Category Archives: Democracy and the Labour Party

Anti-Semitism, Democracy and the Labour Party

Why Israel is a racist state

Any colonial-settler project must involve systematic discrimination against the indigenous population. Moshé Machover calls for the deZionisation of Israel

That Israel is a racsist state is a well-established fact. On July On July 19 2018, it enacted a quasi-constitutional nationality bill – ‘Basic law: Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people’ – which has been widely condemned as institutionalising discrimination against Israel’s non-Jewish citizens. As many have observed, this law merely codifies and formalises a reality that long predates it.1)Thus, for example, Bernie Sanders remarked in passing that “the recent ‘nation state law’ … essentially codifies the second-class status of Israel’s non-Jewish citizens”. (‘A new authoritarian axis demands an international progressive front’, The Guardian, 13 September 13 2018). Within its pre-1967 borders, Israel is an illiberal semi-democracy. It defines itself as “Jewish and democratic”, but, as its critics point out, it is “democratic for Jews, Jewish for others”. In the territories ruled by it since 1967, Israel is a military tyranny, applying one system of laws and regulations to Jewish settlers and an entirely separate one to the indigenous Palestinian Arabs.

The ways in which Israel exercises racist discrimination are too numerous to list here. Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, lists over 65 Israeli laws that discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens in Israel and/or Palestinian residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). In addition to these laws there are countless unofficial bureaucratic practices and regulations, by which Israeli racist discrimination operates in everyday life.

The conclusion cannot be denied: the state of Israel is structurally racist, an apartheid state according to the official UN definition of this term.

Shocking comparison

In Israeli public discourse, racist speech is extremely common even at the highest echelon of politics. Some of this high-level racist discourse is almost casual, such as Benjamin Netanyahu’s infamous “Arabs voting in droves” video 2)“The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are heading to the polling stations in droves. Left-wing NGOs are bringing them in buses.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/17/binyamin-netanyahu-israel-arab-election on election day, March 17 2015; or the “we are not Arab lovers” declaration of Isaac Herzog, leader of Israel’s Labor Party. 3)‘We are not Arab lovers – Israeli Labor’s bankrupt efforts to stave off decline’, Middle East Eye, 25 April 2016, https://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/when-israels-main-opposition-party-has-problem-countrys-palestinian-citizens-1878921672  At the most obscene end of the range there are statements by senior politicians containing barely concealed calls for ethnic cleansing.

Some of the harshest condemnation of Israel’s racism is voiced by two Israeli academics, who, as recognised experts on the history of fascism and Nazism, speak with considerable authority.

Professor Zeev Sternhell is emeritus head of the department of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and one of the world’s leading experts on fascism. In an article published earlier this year, he referred to statements made by two senior Israeli politicians, members of the ruling coalition, Bezalel Smotrich (deputy speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament) and Miki Zohar (chair of one of the Knesset’s most important committees). These statements, Sternhell writes4)‘In Israel, Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin to Early Nazism’, Ha’aretz January 19 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-in-israel-growing-fascism-and-a-racism-akin-to-early-nazism-1.5746488?=&ts=_1537002401268, “should be widely disseminated on all media outlets in Israel and throughout the Jewish world. In both of them we see not just a growing Israeli fascism, but racism akin to Nazism in its early stages.”

This shocking comparison with Nazism is endorsed by Daniel Blatman, professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, whose book The death marches: the final phase of Nazi genocide won him in 2011 the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. In an article published last year he commented: “deputy speaker Bezalel Smotrich’s admiration for the biblical genocidaire, Joshua bin Nun, leads him to adopt values that resemble those of the German SS.” 5)‘The Israeli Lawmaker Heralding Genocide Against Palestinians’, Ha’aretz May 23 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-israeli-mk-heralding-genocide-against-palestinians-1.5475561. The biblical reference is to the book of Joshua, which contains a mythical account of the conquest and ethnic cleansing of the land of Canaan (Palestine) by the Israelites. The account is of course purely fictitious, but is taken as inspiration and virtual blueprint by the likes of Smotrich

Blatman returned to this topic in a more recent article:

Deputy Knesset speaker MK Bezalel Smotrich … presented his phased plan, according to which the Palestinians in the occupied territories (and possibly Israeli citizens, too) would become, in the best case, subjects without rights with a status that reminds us of German Jews after the passage of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. To the extent that they do not agree to the plan, they will simply be cleansed from here. If they refuse to leave, they will be uprooted violently, which would lead to genocide.

Another elected official from the ruling coalition, Likud’s Miki Zohar, did not hesitate to state that the Arabs have a problem that has no solution – they are not Jews and therefore their fate in this land cannot be the same as that of the Jews .…  Prof Zeev Sternhell wrote in this paper earlier this month that this racism is “akin to Nazism in its early stages.” I think it is Nazism in every way and fashion, even if it comes from the school of the victims of historical Nazism.

He concludes that “if a racism survey were held in western countries like the one on anti-Semitism, Israel would be near the top of the list.” 6)‘International Holocaust Remembrance Day: An Israeli Hypocrisy’, Ha’aretz January 28 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-international-holocaust-remembrance-day-an-israeli-hypocrisy-1.5768945

Role of racism

Exposing Israel’s racism is all too easy. Mere denunciation, without explanation of its underlying context, may actually be misleading if not counterproductive; it may appear as singling Israel out for some peculiar and exceptional moral defect of its leaders or, worse, of its Jewish majority. In fact, racist structures and attitudes, wherever they occur, are part of the legal and ideological superstructure and cannot properly be understood in isolation from their material base.

In the case of Israel, that material base is the Zionist colonisation of Palestine – a process of which Israel is both product and instrument. That the Zionist project is all about the colonisation of Palestine by Jews is, once again, an indisputable fact. It is how political Zionism described itself right from the start. Thus, the second Zionist Congress (1898) adopted the following resolution (supplementing the Basel programme adopted at the first Congress a year earlier):

This Congress, in approval of the colonisation already inaugurated in Palestine, and being desirous of fostering further efforts in that direction, hereby declares, that:

For the proper settlement of Palestine, this Congress considers it is necessary to obtain the requisite permission from the Turkish government, and to carry out such settlement according to the plan, and under the direction of a committee, selected by this Congress ….

This committee to be appointed to superintend and direct all matters of colonisation; it shall consist of ten members, and have its seat in London. 7)www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2612-basel-program

The Congress also resolved to establish a bank to finance the activities of the Zionist movement. The bank was duly incorporated in London in 1899; its name was the Jewish Colonial Trust.8)www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-colonial-trust Well into the 20th century, Zionists continued to describe their project unabashedly, in a perfectly matter-of-fact way, as one of colonisation. Later in the 20th century this usage became a public relations liability, and the term was replaced by various euphemisms. But the practice of colonisation of Palestinian land has continued unabated and is going ahead at full steam to this day.

This context makes Israel’s racism quite ‘natural’, in the sense of conforming to a general law. Every colonisation of an already inhabited territory is accompanied by racism. This is the case whether or not the colonisers arrive with preconceivedracist ideas. Colonisation invariably meets resistance by the indigenous people. This was clearly understood, for example, by Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880–1940), the founder of the Zionist current that has been politically dominant in Israel for the last 41 years. In his seminal article ‘The iron wall’ (1923) he wrote:

Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised. That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of ‘Palestine’ into the ‘Land of Israel’ .…

Colonisation can have only one aim, and Palestine Arabs cannot accept this aim. It lies in the very nature of things, and in this particular regard nature cannot be changed.

Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power [ie, Britain – MM] that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach. 9)‘The iron wall’ (O Zheleznoi stene), published November 4 1923 in the Russian-language journal Rassvyet (Dawn); English translation https://tinyurl.com/m8dp3le

In their conflict with the ‘natives’, the settlers tend to develop a racist ideology as self-justification.

We can say more. Racism in general comes in many different variants, and colonisers’ racism takes different forms, depending on the type of colonisation. In colonisation based primarily on exploiting the labour-power of the indigenous people, the latter are usually depicted by the colonisers as inferior creatures deserving no better fate than working for their conquerors.

But in colonisation based on excluding and displacing the ‘natives’ rather than incorporating them into the colonial economy as workers, they are usually depicted as dangerous wild and murderous people who ought to be ethnically cleansed. Zionist colonisation belongs to this category. In this respect, it is not unlike the colonisation of what became the United States, except that the Zionist organisation insisted explicitly and deliberately on denying employment to non-Jews. 10)See the 1929 constitution of the Jewish Agency, https://tinyurl.com/ycq3nqpo

In the US Declaration of Independence, the freedom-loving founding fathers – only some of whom were slave owners – complain that the king of Great Britain “has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” In today’s terminology they would no doubt be described as ‘terrorists’. The Palestinian Arabs are Israel’s “merciless Indian savages”.

When viewed against the background of the history of this type of colonisation, Israeli racist ideology and practices are par for the course. The annals of colonisation certainly have grimmer chapters, such as the total extermination of the people of Tasmania, to mention an extreme example. Zionist colonisation is, however, exceptional in being anachronistic: it continues in the 21st century the kind of thing – settler colonialism – that elsewhere ended in the 19th.

To conclude: apart from its anachronism, there is little that is exceptional about Israel’s racism. It is rooted in its nature as a settler state. Uprooting colonialist racism requires a change of regime, decolonisation – which in the case of Israel means de-Zionisation. 11)See my article ‘The decolonisation of Palestine’, Weekly Worker June 23 2016, https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1112/the-decolonisation-of-palestine/

 

 

References

References
↑1 Thus, for example, Bernie Sanders remarked in passing that “the recent ‘nation state law’ … essentially codifies the second-class status of Israel’s non-Jewish citizens”. (‘A new authoritarian axis demands an international progressive front’, The Guardian, 13 September 13 2018).
↑2 “The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are heading to the polling stations in droves. Left-wing NGOs are bringing them in buses.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/17/binyamin-netanyahu-israel-arab-election
↑3 ‘We are not Arab lovers – Israeli Labor’s bankrupt efforts to stave off decline’, Middle East Eye, 25 April 2016, https://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/when-israels-main-opposition-party-has-problem-countrys-palestinian-citizens-1878921672
↑4 ‘In Israel, Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin to Early Nazism’, Ha’aretz January 19 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-in-israel-growing-fascism-and-a-racism-akin-to-early-nazism-1.5746488?=&ts=_1537002401268
↑5 ‘The Israeli Lawmaker Heralding Genocide Against Palestinians’, Ha’aretz May 23 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-israeli-mk-heralding-genocide-against-palestinians-1.5475561. The biblical reference is to the book of Joshua, which contains a mythical account of the conquest and ethnic cleansing of the land of Canaan (Palestine) by the Israelites. The account is of course purely fictitious, but is taken as inspiration and virtual blueprint by the likes of Smotrich
↑6 ‘International Holocaust Remembrance Day: An Israeli Hypocrisy’, Ha’aretz January 28 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-international-holocaust-remembrance-day-an-israeli-hypocrisy-1.5768945
↑7 www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2612-basel-program
↑8 www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-colonial-trust
↑9 ‘The iron wall’ (O Zheleznoi stene), published November 4 1923 in the Russian-language journal Rassvyet (Dawn); English translation https://tinyurl.com/m8dp3le
↑10 See the 1929 constitution of the Jewish Agency, https://tinyurl.com/ycq3nqpo
↑11 See my article ‘The decolonisation of Palestine’, Weekly Worker June 23 2016, https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1112/the-decolonisation-of-palestine/
Conference 2018, Democracy and the Labour Party

LP conference 2018: Democracy, reselection and Omov 

Carla Roberts looks at some of the rule changes before this year’s Labour conference

First, a note of caution: this will not be the final list of constitutional amendments before delegates at this year’s conference in Liverpool (September 23-26). Some of them will be composited with similar amendments and there are indeed a few where that makes entire sense – as opposed to contemporary political motions, which are usually composited into bland, motherhood and apple pie statements.

We also know that some amendments coming from Constituency Labour Parties will be superseded by the recommendations and proposed rule changes coming out of the Party Democracy Review (PDR) run by Jeremy Corbyn’s right-hand woman, Katy Clark. Unfortunately, it looks like the first delegates will get to see of them will be at conference itself – the national executive committee will take another look on September 18. Those recommendations will be discussed on the Sunday, the first day of conference, with the rest of the rule changes to be debated and voted upon on the Tuesday.

In accordance with one of the plethora of undemocratic clauses in the Labour rule book, proposed constitutional amendments from CLPs are parked for almost 14 months before they can finally be discussed by delegates. Among them is motion 10, which proposes to do away with this crassly anti-democratic delaying rule.

CLPs are only allowed to submit either one contemporary motion or one constitutional amendment per year, which means that any reform attempts from below take an incredibly long time to filter through. And, once conference has voted on an issue, it cannot be revisited for another three years – even if it only deals with the same question tangentially. The result is a ridiculously long, overcomplicated travesty of a constitution. Yes, the PDR will push through a number of changes (including, apparently, the abolition of the three-year rule). But clearly, the whole thing should be ripped up and replaced by a new, streamlined constitution that is fit for purpose.

We will look at the recommendations from the PDR as and when they are finally published, but, judging from the leaks, it is fair to say that it will probably not contain many of the radical proposals that would be needed to transform the Labour Party into a real party of the working class. This would require Jeremy Corbyn and his allies making a conscious decision to put two fingers up to the right inside and outside the party.

No, the most radical proposals come from below, from CLPs. For example, in order for Labour to become the umbrella organisation for all trade unions, socialist groups and pro-working class partisans, all undemocratic bans and proscriptions must be abolished. Constitutional amendment number 6 from Mid Worcestershire, Rugby, Truro & Falmouth, Bexhill & Battle makes a useful start in that direction. It wants to remove the first part of the infamous rule 2.1.4.B (‘membership conditions’), which bars from membership anybody who “joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the party”.

 Although we fear it is unlikely to win a majority, it is an important debate to have. Jon Lansman has already made it clear that Momentum would oppose such a change, as “this could benefit groups who are opposed to the party”. What, like Progress and Labour First? Of course not.

Lansman knows very well that this rule has been applied in an entirely one-sided way against leftwingers only – among them supporters of Socialist Appeal, the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and Labour Party Marxists. Groups such as Progress and Labour First remain untouched and can continue to operate freely and in a highly organised fashion. And what about members of Stop the War Coalition or Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament? Surely they are also examples of a “political organisation”? This rule should go. Labour would be positively transformed by allowing members of left groups – who are often very dedicated – to operate freely in the party.

Instead, Lansman seems to have inspired rule change number 7 from Broxtowe, which adds a few words to the first sentence: “joins and/or supports a political organisation that is in conflict with the aims and principles of the Labour Party”. This formulation has been used, for example, to expel supporters of Socialist Appeal because, rather than recognise “the importance of the enterprise of the market”, the organisation wants to “consign the market economy to the dustbin of history”. The amendment carries that distinct danger and should therefore be opposed.

Mandatory reselection

The Parliamentary Labour Party urgently has to be brought under democratic control. The majority of Labour MPs have been shamelessly plotting against Jeremy Corbyn and sabotaging him at every turn. They are far to the right of the Labour membership and, once elected, usually enjoy a ‘job for life’.

It is unfortunate that Jeremy Corbyn – after all, he is the central target of the right – has refused to take up the challenge and include mandatory reselection in the Party Democracy Review. Nevertheless, there are eight rule changes, submitted by 13 CLPs, dealing with the subject of how and when the party selects its parliamentary candidates. If we ignore the rule changes that tinker with some of the less important issues around this question and combine similar rule changes, we can see that there are two clear alternatives.

  • Option 1: Rule changes 24 (Portsmouth North, Rochester and Strood) and 26 (Labour International) want to do away with today’s trigger ballot – which makes it more or less impossible to replace a sitting MP – and instead introduce mandatory reselection, where all those interested in becoming a candidate (including the sitting MP) participate in a democratic selection process.
  • Option 2: Rule changes 27 and 28, on the other hand, also do away with the words ‘trigger ballot’, but not the undemocratic concept. If a sitting MP receives more than 66% of “nominations” from party branches and affiliated organisations, the MP would automatically be reselected.

Such a system would still be hugely in favour of the sitting MP and could easily be rigged by affiliated unions and societies. Much better to have an open and democratic contest between all candidates, to be decided by Labour members – as envisaged by rule changes 24 and 26.

Option 2 smells heavily of Momentum’s original plan. Instead of doing away with the undemocratic trigger ballot altogether, Jon Lansman merely drew up a lame proposal to raise the threshold from Tony Blair’s 50% back to Neil Kinnock’s 66% – ie, two thirds of local branches and affiliates would have to vote in favour of the sitting MP, otherwise a full selection process would begin. Lansman even had this proposal sanctioned by the membership in one of Momentum’s tortuous and clearly biased online “consultations”.

But he seems to have undergone a mysterious change of heart and we can only speculate about the reasons behind it. He has certainly not explained them to Momentum members – or bothered to mention that there even has been a change. Lansman has still not told members which of the rule changes he wants them to vote for, but option 2 is clearly not it.

This week, he sent another email to the membership, informing them that Momentum now favours a system that gives

a fair chance to all candidates and does away with this negative, divisive stage of campaigning – so it’s an open contest from the start, and there are no ‘jobs for life’. That way, local members and the sitting MP can compete for the Labour Party’s backing at the general election, and run positive campaigns about issues local voters really care about.

Momentum has even set up a petition on the issue. Would it be petty if we thought this was a neat way of harvesting more data, while simultaneously jumping on an increasingly successful bandwagon?

Evidently, the increasingly vitriolic nature of the civil war in the Labour Party has given the campaign for mandatory reselection a new lease of life. With the support of Unite, the Fire Brigades Union, presumably the vast majority of CLP delegates and even the timid backing of Jeremy Corbyn himself, it has a good chance of winning at conference (even though John McDonnell managed to disappoint once more by declaring his support for the existing system).

Omov not the answer

It is understandable that a good deal of proposed rule changes want to extend the use of ‘one member, one vote’ to elect NEC representatives (rule changes 1, 2, 3 and 4) and even the party general secretary (18 and 19). After all, this is the method that allowed Corbyn to become leader.

This trend is also reflected in the recommendations that are expected to be in the PDR. The Huffington Post published a leaked summary, which apparently includes recommendations for “more digital democracy”, including “secure online voting systems for CLPs developed for policy and other matters”.

However, in our view there are some serious problems with Omov. As a general principle we should be against plebiscites in the party – for electoral contests or otherwise. There is a good reason why the move to Omov for the election of the party leader began with the likes of Neil Kinnock and John Smith, and culminated in Ed Miliband’s Collins review – it was a rightwing ploy to dilute the working class nature of our party. It atomises comrades and makes serious political engagement very difficult. For example, how do you question a candidate when all you have is a short statement and s/he does not reply to emails? In terms of making policy, how can you effectively move an amendment when you do not have the possibility of talking to people and explaining some of the nuances?

Take the contemporary motion on Brexit pushed by  People’s Vote. On paper, many lefties and Corbyn supporters find this entirely acceptable – allowing the people a say on the final Brexit deal sounds democratic, doesn’t it? Until you explain to them that this is clearly part of the coup against Corbyn, to embarrass him even further by undermining his pretty successful strategy of letting the Tories tear each other to pieces, while keeping all options open. Having to come out for a People’s Vote is likely to cost him in terms of votes.

Comrades should also bear in mind the farce that was Lansman’s Momentum coup, cynically wrapped as it was in a veneer of ‘democracy from below’. In fact, this pseudo-inclusive manoeuvre crushed the embryonic democratic structures of the organisation and substituted online voting by the entire, atomised and easily steered membership. Omov in Lansman’s hands was the vehicle for a profoundly undemocratic plot against the interests of the membership – one that stymied Momentum’s potential to be an effective, dynamic left trend in the party.

Online voting also marginalises the role of the unions in the party. Yes, the representatives of rightwing unions have played an entirely negative role on the NEC and when it comes to trigger ballots. But in general, the affiliation of unions is an enormous strength of the Labour Party. While they should not be allowed to stop the democratic selection of parliamentary candidates, unions have clearly played an important role in preserving the character of the Labour Party as a workers’ party, even under Tony Blair. In fact, we should fight for a serious commitment to a vigorous national campaign to affiliate all unions.

 

Anti-Semitism, Democracy and the Labour Party

IHRA: NEC left capitulates

But there might yet be light at the end of the tunnel, says Carla Roberts

As expected, Labour’s national executive committee decided on September 4 to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance ‘working definition’ of anti-Semitism – including, crucially, all its 11 examples. So now, for instance, to describe Israel as “racist” will be officially anti-Semitic in the Labour Party – even though the new ‘nation state’ law enshrines racism to an even greater extent in Israel’s constitution.

What is only transpiring now, however, is the fact that Jeremy Corbyn was royally shafted by his allies on the NEC. He had prepared a 500-word “personal statement” to be read out at the beginning of the meeting, which he wanted adopted alongside the whole IHRA document. According to The Times, it was this sentence that raised particular concern: “Nor should it be regarded as anti-Semitic to describe Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist because of their discriminatory impact, or to support another settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict.”

Apparently, it “was made clear” to Corbyn that the majority of the NEC would vote against his document, and so in order to save face he withdrew it. That is a real shame: it would have been very interesting to see exactly which of his so-called allies were prepared to stab him in the back. After all, there is now a slim majority of pro-Corbyn forces on the executive. We know that Momentum owner Jon Lansman has been at the front of the queue, but unfortunately Unite also declared in the run-up to the meeting that it would back the full IHRA document. We can only speculate as to who else might have helped humiliate Corbyn, including the soft Zionist Rhea Wolfson (a fellow traveller of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and member of the Jewish Labour Movement). Fortunately, she is about to end her term on the NEC.

Instead, the NEC adopted a short statement alongside the IHRA wording, which says: “We recommend that we adopt the IHRA in full, with all examples. This does not in any way undermine the freedom of expression on Israel or the rights of Palestinians. We re-invite organisations to engage in consultation on the code of conduct.”1)The Times September 5.

To make matters more complicated, the usually well-informed Skwawkbox reports that “senior Labour sources have confirmed that the protections of the existing code of conduct still apply and govern the application of the additional IHRA examples that were adopted yesterday.”

We do not have to go into much detail about why the full IHRA definition is so dangerous, as most readers will have become experts on the matter over the last few weeks. A short paragraph from Labour Against the Witchhunt’s recent leaflet, distributed at the September 4 lobby outside Labour’s HQ, will suffice:

The intent of this document is notto define anti-Semitism – after all, the Oxford English Dictionary manages 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. In effect, the IHRA definition is labeling criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic.

Legal experts have also come out to give their opinion on the document: Geoffrey Robertson QC describes it as “not fit for purpose”; professor David Feldman, director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism, criticises it as “bewilderingly imprecise”; former appeals court judge Stephen Sedley believes that the document would place “Israel’s occupation and colonisation of Palestine beyond permissible criticism” and Hugh Tomlinson QC has warned that it will have “a chilling effect on freedom of speech”.

Not about Jews

In their identical front pages of July 25, the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Telegraph and Jewish News openly 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.”

Jeremy Corbyn would be the prime target, needless to say. And that is, of course, what this whole saga is really about. It has nothing to do with trying to protect anybody from anti-Semitism or abuse of any kind. It is all about getting rid of Corbyn as Labour leader. From an establishment point of view he has been and – as his personal statement shows – remains very unreliable, especially when it comes to the important issue of Middle Eastern politics. Israel’s position as US imperialism’s only remaining stable outpost in the area must be protected at all costs.

But even without his personal statement, the right is still not satisfied. In an interview that was published a day before the vote, Margaret Hodge MP was asked whether, if Labour passed the IHRA definition in full, with no caveats, the anti-Semitism issue would be over. She replied: “I think the moment has passed. The problem is that Jeremy Corbyn is the problem.” Spot on, Margaret. The September 5 vote by the Parliamentary Labour Party further confirmed that adopting the full IHRA definition will make no difference.

Now, this all seems pretty clear. In the last few months, dozens of leftwing organisations and thousands of Labour Party members have signed letters, attended meetings and, yes, sometimes raved and shouted online, pantomime-like, to the Labour leader: “Don’t do it – it’s a trap!”

But Corbyn has stepped into one trap after another. After all, the full IHRA definition makes Corbyn officially, and even according to Labour Party rules, an anti-Semite – at long last.

It is, of course, very unlikely that Corbyn would be charged under the new rule. However, the damage has already been done: Corbyn has been declared an anti-Semite by pretty much all the mainstream press. Nobody raises an eyebrow now when another “Jewish community leader” declares that Corbyn “hates Jews”. John Mann MP can get away with claiming, “We are now seeing the first British Jewish people leaving – that is the state we are in. That is the responsibility of the Labour Party.” Utter bullshit, of course. But where there’s smoke …

In that sense, the whole debate over the IHRA has already achieved one of its main objectives. Whatever Corbyn and the NEC do now or in the future, it makes no difference. His ill-fated strategy of trying to appease the right wing in the Labour Party has backfired spectacularly. Clearly, it has gone so far that some of his ‘allies’ have utterly internalised this approach, with Jon Lansman playing the part of Brutus – stabbing Corbyn in the back while assuring him of his enduring love.

NEC elections

The capitulation of some on the NEC left also somewhat puts into perspective the fact that all nine ‘pro-Corbyn’ candidates have again swept the board in the NEC elections. After all, it really depends what these NEC members actually dowith their votes.

We have commented at length about the undemocratic way in which the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance has been choosing ‘worthy’ candidates in backroom deals – cobbled together by a handful of self-selected Labour lefts, who, “convinced of the left’s unelectability, continued to support centrist candidates and rejected any moves to present a leftwing platform or support openly left candidates”.

In this context, it is excellent that Ann Black – for the first time without the support of CLGA – has been convincingly booted off the NEC. She picked up just over 45,000 votes, as opposed to the 101,000 she got in 2016. She had supported the move to stop tens of thousands of pro-Corbyn members from voting in the second leadership election and, as chair of the NEC disciplinary panel, gave her backing to much of the witch-hunt against the left – for instance, by voting for the suspension of Brighton  and Hove District Labour Party.

It is also welcome news that Pete Willsman has been re-elected, despite being disowned by Momentum and his former comrade in the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, Jon Lansman. Now he seems to be observing some vow of silence. Despite that, his re-election to the NEC is important, because it shows that a good proportion of the membership is putting two fingers up to both the witch-hunters in the bourgeois media and those facilitating and aiding the witch-hunt inside the party – on the right and the left.

The results, however, also show that despite rising membership figures, fewer people voted this year compared to 2016. The highest vote this year – 88,176 – was achieved by Yasmine Dar: almost 13,000 fewer votes than those for Ann Black in 2016, when she came first. If we ignore comrade Willsman’s skewed result (a small minority of left voters obviously followed Momentum’s advice as he picked up only 70,321 votes – only 2,500 more than the highest-placed unsuccessful candidate, Eddie Izzard), the distance between the worst left candidate and the best rightwinger remained roughly the same, compared to 2016 – about 9,000 votes.

Izzard in fact seems to have benefited from presenting himself as independent and unaligned to either side: he got almost 18,000 votes more than the next ‘moderate’, Johanna Baxter (50,185). In 2016, five rightwingers achieved over 50,000 votes. The elections were a mixed bag, in other words, which perhaps shows a lot of members on both sides getting fed up with the current state of the party.

This is an unfortunate but understandable reaction to the ongoing civil war. Many joined in the mistaken belief that all it would take was to ‘vote Corbyn’ so that he could deliver, messiah-like, some form of socialism. The reality of boring meetings, nasty underhand tactics by the right and the never-ending attacks in the media show that transforming the Labour Party into a real party of labour is a serious job, however, that requires hard and dedicated work at all levels.

But Corbyn, from the start, has denied that there is a need to defeat the right. He continues to insist that there could be some kind of ‘unity’ with them. We note John McDonnell’s most recent attempt to placate the right by inviting the despicable Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, “to come and talk to us and sit down with Jeremy”, when the man deserves to be told where to go, having compared Jeremy Corbyn to Enoch Powell. It is highly unlikely that Corbyn – and especially McDonnell – actually believe in the possibility of such unity; they have been around long enough to know better. Nevertheless, it is the agreed strategy that is supposed to hand Corbyn the keys to No10 Downing Street.

But even if the Labour Party won the next general election and Corbyn became prime minister, there can be no doubt that the right would still continue to sabotage and undermine him – chiefly and most efficiently orchestrated by the rightwing majority in the PLP. They will not give up until Corbyn is gone – or until they have been forced out themselves, of course.

This is where we might yet see some light at the end of the IHRA tunnel. In our view, the saboteurs and the plotters should have been expelled from the party long ago, but Corbyn is clearly not going down that road. There are, however, some encouraging developments when it comes to the method with which the party selects its parliamentary candidates. This is of the utmost importance, considering the role that the PLP majority has been playing in Labour’s civil war.

Mandatory?

Mandatory reselection has a reputation as a rather scary, vicious tool of the militant left. In reality it is a very basic, democratic procedure that Labour already employs, for example, to select council candidates. The left in the party has fought for it for decades and it was the main demand of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, which managed to get a variant of it into the Labour Party rulebook for a few years, between 1980-89.

However, since Corbyn’s election in 2015, the CLDP (under Pete Willsman) and Momentum (run by former CLPD stalwart Jon Lansman) have followed his political trajectory and dropped the demand in order not to spook the right. In January this year, Jon Lansman gave a long interview to The Independent, in which he said: “Momentum nationally is not going to campaign to deselect any MP and we will stick by that.” He defended the current rules: “… the existing process was already in place, should local parties wish to ditch their candidate at an election, known as the trigger ballot.”

So, instead of doing away with the undemocratic trigger ballot altogether, Jon Lansman’s Momentum merely drew up a lame proposal to raise the threshold from 50% to 66% – ie, two-thirds of the local branches and affiliates would have to vote ‘yes’ to a sitting MP, otherwise a full selection process would begin. He even had this proposal sanctioned by the membership in one of Momentum’s tortuous and clearly biased online ‘consultations’.

Such a ‘reform’ would still disproportionately favour the sitting MP, of course: rather than allowing for a full and democratic automatic reselection process before every election, a sitting MP would still have to be challenged. Lansman’s tinkering would merely restore the trigger ballot to what it was when introduced by Neil Kinnock in 1990 in order to curb the power of the unions, before Tony Blair reduced it to today’s 50%.

A pathetic proposal by the so-called Labour left. No wonder then that others in the Labour Party have taken up the gauntlet. There are eight rule changes going forward to this year’s conference that propose reforms to the way parliamentary candidates are selected – from the most radical one, proposed by International Labour, which would simply do away with the trigger ballot altogether (our preference) to the lamest, based on Momentum’s tinkering with the trigger ballot, which is proposed by three CLPs. (We intend to look at all the motions in next week’s issue of the Weekly Worker.)

The new campaign for mandatory reselection was first driven by International Labour, which did an excellent job in publicising its motion (under the title ‘Open selection’, which is presumably meant to make it sound less scary). Like all rule changes, this was tabled last year so that it could be voted on in 2018 – an anti-democratic relic of a rule, which another proposal to this year’s conference quite rightly wants to do away with.

Then in March 2018, in the face of the increasingly vicious anti-Semitism smear campaign, Unite leader Len McCluskey confirmed that a motion calling for mandatory reselection, which was adopted at the union’s conference in 2017, would not follow many other good motions into obscurity, but that he and his fellow Unite colleagues would actually campaign for it in the Labour Party. That was followed in August this year by a similar motion agreed by the Fire Brigades Union – newly reaffiliated to Labour under Matt Wrack.

Last but not least is the incredibly successful ‘Democracy Roadshow’ organised by Chris Williamson MP, who, together with Tosh McDonald of the Aslef union, has been touring the whole country with the demand for more democracy in the party, crucially on the question of mandatory reselection. Comrade Williamson is fast becoming the most popular Labour politician on the left – and deservedly so. Incredibly, he has been the only MP who has openly spoken out against the witch-hunt in the party. Having clearly opposed mandatory reselection when he was elected leader in 2015, Jeremy Corbyn has in recent months been more ‘flexible’ on the issue, calling for “more democratic accountability” for the members.

And now, it seems, this pressure has rubbed off on Jon Lansman. In the ‘Comment is free’ section of The Guardian on September 3, we read with great interest an article penned by Momentum’s unelected national coordinator, Laura Parker, who was appointed to the position by Lansman. In a rather strained comparison, she tries to link the success of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez in the US with the current method of selecting Labour’s parliamentary candidates:

Instead of being able to run in an open contest on a positive and propositional platform, as Ocasio-Cortez did, Labour has a built-in mechanism that forces local party members to mount a negative campaign against their sitting MP just to instigate a race. We want to see a process that gives a fair chance to all candidates and improves the atmosphere in local parties by doing away with the negative, divisive stage of campaigning and making it an open contest from the start. This means, in all constituencies, local members and the sitting MP would be free to compete for the Labour Party’s backing at the general election – and able to run positive, vibrant campaigns, talking about the issues voters actually care about, in order to become the Labour candidate.

That this is indeed Momentum’s new position has since been confirmed with an email to all members on September 4. In other words, having explicitly rejected mandatory reselection (aka “open contest”, aka “open selection”) just a few months ago, Lansman suddenly declares it to be Momentum policy. Not that we oppose it – quite the opposite. But it clearly shows how undemocratically this organisation is run.

What Momentum has not yet told its members is which of the eight rule changes – if any – it is about to support. It is safe to presume that it definitely will notbe the one containing Lansman’s original proposal, which would have kept in place the “built-in mechanism that forces local party members to mount a negative campaign against their sitting MP just to instigate a race”.

But there is a myriad of possibilities on how the current selection process could be reformed to make it more “open”.

Corbyn review

Of course, this development also begs the question as to why Lansman has suddenly changed his mind. Nobody can accuse him of moving to the left. But we know that Momentum have received a large number of protest emails and phone calls about their decision to dump Pete Willsman from the left slate and, of course, for Lansman’s public lobbying for the full IHRA (against Corbyn’s wishes). We even hear from within Momentum HQ that the decision was made to take the phones off the hook, because they were so inundated with angry calls. Maybe Lansman is trying to protect his and Momentum’s last remnants of ‘street cred’.

Or maybe he just simply fears being outflanked – and, perhaps, outvoted at conference. And if there is one thing Lansman does not like it is losing: just remember how he bullshitted his way through his resignation from the race to become Labour’s general secretary when he realised that he would lose to Jennie Formby. Funnily enough, in a September 4 email to members, Momentum claims that “Corbyn, when asked about our proposals”, expressed support for “greater democratic accountability”.

Of course, it is possible that none of the eight proposals will see the light of day at conference, as they may well be superseded by the outcome of the so-called Corbyn review. Although the issue of selection was not originally part of its remit, the first strategically placed leaks to the bourgeois media from Katy Clark’s draft recommendations already contained suggestions that “when MPs forfeit their seat in boundary changes” the party was considering the use of mandatory reselection Considering how the civil war has spun out of all proportion in recent months, it is entirely feasible that the final recommendations will contain something more wide-ranging on this question. This would also explain Jon Lansman’s sudden change of heart – maybe he got to see an early draft? We can only speculate.

No doubt the right would have gone ballistic if it had a sniff of any such move – it wants to avoid mandatory reselection at all costs. As it is, they are very much on the offensive against Corbyn and he knows he could not act as prime minister without majority support. Any move he made would be liable to sabotage by his own side, bringing his premiership to a very quick end. He would be the right’s prisoner, even more so than he currently is.

If mandatory reselection really isone of the proposals contained in the document produced by Corbyn’s right-hand woman, Katy Clark – especially in the way that we understand it: ie, doing away with the trigger ballot and allowing the local membership to choose their candidate without any restrictions – then we would, of course, welcome this move and congratulate Corbyn on finally having discovered his backbone. However, this would also imply that Corbyn and his allies are about to end their strategy of appeasing the right. We are not quite convinced that this is the case.

And, despite its official name of ‘Party Democracy Review’, the process has been far from democratic. Of course, there will have been hundreds, if not thousands, of contributions from members, branches and CLPs concerned about the state of the party. But it is entirely up to those running the review to decide which contributions are ‘accepted’. I would venture the guess that much of the final document will have been agreed well in advance of the ‘consultation’.

A draft of Clark’s proposals will be presented to the next meeting of the NEC on September 18 – ie, a mere four days before conference starts. Any amendments from the NEC will then have to be incorporated into the document before it is presented to delegates and the public – presumably without any chance to read through them beforehand. And anybody who has been to conference knows that it is impossible to make any amendments to such documents.

That is clearly not the way Marxists envisage a real democratic review of party structures. It stinks of the old, bureaucratic way of riding roughshod over the members. A truly democratic, root-and-branch transformation of the Labour Party would require theactiveparticipation of an empowered and educated membership. Nevertheless, we hope that delegates at this year’s conference will get the chance to put two fingers up to the rightwingers in the PLP and vote for such an overdue democratic change.

 

References

References
↑1 The Times September 5.
Democracy and the Labour Party

Stand up to your enemies

The more Corbyn retreats, writes David Shearer, the more the Labour right grows in confidence

No doubt Jeremy Corbyn was relieved that for a couple of days the media was focussing on former foreign secretary Boris Johnson’s remarks about the burka and temporarily relegating the latest fake news about Labour ‘anti-Semitism’ from the main headlines.

But, unfortunately, it will not last long. Johnson may have compared women wearing the burka to “bank robbers” and “letter boxes”, but no-one should expect the media to start digging up previous Islamophobic remarks he may have made, let alone start a campaign to expose the “severe and widespread” Islamophobia affecting the entire Tory Party (although, of course, there is no doubt that this would be much more productive in terms of finding genuine examples than the ‘anti-Semitism’ nonsense has been).

I am afraid to say, Jeremy, that the attacks on you are not going to stop any time soon. They are, after all, predicated on two interconnected aims: ensuring that support for Israel – imperialism’s key ally in the Middle East – is not undermined; and helping to win back control of the Labour Party for the right wing, so that the ruling class will have a ‘responsible’ alternative to the Conservative Party, should it become temporarily unelectable. That is why no end of apologies or unprincipled retreats will stop the onslaught. In reality, the more Corbyn does that, the more the onslaught will intensify. Everyone can see that it is paying off.

Take last week’s article by Corbyn in The Guardian, entitled ‘I will root anti-Semites out of Labour – they do not speak for me’. In this piece Labour leader went along with the absurd notion that anti-Semitism is a major problem within the party and that people like Pete Willsman, who strongly denied this at the July 17 meeting of Labour’s national executive committee, are effectively aiding and abetting the anti-Semites: “… no-one can, or should, try to dismiss or belittle the concerns expressed by so many Jewish people and organisations about what has been happening in the party I am proud to lead.”

In the video on Labour’s website, sent out by email to all members shortly after the Guardian article was published, Corbyn went further: “Anyone who denies that this has surfaced within our party is clearly actually wrong and contributing to the problem.” And in the article he states:

Denying the continuing problem doesn’t help. Labour staff have seen examples of holocaust denial, crude stereotypes of Jewish bankers, conspiracy theories blaming 9/11 on Israel, and even one individual who appeared to believe that Hitler had been misunderstood.

This is worse than pathetic. There is no doubt that among the more than half a million members that the Labour Party now has a minority that have all kinds of weird views – and some of them will find their way on to social media. But, as Corbyn himself admits, they account for only a tiny percentage of the membership, most of whom will be inactive. There is no evidence of such people exerting any influence whatsoever.

Of course, much has been made of a small number of high-profile cases – Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein, Moshé Machover … But in none of them has anti-Semitism been established. For the most part the original allegations were withdrawn for charges such as the catch-all “bringing the party into disrepute”. In the case of comrade Machover, all the preposterous claims made against him were withdrawn after a rank-and-file campaign, while comrade Walker’s case has yet to be heard almost two years after she was suspended.

Honourable

It is true that Corbyn states: “there are also many non- or anti-Zionist Jews who should not be branded as anti-Semites simply because they are not part of the Zionist tradition” – that applies to comrades Walker, Machover and Greenstein. But then he adds: “Both traditions have always had honourable proponents in our movement” (my emphasis). So the tradition of Zionism is “honourable”, is it?

I am sorry, Jeremy, but Zionism is a reactionary ideology (as you once knew) – based on the notion that Jews everywhere will always be oppressed unless they establish their own state. True, it emerged as a reaction to widespread anti-Semitism and pogroms in many countries, but it was opposed by the majority of Jews, who regarded themselves first and foremost as German, Russian, British, French … Indeed Jews have always played a prominent role in the internationalist working class movement, which calls for a united struggle against oppression, as opposed to Zionist separatism.

But now the Labour leader seems to accept that the Zionists are a bona fide representative of the “Jewish community”. He still has not met with representatives of the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Labour, despite JVL’s constant requests. (By the way, JVL organised a 100-strong protest on August 7 outside the BBC against its biased coverage of this whole business, but, true to form, the corporation did not report it – and neither did any other media outlet apart from the Daily Mail.) On the other hand, he begs Zionist groups like the Jewish Labour Movement to have another meeting with him to help ‘smooth out’ the difficulties – which, of course, JLM is declining to do.

In his article Corbyn does take issue with the absurd claim that “a Labour government would represent any kind of threat, let alone an ‘existential threat’, to Jewish life in Britain”, as three Jewish newspapers recently claimed. But he excuses the blatant dishonesty involved, declaring: “That is the kind of overheated rhetoric that can surface during emotional political debates.”

Does anyone seriously believe that a Corbyn government would open the way for Nazi-type death camps? If not, in what way do the Zionists believe that the very existence of Jews would come under threat? But, of course, he goes out of his way to pander to the Zionist agenda: “I accept that, if any part of our national community feels threatened, anxious or vulnerable, not only must that be taken at face value [sic], but we must all ensure those fears are put to rest.” After all, “The holocaust was the greatest crime of the 20th century. Jewish people who are feeling concerned must be listened to.”

IHRA definition

A central feature of the ongoing campaign is, of course, the demand that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, plus all the attached ‘examples’, are adopted by Labour in full. As everyone knows, the overall aim of the definition, combined with the examples, is to conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. Two of the example in particular stand out:

  • “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination: eg, by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour”; and
  • “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

The first of these is blatantly pro-Zionist – implying that Jews in each and every country share a common nationality and as such have the right to “self-determination”. What is more, the Zionist colonisation of Palestine of necessity involved racist laws and practices against the Palestinians. It is absurd to claim that pointing out these straightforward facts is a form of prejudice or hatred against Jews.

The same applies to the second example quoted. In fact, it is common in Israel itself for such comparisons with Nazi Germany to be made – the most recent case being over the knesset’s adoption of Binyamin Netanyahu’s Nation-State law, which enshrined a ‘blood and soil’ version of nationalism; it has been compared in Israel not just to apartheid legislation, but to German fascism.

As for the IHRA definition itself, it reads in its entirety:

Anti-Semitismis a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitismare directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

This clearly cannot be the basis of any reliable definition. The fact that it states that anti-Semitism “may be expressed as hatred toward Jews” indicates that it is incomplete. You do not have to ‘hate’ Jews to be an anti-Semite. For example, throughout the first half of the 20th century, it was easy enough to encounter the expression of all manner of low level forms of prejudice directed against Jews. As for the second sentence, it is obviously accurate, but it in no way helps define what anti-Semitism is.

 Pete Willsman

Let me turn now to the slurs directed against Pete Willsman – the latest in a long list of false accusations, which in this case conveniently targets an NEC member. His intervention at the July 17 NEC meeting was secretly recorded and given to the Jewish Chronicle. In this he noted the letter signed by 68 rabbis, which was published in that morning’s Guardian, who stated: “… anti-Semitism within sections of the Labour Party has become so severe and widespread that we must speak”.

In his online report of the meeting posted two days later, he stated: “In 50 years I have never seen any anti-Semitism in the Labour Party” – a sentiment that the majority of Labour activists would no doubt echo. On the recording he can be heard saying: “Ask the rabbis, where is your evidence of severe and widespread anti-Semitism in this party?” He also claimed that some of the people posting “duff information” were “Trump fanatics”.

Interestingly, his report did not give the impression that anyone on the NEC was outraged by these statements. He wrote:

This NEC meeting was dominated by a very lengthy, very informed and very thoughtful discussion regarding the anti-Semitism code of conduct. In my 37 years on and off national committees, I can hardly remember a more sensitive and thoughtful debate. Almost every NEC member provided contributions. There was no attempt at point-scoring and every participant spoke frankly and sincerely.

However, a couple of weeks later, the recording was made available, and comrade Willsman was the target of the most malicious smears. Because he had criticised some Jews, he just had to be an anti-Semite. Some called for him to be immediately expelled, while Labour deputy leader Tom Watson stated: “For the avoidance of doubt, Peter Willsman is and always has been a loud-mouthed bully. He disgusts me.” It is, of course, quite acceptable for members of the Labour right to use such language.

It was clear that comrade Willsman was leaned on to apologise and he told the BBC:

Not all of what I said has been accurately reported. But I accept that what I did say, and the way I said it, fell short of the requirement, which I accept, for discussions of contentious issues to be conducted in a fully civil and respectful way. I deeply apologise for any offence caused to those present and those to whom my remarks were reported.

In other words, he may have been a bit rude. But this obviously fell far short of what the Labour right was demanding and what, appallingly, Momentum insisted he should say. So, within hours, he was reduced to grovelling:

I recognise the offensive nature of my comments and that, in diminishing the experiences of those who face anti-Semitism in our party and society, I showed a lack of the sensitivity required for discussions around racism. I will be referring myself to receive equalities training, so I can better understand how to approach discussions of such issues in a respectful way.

Comrade Willsman was, of course, dropped from the Momentum slate of recommended candidates for the NEC, but hopefully the majority of Labour members will ignore this disgraceful decision and vote for him, together with the other eight Corbynite candidates.

It is clear too that Corbyn’s comment about the denial of “severe and widespread” anti-Semitism “contributing to the problem” was in part directed against comrade Willsman. The implication is that anyone who now repeats this will themselves risk disciplinary action. Pretend that you agree with the smears or face the consequences.

The lesson of the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign is clear: the more Corbyn retreats, backtracks and apologises, the more the Labour right grows in confidence. Backed up by virtually the entire media, their attacks will only intensify. It is time for the Labour leader to stand up to his enemies instead of conceding more and more ground.

Democracy and the Labour Party

In defence of Pete Willsman!

Even after everything that has gone before, the attacks on Pete Willsman for his comments at last month’s meeting of Labour’s national executive committee are truly incredible.

Comrade Willsman can be heard in a secretly recorded intervention questioning the allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ among Labour members. He said: “I think we should ask the … rabbis [who had been amongst those making such absurd accusations – PM]: where is your evidence of severe and widespread anti-Semitismin this party?” Some people, he said – including those whom he described as “Trump fanatics” – were “making up duff information without any evidence at all”.

And that is it. Yet, absurdly, comrade Willsman himself has been attacked throughout the media for anti-Semitism! The press has rushed to give space to the ludicrous responses of anti-Corbyn Zionists. For example, Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, described the above words as a “disgusting rant against the Jewish community and rabbis”, for which he should be “summarily expelled”! As for Luciana Berger MP, the parliamentary chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, she absurdly declared: “Anyone listening to this recording will be appalled to hear the venom and fury directed by Mr Willsman at the British Jewish community”!

Er, he was not attacking the “Jewish community” at all. He was angrily criticising all those – Jewish or not – who were responsible for so many false allegations. Quite right too. And just about everyone in the room knew that what he said was true, but no other NEC member dared say so, it seemed.

And now Momentum has responded by dropping comrade Willsman from its list of recommended candidates for election (in his case re-election) to the NEC. The statement from the “elected officers of the national coordinating group” noted: “While it is welcome that he has made a full apology and will attend equalities training, his comments were deeply insensitive and inappropriate for a Momentum- backed NEC candidate.”

It is difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at such nonsense. But it is very much a pity that comrade Willsman felt any need to apologise – let alone accept the need for “equalities training”! While it was hardly a “full apology”, his expression of regret for failing to discuss “contentious issues” in a “fully civil and respectful way”, itself gave too much ground to his accusers. He was right to be angry at the campaign of slander directed against good comrades and he should not have retreated on this.

Hopefully those Labour members who have not yet voted will show Jon Lansman and co what they think of this by voting for all nine candidates, including comrade Willsman,on Momentum’s original recommended list.

Please join Labour Against the Witchhunt, which will be organising a number of interventions and events at this year’s Labour Party conference – including a counter-mobilisation to the demo planned by the right.

Democracy and the Labour Party, Witch-hunts and expulsions

Has the witch-hunt climaxed?

The witch-hunt against the left in the Labour Party has become even more absurd, reports Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists

All those who thought the witch-hunt against Corbyn supporters in the Labour Party had reached its limits can think again. The recent arrival of leftwing general secretary Jennie Formby and in-house QC Gordon Nardell (a founding member of the Labour Representation Committee) are clearly no protection, when it comes to the party apparatus taking absolutely ludicrous decisions.

On Monday July 16, long-standing trade union activist and socialist Lee Rock received notice from the Labour Party’s “acting head of disputes”, Nareser Osei, that, “Allegations that you may have been involved in a breach of Labour Party rules have been brought to the attention of national officers of the Labour Party.”

Considering the current climate in the Labour Party and considering comrade Rock’s political biography, we would have expected that he was being accused of the now very popular charge of anti-Semitism (he is an ardent supporter of the rights of Palestinians).

Or maybe his “association with other groups” could have been misrepresented. For example, in 2002 and 2003 he stood as a candidate for the Socialist Alliance. He has even been interviewed by the Weekly Worker a couple of times.

But no. The allegations against comrade Rock are of a more, shall we say, delicate nature. We read that the reason for the investigation is “your participation in an extended debate on a Facebook group, in which you argued in favour of masturbation in workplaces”.

Mr Lee Rock - NOI- blackYes, you read that correctly. That is the sole and only charge raised against comrade Rock. He has not (yet) been suspended or expelled, but is being warned that the allegations are currently being investigated.

This clearly needs a bit of background explanation. In 2015, a certain Simon Danczuk MP was caught out when his phone had tagged a hard-core porn site on Twitter as a “favourite”, and he openly had to admit that he watches porn (like a large number of other men and women). However, much of the media feigned outrage.

Owen Jones, then still almost relevant, wrote a decent article, in which he asked, “Why should we care?” He pointed out that we are all “flawed human beings”, that politicians are “not perfect” and that we should instead focus on and criticise Danczuk’s rightwing politics. Quite right.

However, this article really upset some so-called radical feminists (now going under the label, Terfs – trans-exclusionary radical feminists). The “maternal feminist” group, All Mothers Work, published an article attacking Owen Jones’ description of Danczuk’s behaviour as “normal”. It described people who access porn at work as “unstable perverts who are so incapable of caring about basic social decency and the rights of others that they should be removed from society to protect the rest of us (women)”.

You get the drift. Something that more than 30% of the population admit to doing regularly at the workplace was presented as being a rather freaky habit (another questionnaire even put it at 39%). According to the first poll, rubbing the one-eyed snake at work is in fact more “normal” than people falling asleep at their desk (29%) or arriving late at work at least once a week (16%).

Somebody posted the article in a Facebook group and comrade Rock and others argued against the narrow-minded politics of it, starting with the fact that women have the occasional wank at work, too! Sadly, both polls quoted above seemed to have taken their cue from the radical feminists and only asked men about the issue. Anyway, the result was a long debate with over 150 comments – some funny, some deadly serious – which still “occasionally does the rounds on Facebook, where it is widely hailed as the most ridiculous leftwing debate ever”, as a comrade reliably informs us. The debate even produced its own satirical blog post.

We will spare readers the detailed ins and outs of people arguing over how and where you should be allowed to masturbate. They can read the whole exchange on Facebook, where it is still online. For comrades not on Facebook, the exchange is also available on LPM’s website.

This comment sums up comrade’s Lee various interventions in the debate: “If the person next to me at work goes to the loo, I really don’t care if they have a shit or a wank.” Seems a reasonable view to take. But, of course, comrade Rock did not positively “argue in favourof masturbating in workplaces”, as Ms Osei claims in her letter.

Morality police?

Comrade Rock, however, did argue for the right of people – including the vile Simon Danczuk – to do whatever they wish in the privacy of their toilet cubicle. As long as it does not harm or inconvenience anybody else, there really should not be a problem.

But the point is a serious one: he is under investigation not for committingany kind of offence, but for arguing that what one does in the privacy of a toilet cubicle at workshould not be viewed as a criminal offence– especially not one that would lead to the ‘perpetrator’ being “removed from society”, as the terfs’ article hysterically demanded.

That the feminist morality guardians would disagree with this outlook does not come as a shock, of course. But that the Labour Party should launch an investigation over this issue is simply mind-boggling.

We note that masturbating at work is, of course, not illegal. It mightbe a sackable offence, but only if (a) you have been caught in the act (lock the door, perhaps?) and (b) your employer thinks you’ve broken one of their rules – for example, by taking too much time away from your work or having contravened a particular health and safety regulation.

You might have trouble fighting a claim for unfair dismissal if that happens, but then, unless you’ve done something crassly indecent, there would be plenty of mitigating circumstances: stress levels at work, family risk of prostate cancer (which, according to medical advice, can be reduced by masturbating a few times a day), etc, etc. Some psychologists and doctors even argue that employees should be positively encouraged to engage in auto-eroticism at work, as it can be a very effective form of stress-relief that also increases production levels.

Comrade Rock was not even a member of the Labour Party when this online discussion took place, by the way. Like tens of thousands of others, he only joined Labour in July 2016, in order to support Jeremy Corbyn in the face of yet another coup attempt. In other words, his comments were written 15 months before he even joined. Has the compliance unit not managed to look that up before launching an investigation?

On one level, it is difficult to take this case seriously. It would be laughed out of court by any worthwhile judge. But we would be foolish to believe that it will simply be dismissed. Yes, Jennie Formby and Gordon Nardell are way to the left of that rightwing backstabber, Iain McNicol, and his various minions, who have left party HQ in recent months. But the witch-hunt is far from over. Unfortunately, Jeremy Corbyn and his allies are still trying to appease the right, despite all the evidence showing that it does not work (Margaret Hodge’s much-publicised rant at Corbyn for being a “fucking anti-Semite and racist” on July 16 being a case in point).

So we read in the letter to comrade Rock that “the general secretary has appointed Charlotte Walker, investigating officer, to arrange conduct of the party’s own investigation”. We cannot be sure if Jennie Formby has actually read the whole thread on Facebook. If she has, then shame on her for wasting members’ money on launching this nonsense investigation. If she has not read it, then shame on her for not putting more effort into preventing such ludicrous allegations from going forward. Of course, not all allegations made to the compliance unit are followed up by an investigation. Some are dismissed at an early stage, as this one should have been. We hope that Formby, Nardell or one of the other people at Labour HQ will see some common sense soon.

Comrade Rock is, of course, only the latest case in a long list of leftwing activists targeted by the Labour right. Somebody must have put in a considerable amount of time and effort to find this particular online thread, having to read all of Lee’s posts from the last three years. If the Labour Party disciplinary process was governed by any kind of natural justice or due process, comrade Rock would have to be told who his accuser is. Despite the new brooms at Labour HQ, there is little chance of that happening.

Left target

Why then have they got it in for comrade Rock? He has played an important role in organising the left across Sheffield and has made plenty of enemies in the process. Together with former Labour NEC member, Unite’s Martin Mayer, he has set up Sheffield Labour Left List, which organises the left across all six local Constituency Labour Parties (this has become even more important since Momentum Sheffield has been taken over by the pro-Lansman right). He was also a key figure campaigning for Jared O’Mara, the first Labour MP ever elected in Sheffield Hallam, transforming the local CLP in the process, which is now firmly in the hands of the left. More recently, he helped to stop the planned transformation of the district Labour Party into a mere cheerleading club for local councillors.

Now that Jared O’Mara has resigned from the party, potential candidates from the left and right are falling over each other to replace him as parliamentary candidate, with numerous rightwingers joining Momentum to look like they are pro-Corbyn (ironically O’Mara was also subject to discipline for inappropriate comments made on social media more than a decade ago, when he was in his early 20s). Maybe somebody, somewhere feared that comrade Rock might throw his hat in the ring – at least among local leftwing Labour Party members, he would be a popular choice. This move against him – especially considering the nature of the accusations – will at least make it more difficult for him to be chosen as a candidate for parliamentary or local elections.

This is happening all over the country, of course. Empty accusations of bullying and harassment are launched just in time to stop somebody becoming a candidate or to prevent members from voting at a crucial meeting. It is old-style machine politics, but it works. For the individual concerned, however, it is, of course, deeply unpleasant and often traumatising, with their personal reputation publicly tarnished or even destroyed. They might be cleared afterwards, but suspicions about their character often remain.

We presume that Lee’s accuser is hoping for the charge to be raised a step higher: ie, that the national executive committee will find that he has “brought the party into disrepute”, so that he can be expelled. This is how the right got rid of Tony Greenstein and Marc Wadsworth, after all – it is a beautiful catch-all phrase that can cover pretty much anything, as and when needed. Comrade Rock could be another notch in the belt of the witch-hunters – another case that proves how horrible and disgusting Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters really are.

Nevertheless, comrade Lee has been told that he not suspended from membership. A change from the past and maybe a sign that Formby and Nardell are reforming the disciplinary process. It is, of course, to be welcome that comrade Rock – unlike hundreds of other members falsely accused – has not been automatically suspended and is able to participate in all party activities. However, this small step forward is almost entirely cancelled out by the very fact that there is an investigation. It clearly needs to be shut down, now – accompanied by a public apology and action taken against those who have made this vexatious complaint.