Democracy and the Labour Party, Witch-hunts and expulsions

Has the witch-hunt climaxed?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Morality police?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Left target

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

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

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

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

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

Anti-Semitism

Morning Star: Compounding the mistake

No-one should be congratulated for the ‘Anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt in the Labour Party, says David Shearer

Last week saw a bit of a controversy in ‘official communist’ circles over the publication of an article in the Morning Star entitled ‘Rising anti-Semitism cannot be tackled without addressing Israel’s crimes’ (June 18).

The article was written by John Elder – described subsequently by the Star editors as “an external contributor” – but a couple of days later it was removed from the paper’s website following protests about its contents, which were indeed highly problematic. While Elder was adamant in his condemnation of the Israeli state for its slaughter and continuing oppression of Palestinians in Gaza, he conflated criticism of and hostility towards Israel with anti-Semitism, in exactly the same way as the Zionists do.

He talked about “developing international anti-Semitism (or anti-Israel sentiment)” and “rising anti-Semitism or anti-Israel sentiment in Britain” – as though opposition to Israel was exactly the same thing as hostility towards Jews.

According to Elder:

Unfortunately, mainstream Jewish communities everywhere – and their supporters – appear unwilling to accept the connection between developing international anti-Semitism (or anti-Israel sentiment) and Israel’s decades-long, yet still ongoing, acts of barbarism against Palestinians, and its illegal occupation and annexation of their land.

Apparently the anti-Semitism directed against such Jews

… could be because of their perpetual backing of a nation that cocks a snook at worldwide excoriation of its repeated military atrocities in Gaza, and seemingly endless UN resolutions opposed to its general conduct towards the Palestinians.

He adds:

So surely the Jewish organisations and individuals who lately were protesting about growing anti-Semitism in Britain must see that, as advocates of Israel’s historical and still unremitting brutality against Palestinians, they will inevitably be regarded by some other British nationals as being indirectly complicit in that country’s actions.

It is reasonable enough to say that those who justify or excuse the acts of an oppressor will be seen as “complicit” in those acts – and perhaps not just “indirectly” either. But stating your opposition to such people’s views has nothing whatsoever to do with anti-Semitism, whether or not the apologists are Jewish. It is a Zionist lie to suggest otherwise.

It is true that some anti-Semites justify their hatred of and prejudice against Jews by claiming that they are somehow collectively responsible for Israel’s crimes. But for a supposed leftwinger to make such a claim is a disgrace. There are many thousands of Jews who are militantly anti-Zionist – indeed amongst young Jews in particular increasing numbers no longer identify with Israel.

In fact one thing that is noteworthy about the “developing international anti-Semitism” – in Austria, Poland, Hungary, etc – is that it is totally unconnected with “Israel’s crimes”. Take Hungary, where Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party won a landslide victory in the April elections – his third such victory in alliance with the Christian Democratic KDNP.

Fidesz’s election campaign focused to a large extent on the Hungarian-born US financier, George Soros, who is Jewish. Although it was not stated overtly, the posters carrying pictures of Soros, and bearing slogans against people like him who were allegedly responsible for trying flood Hungary with Muslim migrants, strongly implied that it was all the fault of the Jews.

At one rally Orbán said of his political opponents: “They are not national, but international; they do not believe in work, but speculate with money; they have no homeland, but feel that the whole world is theirs.” Once again, he did not say so explicitly, but the language used – reminiscent of anti-Jewish conspiracy theorists -was pointing the finger at Jews and alleged Jewish sympathisers within the opposition parties.

This is the same Viktor Orbán who has described former Hungarian regent and notorious Nazi collaborator Miklós Horthy as an “exceptional statesman”. Yet Fidesz is pro-Israel – last year Orbán invited Binyamin Netanyahu to visit Budapest and the Israeli prime minister was delighted to accept.

But such pro-Israel sentiments among anti-Semites are not unique to Hungary and other European states. They have actually been a feature of the far right in Britain too. So there is virtually no connection between “rising anti-Semitism” and “Israel’s crimes”.

And what about that phrase – “rising anti-Semitism”? Elder says he is opposed to Zionists in the Labour Party, together with groups like the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Alliance, but plays into their hands not only by conflating opposition to Israel with anti-Semitism, but by appearing to admit that anti-Semitism is increasing in Britain, particularly within Labour.

To be fair to Elder, he talks about the “apparent anti-Semitism within Labour Party ranks and emerging in the population at large”, and what the BoD and JLA “considered to be anti-Semitic conduct by some of Labour’s members”. He also says that, even during last month’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, “Their attention remained focused on Labour and, also, on what they believed to be rising anti-Semitism in Britain itself” (my emphasis).

However, while it is true that the headline was no doubt chosen by the editors, caveats like those emphasised above are omitted in other parts of the article, such as when he talks about the “pressure on the Labour Party and its leadership to stamp out anti-Semitism within its ranks and take action against the perpetrators”. And, most notably, when he writes: “… no amount of protestations about the symptoms of rising anti-Semitism or anti-Israel sentiment in Britain and elsewhere will end the problem until its root cause – Israel’s criminal behaviour – is dealt with” (preferably by the United Nations, he thinks).

Anti-Corbyn

As I have already noted, it is ludicrous to describe “Israel’s criminal behaviour” as the “root cause” of anti-Semitism, “rising” or not. However, Elder’s article provided the minority of sympathisers for the Labour ‘anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt within the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain with a golden opportunity. Foremost among them is Mary Davis, who demanded that Ken Livingstone’s weekly column in the Star be immediately terminated following his remarks in 2016 about the collaboration between the early Nazi government and German Zionists, for which he was suspended. Thankfully, the editors – and, presumably, the CPB leadership – rejected her demands.

But now Davis took up the opportunity in the shape of an article penned jointly with Phil Katz, entitled ‘Jews and all citizens should be encouraged to challenge actual and existing anti-Semitism’ (June 20).

They say of the Elder article: “Its rationale – that Jews everywhere are responsible for the actions of the Israeli government – is by reverse exactly the argument put forward by the Israeli government and rightwing Zionists.” This is basically correct. But things go rapidly downhill from there.

They continue:

What is alarming about current-day anti-Semitism is that it continues to use the same themes that have been used to stigmatise and justify genocide of the Jews for centuries. And, where the Labour Party is forced to confront hundreds of cases and act on them, it can hardly be “apparent” …

The Labour Party should be applauded for taking anti-Semitism seriously and dealing with it robustly. To say anti-Semitism isn’t an issue, is a conspiracy to bring down Jeremy Corbyn or that no British Jew can challenge anti-Semitism without being called an apologist for genocide is a dangerous path.

So who in the Labour Party has been disciplined for using “the same themes that have been used to stigmatise and justify genocide of the Jews for centuries”? Nobody at all. No-one has been accused of stating that Jews are money-grabbing self-seekers or part of an international conspiracy to control the world. Like Livingstone they have mainly been accused of making anti-Zionist statements that are allegedly “offensive”. It is true that many Zionists will take offence when reminded of their co-thinkers’ collaboration with the Nazis, but it is not anti-Semitic to point to such historical facts.

And what about the claim that Labour has been “forced to confront hundreds of cases and act on them”? As far as I know, only one person has actually been disciplined specifically for alleged anti-Semitism. It is true that many others originally faced spurious ‘anti-Semitic’ charges, just like Livingstone, but in just about every case the charge was eventually changed, as it was with him, to “bringing the party into disrepute”, using unpleasant language, and so on.

If there were numerous instances of actual anti-Semitism within the Labour Party, then of course it would be “an issue” that should be taken “seriously”. But I’m afraid such allegations have been used precisely as part of the anti-Corbyn campaign, which does aim to eventually “bring down” the leader.

Anyway, the day after the Davis-Katz article was published, the Star carried ‘An apology’ on the front page (June 21). This stated that the Elder piece had “crossed a line” and should not have been published – now “This article has been removed from the website”. The editors had “failed to vet with the care necessary on a subject of such importance”, and now “we have reinforced editorial procedures and oversight to ensure this error is not repeated”. To be honest, it is not unusual for the Star to publish worthless pieces, but it is unusual for such pieces to be taken down from the website.

Surely, having made the mistake of publishing it, it would have been better to leave it in place, so that readers could judge for themselves whether it had indeed “crossed a line” and learn the appropriate lessons. Removing it was actually compounding the mistake. But what about the Davis-Katz piece? Was that all right? The Star claims over and over again that it is on Corbyn’s side, yet it publishes an article (not a letter) which upholds one of the main weapons used against him.

Democracy and the Labour Party

Problems with playing the ‘long game’

It is not often we listen to Labour deputy leader Tom Watson with interest. But in an interview this week he reminded us that the civil war in the Labour Party is very much alive and kicking.

He simply cannot understand that his former flatmate, Unite leader Len McCluskey, seems to have turned his back on him. “Sadly, we fell out over that week when Jeremy went into the second leadership election, and I’ve not spoken to him since that week.”

“When Jeremy went into the second leadership election”… well, that is certainly an interesting way of describing a full-on coup, which had none other than Tom Watson among its instigators, of course. And just because of that silly little coup his old mate McCluskey is apparently now “coming for me”:

He’s powerful enough, if he wants to take me out as deputy leader, he probably could, but that’s up to him. They’re upping their delegates and all of that. I’m just going to get on and try to bring everyone back together and do what I can, as best I can.

Sure you are, Tom. You’re all about unity. And just like the rest of the right wing in the party, you tend to appeal for it when your own career prospects might be under threat.

Watson seems to say that McCluskey is getting his own Unite troops ready to challenge him for his role as deputy leader. Just like for leader of the party, there are no regular elections for deputy leader. The incumbent either has to die, resign – or be challenged.

Of course – and Watson knows this very well – affiliated unions play no role at all when it comes to such a challenge. Potential candidates need the support of “20% of combined Commons members of the Parliamentary Labour Party and members of the European Parliamentary Labour Party” before they can make it onto the ballot paper.

So the fact that Unite is “upping their delegates and all of that” has no relevance to there being an active challenger to Tom Watson – or not (needless to say, in our view there definitely should be a challenge – the man is a rightwing backstabber par excellence). Rather Watson is speaking here as a kind of representative of the whole ‘moderate’ right in the party and particularly in the PLP. There have indeed been moves by a number of unions and affiliated organisations to increase the number of branches affiliated to local CLPs – and not just by the left. The Jewish Labour Movement, for example, has approached pretty much all CLPs. The difficulty these national affiliates have is proving that they indeed “have members who are registered as electors within the constituency”, which is the main requirement for local affiliation.1)Labour Party rulebook 2018, chapter 7, clause III, point 2. See http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Labour-Party-Rule-Book-Labour-Party-2018-Rule-Book.pdf.

Once they are affiliated to a CLP, those local affiliates could play an important role in the highly undemocratic trigger ballot – currently the only way that you can get rid of an MP. If the sitting MP wants to stand again, all the constituency’s Labour Party branches and its local affiliates have a single vote each. Each branch and each affiliate is counted equally, irrespective of the number of its members. If a simple majority of branches/affiliates votes ‘yes’, the sitting MP automatically becomes the official candidate. A full selection procedure only takes place if a majority of branches/affiliates votes ‘no’ at this stage. Then, every Labour Party member casts a vote (the affiliated organisations are not involved at this stage of the process).

Reselection

In other words, Tom Watson is warning Len McCluskey not to challenge rightwing MPs like himself on a local level. His intervention is no doubt also designed to see off the lame proposal for a slight reform of the trigger ballot procedure. Despite the fact that Jon Lansman has campaigned for the mandatory reselection of parliamentary candidates for decades (it was, after all, the main demand of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, in which he played a leading role), he has now dropped it and merely calls for raising the threshold from 50% to 66% – ie, two-thirds of the local branches and affiliates have to vote ‘yes’ to a sitting MP, otherwise a full selection process begins.

But this still disproportionately favours 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. Lansman’s tinkering would merely restore the trigger ballot to what it was when it was introduced by Neil Kinnock in 1990 in order to curb the power of the unions, before Tony Blair reduced it to today’s 50%. Lansman here appears to be following the lead of Jeremy Corbyn, who has declared that nowadays he is not in favour of mandatory reselection.

In this context, we are very pleased to see a much more radical rule change going forward to this year’s conference from International Labour – the party unit to which party members living abroad belong. IL is putting a deal of energy and effort into publicising the motion, no doubt in order to stop it from being ruled out of order, or batted aside by the conference arrangements committee in favour of Jon Lansman’s lame proposal.

The rule change by IL simply removes the whole trigger ballot process. While the trade unions currently have no role in the local selection process of parliamentary candidates, this would also remove their role in potentially blocking reselection. Having said that, it is clearly a huge and important step in the right direction towards transforming Labour into a real party of labour. MPs must become truly accountable to the membership.

Unite actually voted in favour of mandatory reselection at the union’s policy conference in 2017. The motion read:

MPs have not got ‘jobs for life’. They represent their constituency, but ultimately they are selected by and accountable to their Constituency Labour Party. To ensure democratic accountability and the rights of party members to select candidates that reflect their views, conference supports the need for mandatory reselection of Labour MPs in each parliament as essential.

Should Len McCluskey get behind IL’s motion, there is a real chance it might actually go through.

LRC and Gordon

Unfortunately, Jeremy Corbyn is still trying to appease the right in the party. Presumably, he thinks of himself as playing the long game, in which he will eventually emerge as prime minister, running a leftwing Labour government and bringing to fruition his neo-Keynesian, nationalist programme. Strategically, he is therefore trying to concentrate on ‘bread and butter issues’ like the NHS and austerity, while ‘sitting out’ more complex questions like democratisation, as well as Brexit, etc.

When it comes to even more tricky questions like the fabricated ‘anti-Semitism’ scandal in the party, he has chosen the path of least resistance: he says he will deal with the ‘problem’. So having replaced general secretary Iain McNicol with the more leftwing Jennie Formby, she was told to put on a show of combating anti-Semitism and not to object when Labour members are suspended or expelled on trumped-up charges.

His appointment of Gordon Nardell as ‘in-house QC’ to deal with disciplinary matters looks similarly good on paper. Nardell is a founding member of the Labour Representation Committee, where he was tasked, among other things, with rewriting the organisation’s disciplinary procedures. Nardell has come under quite a lot of scrutiny from the rightwing media and has quickly deleted his social media accounts – not quickly enough, mind. He has been ‘outed’ as having been a Facebook friend of Tony Greenstein (who cannot recall ever meeting or communicating with him) and having made a couple of comments in support of Jackie Walker.

The Labour Party has also confirmed that in his new job Nardell will be working with the definition of anti-Semitism published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance – but not the 11 examples that come with it, as an outraged Jewish Chronicle reports. The examples are, of course, the crux of the matter, as they conflate criticism of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitism.

There has been a lot of confusion over this definition and which part was adopted at last year’s Labour conference. The Jewish Labour Movement claimed that the party accepted the definition plus the examples, and the Board of Deputies has tried to get Jeremy Corbyn to confirm that. Marc Wadsworth’s disciplinary hearing even had to be adjourned so that Labour Party lawyers could go away and find out what the party had adopted.

In a sense, of course, this is pretty academic – it all depends on who is enforcing the rules and to what purpose. Marc Wadsworth, we should remember, was not expelled for anti-Semitism, but for the catch-all crime of “bringing the party into disrepute”. But it is an important and very welcome sign that Nardell has come out in opposition to the IHRA examples.

We welcome Nardell’s appointment and hope that he – and Corbyn – will stand firm against the ongoing smear campaign against him and his ‘friends’, even if they are mere online acquaintances. By endorsing what could be viewed as a highly political appointment, Corbyn does, of course, implicitly acknowledge that there is a civil war going on. It is just that he is trying to win it by stealth, rather than having the argument out in the open. That is a very dangerous game.

For example, Corbyn probably thinks he is being clever by meeting with the Board of Deputies without making any public concessions. But the mere fact he has met them – and at the same time continues to refuse to meet the comrades from Jewish Voice for Labour – means that he has given way politically.

He says nothing about Jackie Walker, Tony Greenstein, Marc Wadsworth and the hundreds of others. He says nothing when Stan Keable is sacked from his job by a Labour-run council for stating that the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazi regime – a historical, if inconvenient, fact. He says nothing even when his old comrades and allies, Christine Shawcroft and Ken Livingstone, are in the firing line – quite the opposite. He urges them to resign. He has, therefore, become complicit in the right’s campaign against his own supporters.

But, no matter how many more pawns he sacrifices in this long game, he is very unlikely to win it. Even if Corbyn should become the next prime minister (and it is a big if, for a number of reasons) he would still be surrounded by a PLP whose members are mostly sworn enemies. In fact, the methods used against ‘prime minister Corbyn’ – if he were permitted to get that far – would make the ‘anti-Semitism’ smear campaign look pretty tame. Why on earth would the PLP suddenly shut up and support Corbyn? Under these circumstances, it is a self-defeating and utterly hopeless strategy to seek ‘unity’ with the right – the last three years have demonstrated that they are not about to give up.

References

References
↑1 Labour Party rulebook 2018, chapter 7, clause III, point 2. See http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Labour-Party-Rule-Book-Labour-Party-2018-Rule-Book.pdf.
Momentum

Momentum: No politics, please

The July 15 ‘Momentum national conference’ will be a very special one, reports Carla Roberts: no motions, elections or decision-making of any kind

Labour Party Marxists is very much looking forward to the “Momentum national conference” on July 15 in Durham. We have prepared motions on how to transform the Labour Party, will be fielding a couple of candi-dates in the elections to the national coordinating group and are making preparations to intervene in the open and frank policy discussions that will determine Momentum’s campaigning priorities in the next 12 months.

Sorry, I’m only pulling your leg. Momentum conferences are rather more special than the tedious events of the past, where delegates sat around all day, talked, argued and – you know – made decisions. Bo-ring. We can leave all of those things safely in the hands of Jon Lansman, the founder, owner and self-crowned king of Momentum.

There will be no motions, no position papers, no elections and certainly no decisions taken in Durham. The Momentum website also describes the event (rather more honestly) as a “summer gathering” and that about sums it up. It has three aims: to help participants “get skilled up” by attending “training sessions”; “get to know other Momentum supporters”; and “celebrate everything we’ve achieved”. And that is all in terms of public information on the event. There is not even a timetable or a speakers list available. As if to underline how unimportant this ‘conference’ really is, just look at the date: it actually takes place on the same day as the football World Cup final (kick-off 4pm).

No doubt, there will be dozens of young and keen Momentum interns handing out leaflets about the event to the 200,000 or so people participating in the annual Durham Miners Gala on the day before. And you might even get a couple of hundred people coming to next day’s event.

But it is, of course, not a conference. After all, just a few weeks before Momentum was to have its first, real conference in 2017 (with motions, elections and everything), Jon Lansman simply abolished it all at a stroke. During the now infamous Lansman coup of January 10 2017, he got rid of all national and regional decision-making structures in the organisation, cancelled the conference, imposed an undemocratic constitution and organisational structures, and installed himself as the unchallengeable leader of his little realm.

Many Momentum branches collapsed as a result of the coup or in the months following it. In other areas, rightwingers and councillors have begun to join and are now often dominating Momentum to make sure their career in the party is safe. The organisation’s database of well over 100,000 Corbyn supporters means that in some areas it can help swing election results by mobilising supporters to come out and campaign (or not). It also played a useful role at last year’s Labour Party conference when it got leftwing delegates to vote along broadly pro-Corbyn lines, by sending them text messages before important votes. But Jon Lansman will not allow Momentum to do more than that: members are simply seen as voting fodder, used to push through the decisions and policies that Jon Lansman wants to see implemented (which most of the time coincide with what Jeremy Corbyn wants).

For example, there is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of Corbyn supporters and Momentum members support the demand for mandatory reselection of parliamentary candidates. It is an eminently democratic, long-standing demand of the Labour left. A real, democratic conference of Momentum members (or delegates) would in all likelihood vote in favour of such a basic democratic measure – but it would put the organisation very quickly in direct confrontation with Jeremy Corbyn, who is stubbornly persisting in his misguided attempts to try and appease the Labour right.

Such a real democratic gathering of the Labour left might even make criticisms of Corbyn’s complicit silence, when it comes to the witch-hunt against his supporters in the party. In other words, a genuinely democratic organisation of Labour left members would actually put pressure on Corbyn to start behaving like the socialist they were hoping he was.

That is why Momentum will not go down that road. Instead, Jon Lansman decides its policies and shamelessly manipulates its “digital democracy platform” to get exactly the results he wants (as was the case when Labour Against the Witchhunt almost succeeded in submitting a ‘winning’ proposal to Momentum’s input to the Corbyn review).

Political debate and discussion in Momentum are far from being an integral, organic part of the organisation – they are merely tacked on as a way to recruit people. Which is probably also why, somewhat interestingly, Lansman feels the need to describe this July 15 event as a “conference”. There clearly is a huge democratic deficit – not just in society, but also in the Labour Party. People who have been inspired by what they believe Jeremy Corbyn stands for actually want to talk about politics and how to change society. So Jon Lansman throws them some rather pathetic scraps.

For now, he has succeed in outsourcing political discussion to training sessions and events like ‘The World Transformed’, where people can talk about anything and everything, without ever coming to any decisions that could threaten the position of Jon Lansman, or publicly criticise Jeremy Corbyn.

People, Pits and Politics

The People, Pits and Politics event is very much part of that apolitical culture. This two-day event takes place just before the Miners’ Gala. In general, it is a pretty nifty initiative to set up an educational political event prior to one of Europe’s biggest political gatherings (even if the vast majority of the visitors at the Durham Miners Gala are not necessarily Corbyn supporters or even interested in politics – it is very much a family day out with a huge fair and lots and lots of booze).

We read with great concern, however, the following paragraph in the long list of ‘terms and conditions’ for participants at People, Pits and Politics:

“No literature or other products may be sold or distributed, no flyers handed out or placed on seats, no papers sold, in any festival venues without prior written permission of the festival organisers. Breaking this rule will invalidate your ticket, and you will be asked to surrender your wristband and leave.”

This deeply sectarian move is clearly aimed at the organised left – sellers of Socialist Worker, The Socialist, etc, and those pesky Labour Party Marxists who ruin everybody’s fun by handing out their paper that talks about transforming the Labour Party. Yawn!

A political festival without political discussion, in other words. Well, that sounds very much like our Jon. And, while the event is kept quite separate from Momentum’s ‘conference’ (presumably in order to reach further in terms of its potential audience), it is very obvious that the speakers, organisers and political/organisational methods of both events will be pretty similar.

The main organiser of the PPP event is Jamie Driscoll. He is also the sole director of the limited company set up in January for the sole purpose of organising the event (another hint that Jon Lansman is involved – he just loves setting up, renaming and closing down companies, as a quick glance at Company House’s database shows).

Driscoll is author of a book called The way of the activist and founder of ‘Talk Socialism’, which organises training workshops and reading groups, particularly around Newcastle. He is also chair of Newcastle Momentum and in December 2016 organised “Momentum’s first regional conference” in the city. We believe  it was Momentum’s only regional conference to date, maybe because its main claim to fame was the fact that it was addressed by socialist stalwarts such as Nick Brown, Chi Onwurah, Emma Lewell-Buck and Ian Mearns. They are all local MPs, in case some of their names did not ring a bell.

At Momentum’s “inaugural conference” on March 25 2017 in Birmingham, Driscoll was one of those called upon by Lansman to run the various workshops. I am sure he and his comrades at Talk Socialism have the best intentions at heart and are seriously committed to changing society. But a problem arises when those types of ‘workshops’ of that type are used to substitute for proper political debate and decision-making. Here is how we reported about that particular ‘conference’, which will no doubt have been very similar to what comrades can expect in Durham:

Labour Party Marxists supporters attended workshops that were run by The World Transformed, Talk Socialism and even Hope Not Hate. They were clearly based on ‘training sessions’ that these organisations run on a relatively frequent basis – utterly devoid of any real politics, focusing only on ‘method’ and run by young, overly eager people who reminded me of Duracell bunnies.

They included icebreakers like telling the person sitting next to you what you had for breakfast, shouting “one-word answers” about what you liked or disliked about the European Union ‘leave’ or ‘remain’ campaigns and writing “objectives” on paper plates, then sticking post-it notes onto a flipchart grid. You get the drift. It was really, really grim. Worst of all – any of these workshops could just as easily have been presented to Progress or Labour First.

Having said all of that, Driscoll does not seem to be a mere Lansman stooge. He signed an open letter against the expulsion from the Labour Party of Ella Thorp, a supporter of the Alliance of Workers’ Liberty. According to Lansman’s Momentum constitution, that also bars her from Momentum membership.

That is another decision that would probably be quickly overturned at any real, democratic conference of Momentum members.

Democracy and the Labour Party

And then they came for the LRC…

John McDonnell has a political history, writes Carla Roberts. But, unfortunately, not much in the way of a backbone

The Sunday Telegraph has a scoop: It has “emerged”, the paper writes, that shadow chancellorJohn McDonnell is the president of theLabour Representation Committee.1)Sunday Telegraph June 3 2018 And The Jewish Chronicle is so impressed that it copied the article almost word for word.

Having made such a major discovery, the Torygraph thinks that McDonnell’s position is simply untenable. It quotes usual suspect John Mann MP, who calls on McDonnell to resign from the LRC (we will get to Mann later).

Why? Because, on the one hand, McDonnell said he would follow Jeremy Corbyn in rooting out anti-Semitism from the Labour Party. After all, has he not just promised former Labour councillor and campaigns officer of the rightwing Jewish Labour Movement, Adam Langleben (who inexplicably lost his seat in Barnet after ranting and raving for months against the terrible level of anti-Semitism in the party), that he would “call out hard-left news websites if they promote conspiratorial and anti-Semitic stories”? (As an aside, Jewish Voice for Labour, on the other hand, has been trying unsuccessfully for almost a year now to secure a meeting with either McDonnell or Corbyn.)

But McDonnell cannot fool the eagled-eyed investigative journalists of the Telegraph so easily, who diligently managed to dig out McDonnell’s association with the LRC (which only goes back to the refounding of the organisation in, oh, 2004 – a mere 14 years). The problem, as far as the Telegraph is concerned, is that the LRC dares to come out in defence of Labour Party members who have been unjustly suspended and expelled over the last two years: to the LRC’s credit, there are numerous articles and statements on its website defending Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and Stan Keable.

In the words of the Telegraph, the LRC is “campaigning for Labour figures accused of anti-Semitism”. It quotes an unnamed Labour MP: “Jeremy Corbyn says one thing on anti-Semitism, but his cheerleaders say quite another. This isn’t a good look for Jeremy or John McDonnell, as it makes what they’re saying on anti-Semitism look quite insincere.”

Needless to say, our fearless investigators fail to mention the fact that none of those “accused of anti-Semitism” and defended by the LRC have actually been subject to discipline for that offence. Had Ken Livingstone not resigned, he would undoubtedly have been expelled under the charge of “bringing the party into disrepute”. The same catch-all phrase has been used to get rid of Marc Wadsworth and Tony Greenstein. Stan Keable, secretary of Labour Against the Witchhunt, has been expelled from the party for his association with Labour Party Marxists – and sacked from his job for – you guessed it – “bringing the council into disrepute”. Jackie Walker, when her case is finally heard, will in all likelihood also be charged under the same clause.

Of course, it is true that all those comrades have been accused of anti-Semitism – by the right in the party, the pro-Israel lobby and the mainstream media. Falsely accused, that is. But never charged with it. Because the charge would never hold up – not even in front of Labour’s highly politicised kangaroo court, the national constitutional committee, which is still dominated by the right and chaired by Maggie Cosin, “a leading force in Labour First”,  according to investigative journalist Asa Winstanley of the award-winning Electronic Intifada.

None of the comrades have said anything even remotely anti-Semitic. Marc Wadsworth criticised Ruth Smeeth MP, who happens to be Jewish. Stan Keable and Ken Livingstone pointed out the historically verifiable fact that the early Nazi government and the Zionist Federation of Germany signed the infamous Ha’avara transfer agreement in 1933. Even Tony Greenstein, who has used the word ‘Zio’ – which Jeremy Corbyn and Jon Lansman now want to ban as representing an expression of the rather mythical “new anti-Semitism” – was booted out not for anti-Semitism, but basically for being rude.

As if it were out to highlight the deeply irrational nature of the ongoing witch-hunt, the Telegraph in its article quotes at length John Mann MP. He pretends to be simply outraged by this particular paragraph in the LRC’s statement on Ken Livingstone:

When we consider political pygmies like John Mann and Wes Streeting accusing Ken of anti-Semitism, it is worth asking oneself, ‘What have these people ever done in their lives to advance the cause of Labour’? Livingstone has done quite a lot.

Mann complains not about the correct observation that rightwingers like himself seem chiefly interested in damaging the Corbyn-led Labour Party rather than building it. Instead, he now considers “filing a formal complaint” against the LRC over its “appalling racist language”. You see he is apparently also the “chairman of the parliamentary group on the Great Lakes of Africa”. In this very important role, he has managed to meet real pygmies and knows what they go through. Anybody using “this racist insult should hang their heads in shame, and be expelled from the Labour Party. I am sure John McDonnell will want to resign immediately”.

I must confess, I did laugh out loud when I first read this. This is such a monumentally stupid charge, it almost beggars belief the Telegraph would print such nonsense. However, the LRC steering committee has now changed the phrase “political pygmies” to “self-publicists”.  It has done this without any explanation, as far as I know – a missed opportunity in our view to criticise the outrageous hypocrisy of John Mann, who, as everybody knows, could not give a hoot about really fighting racism.

Clearly, this is part and parcel of painting Jeremy Corbyn and his allies as a bunch of cranks and anti-Semites that can never be trusted to reliably run capitalism. In this case, they are trying the old trick of guilt by association.

Grow a backbone

In other words, this latest attack by the Telegraph was a splendid opportunity for John McDonnell to come out and defend his party against the lazy and politically motivated charge of anti-Semitism. A chance to proudly stand up for his comrades in the LRC. A chance to speak out against the ever-increasing witch-hunt in the party and wider society. And perhaps even a chance to grow a backbone.

But, of course, we knew he would do no such thing. His response has been as disappointing as is now expected of him and the rest of the  Labour leadership (actually, it could be worse: he might still resign his long-held post in the LRC, but we doubt he will). His spokesman half-heartedly tried to dismiss the story, stating that McDonnell was “just an honorary president of the LRC, and played no role in the content or decision-making process of the organisation”.

Well, he actually helped set up the LRC. And he used to be chair, that is until Jeremy Corbyn made him shadow chancellor in 2015, when he was replaced by Matt Wrack, leader of the Fire Brigades Union.

But unfortunately, rather than stand with their LRC comrades in openly opposing the witch-hunt against the Labour left, McDonnell and the Labour leadership continue to give credence to the lie that the party has a huge problem with anti-Semitism. Yes, there are a few crackpot anti-Semites in the party. Just as there are sexists, racists and there may also be a few paedophiles. Statistically speaking, it would be virtually impossible for a party of almost 600,000 not to have members whose views are unacceptable. Such a huge membership simply cannot but reflect some of the prejudices that exist in today’s society.

That is why Jeremy Corbyn’s promise of enforcing a “zero tolerance” policy towards anti-Semitism is so wrong-headed.   Firstly, taken to its logical conclusion it means a system of intimidation and thought control. Secondly, it is just politically wrong. The way to fight backward ideas is not to throw out anybody who makes a stupid, racist, sexist or nationalistic comment. But by education, by open debate and thorough discussion. The opposite of what is happening in the party today, in other words. Many comrades are now scared of discussing anything contentious, out of fear of coming onto the radar of the witch-finders and having their reputation and livelihood ruined in the process.

Unfortunately, Jeremy Corbyn has to take a fair share of the blame for this McCarthyite atmosphere. After all, it is only the continued policy of trying to appease the right and the pro-Israel lobby emanating from the Labour leader’s office that has given the ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ narrative the traction it now has. Once the media found that Corbyn was willing to give ground, it kept piling on the pressure with one ridiculous accusation after the other.

For over two years, the Labour leadership has been sitting on the report into anti-Semitism produced by Shami Chakrabarti. Despite the despicable role the lawyer has played in forcing Ken Livingstone out of the Labour Party, her recommendations, at least when it comes to due process and natural justice, would have led to the exoneration of pretty much all those recently expelled. The cases of Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein and Jackie Walker come to mind.

But Corbyn seems to have been advised that it is best to get rid of those ‘problematic’ cases first, before he green-lights the long overdue reform of Labour’s disciplinary process. This is both cowardly and foolish. The right will not give up, but will continue to throw everything they have at him.

For the right and the pro-Israel lobby, the treatment meted out to Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein, Stan Keable and all the other victims of the witch-hunt is not primarily about those individuals. They will fight tooth and nail to stop the transformation of the Labour Party into a democratic, anti-imperialist, working class party that will resist the drive for yet another devastating war in the Middle East.

For us on the left, these victimised comrades need to be publicly and vigorously defended with every available weapon at our disposal. We will defend them alongside comrades from the LRC, Labour Against the Witchhunt, Jewish Voice for Labour and all other groups that fight against unjust suspensions and expulsions from the Labour Party.

But which side are John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn on?

References

References
↑1 Sunday Telegraph June 3 2018
Democracy and the Labour Party

A very British cover-up

Conspiracies do happen, as the Jeremy Thorpe scandal proves. And Eddie Ford reckons the establishment might also conspire against Jeremy Corbyn in the event of a Labour victory

The world does not operate according to diabolical plots hatched by small, sinister cabals. Having said that, conspiracies do happen – attempts are made to make something happen that serves the interests of this or that person, group, lobby or body. After all, someone tried to kill the Skripals in Salisbury, whether it was the Russian or Ukrainian ‘security services’, SBU (Security Service of Ukraine), MI5 or some other actor. Somebody, somewhere conspired to bring that event about. Then there is the ‘murdered’ Russian journalist, Arkady Babchenko, turning up very alive at a press conference in Kiev – again, someone conspired to pull that particular hare-brained stunt. Things are not always what they seem, and the fact that some crackpots believe that too does not necessarily make it untrue.

Which brings us neatly to the recent three-part BBC mini-series premiered on May 20, A very English scandal, starring Hugh Grant as Jeremy Thorpe and Ben Whishaw as Norman Scott. The title of the drama, written by Russell T Davies, was perhaps a nod in the direction of Chris Mullin’s influential A very British coup. The last episode, aired on June 3, was directly followed on BBC4 by a documentary made by BBC veteran journalist Tom Mangold, entitled The Jeremy Thorpe scandal. In 1979, Mangold was the Panorama reporter who led an investigation into the trial of Jeremy Thorpe and others for the conspiracy to kill Thorpe’s former lover from the early 1960s, Norman Scott – that was when homosexual acts were illegal, of course. Therefore any disclosure about his relationship with “Bunnies”, his pet name for Scott, would have ended Thorpe’s seemingly glittering political career.

Convinced that the former Liberal Party leader would be found guilty, as was everybody else, a special Panorama post-trial programme was prepared – but had to be hastily scrapped when the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on Thorpe and the other defendants, with the BBC’s director-general of the time ordering that all copies be destroyed. Wisely, Mangold kept a copy. Edited and updated with new information about a fresh 2015 inquiry by Gwent police, which was dropped two years later under slightly mysterious circumstances, Mangold clearly shows how powerful political forces right at the top of the British establishment tried to protect Jeremy Thorpe, who was considered one of their own, being Eton and Oxford-educated and all the rest of it.

The programme featured fascinating interviews from 1979 with Norman Scott, chief prosecution witness and former Liberal Party MP for Bodmin Peter Bessell, and Andrew ‘Gino’ Newton, the hit man. Newton, as shown grippingly in the drama, shot dead Scott’s Great Dane dog on Bodmin Moor in 1975 and then tried to kill Scott too, but fortunately for the latter the gun jammed and he is still alive today to tell the tale – unlike Jeremy Thorpe who died in 2014 after suffering for decades with Parkinson’s disease.

In my view A very English scandal was superb – everybody should watch it. Hugh Grant’s performance as Thorpe was almost uncanny in the way it perfectly captured the Liberal leader’s physical mannerisms and personality – what an actor: it could have been Thorpe himself staring languidly at you from the TV screen. Ben Whishaw was also excellent – even if Scott, now 78, apparently “hates” the way he was portrayed as a “mincing weakling” (not how it came across to me when I watched the show: rather he seemed quite a resilient character).

For readers of an older generation – or perhaps students of comedy – one of the main memories of this affair is Peter Cook’s brilliant 1979 sketch, ‘Entirely a matter for you’, ruthlessly satirising judge Joseph Cantley’s notoriously biased closing remarks to the jury. Needless to say, those remarks were a near pristine example of the ‘old boy network’ at work, not to mention general class prejudice and bigotry. According to Cantley, Scott had a “warped personality” and was an “accomplished sponger”, “crook”, “fraud”, “proven liar”, “whiner”, “parasite” and, of all things, a “male model”. Enough said.

The judge did not think much of Peter Bessell either: he was a “humbug” whose entire evidence was a “a tissue of lies” because he had signed a “deplorable” contract with The Sunday Telegraph for the serialisation rights of his memoirs and his fee of £25,000 would double were Thorpe to be convicted. But Thorpe, on the other hand, in the judge’s opinion, was a fine man of “hitherto unblemished reputation” and a “national figure with a very distinguished public record” – why would he consort with low-life such as Scott?

‘Judge’ Peter Cook’s summing-up said it all, when he instructed the jury “now to retire … to carefully consider your verdict of not guilty”. In denial almost right to the very end, it seems, Thorpe told The Guardian in January 2008 that if his affair with “Bunnies” happened now, “I think the public would be kinder”. In other words, he was no longer denying that the two had had a homosexual affair, but he did not even mention, let alone express any remorse about, conspiring to murder his ex-lover. You would almost believe that he was the victim, not Scott.

Context

Returning to the main point, the entire Jeremy Thorpe scandal clearly represents an extensive cover-up – or conspiracy, if you prefer. Obviously this did not just involve leading figures in the Liberal Party, but also the Tory government at the time – especially the then home secretary, the infamous Reginald Maudling.

Scott told his story in May 1971 to Emlyn Hooson (chairman of the Liberal Party in Wales and MP for Montgomeryshire) and a certain David Steel, later to become the Liberal leader. An internal party inquiry was set up, chaired by Lord Byers, the leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords. However, at the inquiry Byers became immediately hostile to Scott – who felt “like a boy at school up before the headmaster” (Byers remarked, judge Cantley-style, that Scott was a “common blackmailer” who needed “psychiatric help”). The inquiry then questioned police officers about the extremely intimate “Bunnies” letters sent by Thorpe to Scott early in their friendship. The police claimed in 1962 that they were “inconclusive” – even though they were nothing of the sort. Thorpe persuaded Maudling, and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, John Waldron, to inform Byers that there was “no police interest” in Thorpe’s activities and no evidence of wrongdoing on his part. As a result, very conveniently, the inquiry dismissed Scott’s allegations.

In order to fully understand the Jeremy Thorpe story, it is vital to remember the wider political context. Thorpe’s personal standing was greatly enhanced in March 1973 when he married Marion, countess of Harewood, whose former husband was a first cousin to the queen. More importantly still, the general election of February 1974 saw the party winning six million votes and 14 seats, putting them in a strong position because the election had resulted in a hung parliament. In subsequent negotiations, Thorpe was to be offered a cabinet post by Conservative prime minister Edward Heath, if he would bring the party into a coalition – junior ministries would be allocated to other senior Liberals. Many people at the time thought that Thorpe was an absolute shoo-in for deputy prime minister – an early Nick Clegg, but with more gravitas.

Meaning that in this period Jeremy Thorpe was very well connected and potentially a very important mover and shaker – maybe even a kingmaker. No way could a “parasite” like Norman Scott be allowed to upset the establishment’s plans to ensure political stability. Hence they rallied to defend Thorpe and that carried on into the 1979 court case, and beyond. Always stick together, old boy.

The Gwent police’s re-investigation of the case in 2015 was eventually dropped because Andrew Newton was apparently dead. But where was the death certificate? With the BBC drama, plus a Mail on Sunday ‘exclusive’ on June 3, revealing that Newton – just like Arkady Babchenko – was actually alive and well, the police reopened their investigation. Strangely, the police did not appear to know how to do a simple Google search, unlike Mail journalists, given that his name appears in a 1994 article. This reported on an inquest, where a man called Hann Redwin was accused of foul play over the death of a woman, but it emerged that Redwin was, in fact, Andrew Newton, who was then living in London (he was cleared of foul play at the inquest).

We also discover, quite incredibly in some ways, that four years ago another potential hit man, Dennis Meighan, told the Mail that in 1975 he was offered £13,500 – the equivalent of £140,000 today – by a ‘representative’ of Thorpe to silence Scott for good, because it was feared that he was about to go public with all the details of his past relationship with Thorpe. Meighan initially agreed to kill Scott, but got cold feet and went on to confess to the police – making explicit Thorpe’s involvement in the plot. But curiously his original statement disappeared – to be replaced by one that removed all incriminating references to Thorpe and the Liberal Party, surely at the behest of elements within the British establishment.

If it looks like a conspiracy and quacks like a conspiracy, then it probably is a conspiracy. Yet, as is nearly always the case with the British establishment, these things start to come out so long after the event that most of the people involved are either dead or too old to be held to account. Gwent police now claim to be “satisfied that there is no basis to re-refer the matter to the CPS and the investigation remains closed”.

Implications

In view of what the Thorpe affair demonstrates, it does seem appropriate to finish with a few thoughts about that other Jeremy – current leader of the Labour Party. If Corbyn does lead Labour into the next general election, and it ends up with a majority or as the biggest party, it is highly questionable whether he would actually become prime minister. This is much to the bafflement of most on the left, who seem to believe that the British ruling class would never do anything that is not in strict accordance with Queensberry rules.

Communists say look at the Jeremy Thorpe case and tell us seriously that the establishment would not take steps to ensure such a government never happens. For all those on the left who refuse to believe this, look at your TV screen and learn – the BBC has provided the working class movement with valuable information about the workings of the establishment, knowingly or not. If you want to talk about dangers to the stability of the capitalist system, then we in the CPGB can reassure you that Corbyn is a far bigger danger than poor old Norman Scott – he was a victim of the establishment, not a radical opponent, as the Labour leader is still deemed to be. If you take the ongoing campaign to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, this is fundamentally about preventing a Corbyn government. Thus, for example, if Corbyn did lead Labour to victory, is it not possible that the queen would decline to invite this ‘anti-Semite’ to form a government? Would she not follow the advice of her privy council and look for someone else in the Labour Party who is not tainted by accusations of anti-Semitism, such as that nice Sir Keir Starmer?

Such accusations are a load of bull, of course – which is what Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell should be saying, not coming out with claptrap about how there is an ‘anti-Semitism’ problem within the party, and so on. The left also tells us that if the queen moved against Corbyn in such a manner there would be a revolution – what utter nonsense. How can there be a revolution if you have not split the army, or failed to win the working class to the idea of actually taking power?

As for Corbyn and McDonnell, they need to develop a backbone quickly and remember their republicanism, which has become increasingly platonic. We need to open the fight for a genuinely democratic constitution, which by definition means a federal republic – the incorporation of self-determination for Scotland and Wales, together with the abolition of the House of Lords, the standing army, the privy council and the whole monarchical set-up.

 

Democracy and the Labour Party

Defend Stan Keable! No to political sackings!

The deeply worrying implications of Stan Keable’s victimisation by Hammersmith and Fulham Council must be a matter of grave concern not simply for comrades on the left of the Labour Party, but for all democrats, defenders of free speech and, indeed, those of us who simply believe it is legitimate to reference historical facts to make points about contemporary politics. Clearly, the witch-hunt in the Labour Party is spreading ever further into society and is now threatening people’s livelihoods.

Stan is the secretary of Labour Against the Witchhunt, a leading supporter of Labour Party Marxists and was a housing enforcer for the west London council for 17 unblemished years. He attended a counter-demonstration organised by the Jewish Voice for Labour to challenge the March 26 ‘Enough is Enough’ anti-Corbyn demo/provocation staged in Parliament Square by a coalition of rightwing Jewish organisations and a smattering treacherous Labour MPs. The comrade mingled with the anti-Corbyn crowd, distributing leaflets and engaging individuals in conversations – some calm and useful, others less so.

One of our comrade’s less edifying encounters was secretly recorded by the BBC Newsnight editor, David Grossman. In this, Stan can be seen briefly alluding to the well-documented (and uneasy) collaboration between the early Nazi regime and Zionists. (The same episode that Ken Livingstone has been crucified for citing.)

The next day, this snippet of Stan’s comments were splashed over the pages of scab rags like the Evening Standard, Jewish Chronicle and the Daily Mail. On Twitter, local Tory MP Greg Hands demanded action be taken against Stan and followed up with a letter to Steve Cowan, Labour’s leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council. Then, on April 21, a letter – which began with the warning that its content was “Strictly private and confidential”– informed our comrade that he was dismissed for the nebulous crime of having “brought the Council into disrepute”, a charge that was upheld when comrade Keable was dismissed a few weeks later after a hearing (“Disrepute” in who’s eyes? How does this verifiable 1930s episode bring shame on today’s Hammersmith and Fulham Council?)

To make matters worse, he was also let down by union Unison, which advised him to apologise instead of fighting the charges. When he refused that advise, they informed him that they would not represent him.

The logical implications of a ruling like this are deeply worrying:

  • Comrades should read the full article of this exacting Weekly Worker commentary by Tony Greenstein (who defended Stan at the hearing), but one of the points he makes there is particularly worthwhile highlighting. The Council’s justifications for its actions state that Stain “failed to avoid” putting himself in ‘discredit’s way’, as it were, not only by “making the comments” that were splashed all over the rightwing media, but also by “attending [the JVL] counter-demonstration”! In other words, a part of Stan’s culpability lies in the fact that he attended this demonstration – he could have been Sphinx-like in his inscrutability on the day and still have breached the Council’s strictures simply by being present at the JVL event.
  • This is made explicit later in the letter where – incredibly – we are told that “in attending a counter-demonstration outside the Houses of Parliament on March 26 2018, Stan Keable knowingly increased the possibility of being challenged about his views and subsequently proceeded to express views that were in breach of the council’s equality, diversity and inclusion policy and the council’s code of conduct”! (Our emphasis) There is some slippery use of language here. Stan certainly aired his views on the March 26 actions, but the sensitive issue of Nazi-Zionist collaboration is not a viewpoint. It is a historical fact that people can have different interpretations of – but it did happen.
  • Apparently however, citing this concrete historical fact equates to “offensive comments” according to Hammersmith and Fulham Council. And anything deemed to be “offensive” is – literally – unsayable.  The infamous Berufsverbot was the name for given to a system under German law of automatic prohibition of entry into some professions. Originally introduced by the Nazis, it was widely used in West Germany after a 1972 decree to ban people with “radical” views from employment in the German civil service. (A wide category that included teachers, for example.) Although touted as a response to the reactionary armed actions of the miniscule Red Army Faction, it was used far more widely to deny employment to thousands of leftists.

Are we moving towards norm where it will be demanded of all job applicants: “Are you now, or have you ever been, an anti-Zionist?”

Read Stan’s ‘Open Letter’ and donate to the fund for the legal costs he will incur challenging his sacking. On the latter, he writes:

“Unison has withdrawn support because I rejected the bad advice of their regional organiser to plead guilty, throwing away the right to demonstrate and to freedom of speech – so I need funds for a barrister and potential legal costs to challenge my political victimisation at an employment tribunal, as well as for campaigning for reinstatement.

“My dismissal extends the McCarthyite witch-hunt against Corbyn supporters in the Labour Party to the area of employment. Don’t let me be the first of many political sackings.

“Please give generously. Any surplus funds will be passed to Labour Against the Witchhunt (LAW) for campaigning.”

PLEASE CONTRIBUTE HERE. 

Refound Labour as a permanent united front of the working class

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