Category Archives: Democracy and the Labour Party

Anti-Semitism, Democracy and the Labour Party

Wrong type of Jew

The right has succeeded in ridding ‘anti-Semitism’ of any coherent meaning, says Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists

“An anti-Semite used to be somebody who does not like Jews. Now it is somebody who Jews do not like.” This little saying – slightly simplistic, like all catchy ones – has been doing the rounds recently on social media and it is easy to see why. Clearly, we are currently witnessing what must be one of the biggest and most successful smear campaigns against a leader of the Labour Party in the history of the British media.

Of course, anti-Semitism exists in society. It would be foolish to claim otherwise. And, of course, this will find reflection in the Labour Party – especially as we have seen more than 300,000 people join the organisation in the last two and a half years. Many of them are rather inexperienced politically and there will be some who do not necessarily recognise an anti-Semitic trope when they see one – or even write one.

But, rather than fostering open discussion and debate, which is surely the best way to educate people, the Labour Party is now engulfed in a culture of fear, persecution and self-censorship. As should be clear to most commentators with a brain between their ears, the rightwingers inside and outside the Labour Party who are pushing this campaign have very little interest in fighting anti-Semitism or any other kind of oppression. Their campaign is aimed at a certain Jeremy Corbyn.

Owen Jones, however – on the wrong side politically, as has become his habit over the last two years – ticks off “those Labour elements – they know who they are – who believe anti-Semitism is a useful device to undermine the left: your net contribution is to undermine the struggle against anti-Semitism, nothing else.”1)The Guardian April 4 2018) quite the opposite is true, Owen. The right has succeeded in ridding anti-Semitism of any coherent meaning.

Take comrades like Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone and Tony Greenstein, who were suspended on charges of anti-Semitism (in comrade Greenstein’s case, he was eventually expelled), when clearly nothing they did or said expressed in any way “hostility or prejudice against Jews”. Glyn Secker, secretary of Jewish Voice for Labour, was temporarily suspended from the Labour Party for anti-Semitism for merely belonging to a group on Facebook where somebody said something that somebody else felt was anti-Semitic.

Now we have the latest ‘scandal’: Jeremy Corbyn shared a passover seder with a group of Jews … but unfortunately, he picked the wrong type of Jews. Jewdas is a semi-anarchistic organisation based mainly in Corbyn’s constituency of Islington. It describes itself as “radical voices for the alternative diaspora” and likes to employ satire: in 2006, it organised a party entitled ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Hackney’ – obviously a pun on the fraudulent anti-Semitic document, ‘The protocols of the elders of Zion’.The police did not quite get the joke: four people who distributed leaflets for the event were arrested and held under section 19 of the Public Order Act.

They are, if you will, modern orthodox Jews, who have no desire to live in Israel and therefore strongly criticise it (apparently it is a “steaming pile of sewage which needs to be properly disposed of”). Apparently, at the seder, somebody held up a beetroot and shouted, “Fuck capitalism”.((Daily MailApril 4 2018 What’s not to like? Corbyn’s attendance at this event reminds us why so many people continue to like him.

Those outraged by Corbyn’s decision to pick the wrong Jews fail to mention that Corbyn cannot yet sit down for a nice cup of tea with the concerned citizens of the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council, who organised the cynical March 26 rally, ‘Enough is enough’. The BoD has given him a long list of conditions he will have to meet first, including expelling Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker from the Labour Party. Corbyn has just rejected any preconditions, many of which he actually cannot meet, in any case – expulsions, for example, are decided on by the party’s National Constitutional Committee.

Cynical

Unfortunately, however, Corbyn and his allies have clearly made the decision not to challenge the entirely cynical narrative, according to which the Labour Party is “engulfed by”, “overrun by” or “awash with” anti-Semites. The first mistake Corbyn made was to commission Shami Chakrabarti to produce a report on the issue in April 2016. He thought the allegations would go away. No such luck. The report was seen as an admission of guilt, despite the fact that its first sentence states: “The Labour Party is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism.” Corbyn showed his adversaries that he is pliable on the issue and so they have kept piling on the pressure.

Of course, in the early stages of Labour’s civil war, we saw other types of attacks on Corbyn and his supporters on the left. Remember Tom Watson’s embarrassing ‘Reds under the bed’ dossier? Or the 11,000 complaints and allegations made in the first 12 months of Corbyn’s leadership, “as a result of complaints sent in to the party by other members with an axe to grind”, when “well-resourced rightwing hit squads scented a golden opportunity and began trawling through known Corbynistas’ Facebook and Twitter accounts”, as Christine Shawcroft reported.

We are sorry to break this to Owen Jones, but at this initial stage of the anti-Corbyn campaign most of the allegations were not about anti-Semitism, but about using rude words (remember Catherine Starr, who was suspended for writing on Facebook: “I fucking love the Foo Fighters”?) or for members having supported other organisations – for example, at election time: Corbyn’s senior policy advisor, Andrew Fisher, was temporarily suspended for having tweeted his support for a Class War member, who was standing against rightwinger Emily Benn in the 2015 general election. Some 52% of those 11,000 complaints resulted in no action being taken, which still leaves a staggering 5,280 cases where some action was taken. Of course, at that time witch-hunter general Iain McNicol was in charge of the compliance unit and the National Executive Committee had a clear rightwing majority.

Instead of standing up to this culture, Corbyn turned a blind eye. And so, the rightwing snitches kept on snooping. It soon turned out that allegations of anti-Semitism were by far the best weapon in this struggle. Considering how important it has been to contemporary British culture to present World War II as a crusade against the Nazis (and not a fight over the spoils of imperialism), the charge of anti-Semitism is, of course, a highly emotive one.

It also fits in beautifully with the agenda of the pro-Israel lobby. The campaign against Corbyn has, most recently, pushed coverage of the murder of 17 unarmed Arab demonstrators in Gaza, who were taken out by Israeli snipers, to the back pages. Clearly, one aim of the campaign is to stop any criticism of the actions of the state of Israel. And, unless Corbyn signs up to this pledge like previous Labour leaders have done, he will be attacked, attacked and attacked again.

Anti-Semitism is also a charge that is clearly very flexible. Ken Livingstone has been suspended for over two years now for daring to state that the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazi government. But the Ha’avara agreement of 1933 between the Zionist movement and the Nazis – which broke the non-Zionist, Jewish-led call for an economic boycott – is an historic fact. Credit to Livingstone, who has refused numerous demands to apologise for the comments (even though it might have got him back into the party).

Corbyn should have defended his fellow leftwinger. But, when he just stood by, the right wing saw this as an open door and proceeded to suspend Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein and many more. The case against Greenstein shows though what most of these allegations are: nonsense. Despite an investigation lasting over 18 months, the compliance unit could not prove that comrade Greenstein had actually said or written anything anti-Semitic. And so he was expelled for being “abusive” (ie, rude) to people on social media – those ‘offences’ happening after his actual suspension.

But, of course, the appetite of the witch-hunters grows with the eating. Corbyn will never be able to get rid of enough socialists or enough principles. We are not sure if he or his advisors really thought that his ‘letter of apology’ to the Tories running the British Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council would stop the smears against him. His second letter will certainly have helped make it worse. In it, he gives the witch-hunters more grounds to keep on fingering people: he describes as examples of “aspects of contemporary anti-Semitism” the use of the word ‘Zio’ and “comparing Israel or the actions of the state of Israel to the Nazis”. That could easily get a few more hundred people suspended.

Shawcroft

We also saw Corbyn collapsing over the ‘scandal’ around Christine Shawcroft. She had sent an email to Sam Matthews of the compliance unit, in which she called for the suspension of one Alan Bull to be overturned. Bull, a council candidate in Peterborough, has the rather infantile habit of posting ‘shocking’ articles on Facebook without any comment. Two years ago, he thought it would be fun to see how his 5,000 Facebook friends would react to an article entitled ‘International Red Cross report confirms that the Holocaust of 6m Jews is a hoax’.

The screenshot sent to the Labour Party compliance unit – which it helpfully forwarded to all national newspapers – had been doctored, says Bull:

The more accurate and considerably less shocking subheading of this title was excluded by the screenshotter for maximum impact. As were all of the 46 comments, including a short exchange I had with a Jewish friend, who commented: “Can I ask the intent of this article? Are you denying the holocaust?” To which I replied, “Not at all – just posting for discussion and debate, as usual. Best wishes, Alan.”

The man is clearly rather childish and has posted other problematic material. But it almost does not matter if he holds deep-seated anti-Semitic views or not. Thanks to the media jumping on the story with relish, he will from now on be known as ‘Alan, the anti-Semite’.

Christine Shawcroft stuck her neck out for Bull, but had to peddle back when the bourgeois media picked up on her email, which was probably leaked by Sam Matthews – ‘head of disputes’ and willing henchman of Iain McNicol. First, she resigned as chair of the disputes panel and then from the NEC itself, claiming officially that she had not seen that the article was accompanied by a picture of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Why on earth would that matter? It’s bullshit. Now we know it was Jeremy Corbyn himself who asked comrade Shawcroft to resign from both positions.

That was politically inept, to put it mildly. It means Eddie Izzard has taken her seat, which rather dramatically changes the balance of forces on the NEC. It is again almost evenly split between the pro- and anti-Corbyn forces. And, needless to say, sacrificing her will not stop the onslaught. We are told to prepare for a comment by the chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis who, according to The Daily Telegraph, has “grave concerns” about Jeremy Corbyn’s conduct.2)Daily Telegraph, April 4 2018 As do we, but we presume they differ somewhat from Mirvis’s.

Lansman

Momentum owner Jon Lansman has been on a rather embarrassing media offensive, presumably in order to support Corbyn. But he also ended up giving the right more ammunition. For example, he went one step further than Corbyn: not content with demanding that ‘Zio’ should be banned, he stated that people should also stop using the full word, ‘Zionism’, because “to the Jew in the street it might only mean the Jewish state of Israel, safe and secure, nothing more than that, not a separate ideology.” Instead, we should “attack Netanyahu, nothing wrong with that.” 3)Today programme,Radio 4, April 3 2018 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xcsdb

No, Jon. we should attack ‘Zionism’, in the same way as we should attack any chauvinist, reactionary ideology. From the start modern Zionism fought for the foundation of an exclusive colonial-settler state, which had to be based on the violent displacement of the native Arab population, that or their savage oppression. It is not the word ‘Zionism’ that is the problem – it is the reality of an ongoing colonial-settler project. By attempting to remove the right to criticise Zionism by name, Lansman is actually attempting to undermine the fight against systematic national oppression.

Lansman stated: “… what Ken Livingstone said, whether it was anti-Semitic or not, caused a great deal of offence to many Jewish people” and was therefore wrong. He also called for Labour Party members – including Corbyn – to undergo “training” to be able recognise such “unconscious bias against Jews”. It sounds to us like this kind of “training” could involve some serious rewriting of history: if there is a chance something might be perceived as offensive by some Jewish people, you are not allowed to say it. And let’s abolish all critical thought while we’re at it, shall we, Jon?

Some leftwingers claim that Lansman has been stabbing Corbyn in the back, perhaps out of revenge for not helping him become general secretary. Regular Weekly Worker author Tony Greenstein writes that Lansman should be removed as leader of Momentum, because, “if it accepts the false anti-Semitism narrative, then it is accepting the legitimacy of a campaign whose only purpose is to get rid of Corbyn”.

He is right, of course. But the fish rots from the head. Corbyn is singing from the same hymnsheet as Lansman on this one, unfortunately. Rather than fighting false accusations, he tries to sneak around them. It is not working. And, as if to prove the point, the vile Campaign Against Anti-Semitism has now rather ironically demanded Jon Lansman’s scalp, too: his comment of “unconscious bias” was belittling the problem! But the whole campaign has become absurd and almost entirely removed from any rational reason.

Still, this will not be the end of the witch-hunt against Corbyn or his allies. It has been way too successful. And, despite what the Daily Mail’s political commentator, Peter Oborne, claims, the ‘moderates’ will not do us the favour and split from the Labour Party.4)Mail on SundayApril 1 2018 After Labour’s successful result in the 2017 snap election, they are painfully aware of the fact that joining with the Liberal Democrats to form a “centrist party” will not easily present them with hundreds of parliamentary seats.

No, for rightwing careerists the best bet is to stay in the Labour Party. They have already successfully convinced Corbyn and Lansman to give up the fight for mandatory reselection of parliamentary candidates, so there is no imminent danger of losing their seats. They will keep attacking him, they will keep demanding he drops this principle or expels that person – until either he calls it a day or is tamed enough to become a reliable manager of British capitalism. They have made good progress already. Wait until we see concerted demands on prime minister Corbyn to increase the defence budget, renew Trident (with actual nuclear warheads).

All the more important that the left stands up and criticises Corbyn’s suicidal attitude to the witch-hunt. We defend Corbyn when he is attacked by the right, of course. But our support for him has to become far more critical. Labour Against the Witchhunt, for example, has published an open letter to Corbyn “and the left on the NEC”. As we go to press, it has been signed by almost 5,000 people, in less than 60 hours. The letter makes some entirely supportable points, but is rather soft politically.

Nevertheless, even this gentle criticism was too much for some groups on the left – like, unfortunately, Jewish Voice for Labour. The comrades have done great work – for example, by demonstrating that there is no such thing as a politically homogenous ‘Jewish community’. But they seem to think that by criticising Corbyn in public, we give the right ammunition to further attack him. Quite the opposite, comrades. If we are serious about transforming the Labour Party, this cannot be done by staying silent about Corbyn’s dangerous current trajectory.

References

References
↑1 The Guardian April 4 2018) quite the opposite is true, Owen. The right has succeeded in ridding anti-Semitism of any coherent meaning.

Take comrades like Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone and Tony Greenstein, who were suspended on charges of anti-Semitism (in comrade Greenstein’s case, he was eventually expelled), when clearly nothing they did or said expressed in any way “hostility or prejudice against Jews”. Glyn Secker, secretary of Jewish Voice for Labour, was temporarily suspended from the Labour Party for anti-Semitism for merely belonging to a group on Facebook where somebody said something that somebody else felt was anti-Semitic.

Now we have the latest ‘scandal’: Jeremy Corbyn shared a passover seder with a group of Jews … but unfortunately, he picked the wrong type of Jews. Jewdas is a semi-anarchistic organisation based mainly in Corbyn’s constituency of Islington. It describes itself as “radical voices for the alternative diaspora” and likes to employ satire: in 2006, it organised a party entitled ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Hackney’ – obviously a pun on the fraudulent anti-Semitic document, ‘The protocols of the elders of Zion’.The police did not quite get the joke: four people who distributed leaflets for the event were arrested and held under section 19 of the Public Order Act.

They are, if you will, modern orthodox Jews, who have no desire to live in Israel and therefore strongly criticise it (apparently it is a “steaming pile of sewage which needs to be properly disposed of”). Apparently, at the seder, somebody held up a beetroot and shouted, “Fuck capitalism”.((Daily MailApril 4 2018

↑2 Daily Telegraph, April 4 2018
↑3 Today programme,Radio 4, April 3 2018 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xcsdb
↑4 Mail on SundayApril 1 2018
Democracy and the Labour Party, Witch-hunts and expulsions

The taming of Corbyn

While some on the Labour right still hope to force Corbyn to resign, writes Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists, others are aiming to change the man and his politics

If you do not already hate Facebook for selling your data to rightwing companies who manipulate elections and blackmail politicians, for keeping copies of all your messages and phone conversations or just for generally stealing your time and life energy, last week should have given you plenty of reason to start doing so.

Not only has Jeremy Corbyn been ‘outed’ as having been a member of a third Facebook group in which some people posted shite (although he never posted anything there himself): but Luciana Berger MP, parliamentary chair of the pro-Zionist Jewish Labour Movement, was said to have dug up a six-year-old, now infamous ‘mural comment’ he did make on another Facebook group. In reality, of course, she did no such thing: somebody else pointed it out to her. One of those, we are guessing, who have been reporting, smearing, outing and witch-hunting Corbyn supporters as anti-Semitic for the last two and a half years.

Now, finally, they got the man himself. Of course, he did not “defend an anti-Semitic mural”, as the bourgeois media have fumed. He asked why it was being removed: “Why? You are in good company. Rockerfeller [sic] destroyed Diego Viera’s [sic] mural because it includes a picture of Lenin.”

One can argue over the artistic value of the rather crude depiction, angry-student-style, of bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of oppressed black people. And one can certainly argue about how obviously anti-Semitic the dodgy painting is; many on the left are engaged in this rather futile debate. But blogger Jonathan Cook reminds us of the bigger picture:

Interestingly, the issue of Corbyn’s support for the mural – or at least the artist – originally flared in late 2015, when the Jewish Chronicle unearthed his Facebook post. Two things were noticeably different about the coverage then.

First, on that occasion, no one apart from the Jewish Chronicle appeared to show much interest in the issue. Its ‘scoop’ was not followed up by the rest of the media. What is now supposedly a major scandal – one that raises questions about Corbyn’s fitness to be Labour leader – was a non-issue two years ago, when it first became known.

Second, the Jewish Chronicle, usually so ready to get exercised at the smallest possible sign of anti-Semitism, wasn’t entirely convinced back in 2015 that the mural was anti-Semitic. In fact, it suggested only that the mural might have “anti-Semitic undertones” – and attributed even that claim to Corbyn’s critics.

Both points are fascinating. They show how dramatically the narrative around anti-Semitism has changed in the last two and a half years; how successful the right has been in portraying the Labour Party as being awash with anti-Semites. Now the gutter press, along with The Guardian, have become such experts on the matter that they are certain the mural was “obviously anti-Semitic”. This shift also includes the views of a certain Jeremy Corbyn (see below).

What is indeed “obvious” is the fact that this latest faux outrage was clearly orchestrated – building up ammunition for an upping of the witch-hunts of Corbyn supporters. He had already been hammered for his ‘unpatriotic’ response to the ‘Russian agent’ crisis – surely everyone supports another cold war with Russia?

Crucially, local elections are taking place in less than six weeks time, on May 3. The hope of the right is that we will not see a repeat of the surprisingly good result for Labour that we witnessed in the 2017 snap general election, which brought Corbyn some reprieve. The right in the party is clearly prepared to risk a bad election result in order to put pressure on him.

None of this is surprising. Only the most naive will believe the nonsense about the new-found ‘unity’ behind Corbyn in the Labour Party. The right will continue to fight the genuine left, the socialists and the Marxists in the Labour Party to the bitter end. They could split, but the first-past-the-post British electoral system punishes such attempts. The disastrous failure of the Social Democratic Party serves Labour’s right as a reminder of that.

March 26 demo

web-Zionist-hundreds-of-people-protest-outsWeb-ide-parliament-against-antisemitism-in-the-labour-partyThe March 26 demonstration in Parliament Square has to be firmly seen in this context. It had nothing to do with any mural, Facebook group or anti-Semitism. Trying to get rid of Corbyn has so far proved futile. As long as the man remains popular among Labour members, they just cannot get shot of him. Having weathered a storm of attacks at the beginning of his leadership with admirable aplomb, he is also unlikely to resign.

Hence we are in the middle of phase two of operation anti-Corbyn: tame him to become a reliable manager of British capitalism and pliable ally of the US when it comes to the politics of the Middle East.

As an aside, we note in this context that Donald Trump’s newly appointed security advisor, John Bolton, has proposed a ‘three-state solution’ for the Middle East, where Gaza would be given to Egypt, and the West Bank to Jordan. It is a mad plan, but not so mad that somebody like Trump would not go for it under the right conditions – especially as it would solve the problem of Jerusalem: “The contentious issue of Jerusalem’s status as the purported capital of ‘Palestine’ would disappear, since Amman would obviously be the seat of government for an enlarged Jordan.” Problem solved!

Both the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD) and the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC), which called the demo, are, of course, far from the ‘independent community organisations’ that they have been portrayed as. The BoD’s president is Jonathan Arkush, a member of the Conservative Party. The chair of the JLC is Jonathan Goldstein, a director of M&C Saatchi – an advertising agency network owned by Maurice Saatchi, former chair of the Conservative Party.

A dozen or so of Tory MPs attended the demo, including Eric Pickles, as did a number from the Democratic Unionist Party, including loyalist hardliner Ian Paisley junior, who was posing happily for selfies with Norman Tebbit. They were joined by quite an assortment of nasties: we spotted David Collier, one of the people behind the vile and racist blog, GnasherJew; and Emma Feltham and Jonathan Hoffman, both from the no less vile Labour Against Anti-Semitism.

Among the Labour traitors at the demo were pretty much all the usual suspects, including MPs Chukka Umunna (who was literally rubbing shoulders with Tory cabinet member Sajid Javid), Luciana Berger, John Mann, Stella Creasy, Liz Kendall, John Woodcock, Chris Elmore and Wes Streeting. The latter promised in his speech to “drain the cesspit of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party” and has announced on Twitter – somewhat ironically – that his campaign will also target supporters of Labour Against the Witchhunt.

We did not spot Harriet Harman at the protest, but she tweeted: “Standing with Board of Deputies of British Jews and Jewish Leadership Council. Anti-Semitism represents everything that @UKLabour is against.” The demo was also supported by BAME Labour (run by Keith Vaz MP).

However, former Labour MP Chris Mullin took a different view in his comments on Twitter:

I am not a Corbynista, but I can see what’s going on here … Alleged anti-Semitism [is] yet another stick with which to beat Corbyn – along with Corbyn, “friend of the IRA, Hezbollah, Hamas, Czech spy, Soviet spy …” You name it. Whatever next?

Mullin gave us some possible answers to that question in his fascinating novel A very British coup, which imagines the tools the British state might employ in order to get rid of a leftwing prime minister. In short, it will stop at nothing. Monday’s demonstration was only a little taster – much, much more is to come. The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism has already called for a demonstration “against anti-Semitism under Jeremy Corbyn” in London on April 8.

Not surprisingly, with that kind of crowd, frequent calls for Corbyn’s resignation from the speakers were interjected with shouts of him being a racist and worse. Speaker after speaker said former London mayor Ken Livingstone had “no place in the Labour Party” and placards were held aloft, bearing the slogan, “Labour for the many, not the Jews”, amid chants of “Enough is enough”. They shouted “Shame on you” at the counterdemonstrators – organised with eight hours notice by Jewish Voice for Labour and supported by Labour Party Marxists, Labour Against the Witchhunt, the Jewish Socialists Group and Free Speech on Israel. Former Socialist Workers Party leader Lindsey German, now of Counterfire, was among those addressing them. Her former comrades, who usually jump on anything that moves, were absent, however: The SWP probably still have their knickers in a twist, having allied themselves with hardcore Zionists in their front campaign Stand up to Racism.

Corbyn and IHRA

Most conspicuous by its absence (and general silence) was, however, Momentum. This is an organisation that has been set up explicitly to defend and support Jeremy Corbyn – yet it does nothing in the middle of the latest attack against him. The dozen or so employees at Momentum HQ have not even managed a single Facebook post or tweet since March 20 (apart from sharing a couple of posts put out by Corbyn’s office).

Momentum owner Jon Lansman has published one singe tweet on the subject, in which he writes: “We need a serious proactive programme of education and training about anti-Semitism within @UKLabour but we should also recognise the seriousness of the determination to stamp it out by @JeremyCorbyn.”

Is this lack of public support payback for Corbyn not backing him for the post of Labour general secretary, as some have speculated? But his closest supporters in the Parliamentary Labour Party – Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and Chris Williamson – have remained silent on the issue too. So the real answer is unfortunately more simple: Corbyn has, quite simply, folded on the question.

He has not only accepted the false narrative of the right – that the Labour Party indeed has a serious problem with anti-Semitism that needs to be “stamped out”. He has now gone a rather dramatic step further. In the crucial paragraph of his March 26 letter to the Jewish Leadership Council and Board of Deputies, published just before their demo, he writes:

Newer forms of anti-Semitism have been woven into criticism of Israeli governments. Criticism of Israel, particularly in relation to the continuing dispossession of the Palestinian people, cannot be avoided. Nevertheless, comparing Israel or the actions of Israeli governments to the Nazis, attributing criticisms of Israel to Jewish characteristics or to Jewish people in general and using abusive phraseology about supporters of Israel such as ‘Zio’ all constitute aspects of contemporary anti-Semitism.

Firstly, we note Corbyn’s strange phrase that criticism of Israel “cannot be avoided”. That sounds very apologetic. I wish I could avoid it, but … No, criticism of the actions of the state of Israel is, in fact, essential for any socialist with a democratic bone in their body.

The rest of the paragraph is clearly inspired by the controversial ‘Working definition of anti-Semitism’, published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The definition itself, adopted by the Labour Party at last year’s conference, is not the problem. But now Corbyn also seems to have accepted the disputed list of examples that shows what the definition is really about: conflating anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism and support for the rights of the Palestinian people.

For example, Corbyn’s assertion that the mere use of the word ‘Zio’ constitutes anti-Semitism, is, frankly, absurd. ‘Zio’ is simply a – yes, highly critical – abbreviation of the word ‘Zionist’. Zionism is not a religion or a nationality: it is an ideology. You are not born a Zionist – you choose to believe in the right of Israel to oppress another people. And if you do, hell, you deserve to be criticised.

According to Corbyn, it is now also anti-Semitic to compare “Israel or the actions of Israeli governments to the Nazis”. We wonder if he has read a newspaper recently. The heroics of Britain in World War II (with a tiny bit of help from the Soviet Union and the US) are utterly ingrained in British culture. Comparing anything and anybody nasty to the Nazis is a short-hand for ‘bad’. Just last week, Labour MP Ian Austin called for the England football team to pull out of the World Cup, because “Putin is going to use it in the way Hitler used the 1936 Olympics.” Boris Johnson replied: “Yes, I think the comparison with 1936 is certainly right.” Bombastic PR from both of them, obviously. But clearly, it is a common feature in British politics.

So should only Israel be immune from comparisons to the Nazis? They are said to be offensive to Jews, who were victims of the holocaust. What about the Roma? After all, hundreds of thousands of Roma people were killed by the Nazis. Or do only those countries currently involved in systematically oppressing another people get this special status? It is nonsense and Corbyn knows it. His son, Tommy, has posted a comment on his Facebook page, pointedly asking, “Why is it that I can criticise my own or any other government, but criticism of the Israeli state is immediately branded anti-Semitic?” Yep, ask your dad about that one.

We also fear that the formulation could be used to discipline Labour Party members who commit the crime of pointing out that in the 1930s the Zionist movement cooperated with leading Nazis in the attempt to persuade German Jews to migrate to Palestine. This is historic fact. But it is an unpleasant one that the Israeli government and its Zionist supporters in Britain do not want to be reminded of. Ken Livingstone has been suspended for two years now after pointing it out. After Labour’s national executive committee made noises that Livingstone might soon regain his full membership, the right seized on the case and demanded his permanent exclusion.

After all, Corbyn had already proven with this entirely unnecessary public “apology” over ‘Muralgate’ that he is indeed prepared to give even more ground on the issue of false and exaggerated allegations of anti-Semitism. So why not kick him while he’s down?

After the March 26 demo, Jonathan Arkush, director of the Board of Deputies – and a Tory, remember – has let it be known that before “Jewish community leaders” can “sit down” with Jeremy Corbyn to discuss the matter, a list of “their demands” needs to be met: “Ken Livingstone really cannot remain. His views are shameful and disreputable. He will have to go.” The Guardian speculates in the same article that

demands for the expulsion of Jackie Walker, a former vice-chair of Momentum, were also expected. Walker has been suspended after being filmed saying there was no definition of anti-Semitism ‘that she could work with’ [she actually meant ‘in that meeting’].

Arkush also said he would like

action to be taken against those who minimise reports of anti-Semitism, including Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, who suggested it was “mood music” to undermine the leadership; and Labour MP Chris Williamson, who claimed the Labour right was “weaponising” anti-Semitism.

Unfortunately, judging by Corbyn’s own grovelling apologies, we are far from certain that he will not jump to the tune of the right and at least urge that the NEC permanently expel Livingstone and Walker. That would truly be a scandal and has to be opposed by all socialists.

We are not surprised that somebody like Keir Starmer uses the opportunity to stick the knife in – he is a Blairite at heart, after all. Ditto Chuka Umunna, who complains to the British media about the “shameful” way Corbyn has behaved. More problematic and telling are the comments by shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey, a Corbyn ally. She has echoed the comments of Jon Lansman, promising “education” and “a zero-tolerance approach” on the question of anti-Semitism, stating that it was “devastating to realise that the Jewish community had lost faith in our approach to anti-Semitism”. Nonsense, of course – there is no homogenous “Jewish community”, as should have been clear from the two mobilisations on March 26 and the success of groups like Jewish Voice for Labour.

We hear that the shadow cabinet “informally” agreed on March 26 – in Corbyn’s absence – that the recommendations from Shami Chakrabarti’s report should be implemented in full, which apparently “will require a significant overhaul of party machinery, including appointing a general counsel, and an in-house team of lawyers to ensure procedure is followed properly”.

It goes without saying that we are all in favour of disciplinary cases being handled much more quickly and efficiently, to avoid good comrades being unable to get involved in party work for years, while they are  suspended. But we fear that, in the current climate, this call may not necessarily be the good news it appears. It could be used to institutionalise the witch-hunt against leftwingers and pro-Palestine campaigners.

In this context, we note with great concern in the same Guardian article the reported demand “to establish specific accounts on social media platforms that would identify and call out supporters using anti-Semitic language”.

So instead of the Zionists from Labour Against Anti-Semitism and the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism reporting people to the compliance unit, it should be the Labour Party itself hunting down its own members! Monitor them to make sure they behave like good children.

This is a slippery slope into a very undemocratic culture of thought crime and (self-)censorship. This is exactly the opposite of the kind of open and democratic working class culture we need.

We also wonder if this suggestion for a social media police force has anything to do with the fact that Jon Lansman (or those running his Facebook account) has suddenly been sending ‘friend requests’ to hundreds of leftwingers, having previously been very cautious about accepting the ‘friend requests’ from others. Once you are friends with somebody, you can see not just their posts and comments, but also the postings of their friends …

The main problem with dancing to the tune of the right is the simple fact that appeasement does not work. Once he delivers the scalps of Livingstone and Walker, Corbyn will be faced with demands for more of the same. John Mann MP claims in the Daily Mail that the Labour Party bureaucrats are currently dealing with “more than 200 claims of hatred”, with “shocking anti-Jewish sentiment” – though not a single example is provided.

The right in and outside the Labour Party must be very pleased with how successful the weaponising of anti-Semitism has proven to be. There is now very little to stop them from demanding that Jeremy Corbyn next looks again at some of his other political principles – be it the renewal of Trident, increasing the defence budget, supporting military action for ‘humanitarian’ reasons, etc, etc.

 

Democracy and the Labour Party, Witch-hunts and expulsions

In defence of Stan Keable!

On March 27, the day after he attended the counter demonstration in Parliament Square, organised by Jewish Voice for Labour, Labour Party Marxists secretary Stan Keable was suspended from work by Hammersmith and Fulham council. The suspension letter states that there are “serious allegation(s) which, if substantiated, could constitute gross misconduct under the council’s disciplinary procedure” and which “could result in your dismissal from the council’s service”.

Stan has not yet been informed of the exact nature of the alleged “inappropriate comments”. However, it seems very likely that they relate to a short video clip tweeted by BBC Newsnight editor David Grossman. It seems that Grossman – without asking for permission – filmed Stan on his mobile phone while he was talking to a supporter of the anti-Corbyn demonstration.

Like other LPM comrades, Stan had approached the Zionists with the intention of engaging with them. He handed out Labour Against the Witchhunt leaflets and spoke to numerous people. Most discussions were friendly, if a little one-sided: “People on the ‘Enough is Enough’ demonstration were a mixture of Tories, Labour Party members and ex-members,” says Stan. “They told me they were there because of the ‘huge problem’ of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, but when I asked if they themselves had experienced discrimination, they could not give me any concrete examples.”

The conversation in question was several minutes long “and the guy and I shook hands afterwards”. The 105 seconds that Grossman has published – again, without even asking for permission – are entitled: “Anti-Semitism didn’t cause the holocaust and Zionists collaborated with the Nazis”. As we show in the transcript below, this is seriously misleading. But, as you would expect from such a headline in the current climate, the short clip has caused quite a stir on social media.

Outraged Progress leader Richard Angell has called for Stan to be expelled from the Labour Party, only to be rather disappointed when somebody pointed out that he had, in fact, already been booted out under Labour’s witch-hunting rule 2.1.4.B. This automatically bars from membership anybody “who joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or unit of the party” and has led to the expulsion of dozens, if not hundreds, of Marxists and socialists, including supporters (or alleged supporters) of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and  Socialist Appeal, as well as Labour Party Marxists.

Angell then demanded that Jeremy Corbyn should “make clear to him that he never wants to see him in a Labour sticker ever again and that he does not speak for the Labour leadership. Corbyn could tweet at him, write to him and make it clear beyond any doubt.”

Somebody then alerted local Tory MP Greg Hands, who sprang into Twitter action, demanding that Hammersmith and Fulham “investigate and urge action. Enough is enough.” And they quickly did his bidding. Less than 18 hours after the demo, Stan was suspended by the council (which is run by Labour, incidentally).

Let us take a closer look at the short clip then. We see Stan talking to a man who is, rather outrageously, trying to “make a connection” between Corbyn’s throwaway comment about the ‘anti-Semitic mural’ and the holocaust: “Are you saying it’s unreasonable to extrapolate that the mural reflects tropes that have existed for hundreds of years and that have really resulted in the anti-Semitism that led to the holocaust?”

Stan replies: “I don’t think anti-Semitism caused the holocaust, no. The Nazis used anti-Semitism …”

The man then interrupts him: “Yes, it was anti-Semitism that caused the holocaust! Are you really saying it wasn’t anti-Semitic?”

Stan replies: “No, I’m not saying that. Of course the holocaust was anti-Semitic. The problem I’ve got is that the Zionist movement at the time collaborated with them …” He then gets shouted down, while trying to elaborate that “the Zionist movement from the beginning” accepted the idea that Jews did not belong in Europe.

There are a number of points to make about this conversation and the reaction to it.

First of all, Stan’s comments were clearly part of a longer discussion and are taken out of context. Had he been properly interviewed or written an article, he could have explained more fully what he was trying to say. Of course, anti-Semitism by itself did not cause the holocaust. It existed long before the Nazis, eg, as promoted by the medieval Catholic church. The Nazi, at first, used anti-Semitism as a propaganda tool to link communists and social democrats together with finance capital. Both the labour movement and banking were supposedly dominated by Jews. There was an element of truth here – there were many Jewish communists and social democrats and more than a few Jewish capitalists. But, according to the Nazis, they were united in a world-wide conspiracy to rule the world. A form of social madness that led the Nazis first to ban the Communist Party (February 1933), then the trade unions (May 1933), then the social democrats (July 1933), then, in September 1935, this same ideology saw them introduce the Nuremburg race laws and, on November 9-10 1938, a full scale assault on Jewish owned businesses.

It was, however, Stan’s comment that “the Zionist movement at the time collaborated with [the Nazis]” which has really got the right incensed. It was for this he has been labelled a “holocaust denier” online. You could criticise the slight factual inaccuracy contained within the words “at the time”, which implies that Stan meant during the time of the holocaust. But his attempts to clarify that he was talking about the Ha’avara agreement of 1933 between the Zionist movement and the Nazis (which broke the non-Zionist Jewish-led call for an economic boycott of the Nazi regime) was simply shouted down. This notorious agreement, however, is a historical fact.

Most seriously though is the culture of fear around the question of anti-Semitism displayed by this episode. Stan’s suspension letter states that, “suspension is a neutral act and does not in itself constitute disciplinary action or imply guilt”. But even the briefest look at the clip should show the leaders of Hammersmith and Fulham council that there is nothing contained within those 105 seconds that could “bring the council into disrepute” or constitute “potentially a breach of the Equality Act 2010”.

The right has been incredibly successful in creating a moral panic. By manipulating, by misrepresenting, by imputing, by lying the left can be charged with peddling a line which is supposedly anti-Semitic. Presumptions of innocence go out of the window in such a toxic atmosphere. Stan will now have to prove that he is not an anti-Semite or a holocaust-denier – not just to his employer, but also the thousands of people who have seen the reports and comments about the short clip (which has also been published by the Daily Mail – again without anybody approaching Stan, despite the fact he was clearly identified online).

Marxists believe in open, free and robust debate. We believe such debate is absolutely crucial if we ever want to see a working class confident enough in defending and arguing its ideas to become the ruling class in society.

Some say it would have been better to shut up when there might be a camera pointing at you. Of course, we have been advised to keep quiet about plenty of other things too: our open criticism of Jeremy Corbyn right from the day he won the leadership contest; our transparent reporting of meetings of the left; our analysis of disagreements between politicians in the Labour Party. You name it, we’ve been publishing openly about it.

This is also reflected in the behaviour of our comrades at events: we do not shy away from debates, discussions. Even if that leaves us open to misinterpretation, wilfully or otherwise. That comes with the territory and there is only one way to avoid it: saying nothing at all. Something we are most certainly not going to do.

_____

This article was updated on April 2 to more accurately reflect the recording of the discussion at issue.

Anti-Semitism, Democracy and the Labour Party

Labour after Formby’s election

In light of the new incoming regime at party HQ, Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists reports on left-wing objections to Jon Lansman’s slate

Jennie Formby is now the new general secretary of the Labour Party. With the help of most of the mainstream media, the right tried to smear her on every level imaginable: personally, as the “mother of Len McCluskey’s lovechild”, and professionally, by painting her as a mindless union bureaucrat who, it was claimed, was ‘demoted’ from political director of the Unite union to regional secretary.1)www.unitetheunion.org/news/unite-statement-on-the-smear-attack-on-jennie-formby-by-laas

Most pathetic was, of course, the attempt to present her as some kind of anti-Semite. In the last two and a half years, this smear has been employed over and over again. Editors have become so ‘oversensitised’ to the subject that they will jump with joy when they get the next tip-off, no matter how stupid. A case in point is the 250-page dodgy dossier of vile rightwinger David Collier (aka GnasherJew), in which he “exposed” the fact that Jeremy Corbyn was once a member of a Facebook group in which some people wrote shite. Big deal. Still, almost every single newspaper found this newsworthy and quoted Collier uncritically.

Similarly they lapped up the charge by the mysterious campaign, Labour Against Anti-Semitism (LAAS), which accuses Formby of “making anti-Semitic comments regarding the suitability of Baroness Royall to conduct an NEC inquiry into alleged anti-Semitism among Labour students at Oxford University”.

More recently we saw the attempt to charge her with having been personally responsible for hiring Vicky Kirby, who did indeed make some rather problematic comments on Twitter a few years back. Kirby was suspended from the Labour Party, but has been reinstated since. Unless we support Berufsverbote for people who have made stupid comments online, this is clearly not much to go on. And in fact, as Unite has explained, Kirby was appointed by a panel.

In the last couple of days, LAAS has also charged Formby with not having

adequately explained her relationship to the ‘Labour Against the Witchhunt’ group, made up of divisive suspended or expelled members such as Jackie Walker, who have supported her application for the role of general secretary. We seek assurances from Ms Formby that she has no relationship with this body or any of its members, as we believe this may prejudice her ability to uphold and implement the rules relating to racial discrimination that are embedded in the Labour Party rulebook.

Well, we can put the mind of the anonymous witch-finders to rest: to our knowledge, Jennie Formby has no relationship at all with anybody from Labour Against the Witchhunt. In fact, had LAAS checked their facts, they would have been able to ascertain that LAW’s support for Formby was openly “critical”:

We are concerned about her record on Labour’s NEC, where it appears she has, as recently as last week, failed to oppose the witch-hunting of Jeremy Corbyn supporters by rightwingers who have weaponised false claims of anti-Semitism despite Formby herself being the target of such smears. Nobody in the Labour Party can truly be a socialist if they support the purge and that includes the future general secretary.

That does not really read as if Formby was a fully paid-up member of LAW now, does it?

Some of the rightwing unions on the NEC even went as far as giving “tacit backing” to Momentum owner Jon Lansman over Jennie Formby, clearly judging correctly that he is to her right. After Lansman ally Christine Shawcroft’s ill-judged call to break the union link, that support evaporated quickly and Lansman had to withdraw his candidacy to avoid being crushingly outvoted on the NEC.

Last, but not least, we saw the coordinated resignation (or “exodus”, as The Independent puts its slightly hysterically) of six Blairite Labour staffers, two days before Formby’s expected appointment. Taking their cue from the right in the Parliamentary Labour Party, they clearly tried to do as much damage as possible by going to the press about their joint departure.

Good riddance to them. They include two female employees who directly worked for Iain McNicol; ‘head of policy’ Simon Jackson and, most interestingly, John Stolliday, ‘director of legal and governance’, whose name has popped up in the documents obtained by many of those suspended and expelled from the Labour Party.

Clearly, these Blairite apparatchiks jumped before they could be pushed (or their short-term contracts ran out). Only The Guardian seems naive enough to write that Iain McNicol “stood down unexpectedly”.2)The Guardian March 21 Clearly, McNicol and his willing minions had been living on borrowed time ever since Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader. Once the balance on the NEC shifted in favour of the left, they knew their time was up.

Hotting up

This coordinated attempt to damage Corbyn also serves as a reminder that the civil war in the Labour Party is far from over. The faux outrage over Corbyn’s demand for some form of proof before throwing himself head on into a new kind of cold war with Russia is a case in point. The entire bourgeois media has been joined by the usual assortment of rightwing Labour backbenchers, but also a few frontbenchers like Keir Starmer, who is clearly biding his time before he further twists the knife – he has got quite a good job now under Corbyn, after all.

The leftwing mass membership has, after three long years, finally produced a leftwing NEC, which in turn was able to elect a leftwing general secretary (who will hopefully soon rid HQ of the witch-hunters too). But the right has not yet given up. The Parliamentary Labour Party, the regions and the mass of councillors are still dominated by the right.

NEC regionsLabour First and Progress have just announced the launch of a new campaign by “Labour’s centre-left” (ie, Labour’s right) to increase the number of NEC delegates. Apparently, the “nine centre-left grassroots candidates standing for the NEC” (ie, the nine rightwingers standing against the nine being put forward by Momentum and/or the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance and which include Luke Akehurst3)https://www.necregions.co.uk/about) want “each region, Scotland and Wales to get a members’ place on the national executive committee and the number of places for Labour councillors (currently two) would double.”

Interesting, isn’t it, that rightwingers now think they have to use the language of the left to get anywhere in the party. The ‘model motion’ is full of Momentum-style blurb about “giving the members a voice”. In reality though, they would achieve the opposite – a bit like the proposals advanced by Momentum.4)http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/momentums-loose-cannon/

An additional eleven NEC members would be elected from ‘the regions’, plus two more councillors. Those delegates should be elected by “one member, one vote”. But, because “a national ballot is expensive, prohibitive and extremely difficult without a grouping backing you”, the campaign wants to see those delegates elected by regional conferences. And – you guessed it – those are, of course, still run and dominated by the right. A rather obvious attempt to shift the political balance on the NEC back in favour of the right. This is clearly not about giving “the members a voice” (who in their majority are now to the left of Corbyn). Of course, the proposal has no chance of being implemented by the NEC, but will undoubtedly pop up in branch and CLP meetings across the country.

It is also of concern that the party’s national constitutional committee (NCC) is still firmly in the hands of the Blairites. This deals with any disciplinary cases that the NEC feels merit further investigation – and, in many cases, such a referral leads to expulsion. The few token leftwingers on this committee have proved to be far from useful – or leftwing, for that matter. Momentum’s national vice-chair, Emina Ibrahim, for example, was supposed to be the alibi leftie on the three-person NCC panel at Tony Greenstein’s expulsion hearing – and, despite the obvious democratic shortcomings, lack of natural justice and due process in the accusations against him, she voted in favour of him being expelled. For being rude.

We understand that there are currently about 20 cases before the NCC, with many having lingered there for many months – some for years. The vast majority of them were clearly referred there by an NEC with a very different political balance. We support LAW’s demand to refer all of them back to the now left-majority NEC.

Of course, we are aware that the cases of Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and many others might not automatically be dropped by the NEC (especially as the last meeting decided to refer three further cases). But clearly there has been such a lack of natural justice and due process in all these cases that a new examination of the ‘evidence’ is long overdue. We also hope that, with the election for general secretary out of the way, Unite delegates on the NEC will feel emboldened to speak up against the ongoing witch-hunt of left activists. Maybe Len McCluskey will now even affiliate Unite to Jewish Voice for Labour – a promise he made with much fanfare at last year’s Labour conference.

Start again?

New spikes in the Labour civil war are usually accompanied by chatter about the right wanting to break away. We know that ‘moderate’ Labour MPs have been meeting with Liberal Democrats and Tories to discuss how to stop Brexit. During these cross-party meetings, the idea of a new, pro-European party was mooted some time ago. The ‘Russian agent’ crisis has apparently accelerated this process, so that now we even know the name of the dreamed-up new organisation: Start Again.

According to The Times’ Rachel Sylvester, “for Labour MPs who feel increasingly as if their party has been stolen from them, last week was a tipping point … The equivocation over Russia followed revelations of [Corbyn’s] membership in an anti-Semitic Facebook group” is the last straw for many, apparently. “Labour has mutated into something completely different, and it is increasingly clear that moderates need to recreate the party they once joined. Chatter has focused on the idea of a new pro-European alliance, but this is so much more than Brexit.” Yes, it is. It’s nonsense.

But the right will not do us the favour of breaking away. Unfortunately. No other than ex-Wunderkind Tony Blair has been pulling his hair out over how to do it, and has admitted that it cannot work, thanks mainly to the undemocratic British voting system. With elections based on proportional representation, it would be much easier to build a new party and be represented in parliament. But the failure of the Gang of Four’s Social Democratic Party continues to serve as a stark reminder to Blair and co.

It is much more likely that the right will continue to stay in the party and fight: with leaks to the media, underhand briefings, backstabbing motions, witch-hunts against leftwingers and, one day, if Jeremy Corbyn – or somebody like him – really does become prime minster, perhaps even in cooperation with the full force of the British state.

Alternative

But the left is in no less disarray, unfortunately. Apart from relatively successful single-issue campaigns like Labour Against the Witchhunt, the left’s conduct in the Labour Party has been characterised by political confusion, a serious lack of democracy and a political method that has more in common with Stalinism than socialism.

We have previously written at length about Momentum’s farcical and worryingly quick descent into the Jon Lansman show. The man runs the organisation with an iron fist that would make certain historical figures gasp with admiration. No wonder the rest of the organised left is increasingly fed up with his methods. Unfortunately, this does not always lead to outcomes or methods that are necessarily preferable.

Take the quarrel over the selection of leftwing candidates for the NEC (full elections take place this summer). Previously, some sections of the Labour left got together under the umbrella of the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance to settle on a list of candidates. In the past this has included Ann Black, who is clearly more in the ‘centre’ than on the ‘left’. For some reason, NEC veteran Pete Willsman seems to like her, despite the despicable role she has played in disenfranchising thousands of Corbyn supporters in the party. He ignored a decision by the executive of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (of which he is secretary) and insists that she continue to be featured on the CLGA slate.

But his long-standing CLPD comrade, Jon Lansman, disagreed. And quite right too. But, rather than having a transparent debate on the organised Labour left about who the best representatives of the membership on the NEC might be and how to make them accountable (we have a few ideas on those questions), Lansman went in the other direction and simply declared which nine candidates Momentum would support. The list is identical to the draft CLGA list – but with a replacement for Ann Black. 5)http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/witch-hunts-when-chickens-come-home

Clearly, Lansman’s method stinks to high heaven. We welcome the fact that there is opposition. But we fear that the statement issued by the Labour Representation Committee, Red Labour and Grassroots Black Left (see below) will do little to lead to political clarity or greater democracy.

For a start, the meeting was organised on a very selective basis, as the CLGA’s gatherings have been in the past. As for stating that the “CLGA is supposed to operate on the basis of consensus”, that seems to us rather unlikely and, most importantly, not desirable. Such “consensus” (or, more precisely, compromise) has led to centrists like Ann Black having been run on a leftwing ticket. Clearly, the methods of the CLGA need to be criticised too.

Red Labour is, of course, merely “a network” or a “forum” that sometimes produces humorous pro-Corbyn memes on Facebook. It is not an organisation you can join. It might have 120,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook (rather than ‘participants’), but it has no political coherence, no programme, no strategy. Yes, it has played a useful role in shoring up support for Corbyn in the run-up to various elections. But should the people running such a loose network really be involved in making decisions about NEC elections?

Resolutions calling for increasing the number of “oppressed and disadvantaged comrades” on the Labour Party NEC miss the point. What about their politics? Why does the statement not contain any mention of the basic political principles that we would want our NEC representatives to uphold? At least a commitment that they stand for a democratic republic, abolishing the House of Lords, replacing the standing army with a popular militia, getting rid of capitalism and achieving the rule of the working class and socialism.

We understand that a representative from Jewish Voice for Labour was also at the meeting and agreed to the statement, but that the rest of the JVL executive has since changed its mind. The JVL now supports Lansman’s slate instead. There is also opposition in the LRC. Yes, its executive voted in favour of endorsing the statement, but a sizable minority of  LRC executive members opposed the move.

We would agree with those comrades. It is one thing to criticise Jon Lansman for his undemocratic methods. He deserves it and we have done plenty of it. But to seriously consider standing candidates against a slate endorsed by Momentum, is – how to put this nicely? – not tactically advisable at the moment. We understand the LRC executive will make a final decision on May 6 – we would urge them to vote against. It runs the risk of letting in rightwingers like Eddie Izzard, which, considering that the NEC does not have a rock-solid left majority, could well have dire consequences for the left’s fight to transform the party.

LRC, Red Labour and Grassroots Black Left statement

  1. The CLGA (Centre Left Grassroots Alliance) is supposed to operate on basis of consensus, but the slate has been drawn up without consultation with all its constituent bodies. The slate has to all intents and purposes been presented as a fait accompli.
  2. The GBL has been unilaterally refused membership of the CLGA on the basis of opposition from one person representing Momentum.
  3. Red Labour was invited to join the CLGA, but has been informed that this will not be permitted until its 2018 slate is finalised.

We resolve to start an online consultation process, hosted by Red Labour, to determine whether grassroots candidates want to stand and whether it is the expressed wish of rank-and-file members that such candidates be supported.

In the interest of tackling the underrepresentation of oppressed and disadvantaged comrades,
we would positively welcome applications from black, African, Caribbean, Asian and other people of colour and women.

LRC, Red Labour and GBL will update about how comrades can apply to be an NEC member.

Sent to Jeremy Corbyn, whose progressive politics we support, and Jon Lansman.

References

Anti-Semitism, Momentum

Momentum’s loose cannon

Why did Jon Lansman withdraw from the race to become Labour’s new general secretary? Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists looks for answers

Jon Lansman might have withdrawn his candidacy for Labour Party general secretary, but the charade continues.

In his statement, tweeted on March 10, Lansman assures us that he is withdrawing “with my aims fulfilled” and in order “to focus on my role on the NEC”. You see, all he ever wanted was to “open up the contest”. Apparently, he had “a number of party members get in touch to let me know they are applying for the role.” Therefore, “I reiterate my call for Labour Party members, especially women, with talent and experience to consider submitting an application.” He says that now the party “must draw a clear line between our renewed and reinvigorated mass-membership party and previous eras of command and control, where the views of members and affiliates were too often ignored”. Because he had put in his nomination, “NEC members have begun a productive, comradely debate about the future of the party”.

So much bullshit – where do you start?

Firstly, there already was a woman with “talent and experience” running for the position, even before Lansman declared his candidacy. She is called Jennie Formby.

Secondly, we do not believe for a minute that Lansman was just standing to inspire others to follow suit. Nothing quite says to a woman ‘Come and apply for this job’ better like the leader of a mass organisation with excellent access to the mainstream media going for it himself! Still, Owen Jones seemed to believe Lansman:

Bennism holds party democracy to be sacred, and on a point of principle Lansman believes important positions should be open and contested. Rather than seeking conflict with Unite, above all else Lansman is standing to open up the contest.

That says more about Owen’s trajectory towards politically naive La-La-Land than it does about Lansman. He clearly wanted the job – there is no doubt about it.

Thirdly, who are the other candidates that Lansman managed to inspire through his action? There is a certain Paul Hilder, a very managerial type of candidate who avoids talking politics – but seems to have vast experience in all sorts of sectors and roles, particularly in self-promotion. He previously tried for the general secretary position in 2011, so that one is not down to Lansman.

The only other female candidate who has – very quietly – thrown her hat in the ring is someone called Maria Carroll. On March 11 she tweeted that Jon Lansman “is encouraging members to apply and I am inspired to apply. So I’m seeking your views here.” She has been outspoken against aspects of the witch-hunt based on trumped-up charges of anti-Semitism and is no doubt serious. But we would have advised her not to stand. As we go to press, no other candidates have emerged, so Lansman’s talk about others applying as a result of the contest being ‘opened up’ by himself seems to have been a little inaccurate. [Update March 16: Ex-NUT leader Christine Blower  features on the shortlist with Jennie Formby, though we doubt if this is thanks to Jon Lansman]

Fourthly, thanks to the media’s interest in the left tearing chunks out of each other, we got a glimpse of the “debate about the future of the party” among members of the national executive committee following Lansman’s candidacy. It could be described with a lot of different adjectives, but Lansman’s “productive” and “comradely” are certainly not among them!

Not only did John McDonnell come out publicly for Formby in order to put pressure on Lansman not to run: Jeremy Corbyn was said to have called him twice before he finally relented. And we have heard talk of other, rather heated phone calls that current and former NEC members made to Lansman.

Fifth, had Lansman indeed been chosen as general secretary, his place on the NEC would have been taken by rightwinger Eddie Izzard (runner-up in the constituency labour party section). So much for his “focus on the NEC”, where pro-Corbyn members only have a very slight majority (21 to 17). If somebody is on holiday or falls ill (or disagrees!), that majority is in serious jeopardy.

Democracy à la Momentum

Lastly and most absurdly is Lansman’s claim to have done it all for the rights of ordinary Labour Party members – and his desire to put an end to the “era of command and control”. Owen Jones must be pretty much the only person on the planet who seems to believe that one. Apparently, Lansman’s “lifelong obsession is creating a grassroots-led party, and a democratisation agenda taken to its logical conclusion may well face moments of opposition from both union hierarchies and Loto” (the leader of the opposition’s office). Pass the sick bucket.

Do we really need to remind Jones that Lansman simply abolished all democratic decision-making structures and imposed his own constitution on Momentum during the infamous Lansman coup of January 10 2017? A few weeks ago, he got rid of Momentum’s youth wing in a similar way. A rather unusual “democratisation agenda”.

As if to prove the point, Momentum is currently engaged in a fake-democratic decision-making process over its submissions to the Corbyn Review. It really sums up the way Lansman operates.

To begin with, he asked Momentum members to put forward their own ideas. When it transpired that concrete proposals (pushed by Labour Against the Witchhunt) to end the purge of leftwingers were doing very well, leading the field with the most ‘backers’, he mysteriously managed to ‘inspire’ over 60 members to go online at 11.30pm on the day submissions closed. And, hey presto, his own lame proposal to slightly tweak the trigger ballot (as a safe alternative to the mandatory reselection of parliamentary candidates) won! Incidentally, had the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty helped to push LAW’s proposal on the witch-hunt, rather than submit its own a few days before voting ended, Lansman might have struggled to win. But the AWL, sectarian to a fault, insisted on an almost identical set of proposals – minus all references to the anti-Semitism witch-hunt, which, of course, it implicitly supports.

In any case, the LAW and AWL proposals combined had far more backers than any of the other 120. But that is not the reason that Lansman picked up on one point contained within both proposals for the last round of ‘online voting’. The reason for him asking Momentum members a question on rule 2.1.4.B is simply that he also wants to see it reformed. However, while the LAW and AWL proposals called on the Labour Party to delete the first part of rule 2.1.4.B, Lansman simply wanted to tighten it.

Under this witch-hunter’s rule, which automatically bars from membership anybody “who joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or unit of the party”, dozens, if not hundreds, of Marxists and socialists have been auto-expelled from the party, including supporters (or alleged supporters) of the AWL, Socialist Appeal and Labour Party Marxists.

So in his online questionnaire put to all Momentum members, Lansman stripped our proposals of all context – and managed to turn it around, so it would actually lead to the opposite outcome of that intended by LAW and the AWL:

Labour’s rulebook says membership of organisations other than the Labour Party can make people ineligible for membership, but the wording is imprecise. It should be clarified that this applies only to organisations whose objectives or methods are clearly incompatible with Labour’s.

Lansman’s proposal will do nothing to end such auto-exclusions. After all, you will just need to show that Socialist Appeal or LPM are in favour of “Marxism” or “revolution” or even just opposed to the “market economy”. The latter formulation was used in court to uphold the expulsion of Socialist Appeal supporter Jack Halinski-Fitzpatrick, when Labour’s barristers ‘proved’ that SA’s programme was incompatible with that of the party. Apparently, being sceptical of the “market economy” puts you in a direct clash with the party’s adherence to the “dynamism of the market” in the Blairite clause IV.

In reality, there is actually no such rule in the party’s constitution – yet. Clearly, in this case, the Labour Party’s bureaucrats found a sympathetic judge. A rule dealing with issues of programmatic “incompatibility” refers only to organisations that want to affiliate to the party – which, clearly, Socialist Appeal was not doing at the moment. This is about an individual’s party membership.

So Lansman’s reformed rule would, if anything, give the bureaucrats in the compliance unit more power to witch-hunt leftwing activists.

Momentum’s questionnaire also proves once again that online ‘referenda’ or online voting on complex political issues only appear democratic. It all depends on who asks the question and to what purpose. Clearly, as with so many referenda, answering Lansman’s question with either a straightforward ‘yes’ or ‘no’ was highly unsatisfactory.

However, as expected, his proposal won the day. Momentum has now reported that question 4 of 15 – “Should Momentum campaign for this rule change to clarify the eligibility for membership of people who support organisations other than the Labour Party?” – received 3,183 ‘yes’ votes (84%), while only 308 said ‘no’ (8%) and 296 abstained (7%). 1)https://my.peoplesmomentum.com/review/track_voting/2

Truth of the matter

But back to Lansman’s application for general secretary. Why did he withdraw? The man clearly wanted the job – he wanted it so badly that he even risked falling out with Jeremy Corbyn over it. The short answer is: he messed up.

He had hoped to peel away support from Jennie Formby by appealing both to the right through critiquing the unions and to the soft left, by presenting himself as some sort of champion of members’ rights.

Well, it blew up in his face, big time. He could not keep all his different tactical plates spinning. The man does seem to suffer from a serious case of over-inflated ego and a sense that everything he touches will turn to gold. But critiquing the unions, while simultaneously relying on union delegates on the NEC to vote for him was, to say the least, a high-risk strategy. At worst, pretty stupid.

Lansman also did not seem to take into account the fact that his allies on the NEC might not be as easily controlled as the membership of Momentum. One of the main reasons for his withdrawal can probably be summed up in two words: Christine Shawcroft. Or, more precisely, her outburst on Facebook: “It is time to support disaffiliation of the unions from the Labour Party.”

Lansman and Momentum quickly tried to disassociate themselves from her angry and inane remark, but it did not help that the rest of her (very rare) online comments were focused on praising Lansman. Combined with his own suggestion that the general secretary should be elected by members and his publicly stated “dissatisfaction that the role should be chosen behind closed doors by Labour’s NEC, which in practice would mean a deal struck between major trade unions for their preferred candidate”2)www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/26/jon-lansman-set-to-stand-for-role-of-labour-general-secretary, this indicates that Shawcroft probably thought she was doing Lansman a favour and was acting in his interest.

Well, she did not. All hell broke loose and pretty much every left organisation felt the need to issue statements in defence of the union link. We hear that union after union got on the phone to Lansman and Corbyn, demanding to know what on earth he was playing at. The tacit support of some rightwing unions for Lansman – as their best hope to stop Jennie Formby – quickly evaporated after Shawcroftgate. Lansman had to withdraw for the simple reason that he did not want to be seriously humiliated in the NEC vote on March 20.

And he may have just managed to ruin his political career in the process. For example, can Corbyn and Seumas Milne continue to rely on this man to deliver the required votes at conference? Last year, Momentum managed to text delegates ‘live’ with voting instructions, swinging quite a few decisions. But Lansman has proved to be a loose cannon. Yes, one with well over 200,000 pro-Corbyn members on his database. But still, Jennie Formby would be well advised to work out alternative methods of engaging directly with the ‘Corbyn army’, many of whom do not yet attend Labour meetings.

The witch-hunt continues

In reality, of course, the union link was never really under threat. We have never heard Lansman (or Shawcroft) publicly complaining about the role of the unions before his ill-considered candidacy. It is unlikely they have only now found out that even the representatives of leftwing unions tend to vote against individual Labour Party members on disciplinary questions. They knew, but they chose to tell us about it now, in the context of Lansman’s candidacy.

Clearly, Shawcroft was very upset when the NEC disputes panel – now chaired by her – did not follow her advice to dismiss all cases brought before it by the unelected bureaucrats of the compliance unit (they still operate under the instructions of Iain McNicol, who remains in post until March 20). It decided by a clear majority to refer three cases to the national constitutional committee (NCC), which has a robust rightwing majority and clearly makes politically biased judgments. Even Ann Black admits that this committee is “seen as increasingly politicised”, as she writes in her latest NEC report. Bizarrely though, she thinks that is a bad thing only because it leads to a lack of complaints, as “members [are] reluctant to come forward”.

Yes, that is exactly the main problem in the Labour Party at the moment, isn’t it? Too few members are being fingered to the compliance unit! In November 2016, Christine Shawcroft reported that there had been 11,000 complaints against Labour Party members since Corbyn’s election the previous year, “as well-resourced rightwing hit squads scented a golden opportunity and began trawling through known Corbynistas’ Facebook and Twitter accounts”. There must have been thousands, if not tens of thousands, more since then – though no official figures have been published.

To further underline how wrong it was for Ann Black ever to have been featured on the slate of the Grassroots Centre Left Alliance, her report then goes on to praise McNicol for having “continued” a “trend towards neutrality and fairness to those of all factions and of none”. Needless to say, Jon Lansman supported this GCLA slate uncritically until very recently.

Shawcroft knows, of course, that, once a member is suspended and referred to the highly political NCC, he or she has little chance of getting a fair hearing. She quite rightly wants the NEC to deal with all disciplinary cases. But it seems that all union reps on the NEC – even those from pro-Corbyn unions – take a cowardly approach. For each complaint, the apparatchiks working for the compliance unit prepare a report for the NEC disputes panel containing the allegations. Handily, the top page of each file (there are sometimes dozens of them at every meeting) contains a “recommendation on further action”.

Rather than investigate or challenge these recommendations, it appears that Jennie Formby and the other leftwing union delegates on the NEC automatically vote in accordance with that recommendation.

Critical support

Jennie Formby (and other leftwing union delegates) clearly deserve to be taken to task over their behaviour on the NEC. In the most recent cases that got Shawcroft so riled up, it appears Formby ‘absented herself’ when it came down to the vote that decided to send three disputed cases to the NCC.

That is why we in LPM agree with Labour Against the Witchhunt, which thinks that Formby should only be given “critical support” by the left:

LAW critically supports Formby for the job. We are concerned about her record on Labour’s NEC, where it appears she has, as recently as last week, failed to oppose the witch-hunting of Jeremy Corbyn supporters by rightwingers, who have weaponised false claims of anti-Semitism, despite Formby herself being the target of such smears. Nobody in the Labour Party can truly be a socialist if they support the purge and that includes the future general secretary.

Formby might have been trying to play it safe before the March 20 NEC meeting, which will decide on the new general secretary. But her behaviour is worrying – and a sign perhaps that her likely appointment will not lead to a swift change of direction, when it comes to the witch-hunt against leftwingers in the party. We also note press reports, according to which “senior backers of Jennie Formby are trying to reassure party staff that there are no planned overhauls, should she secure the job”.

Thanks to Tony Blair, of course, most staff are now on short-term contracts and do not have to be dismissed should they no longer be required. They simply might not get rehired. Others do not quite seem to trust Formby’s peace offering and are jumping ship before they are pushed. For example, Emilie Oldknow, Labour’s executive director for governance, membership and party services (which includes disciplinary processes, suspensions and expulsions), has just announced that she is leaving her post in the summer. Excellent news.

Naturally, Iain McNicol has been a key player in the ongoing civil war. But he is not acting alone. The right is still in control of the Parliamentary Labour Party and the bureaucracy. For the last seven years, McNicol has been in charge of hiring and firing the 200 staff working for the party. No doubt, he was politically biased when doing so. And we hope Jennie Formby will be too!

Glyn Secker

Take the most recent case of Glyn Secker. On March 7, the secretary of Jewish Voice for Labour received a letter informing him of his “administrative suspension” from the Labour Party, because of “allegations relating to comments on social media that may be anti-Semitic”. The letter, signed by “Sam Matthews, head of disputes”, states that McNicol had “determined to use powers delegated to him … subject to the approval of the next meeting of the NEC.”

As it turns out, the suspension was based on Secker’s ‘crime’ of being part of the Facebook group, Palestine Live, which has achieved some fame in recent days for having counted a certain Jeremy Corbyn among its former ‘members’. The pro-Zionist blogger, David Collier, sent the Labour Party a dossier of over 250 pages, which contain … fuck all. Some members of the group had posted dodgy links. Like people do every day on every single Facebook group.

Incredibly, without any kind of research themselves, most newspapers reprinted parts of the report, as if it was a scientific document. Tony Greenstein has done a good job exposing Collier as the vile blogger, “Gnasher Jew”. But even after days of splashing this non-story across various newspapers, neither Jeremy Corbyn nor Glyn Secker, nor any other of the Labour members suspended for belonging to that group were found to have posted anything even vaguely anti-Semitic. It was just another weapon in the ongoing campaign to smear Corbyn and his supporters.

After five days in which Labour members and branches vocally protested against comrade Secker’s suspension, Sam Matthews was forced to lift it, “because it would not be in the party’s interest to pursue disciplinary action in relation to this matter”. There is no apology – not even a withdrawal of the accusation of anti-Semitism. Just like in the case of the expulsion of Moshé Machover, which was quickly rescinded, it appears that the NEC overruled McNicol, who seems to want to cause as much damage as possible until the very last moment. But what about Sam Matthews? His letter to Secker clearly exposes his political loyalties.

Also, compare comrade Secker’s treatment to that of Jeremy Newmark – until recently chair of the Jewish Labour Movement. Despite the JLM calling in the police to investigate allegations of fraud under Newmark’s watch, he remains untouched by the compliance unit, because, we are told, his behaviour in an organisation affiliated to the Labour Party is a “private matter”.

Rightwingers like Sam Matthews should follow their masters, McNicol and Oldknow, to the door marked ‘exit’.

 

 

References

Anti-Semitism, Inside the Labour Party, Momentum

Jon Lansman v Jennie Formby: What’s going on?

Unexpected fault lines have opened up on the soft Labour left over who will be the next general secretary, reports Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists

With less than a week to go before nominations close on March 13, there are two candidates standing for the position of Labour’s general secretary. Their politics appears so similar that the contest between them seems, at best, ludicrous and, at worst, irresponsible. Should a ‘moderate’ candidate choose to exploit the current division, and should both pro-Corbyn candidates continue to insist on standing, that moderate might indeed ‘slip in’ through the middle when it comes to the crucial vote on Labour’s national executive committee on March 20. We presume that will not happen and that either Momentum owner Jon Lansman or Unite’s Jennie Formby will withdraw. But then, we never presumed that there would be two pro-Corbyn candidates standing in the first place!

The issue might already be decided by the next meeting of the NEC officers group on March 14. It is tasked with putting together a short list for the full NEC and has a pro-Corbyn majority. Of the current eight members, at least five are pro-Corbyn and two are members of Unite (though Jennie Formby, the current NEC vice-chair, will probably have to excuse herself).

One thing is for sure. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader is continuing to have a disruptive effect, not just on the establishment, but on the Labour left too. In a sense, this is very much to be welcomed. The left seemed to have been dying a slow, painful death – it needed a ‘cultural revolution’. For a start, wouldn’t it be nice if we had actual transparency and democracy in our movement? Why on earth are there no proper reports, for example, from all NEC members? They should be obliged to report back to those they represent as to what was discussed and how they voted. Pete Willsman and Ann Black have been the only ones to routinely write such reports (for general circulation) – with their own omissions and partisan views, of course.

But in recent days NEC members Christine Shawcroft and Darren Williams have come out with short Facebook posts and brief hints, which indicate not just deep divisions between the representatives of the left-led unions and the nine elected by Constituency Labour Party members, but also the tensions between the nine, though they were elected on same the ‘centre-left slate’. We will come to that below.

Here is what we know.

For days, Jennie Formby seemed a virtual shoo-in. She has the support not just of her union, Unite. But pretty much every single group on the Labour left has come out for her, including quite a few Momentum branches. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has tweeted his support. Jeremy Corbyn is keeping schtum in public: he wants to appear above the fray and, of course, he values the support of both Momentum and Unite’s Len McCluskey.

So why then are there two left candidates? There are various theories and possible scenarios, some of which are, of course, interlinked. Clearly, we are in the middle of a very messy process.

Theory 1: Lansman has gone mad

This is perhaps the most common theory one comes across when discussing the issue on the left. According to this – and I must admit to having some sympathy for it – Jon Lansman’s ego has simply got the better of him. So successful has he been running Momentum as his own private fiefdom that he now thinks he has earned the right to aim for bigger things. After all, wasn’t it his tens of thousands of foot soldiers who nearly managed to get Jeremy Corbyn into No10?

Being directly responsible for over 200 staff; the party’s campaign and media strategies; all its organisational, constitutional and policy committees; the organisation of party conference; the preparation of party literature, etc – it sounds right up Jon Lansman’s street, doesn’t it? And who cares if that puts Corbyn in a very awkward position when it comes to Unite leader Len McCluskey? The time has come for Lansmanism to blossom!

We can certainly believe that Lansman’s ego is bigger than your average politician’s. But just like theories that try to pin the outbreak of World War II on Adolf Hitler’s psychological problems, that is clearly too easy an explanation.

Theory 2: Lansman is moving to the centre

We do not believe for a moment that he is standing in some semi-sacrificial way to “open up the contest and ensure we have a wide range of candidates”. We presume that Lansman thinks that he has an actual chance of winning a majority of votes on the NEC.

Of the 38 executive members, 21 could be described as pro-Corbyn, and 17 as rightwing. According to The Skwawkbox:

all the left NEC members have committed to support Jennie Formby, with the exception of a couple who have said they’ll only vote for a leftwing woman – and one who is behind Jon Lansman. Those committed to Formby include both party and union representatives – including party representatives elected as part of slates backed by Momentum, the organisation founded by Jon Lansman.

We know, of course, that outputs by ‘alternative media’ like The Skwawkbox should be taken with a pinch of salt. They are increasingly being used by political factions and sometimes even by journalists to leak unverified rumours to the wider public, so that it can then be picked up by the mainstream press. But we reckon that the website has done its counting correctly this time: 17 votes for Formby. The single leftwing NEC member who openly supports Lansman is Christine Shawcroft. But Lansman seems to think that he can win round those two left NEC members who have not yet openly backed Formby – a possibility, clearly.

But he must also count on the entire right wing on the NEC to back him in order to achieve a majority. He has clearly been working very hard to position himself in the political ‘centre’ of the Labour Party. I am sure Lansman is not entirely unhappy with the media narrative, according to which Jennie Formby is the representative of the hard left and the union bureaucracy, openly supporting – would you believe it? – the democratic rights of the Palestinian people. Clearly, she is too radical and ‘anti-Semitic’ to head the Labour machine!

In reality there is, of course, very little actual political difference between Jennie Formby and Jon Lansman. We are seeing a split on the soft left, rather than a split between the hard and soft left (which is probably still to come). Both candidates are uncritical supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and his policies, presumably prepared to back various political climbdowns should he become prime minister.

Which makes the only visible difference all the more crucial: the question of Israel and Palestine. With the Israeli army inching closer to getting involved in Syria (to distract perhaps from the legal problems of a certain Binyamin Netanyahu1)www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ middle-east/israel-prime-minister-benjamin- netanyahu-corruption-allegations-lawyers-explain- trouble-a7524416.html) the Labour Party’s position is becoming increasingly important. Can it really become an anti-war party – perhaps even in government? Will the pacifist Corbyn stick to his guns (excuse the pun) as prime minister and forthrightly condemn Israel aggression?

That would put the pro-imperialist right in the Parliamentary Labour Party under immense pressure from the Zionist lobby. This is, after all, why the whole ‘anti-Semitism’ scandal was created in the first place. Discredit Corbyn’s anti-war and pro-Palestine stance. Force him to ‘man up’ and come out in support of US interests. And that includes unconditional support for Israel to do whatever it has to do to ‘defend itself’. (We note Prince William is the first member of his family to make an official visit to Israel, as well as Lebanon and “the occupied Palestinian territories”.)

In this context, Jon Lansman’s participation in the ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt in the Labour Party is very, very important. He has said of Ken Livingstone, “It’s time he left politics altogether”; thinks that “there should be no place for George Galloway in the Labour Party” (and called on his employers to sack him); and when Jackie Walker was suspended from Labour on trumped-up charges of anti-Semitism, he quickly removed her as vice-chair of Momentum. He wants to be seen as a safe pair of hands, when it comes to Israel.

The question is, can Lansman get away with positioning himself in the political centre?

Alansmanfter all, he is Mr Momentum, which has since its inception been portrayed as a dangerous hotbed for an assortment of hyperactive hippies and Trotskyist troublemakers. He has been on the ‘far left’ of the Labour Party for decades, we are told. However, over the last 14 months, Lansman certainly has been very busy moulding Momentum into a thoroughly respectable election machine.

His coup of January 2017, which abolished all democratic structures in the organisation and imposed his constitution on the membership, has certainly gone a long way to assure the establishment of his ‘credentials’. He also subordinated Momentum to the compliance unit by barring membership  to all those who have been expelled from the Labour Party for “supporting another organisation” (rule 2.1.4.B).

No doubt Momentum’s deployment of an army of foot soldiers during the general election campaign made a real difference to Labour’s votes. Momentum nationally has been very careful to support all Labour Party candidates, not just pro-Corbyn ones (even if locally its members often choose to campaign mainly for leftwing candidates).

Politically, the organisation is even more harmless. For example, despite the fact that Jon Lansman has campaigned for mandatory reselection of parliamentary candidates for decades, he has now dropped the demand and campaigns merely for a reform of the trigger ballot. At present an MP needs to win a simple majority of nominations from local party branches and affiliated trade unions and socialist societies in order to become the candidate once more. Lansman wants to raise this threshold to 66%, but this would still disproportionally favour the sitting MP: rather than allowing for a full and democratic automatic reselection process before every election, a sitting MP would still have to be challenged.

So successful is Momentum’s transformation that now even Theresa May openly wants to emulate it. This week she has written to “young activists” to help build Momentum-style grassroots campaigners. According to The Sun, the letter states:

We are recruiting a new army of foot soldiers to take the fight to Labour. It is clear from the results of the general election that we are more likely to win seats in which our organisation is strong. And it is an unfortunate fact that Labour’s organisation was better in many seats than ours.

It is absolutely possible that the right in the Labour Party might swing behind Lansman. The Guardian writes:

Lansman’s entry into the race is thought to have the tacit backing of some other unions, which are irritated by what they regard as Unite’s increasing dominance of Labour decision-making. Key to the decision will be two other major unions, the GMB and Unison, who have so far declined to give Formby their backing.

It is not impossible that other rightwingers on the NEC – for example, those from the PLP or those representing councillors – might support him, too. Especially if that was the only way to stop Formby.

Politically, of course, Lansman’s method of chasing the political centre is very much old school and in line with the method advocated by the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy and its founder-leader, Vladimir Derer, since 1973 (he died in 2014). The organisation was founded on the premise that any reform in the Labour Party has to be achieved not by pressure from the membership (which, for example, Militant pursued), but by winning over – or at least neutralising – the ‘centre’, in the party and the unions. The fascinating BBC docudrama The campaign shows how the CLPD won a conference majority to vote for a version of mandatory reselection in the early 1980s: through a number of backroom deals with union leaders.

It still pursues this method though the so-called Centre Left Grassroots Alliance, which ‘recommends’ various candidates for Labour Party elections. It is based on rather mysterious, private and entirely undemocratic get-togethers of various Labour left organisations, to which only a few lucky ones are invited (this year, for example, Jewish Voice for Labour was among the invitees), while others never make the gathering. The Labour Representation Committee regularly complains when it is left out in the cold.

According to Wikipedia, the CLGA was founded in 1995 by the CLPD and Labour Reform, “a centrist democratic group”, which had supported Ann Black as member of the NEC. When “private talks with trade union representatives” failed, Liz Davies of Labour Left Briefing and Mark Seddon, editor of Tribune, were also brought in. But, convinced of the left’s unelectability, the CLGA continued to support centrist candidates and rejected any moves to present a leftwing platform or support openly left candidates.

This explains how Ann Black could remain on the ‘left ticket’ for so long, despite clearly being very much on the centre of the party. She 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 CLP. Many have questioned, quite rightly, why the CLGA continues to back her.

Theory 3: It is all about Ann Black

As we have reported, Jon Lansman and CLPD secretary Pete Willsman, who have worked together in the CLPD for decades, have fallen out over Black. Just how badly became very obvious at the CLPD’s March 3 annual general meeting. Clearly having thoroughly internalised the centre-left strategy, Pete Willsman continues to insist that Black should be included on the CLGA slate. When his own CLPD executive committee voted (by a majority of one) against her inclusion a few months back, he decided to ignore the decision and campaign for her.

On the morning of the AGM, a rumour was doing the rounds that Lansman would turn up in order to graciously announce his withdrawal from the general secretary race. If true, he clearly changed his mind. He did not even show up. But his supporters were a visible presence. After a long list of worthy but boring speakers (which pushed all normal motions submitted off the agenda), Lansman’s NEC ally, Christine Shawcroft, presented an emergency motion, which sought to remove Pete Willsman as CLPD secretary and force immediate new elections to the position (which she was apparently intending to contest).

The motion criticised as “unacceptable” the delay in putting together a slate for the NEC elections in the summer:

A draft slate was not opposed by CLPD, yet during February attempts were made to overturn it with biased and incomplete emails around the executive, and threats to take it to the AGM. All in the name of keeping someone on the slate [ie, Ann Black] who has consistently voted against us in the last two years, often in ways very damaging to the leader. Now the two-month delay means that those on the final slate are already on the back foot, struggling to make up time. This has happened because of a lack of basic democratic accountability in CLPD’s organisation.

The motion was ruled out of order (on the basis that it was “not an emergency”), but it took a vote that needed two recounts before that decision was accepted. And, of course, it served another purpose: to justify the fact that Jon Lansman single-handedly leaked a list of the nine NEC candidates supported by Momentum to the national press. Ann Black was not on it, of course.

In our view, Ann Black should certainly not be on any leftwing list. But then she should have never been on it in the first place! She had been supported by Lansman and Willsman for many years – and, no, she did not turn into a centrist overnight. She had always been one.

By kicking her off the left slate, Lansman seems to have been acting in line with the party leadership. After all, the NEC officers group (which has a clear a pro-Corbyn majority) risked media ridicule when they shut down a meeting to elect a new chair of the national policy forum, because Ann Black was sure to win it.

Pete Willsman, however, did not seem to get the message. We wonder how long the deeply divided CLPD can keep going.

Theory 4: Lansman ‘wants to break the union link’

This is where the contradictions start to mount up. It is one thing to stand against a leftwing union representative. If you present yourself as the serious, credible alternative candidate of the political centre, you might have a chance of getting the rightwing unions on the NEC behind you.

But Lansman has gone one further with his proposal to have the general secretary elected by the party membership as a whole. We very much oppose it. It sounds democratic, but really it is not. It would actually create two rival centres of power. We have seen under McNicol’s tenure how destructive the general secretary can be. Having direct elections to the post would not prevent this situation occurring again – it would though guarantee endemic conflict between Labour Party HQ, the NEC and the leaders’ office. No, the general secretary should remain directly accountable to the NEC. Once the numbers on the NEC had changed in favour of the pro-Corbyn left, McNicol’s time was up. And that is how it should be.

Lansman’s proposal is also very risky from his point of view, as it surely is bound to alienate all unions affiliated to the Labour Party. They see it as their historic right to fill a proportion of leadership positions, so why would they vote for him to become the next general secretary if he is proposing to change that? Especially as his NEC ally and fellow Momentum director, Christine Shawcroft, used an angry Facebook post to declare: “It is time to support disaffiliation of the unions from the Labour Party.”

This came as a complete surprise to us. To our knowledge, she had never put forward such a line before. And it also came as a shock to Jeremy Corbyn, whose spokesperson described that statement as “a heat-of-the-moment remark”:

There is almost no-one in the entire Labour Party who supports any kind of breaking of the link with the trade unions. Even to say it’s a minority view would be exaggerating it: it’s a completely marginal view that has no support whatever. I don’t think it even represents her view.

Shawcroft has indeed deleted the comment. Some claim that she was not totally out of tune with Jon Lansman here, even if Momentum was quick to distance itself from her statement. In his candidacy statement Lansman talks about wanting to “listen to our trade union affiliates” and “work hard to strengthen Labour’s trade union link”. But he has also gone to the media to express “dissatisfaction that the role [of general secretary] should be chosen behind closed doors by Labour’s NEC, which in practice would mean a deal struck between major trade unions for their preferred candidate”. However, to interpret this as a desire on Lansman’s part to see the unions disaffiliate is a bad case of clutching at straws.

True, the union link seems to have been a point of discussion among his allies and there is certainly room for democratic reform when it comes to the unions’ role in the Labour Party. For a start, instead of union general secretaries casting their union’s bloc vote at the Labour conference, we call for the vote to be divided on a proportional basis according to the political balance in the delegation.

But calling for the link to be broken is entirely wrong-headed. If Labour is to become the party of the whole class, then clearly it must become the umbrella organisation for all trade unions, socialist groups and pro-working class partisans. All unions should affiliate and all union members should pay the political levy.

Theory 5: Jon Lansman is the good guy

This is almost as hard to swallow as scenario 4. But bear with us.

Shawcroft’s outburst on Facebook actually came about after the March 17 meeting of the NEC’s disciplinary panel, of which she is now chair. The disciplinary panel is made up of the entire NEC – or, more precisely, of those NEC members who can be bothered to show up. It is the committee that decides if disciplinary charges have any merit – and should therefore be sent to the National Constitutional Committee for further investigation.

The NCC consists of 11 members, chosen by party conference for a two-year term. Four are elected by CLP delegates, six by the unions and one by affiliated socialist societies. Last year, the CLGA candidates, Emina Ibrahim and Anna Dyer, won overwhelmingly in the CLP section. The other two CLP positions are up for election at this year’s conference, but for now the NCC clearly remains in the hands of the right. And it is questionable how ‘left’ the CLGA candidates are. Emina Ibrahim, for example, was supposed to be the alibi leftie on the three-person NCC panel at Tony Greenstein’s expulsion hearing – and despite the obvious democratic shortcomings, lack of natural justice and due process in the accusations against him, she voted in favour of him being expelled. For being rude.

As far as we can tell, Christine Shawcroft has used her new position as chair of the disciplinary panel to argue for the dismissal of all cases brought before it – and against their referral to the NCC. Exactly right. Once your case is in front of the NCC with its current composition – if you are a leftwinger – you can kiss your membership card goodbye. Next to their access to the national press, this is probably the most potent weapon the right in the party machine still has. We support the demand that all 18 cases currently in front of the NCC should be referred back to the NEC’s disciplinary panel.

But at the March 17 meeting it seems that despite her best efforts to dismiss all the cases in front of the committee (there were a few dozen, we understand) the majority voted for three cases to be referred to the NCC, despite the evidence being “far from compelling”, as NEC member Darren Williams complains (see below).

Interestingly, Shawcroft wrote on Facebook that a certain Jon Lansman supported her; whereas Jennie Formby did the opposite:

Christine Shawcroft screenshot

I must admit to a certain scepticism when I first read this. Shawcroft did, after all, support Jon Lansman in the middle of his undemocratic coup by becoming Momentum’s director and did not speak up when he continued to ride roughshod over the members by imposing his own constitution. She also previously voted to refer Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth to the NCC. She irresponsibly split from Labour Briefing journal to set up her own Original Labour Briefing – without explaining the politics behind it.

But then she was backed up by fellow NEC member Darren Williams on Facebook. We cannot stress enough how unusual this is for both of them:

Darren William screenshot

In the discussion thread underneath, Christine Shawcroft then wrote:

unions sticking it... Christine

After being questioned if this was a systematic voting pattern of the representatives of the major unions and if Jennie Formby has indeed been part of that pattern, comrade Williams clarified: “I think there has been undue caution sometimes about speaking up for members facing questionable charges, probably due to a fear of being seen to be contributing to Labour’s supposed ‘anti-Semitism problem’.”

Ever since she threw her hat in the ring, Jennie Formby has been at the forefront of the right wing’s radar. She has been accused of “acting with anti-Semitic intent” by Labour Against Anti-Semitism – an attack which Unite has quite rightly termed a “malicious smear”. A smear which has, of course, been picked up and repeated by the entire press. She clearly feels the need to bend the stick in the other direction to have a chance of being elected. On March 3, she tweeted: Jennie Formby

But if it is true that she systematically votes to refer disciplinary cases to the NCC, that is a different matter altogether. We are told that Formby, in this instance, did not vote at all, but basically left the room repeatedly, so that she would not have to cast a vote. Apparently, all trade union representatives at that meeting (except the Transport Salaried Staff Association) voted to refer the three cases to the NCC. And, apparently, Jon Lansman voted against that.

Many members expected that, with the NEC finally having a pro-Corbyn majority, the witch-hunt would come to a swift end. But it was never going to be that easy. The civil war continues. And the fault lines are continuing to shift.

Right now Labour Party members deserve to know if Unite representatives (including Jennie Formby) do systematically vote with the right when it comes to the witch-hunt against pro-Corbyn members. If that is indeed true, it would certainly shine an entirely new light on Jennie Formby and how deserving she is of the left’s support.

Of course, in the absence of openness on such important issues, we should be careful about who is spreading news and to what purpose. After all, Len McCluskey has been very outspoken in his opposition to the ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt, so this reported behaviour by one of Unite reps is, to put it mildly, surprising.

 

References

Momentum, Witch-hunts and expulsions

What is Jon Lansman up to?

Iain McNicol gone, JLM calling the police, rumours about Ken Livingstone being reinstated … But it’s not all plain sailing for the left, warns Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists, as Jon Lansman declares he wants to run for general secretary

What a week it has been for lefties in the Labour Party.

First, there was the fallout from the establishment’s rather desperate attempt to make a spy out of Jeremy Corbyn. Not only were the claims quickly disputed by the Czech and German spy agencies – soon followed by the more serious newspapers, which had to admit that, despite their displeasure at Corbyn’s politics, it was pretty normal for politicians of all parties to meet with people employed by other states. No accusations of any substance materialised – it was nothing but hot air.

The young and ever so eager vice-chair of the Conservative Party, Ben Bradley MP, was forced to eat humble pie of rather enormous proportions after claiming that Corbyn had “sold British secrets to communist spies”. Confronted with some rather serious legal threats by Corbyn’s lawyers, he swiftly deleted his tweet and was forced to admit that he “made a seriously defamatory statement”, which “was wholly untrue and false”, and for which “I am offering my unreserved and unconditional apology to Jeremy Corbyn for the distress I have caused him”.

Worst of all – from the establishment’s point of view – is the fact that these accusations have done very little to hurt Corbyn or the Labour Party. According to a YouGov poll for The Times, only 8% of voters said that this ‘scandal’ made them “think worse” of Corbyn – and most of those are Tory voters. To 64% it made no difference; and 6% “now think better of him”. The same poll showed that Labour “extended its lead to two points”, putting it on 42%, with the Tories on 40%. Similar polls show pretty much the same picture, with Labour continuing to be ahead.1)The Times February 24

We also saw a new twist in the scandal that keeps on running: days after Jeremy Newmark stepped down as chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, the organisation stated that it had referred “certain internal financial matters” to the police. We wonder if they might just have anything to do with Newmark? But, of course, the real problem with the JLM is not financial irregularities. It is politics. The JLM is the British branch of the Zionist and racist Israeli Labor Party. As shown by the Al Jazeera programme The lobby it has played a disgraceful role, in conjunction with the Israel embassy, in the witch-hunting of socialists and pro-Corbyn activists in the Labour Party. Surely, it should not be allowed to remain a Labour affiliate.

And, of course, a certain Iain McNicol – he who once suspended a member for stating on social media, “I fucking love the Foo Fighters” – regarded Newmark’s conduct as a “private matter” and refused to open an investigation. Maybe this was the final straw for Jeremy Corbyn. Either way, we know that McNicol did not resign just to spend more time with his family or “pursue new challenges” in the labour movement. Proving perhaps that he is not quite as soft a hippie as many presumed, we understand that Corbyn paid McNicol a visit, during which he ‘convinced’ him to go, but allowed him to resign to save face. Not that McNicol has got much of a reputation left. There are rumours that he might be made a life peer in return for his overdue departure – he would certainly fit right in with that bunch of overpaid and underqualified blighters, whose main task is to ensure that elected representatives do not undermine the interests of the ruling class.

We very much agree with the statement quickly put out by Labour Against the Witchhunt, a campaign that certainly helped to heap the pressure on the now departed general secretary:

McNicol was directly in charge of the unelected and discredited compliance unit, which has purged thousands of pro-Corbyn members from the party.

We see his resignation very much as an important symbol and an integral part of our fight to radically transform the Labour Party, which is undergoing a long overdue democracy review, to which we have also contributed.

The automatic and instant expulsions and suspensions overseen by McNicol – especially those based on alleged anti-Semitism and those based on members’ alleged “support for other organisations” using rule 2.1.4.B – have brought the party into disrepute. They have prevented and discouraged new members from getting involved in party life, while valuable resources have been wasted in persecuting some of the most energetic and effective campaigners for social change.

Two days later, we read in The Observer the excellent news that Ken Livingstone’s suspension would not be renewed and that he would become a member “with full rights” when his two year suspension runs out on April 27. 2)The Observer February 25

It looked like Christine Shawcroft, as new chair of the NEC disciplinary panel, had acted swiftly. Livingstone’s suspension, like those of Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and hundreds of others, is a total injustice. Moshé Machover (among others) has proven that Livingstone was – despite some small factual inaccuracies – in essence entirely correct to claim that the Nazis and the Zionists collaborated in the 1930s. It is historically verifiable fact 3)For which comrade Machover was swiftly expelled himself before being readmitted three weeks later.

Shit hits the fan

However, since then the proverbial shit has hit the fan, proving that the civil war in the Labour Party is very much alive and well. The usual assortment of rightwingers have let it be known they would be “outraged” if Livingstone was let back in. And unfortunately Corbyn seems to have rolled over. Within hours, the national executive committee let it be known that Livingstone’s suspension would not ‘run out’ after all, but that the NEC would launch “a new enquiry into allegations of anti-Semitism” against Livingstone. Not so new, actually. The enquiry was announced 10 months ago, but never saw the light of day.

Another recent victim of the ‘anti-Semitism’ smear campaign is, of course, regular Weekly Worker contributor Tony Greenstein, who was expelled from the party on February 18 – for being rude on social media. Members of the compliance unit could not prove the original charge of anti-Semitism, so they settled on “bringing the party into disrepute” – a very stretchy and flexible charge.

As an aside, it has been quite worrying to see not only Momentum vice-chair Emina Ibrahim vote in favour of comrade Greenstein’s expulsion at his Brighton hearing – but also how many Corbyn supporters seem to find it impossible to defend comrade Greenstein, because they claim to have been so appalled by some of the things he has written. 4)Disappointingly, that also includes Free Speech on Israel: http://freespeechonisrael.org. uk/tony-greenstein-abusive-yes-acerbic-yes-not- antisemitic/#sthash.ngIOgkET.dpbs

However, one person’s rudeness is another person’s robust argument. We should also stress that in reality comrade Greenstein has not been expelled for being rude: he has been expelled because he is an ardent and very vocal supporter of the rights of the Palestinians, and a socialist to boot. Had he been less rude, chances are they would have got him under some other charge.

It briefly looked as if comrade Greenstein – with McNicol finally out of the way – might have been the last victim of the compliance unit. But the Livingstone episode proves that this is far from certain. In fact, the civil war, which has been simmering under the surface for some time, is far from over. The left has made some important advances in recent months, starting with the change in the balance of forces on the NEC. The right will not take any changes lying down and will undoubtedly become more and more vocal if and when a range of small, but overdue, improvements are introduced (many no doubt as part of the Corbyn review at this year’s annual conference).

We have seen uproar, for example, over the admittedly rather strange appointment of Andrew Murray as part-time advisor to help with the “party’s Brexit strategy”. He was, after all, a longstanding and leading member of the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain, which prides itself on pursuing a “national path to socialism”. In the run-up to the 2016 referendum, the CPB joined the deluded Left Leave or Lexit campaign to come out of the European Union 5)www.communist-party.org.uk/britain/eu/2258- leave-eu-new-group-formed-to-fight-for-an-exit- left.html – when Murray was still a member of the CPB. His appointment was always going to rile the right in the party, many of whom have gathered behind a pro-EU banner.

But Murray is Len McCluskey’s trusted chief-of-staff, a reliable source of strategic thinking for Corbyn and a close friend of Labour’s communication chief, Seamus Milne (they were both involved in supporting Straight Left, a publication that appeared to be Labourite, but was, in fact, the front for a Stalinite faction of the old CPGB). Murray, who has never hidden his sympathy for Joseph Stalin, is, of course, also the man who as chair of the Stop the War Coalition led it into some rather dodgy political waters. He went along with the barring of Hands Off the People of Iran as an affiliate. Hopi, as a matter of principle, insists that it is necessary to fight not only against the war threats of western imperialism, but also the theocracy in Iran. Murray has a soft spot for dodgy third world regimes which he considers to be ‘anti-imperialist’. Bizarrely, under his watch, STWC promoted pro-Tehran speakers at its conferences. They even boasted of the number of sex change operations notched up in  Iran – homosexuals are given the choice of being executed or undergoing surgery.

Next general secretary

Murray is, however, very unlikely to become – as has been rumoured – the next general secretary of the Labour Party. For its part, the Skwawkbox website is certain that the new general secretary “will be a woman”. The possible female candidates whose names have been leaked are Unite’s Anneliese Midgley, Labour’s governance and membership director Emilie Oldknow and the GMB union’s Lisa Johnson. The most likely female candidate, however, is Jennie Formby.

Formby is a vocal critic of Israel and a supporter of the rights of the Palestinians. On the NEC, she objected to the selection of Jan Royall to lead the investigation into anti-Semitism allegations against Labour students at Oxford University, because she was able to prove that Royall had been a member of Labour Friends of Israel, and had visited Israel in 2007. Formby was also a “prime mover behind a vote passed by the executive last November to bar the security firm G4S from tendering to handle security at Labour’s annual conference because the firm does business with Israel”, writes The Independent.

We have to admit that we do not know how Formby has voted on various political issues or disciplinary matters that have come before the NEC. She has not exactly been the most vocal leftwinger on that committee and we are far from certain that she would demand an end to the purge of organised socialists under rule 2.1.4.B, 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” and has exclusively been used against leftwingers.

But, for the time being at least, Unite supports Corbyn’s agenda. And, considering the disgraceful way in which the rightwing party bureaucracy has acted against him by purging hundreds, if not thousands, of his supporters on trumped-up charges of anti-Semitism, Formby’s appointment would send a very powerful political signal. We can certainly hope that the beginning of her tenure would mark the end of the witch-hunt.

Lansman throws his hat in the ring

Momentum owner Jon Lansman has also indicated he might throw his hat into the ring. According to the Huffington Post, he is “being urged to run”, following “claims by the right that Formby was being ‘railroaded’ through as the favoured candidate of key allies of Jeremy Corbyn”. This smacks of fake news. Run some media stories about a Palestine supporter (read, anti-Semite) and trade unionist (read, leftwinger) being a virtual shoo-in for the post, and the centre and the right will do anything to stop her. Maybe even vote for one of Corbyn’s closest allies!

However, Steve Watson, editor of Skwawkbox, is openly supporting Formby. Funnily enough, he is doing so by using exactly the argument that Lansman employs when he is trying to convince everybody to vote for one of his slates: if Lansman does not withdraw, he would be “opening the door for any rightwing candidate who decides to apply” to slip in through the middle. In this case, however, it seems pretty certain that the successful candidate will be a leftwinger broadly in line with Corbyn’s politics.  The Guardian stated on February 28 that “a late-night conference call failed to persuade the grassroots group [read Lansman] to rally around the Unite candidate” and a day later, Lansman finally declared he would run. 6)The Guardian February 28 2018

The article also states that Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell support Formby and not Lansman. That is certainly interesting. We have always presumed that Lansman acts in close cooperation with and on behalf of Jeremy Corbyn – and no doubt most of the time that is the case. However, opening up a rift with Unite is a risky strategy for Lansman. After all, Corbyn owes his position in no small measure to the direct support of Len McCluskey and his massive union machine. And Corbyn cannot afford to lose the support of the leftwing unions on the NEC.

But there is also the not insignificant matter of Momentum’s massive database. Jon Lansman literally owns the contact details of hundreds of thousands Corbyn supporters. He can urge them to support Jeremy Corbyn and the NEC – or not. And Momentum has clearly been an important tool in getting leftwingers onto the NEC, for example, and in helping mobilise supporters during elections. Corbyn will be very aware of the power that Lansman holds – and maybe he has begun to regret letting him acquire it.

The Guardian’s “senior Momentum source” claims that “Jon has proven his popularity with the membership with his recent NEC election result” and is “expected to be a popular grassroots candidate” for general secretary. But in reality Lansman likes to run things from above. He is Momentum’s Bonaparte, not its democratically elected and fully accountable servant.

*  When Lansman feared he would lose control of Momentum, he simply abolished all democratic and decision-making structures in the January 10 2017 coup. He wrote a new constitution that members had no possibility of amending. They could only vote ‘no’ or ‘yes’ in an online ballot.

* He has made no attempt to politically educate or organise members – he regards them as spear carriers, to be called out during elections or at conferences.

* Politically, Lansman is an arch-opportunist. He has given up the decades-old fight for mandatory reselection of parliamentary candidates. Instead, he is pushing the lame proposal to raise the threshold for a trigger ballot for the reselection of MPs from 50% to 66% (at present an MP needs to win a simple majority of nominations from local party branches and affiliated trade unions and socialist societies in order to become the candidate once more). This would still disproportionally favour the sitting MP: rather than allowing for a full and democratic automatic selection process before every election, a sitting MP would still have to be challenged.

* He is also playing a disgraceful role in the witch-hunt. When Jackie Walker was suspended from Labour on trumped-up charges of anti-Semitism, he quickly removed her as vice-chair of Momentum. After Ken Livingstone’s suspension, he wrote on Twitter: “A period of silence from Ken Livingstone is overdue, especially on anti-Semitism, racism and Zionism. It’s time he left politics altogether.”

*  He agreed that Momentum too would bar from membership all those expelled from the Labour Party for their alleged “support for other organisations” under rule 2.1.4.B. A rule that has been used exclusively by the right in order to throw out socialists. In a letter to Labour Against the Witchhunt’s Tony Greenstein, Lansman has come out in support of keeping the rule in Labour’s constitution.

*  In the same letter, he also states his desire to keep the disgraced and much-hated compliance unit in place – and for it to remain an appointed body, rather than have all disciplinary matters dealt with by elected representatives, who would be subject to scrutiny by Labour Party members.

Elected?

Applications for the position of general secretary are open until March 13. On March 14, the NEC officers will be putting a shortlist before a full meeting of the NEC, which will make its decision on March 20. According to the rules, party conference elects the general secretary “on the recommendation of the NEC”. But, because there is a currently a “vacancy”, the NEC has “the full power to fill the vacancy subject to the approval of party conference”.

Both scenarios lead to the same result, of course – conference has, to our knowledge, never rejected the candidate chosen by the NEC. However, many members are now demanding that the general secretary should be elected by the full membership, in an online ballot, in a method similar to the leadership election. According to The Guardian, those who favour this now include Momentum:

Sources at Momentum … said there was dissatisfaction that the role should be chosen behind closed doors by Labour’s national executive committee (NEC), which in practice would mean a deal struck between major trade unions for their preferred candidate.

Apparently, those “senior sources” said that they “may urge the leadership to change course on the appointments protocol to allow for an election of the general secretary” and that Lansman would be the perfect candidate, because “Jeremy’s style of politics is not that of backroom deals, but of open and transparent discussion, which is exactly what Jon would represent as a candidate”.

Oh sure, Jon Lansman just hates backroom deals! We wonder if he is really serious about challenging the power of the unions in the Labour Party – rather a big undertaking. Or perhaps he is suggesting a rule change on this matter because that might increase his chances.

A petition to elect the general secretary on www.change.org, which was only started a couple of days ago, already has well over a thousand signatures and is being circulated widely online. Rather ironically, it is actively supported by the initiator of an earlier petition (signed by 8,643 people), which called for McNicol to be sacked. But if the general secretary were indeed elected directly by the members, there would be no way s/he could be “sacked” by the leadership.

No, such a method is fraught with problems. Online Omov (one member, one vote) elections only appear democratic on the outside. For example, Labour members will soon be voting for nine Constituency Labour Party representatives on the new NEC. In fact, they only have one choice: to vote in favour of the nine Momentum candidates – or risk letting in a rightwinger We say the NEC should be elected by and accountable to annual conference.

Political posts responsible to the NEC should be elected by the NEC – by those in a position to know the candidate, their abilities, their political record. With such a method of election comes accountability … and recallability. Understandably, many members resent the fact that witch-hunter general McNicol was allowed to remain in  post for so long. His departure is a reflection of the changing balance of power. Once the NEC had a clear pro-Corbyn majority, McNicol’s days were numbered. His departure has precious little to do with particular events in Sandwell CLP or the position of Ann Black, as Skwawkbox reveals in one ‘exclusive’ after another. It is down to basic arithmetic.

 

References

References
↑1 The Times February 24
↑2 The Observer February 25
↑3 For which comrade Machover was swiftly expelled himself before being readmitted three weeks later.
↑4 Disappointingly, that also includes Free Speech on Israel: http://freespeechonisrael.org. uk/tony-greenstein-abusive-yes-acerbic-yes-not- antisemitic/#sthash.ngIOgkET.dpbs
↑5 www.communist-party.org.uk/britain/eu/2258- leave-eu-new-group-formed-to-fight-for-an-exit- left.html
↑6 The Guardian February 28 2018