews, Zionist Jews included, or his determination to expel or annihilate them.
H. Stephane Savary has claimed that I ‘trolled’ him, in making my contribution to this 200 page thread. Maybe we have different understandings of that word. I think I entered it having seen a FB friend comment. Mr Savary is quite brusque with those he disagrees with, but I simply tried to engage in the discussion. I am at no point aggressive or insulting. Perhaps he feels I commented too much? But a quick skim of the thread shows others commenting (and swearing) far more frequently, mostly JLM members. I commented 65 times out of a thread consisting of about 2,300 comments.
“This man went on trolling me for weeks using a fake facebook account. He is nothing more than a far-right activist infiltrated in the Labour Party.”
Anyone reading this thread will see that I made no attacks on Mr Savary. The record also shows that my involvement in the discussion was spread over a few days. As for my being an undercover far-right activist, perhaps I misunderstood the motives of the National Front who took my photo outside Elland Road football ground in 1981. Rather than threatening to publish it and expose me as a ‘commie c**t’, perhaps they were actually inviting me to join them?
I. Savary goes on in the JC:
“I only later learned that the name he used to mount this attacks (sic), Johnny Beggs, was a false name, used to make these disgraceful attacks on myself and on other Jews.”
My FB account isn’t fake. As I mention earlier, I adopted a FB alias two and a half years ago. I did so at the request of my partner as one measure among a number to protect the privacy of our family, and specifically our adopted daughter, around whom there are compelling safeguarding issues.
Mr Savary implies my alias was adopted to disguise my sinister antisemitic activities! Of course, he wasn’t to know our family circumstances and given his general outlook his suspicious attitude is perhaps understandable.
However, a letter and email to the Jewish Chronicle asking them to remove the reference to my alias because of these safeguarding issues has been unsuccessful. It is probably too late now, anyway. But The Jewish Chronicle’s failure to respond seriously to my email pointing out the safeguarding issue shows just how low editorial standards have sunk at this once respected Jewish paper:
“Dear Mr Davies, Thank you for your email. The piece is accurate in every respect and in the public interest. It will remain as published.”
So this is how seriously The Jewish Chronicle takes the issue of child safety!
J. Finally, the JC states:
“Mr Davies also falsely claimed his own MP Dame Louise Ellman had used a parliamentary speech to express support for Israel’s child prisoner policy.”
Falsely? Hansard records Mrs Ellman’s silence on Palestinian child prisoners rather differently:
Debate on Child Prisoners and Detainees: Occupied Palestinian Territories
Westminster Hall on 6 January 2016
LOUISE ELLMAN: I note my hon. Friend’s comments that a child should not be detained, and I assume that she means in any circumstances. Suppose a child was involved in an act of violence that resulted in the deaths of other human beings. That is what has happened with young Palestinians throwing stones—people have been killed. In those circumstances, surely she thinks that there should be detention.
7. Conclusion.
The behaviour of our MP and some right-wing councillors has been an unchallenged disgrace for nearly three years.
These aggressive defamations impact on our health and family lives. The cumulative effect on what are mostly elderly people is difficult to quantify, but the whole process has been extremely stressful and damaging to health, as well as to family cohesion.
Audrey is elderly, with chronic health issues as well as a cardiac condition. I’ve been in hospital twice in the last two years for major surgery. Another of those questioned during the investigation is in his seventies and is fighting cancer. I’m sure many comrades in other CLPs face similar difficulties. But we’ve been attacked and slandered unrelentingly by the MSM, from well known national platforms, by powerful people who are never called to account or made to justify their attacks. It has been difficult to get our voice heard, but we are determined not to remain silent.
We all probably wrestle with similar questions, wherever we are based, when engaging in political activity. Is it worth it? Will Corbyn really be able to bring about serious change? When can I arrange to see my sons with all these meetings coming up? What will be the effect of all the nights out on our family? I haven’t had a night out with my partner in nearly a year – will she resent this? I need to find work – we’re struggling financially.
Others are more specific to our situation in Riverside:
If the press intrude, will it affect our daughter’s placement with us?
I want to challenge these reports in the MSM about me, at the CLP meeting tonight, but I have another chemo course starting tomorrow.
I’m just getting to know my daughter – she deserves more of my time!
How might it affect my son’s high profile work project now that his Jewish mother has been publicly accused of being an antisemite?
This Jewish Chronicle attack is not journalism. It is a series of lies and distortions. Whether proving that will be enough to save me from the processes of the Labour Party’s disciplinary system remains to be seen. I’m not holding my breath!
Since 2015, I and other pro-Palestine and pro-Corbyn activists have been systematically defamed in an attempt to silence our voices. Some of us are still speaking.
All those of us who joined the Labour Party relatively recently did so because we yearn for a better world. We joined because we saw the possibility of serious change through a mass movement around Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. We hate what the Tories have done to the most vulnerable through austerity, and the worsening ravages which capitalism brings to our planet and to the poor.
We did not join to waste time in endless fabricated scandals around alleged antisemitism.
Real antisemitism is a foul scourge, and we will continue to confront it. But using racism as a political weapon diminishes real racism and makes it harder to confront when the genuine article surfaces.
It’s time that the Labour leadership and all those who genuinely support Corbyn take a stance in defence of those wrongly accused, and start to take action against the slanderers.
If you’ve got this far, thanks for your amazing patience!
Solidarity… and deep breaths.
John Davies, May 3rd, 2019