A visit to Nadia Whittome MP's Facebook Page

 

"Labour antisemitism must be confronted – with 

nuance, clarity and empathy "

Nadia Whittome

Following the decision of Nadia Whittome MP to defend the EHRC and look after the welfar of a clearly upset Jewish member of the Labour after what she even as someone from the left of the party described as a "hostile atmosphere" I decided to look at her page. Nadia has published an article on Labourlist in which she considers Corbyn's remarks "ill-considered" (an understatement in the circumstances) but wants the man reinstated. She then goes writes:

......I am concerned that many Jewish members feel unwelcome – and, yes, unsafe – as a result of the way that debates relating to antisemitism are often conducted and handled at CLP level. We have a duty to protect the wellbeing of all Jewish members and ensure they feel welcome and included in everything we do in our local parties. After all, how democratic can a debate or discussion be said to be if many Jewish members do not feel able or safe to attend in the first place?

Tackling antisemitism and implementing the EHRC recommendations must be at the forefront of our minds and form a bare minimum in terms of the basis for any further or related discussions. The position of our ‘side’ of the party, or short-term accumulation of political capital, should not come into it.

This was far too much for the "Corbynistas who launched tirades of abuse against her both on Facebook and Twitter including much that that would be considered antisemitic itself nd certainly were in serious denial of the problem. For theis left-wing MP attempting in her own way for a solution was just sheer betrayal to them.

I chose to congragulate her on her brave stand which it is even if I disagree with her over Corbyn and probably other issues. Labour should be broad enough to allow differing points of view but experience has shown us that this political current around Corbyn has a very narrow vision that even other leftists fall foul of (There are a couple of frankly unecessary references to the Alliance For Workers Liberty (AWL) who almost alone of the organised left actually recognise left-wing antisemtism exists.

I decided to reply to a small number of respondents even though I knew it would be a pointless exercise. One comrade told me that Israel was a European colonial settler state and refused not just to recognise Jews but even described me as white wiping out half my personal heritage as only my mother was Jewish hence the surname. Imagine doing that to any other member of an ethnic group.

However what really summed up the problem for me was an exchange with someone called Debashis De. He demanded I respond to the following point:

....he Netanyahu- Gantz issue is about mistreatment of the Palestinians and the continuation of the Nakba where they are annexing and making homeless INNOCENT palestinians, this is not happening the other way around. Before talking about Iran will you answer whether you think that is right or not?

I duly responded and expanded my response to allow for debate to reach some kind of common ground:

I oppose Naetanyahu & the settlements policy. Disagreeing with Israeli GOVERNMENT policy has never been considered antisemtic. I oppose the demolishing of Palestinian homes, the firing of missiles from Gaza and the knife attacks promoted by Fatah through pension payments. I want a peaceful and two state solution. Labour delegates singing "From the River to the Sea" is a genocidal slogan and unacceptable.

By the way you mention the Naqba are you aware that more Jews were displaced and thrown out of Arab countries during that conflict than Palestinians. Where are all the Jews in Algeria these days etc .....? The conflict caused more than the displacement of Arabs.

What I dislike about the left is the singling out of Israel and the refusal to face up to other human rights abuses which you have rightly condemned. So why are two supposedly left-wing Labour MP's (Corbyn & Dar) allowed to praise a revolution that has led to Iran becoming one of the worst human rights abusers in the world. A question you need to address to them.

This was the reply:

Zionist extremists, like other far-right extremists (like nazi's and neo-nazi's) and Islamist extremists have caused hurt and continuing unhappiness, and division. This has been backed by Hegemonic powers who exert influence through their military industrial complex. The International Left in Labour and outside Labour have always opposed this and will always continue to do so. Jeremy Corbyn has dared to speak out hence an establishment based on power and privelige want to silence him. But as with Palestine, injustice and oppression can never be looked the other way or trying to demonise others. Free Palestine, without Fear or Favour....

Absolutely no attempt to address the points raised and consists of just ideological tropes and slogans. A clear inability by the individual to be able to engage in serious dialogue. These people only care about the line and like their mentor Corbyn are unable or unwilling to actually resolve anything because it is actually beyond their ability to cope. Protest and ideology is all they know.

It will never be possible to achieve any kind of unity in the party with these types of individuals. It will always be their way or the rest of us are just Tories/Traitors/Zionists/other. (Take your pick)
 

Kerry-Anne Mendoza's Twitter account suspended (Updated)

 

It seems that the provocative attention seeking editor of The Canary (no link, considered a hate site) has had her Twitter account suspended. This foul woman who left the Labour Party before she was expelled for antisemitsm has continually issued Tweets that deliberately target the Jewish community.

There's a meme that says "Every time you click on The Canary the truth dies" which is an accurate way of describing her website renowned as a "false news" and frankly hate filled place. 

Describing the Jewish Labour Movement as "white supremacists" is a disgrace and shows that even Jews who oppose the current Israeli governments policies in the "occupied territories" are subject to abuse. the conference also held sessions on anti-Traveller prejudice and highlighted the oppression of the Muslim Uyghurs.

Mendoza has appeared on Richie Allen's radio show, a man who not only works for conspiracy theorist David Icke but hosts Holocaust deniers on a regular basis. It is an extreme right wing platform that she has used and exposes her politics as clearly racist in intent.

Mendoza is no friend of the Palestinians she only Tweets to spread hate and stir conflict. She is nothing but a fraudulent and quite malevolent schmuck.

Update:

Since publishing this post Mendoza has attempted to set up at least two further accounts both of which have been suspended.

Fight antisemitism. Fight Racism!

Nadia Whittome MP Statement on Constituency Suspension

Photo: By David Woolfall

 
Rumours of problems in Nottingham East Constituency Party were confirmed in a BBC report yesterday:

The chair of a Labour group has been suspended after a motion at an online meeting described as "clearly out of order" by the area's MP was passed.

The Nottingham East CLP broke party rules with a motion calling for the restoration of the whip to Jeremy Corbyn, the BBC understands.

One Jewish party member said he felt the atmosphere was so "hostile" he had to leave.

The Labour Party said it took "all complaints seriously".

The local and left-wing MP Nadia Whittome issued the following and very welcome statement on Twitter in support of the party implementing the EHRC report and promising to assist in making the affected member was safeguarded at party events.

Keir Starmer will be speaking at the Jewish Labour Movement Conference later today.

Labour Representation Committee joins the attack on Keir Starmer

One of the larger hard left organisations inside the Labour Party (though not an affiliate) is the Labour representation Committee currently led by John McDonnell MP (President) and Matt Wrack (Chair).  This conglomeration of factions has been around for a couple of decades but it has continually moved leftwards  especially in the run up to and the tenure of Jeremy Corbyn as labour leader.

Unlike even Momentum the LRC allows members of other political parties to join it's ranks o the proviso that they do not stand candidates against Labour. It's led to presence of the now publicly split Socialist Fight whose leader Gerry Downing was kicked out of the Labour Party and his rival Ian Donovan who thinks that there is "an international Jewish bourgeoisie" echoing the false Protocols of Zion the tsarists forgery which influenced amongst others the Nazi's. 

Ironically Donovan was a former member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Weekly Worker) expelled for antisemitism..... of course ironically or hypocritically depending on how cynical one wishes to to be then set up Labour Against the Witch Hunt to defend those expelled or disciplined for antisemitism. 

Also present in the ranks of the LRC are the ultra Stalinist New Communist party who back the the most oppressive regime in the world, North Korea. Just some samples of the flotsam and jetsam of the far-left that exist on the fringes allowed into an organisation led by someone who was no less than Deputy leader of the party under Corbyn. 

It should come as no surprise that the LRC are joining the current left offensive against Keir Starmer. Commenting on the walkout of the far left from the NEC, the LRC laughably quoted the following:

"We have decided not to remain in the NEC meeting today in order to show very clearly how factional the decisions of the current Labour leader have become. We will be returning to future NEC meetings to be the legitimate voice of the membership and to continue to demand that the party unite and reject the current factional approach of the leader."

The call for "unity" something they didn't want when they were in power preferring to drive out their opponents by any means necessary. No one will ever forgive or forget the intolerance, bullying and racism that destroyed the old broad church Labour used to be. An example comes from one of their supporters who writes:

....starmer and his 5th column who should not be even in the labour party point-blank never mind leading it.

Another who writes under the LRC's defence of Steve Bell's antisemitic cartoon about Keir Starmer being in the pocket of "Zionists" that The Guardian refused to publish says:

Since the new Editor was imposed on the Guardian by the deep state, a few years back, it has lost its Liberal values and now does what is told

It's no wonder that the far left so easily share conspiracy theories and worse with attitudes like this. Perhaps they should ask their New Communist Party comrades for a holiday under North Korean observation. That'll show them a true "deep state". Interestingly such garbage is also believed by the far right who don't like Jews Zionists either.

Still McDonnell and friends have begun their contribution to the restoration of the failed fabled messiah with the following meme on their website.  Democracy? These people don't even believe in it. Ask one whichever one of the hereditary Communist dictators in Pyongyang is still alive what that means and pray you don't get carted off to one of their gulags....

The far-left's real agenda: Not unity, No Compromise but civil war

 

Since the election of Keir Starmer, the publication of the EHCR Report and the subsequent suspension of Jeremy Corbyn we've heard a lot of talk from the far-left about the "need for unity" yet these are the same people who told those of us who dared disagree with the former "Dear leader " that we should "go join the Tories". They were not interested in "unity" then so why should they be now?

First of all it's worth having a look at Anne Black's note from "that" National Executive Committee meeting held the other day. She is hardly a "right-winger" by any standard being very much part of Labour's albeit more traditional left:

When Margaret was nominated as chair, some members announced that they were leaving because of Keir Starmer’s factional approach. Their tirades went way beyond anything I ever heard NEC members direct towards Jeremy Corbyn or any previous leader, though some said this had been a pattern of increasingly discourteous behaviour since April.*

I could gently point out that factionalism is not new. I was replaced as chair of the disputes panel the day after three new Momentum members were elected to the NEC, and Keith Birch was removed as chair of the equalities committee a few months before the end of his final NEC term. But that’s democracy. I was neither surprised nor upset, and it certainly never occurred to me to walk out immediately after being elected on a platform of representing members.

(You can find her full report here: annblack.co.uk/nec-report)

Meanwhile two of the hard left groups have made their intentions clear. The Labour Left Alliance publishes this comment (and related article) from the entryist ex-Militant Tendency group Socialist Appeal on it's Facebook Page:

The right wing are not ‘comrades’; they are agents of capitalism within the workers’ movement. They are the ‘enemy within’. They are big business infiltrators, whose job it is to keep the party safe for capitalism. This is what guides their actions, nothing more.

How can we have any kind of unity with people who think like this? This attitude is not new. Lee Rock one of the LLA's members told a friend of mine in the PCS union some years ago that I was not to be trusted as I was an MI5 agent. 

It's amazing how these people view the world. It's all about conspiracies. About "them", the "establishment" and don't forget the "Zionists" control the media and the banks is a view widely held on the far left these days. 

No wonder these people don't think about how their actions can so easily be not just perceived as but become actual antisemitism. The far-left like Corbyn because it's all about slogans and constant protest without responsibility.

So where does the Labour Left Alliance see this all going? In a response to a question by Lee Rock who asks what concrete proposals Socialist Appeal make the answer given was clear:

Mass mobilisation & grassroots organisation, a campaign to stay and fight, not for unity (read as "more compromise") but to kick out the right wing saboteurs.*

That's clear then.

Oh and meanwhile the comrades have written to the rest of the far-left and the unions to fight Keir Starmer. 

_______________ 

Notes:

* My emphasis 

Labour NEC member promotes the Socialist Party (Militant)?

Photo: twitter.com/BeckettUnite

This week saw a walkout by the far-left on Labour's National Executive Committee. One of the individuals involved was none other than Howard Becket who is also Assistant General Secretary of Unite. Seems he's been busy promoting the Socialist Party at their annual bash albeit on-line due to the pandemic Socialism 2000.

The Socialist Party are one of the fragments of the old Militant Tendency that plagued the Labour Party back in the eighties and became infamous for sending out redundancy notices to Liverpool Council workers by taxi. That led to Neil Kinnock's famous speech. Militant remains a proscribed organisation no matter what name it takes and the Socialist Party still use the the  Militant logo. 

The Socialist Party are one of the two main organisations that form the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (the other being the RMT union). This organisation has stood candidates against the labour Party in both local and general elections.

According to The Socialist newspaper :

"..the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) national steering committee has set out the core policies TUSC candidates will be committed to fight for in next May's local council elections."

So one must ask what Beckett thinks he was doing (personal capacity or not) at this event undermining  Labour to a rival organisation that has announced it will be standing candidates against the party at the next election?

The Socialist newspaper also reports:

Howard Beckett, Unite assistant general secretary and Labour NEC member in a personal capacity

This week we have had an announcement that 5.5 million public sectors workers can expect a pay freeze. Again, workers told that they must pay for this crisis. And where is the voice of Labour? Where are our arguments that it is time to tackle the Tories and talk of nationalising those businesses?

We have a Labour leadership determined to trounce Corbynism. Determined to make a stamp that they are a new leadership and in doing so have created a civil war within the Labour Party that sees the attempt to exit Corbynism, and, in doing so, exit socialism itself from the Party.

As a Labour Party NEC member he is assisting a rival party and proscribed organisation by bringing the Labour Party into disrepute.  A matter for the General Secretary to consider I would have thought. 

Luke Akehurst reports back from *that* Labour National Executive Committee

 

The mass walkout of the now minority far/hard left led by the childish Laura "I've never kissed a Tory" Piddock was all over the news. Even Jon Lansman Corbyn's "fixer" in the constituencies retorted that they should stop whining and accept Margret Beckett.  Labour's necessary civil war continues.

Luke Akehurst writes:

Yesterday was my first NEC meeting after an eight-year gap.

I wanted to give you a quick report back so that you can be confident all of us elected on the Labour to Win ticket are doing the job of representing you that you would expect.

I think I ought to have anticipated a fraught start to the meeting when outgoing Chair Andi Fox congratulated a list of newly elected list of members and perhaps accidentally, perhaps on purpose, left out my name, and then had to be reminded to grudgingly add it.

Within minutes we were into an explosive row about who should be NEC Chair. This matters, it isn’t just about effective chairing of often contentious meetings, the Chair can rule out agenda items and only be overturned on this by a two thirds majority (which supporters of the leadership don’t have, we only have a simple majority), and the Chair and Vice-Chair sit on the extremely powerful NEC Officers group, which makes urgent decisions between NEC meetings. A hostile Chair using their role negatively could really damage Keir Starmer’s ability to lead Labour effectively.

The Hard Left argued that the outgoing NEC Vice-Chair Ian Murray (from the Fire Brigades Union, not the Scottish MP) was next in line to be chair.

We argued that the principle of seniority should be restored, which had been Labour’s custom and practice for four decades until broken by the Hard Left in 2017. This meant that we nominated Margaret Beckett for Chair as the longest-serving NEC member. She first joined the NEC in 1980, whereas Ian Murray has only been on the NEC about three years.

At this point Howard Beckett from Unite and Laura Pidcock attacked Keir and the General Secretary for “factionalism” and led a virtual walkout (it was a Zoom meeting) of 13 Hard Left NEC members.

In my first intervention I condemned this extraordinary behaviour. The disrespectful and personalised attacks on Keir and David Evans and the childish petulance of the walkout really shocked me, as when I had previously served on the NEC from 2010-2012 it had been a very comradely and collegiate body. Apparently this rude and aggressive behaviour only started in April when Keir became leader. The people who walked out failed their own supporters by leaving them voiceless in the rest of the meeting. This isn’t the serious approach to internal governance that a potential party of government needs to demonstrate, particularly when under scrutiny from the EHRC.

The rest of the eight-hour meeting was quorate, friendly, constructive, and brilliantly chaired by Margaret Beckett, who we went on to elect nem con once the kerfuffle from their stunt had died down. Alice Perry was also elected nem con as Vice-Chair. Congratulations to them both. They will bring much needed calm and experienced leadership to the NEC. Margaret is an iconic figure as Labour’s first woman Deputy Leader, Acting Leader and Foreign Secretary, who brings huge gravitas to the role of Chair.

During the formal part of the meeting we agreed a new NEC Code of Conduct (clearly behaviour of members needs to improve); a process for dealing with CLP motions sent to us; an important review of Safeguarding for children and vulnerable adults who participate in the Labour Party; and gave the go ahead for an online Labour Women’s Conference from 25-27 June 2021, which will elect the National Labour Party Women’s Committee.

In the afternoon we had our “Away Day” where staff presented to us and we brainstormed ideas around three themes; Elections 2021, Engaging our Membership under Covid, and Effective Governance. We learned that Labour now has 540,000 members, a historically very high total.

We heard reports from both Keir and Angela Rayner. Keir answered questions on the forthcoming Brexit deal vote, devolution, public sector pay, Islamophobia (the party is drawing up an action plan to tackle it), local government funding, and shop workers.

After an unnecessarily and wholly inappropriately disrupted start this felt like a good beginning for the new NEC with its new pro-leadership working majority. I’m honoured that your votes have allowed me to serve on the NEC and help with the big task of repairing the party.

Also see:

I also wanted to share my colleague Johanna Baxter’s video report: 

https://www.facebook.com/579428685/videos/10158947816908686/

and my colleague Gurinder Singh Josan’s report: 

https://www.gurindersinghjosan.co.uk/nec-away-day-quick-notes-report-24th-november-2020/

Website: labourtowin.org