Tag Archives: Anti-semitism

Anti-Semitism, Democracy and the Labour Party, Witch-hunts and expulsions

Jo Bird and Chris Williamson: Fake outrage, fake accusations

The civil war in the Labour Party is at a critical stage, writes Carla Roberts

What do these four jokes have in common?

1. Here are the rules of being Jewish, as I understand them. Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not commit adultery. Don’t eat pork. What was that last one? Don’t question it, God has spoken. Really, has he? Or is it just pigs trying to outsmart everybody?

2. I’ve often wondered that if I grew up in Poland when Hitler came to power and I was sent to a concentration camp, would I still be checking out women? I think I would – “Hey, Shlomo, did you see that one by Barracks Eight? I’ve had my eye on her for weeks. I’d like to go up and say something to her. ‘How’s it going? They treating you OK?’ Of course, the problem is there are no good opening lines in a concentration camp.

3. People think that Ebenezer Scrooge is Jewish … well, he’s not. But all three Stooges are.

4. Jewish Voice For Labour is calling for disciplinary hearings to be paused until a due process has been established, based on principles of natural justice. What I call Jew process … Seriously, one of the things that does worry me is the privileging of racism against Jews, over and above – as more worthy of resources than other forms of racism. That’s bad for the many – as well as bad for the Jews.

No doubt you know the answer. They have all been told – or sung – by Jewish people: Jon Stewart, Larry David, Adam Sandler in his ever-evolving Chanukah song, and, last but not least, Wirral councillor Jo Bird, who has just been suspended for her remarks after the Jewish Chronicle ‘exposed’ her joke, made at a meeting in support of Marc Wadsworth 10 months ago.

We could quote plenty more Jews poking fun at Jews, of course, starting with Woody Allen’s films Hannah and her sisters (which is all about his Jewish character having a spiritual crisis, exploring other religions) and Annie Hall (in which he imagines being a Hasidic Jew and in a split screen takes the mick both out of dinner time at a secular and an Orthodox Jewish household). Or how about Sacha Baron Cohen dressing up as Borat from Kazakhstan, singing in front of a bar of clapping and cheering Americans: “Throw the Jew down the well, so my country can be free. You must grab him by his horns, then we can have a big party.”

In his book Jokes and their relation to the unconscious, Sigmund Freund famously considered Jewish humour unique, in that it is primarily derived from self-critical mocking of the in-group (Jews) rather than the ‘other’. Or, in other words, they are self-deprecating jokes. There are dozens of modern books analysing the best Jewish jokes. A couple of years back, the Jewish Chronicle printed “the greatest Jew joke” of all time, told by Jerry Seinfeld:

Two gentile businessmen meet on the street. One of them says, ‘How’s business?’
The other one says, ‘Great!’

Apparently, this joke “confounded his hosts and audience members alike”. But: “Here at the JC we think we know why it’s funny.”

Is it because Jerry Seinfeld is not a member of the Labour Party? Otherwise he would be a raving anti-Semite, taking the piss, as he does, out of Jews being good at business and arguing at length about it (and everything else).

Would the Chronicle still dare to print this today? Or an article with the headline, ‘Jew know why we love Annie Hall?’ Who knows? But they certainly felt the need to claim outrage over Jo Bird’s remarks – with, of course, the now obligatory comment by Rachel Riley of Countdown fame. The TV presenter is particularly enraged by Jo Bird’s efforts to humorously ‘update’ the famous poem by pastor Niemöller: “Absolutely aghast listening to JVL’s Jo Bird. Take a poem about the holocaust, remove the Jews, to replace them with persecution of anti-racists and anti-Zionists.”

The Jewish Chronicle echoes her ahistorical outrage by complaining:

In her version, the poem no longer features the famous “First they came for the Jews” line, which instead is replaced by Ms Bird with “Then they came for the anti-Zionists. They came for the socialists, but they couldn’t get us because we were having a party, the Labour Party,” she says, to loud applause and laughter.

This is actually quite ironic, because Niemöller’s original poem does not start with Jews. In fact, the version “authorised” by Niemöller (according to the Martin Niemöller Foundation) does not feature Jews at all. This is the verified version of the part of the speech that he first gave around 1946:

“Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.”

Communists, social democrats and trade unionists – nobody else. The Martin Niemöller Foundation, which has gone to great lengths to historically examine the quote, laments how “the quote is still frequently being used and modified rather carelessly, which explains its ongoing popularity”.

If Jo Bird’s modification of the poem proves that she is anti-Semitic, then surely the same applies not just to the Jewish Chronicle, but pretty much everybody on the planet who has ever used the quote.

As an aside, Niemöller is a funny one for Zionists to laud. When he was asked in the 1960s why his original poem had not listed Jews, the foundation explains how he described how “he couldn’t have listed the Jews: he was already interned in a concentration camp when the biggest persecution waves took place”. Niemöller was first interned in the Sachsenhausen camp in 1937. He was later moved to Dachau and only released at the end of the war in 1945. True, the Reichskristallnacht of November 9 1938 is often seen as the key moment in the persecution of Jews in Germany, when 30,000 Jews were interned, hundreds murdered and thousands of shops and houses smashed up, while the police watched on. But, of course, Jews were already suffering extreme oppression before 1938. But Niemöller openly stated that – compared to the prosecution of communists, social democrats and trade unionists – the prosecution of Jews simply did not feature on his radar.

This does reflect in part how history has been rewritten after World War II (along with the poem) to wrongly portray Jews as the main and often only target of the Nazis. But it also reflects Niemöller’s own rightwing politics. He was in fact an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazi takeover in 1933 and remained one for years. He shared much of the common and widespread anti-Semitism at the time. In 1935 – the year Jews had their citizenship rights taken away by the Nürnberger Gesetze – he gave a rather shocking sermon on the occasion of Israelsonntag:

“We speak of the eternal Jew and see the picture of a restless wanderer, who has no homeland and cannot find peace; and we see the picture of a highly talented people that produces idea after idea designed to delight the world; but whatever it starts turns into poison and what it reaps is always contempt and hate, as the deceived world recognises the fraud and takes its revenge ‘in its own way’. ‘In its own way’, because we know very well that there is no licence that empowers us to help along God’s curse with our own hatred … ‘Love thy enemy’ does not allow for any exceptions.”

He was certainly no friend of Jews – and you can just imagine what kind of criticism the Niemöller of 1935 would face today. But the fact that he is still held in such esteem by Zionists underlines the fantastic success of their efforts to rewrite history.

Chris Williamson

Jo Bird’s suspension follows hot on the heels of Chris Williamson’s. Both suspensions are so utterly ridiculous and without any rational foundation that you do wonder if Iain McNicol has not sneaked back into the general secretary’s office. Certainly it seems that the ‘honeymoon period’, when it comes to the long overdue reform of the disciplinary process, is at an end. For example, as demanded by the Chakrabarti report, automatic suspensions had stopped. Instead, members retained their membership rights while the investigation into their case was ongoing. Do Williamson and Bird really pose such a threat to other members that they have to be prevented from attending Labour meetings? Of course not.

Their suspensions are unfortunately yet more evidence of how incredibly successful the right has been in its campaign against the left in the party. We hear from a number of sources that Jeremy Corbyn did indeed try to stop Chris Williamson’s suspension, but that he and general secretary Jennie Formby came under immense pressure – and sadly, not just from the right, but also his (former?) allies, John McDonnell and Momentum owner Jon Lansman, both of whom have been publicly leading the campaign to continuously appease the right over the anti-Semitism smear campaign. A day after Williamson was suspended, Momentum circulated a scabby ‘Anti-Semitism open letter’, which was clearly drafted in response to Williamson’s remarks – made, ironically, at a meeting of Momentum’s Sheffield branch. He was suspended for having said:

The party that has done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party. I have got to say, I think our party’s response has been partly responsible for that, because in my opinion … we’ve backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we’ve been too apologetic … We’ve done more to address the scourge of anti-Semitism than any other party.

How could anyone interpret this as downplaying the necessity to oppose anti-Semitism? However, the phrasing of the Momentum letter, although Williamson was not named, seemed to echo some of his vocabulary, with the meaning reversed:

We recognise that as a movement we have been too slow to acknowledge this problem, too tolerant of the existence of anti-Semitic views within our ranks, too defensive and too eager to downplay it. We sincerely apologise to the Jewish community, and our Jewish comrades in the party, for our collective failure on this issue to date.

This has Jon Lansman’s fingerprints all over it. It has been signed by about 1,000 people (though we have heard of complaints that people were signed up without their consent, while others featured numerous times). In any case, that figure has been dwarfed by the numbers who have signed open letters and petitions in support of Chris (for example here and here)- and those demanding the removal of Tom Watson as deputy leader of the Labour Party (which has close to 20,000 signatories). Even the petition demanding that “Momentum must ditch Jon Lansman” has almost 800 signatories.

Another Corbyn supporter to have come under fire in the last few days is Darren Williams, one of the few actual leftwingers on Labour’s national executive committee. As secretary of Welsh Labour Grassroots, he distributed the organisation’s statement defending Chris Williamson. Stephen Kinnock MP has demanded that Williams should be suspended, “because political interference in political disputes [!] is not allowed”. We presume Kinnock, who clearly is not the sharpest tool in the box, meant to say ‘disciplinary disputes’, but he would still be wrong.

He is apparently referring to the much-quoted “instruction” said to have been recently circulated by Labour HQ, in which “Labour’s general secretary, Jennie Formby, has warned constituency parties, the NEC and other Labour Party bodies that disciplinary cases against individuals are confidential and should not be discussed”. Or so the BBC reports.

It appears, however, that an overly keen London regional organiser took it upon herself to copy a paragraph from an old email of Formby’s and send it out as “recent advice”. This was then picked up by Labour List and has since been distributed, uncritically and without any comment, by some other regional officers – and, sadly, by the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (which is run by Pete Willsman, who was himself falsely accused of playing down anti-Semitism).

Labour Against the Witchhunt reports that it has been in touch with “at least a dozen” branch and CLP secretaries who did not receive any advice from Jennie Formby or their regional officers. Of course, should anybody phone Labour HQ, they would probably be told that this is indeed the current advice. But this is rather different from Jennie Formby sending out an email in response to the widespread anger over Chris Williamson’s suspension. And in any case, it it is still only ‘advice’.

Comrade Williamson is enormously popular in the party – his ‘Democracy Roadshow’ in favour of mandatory reselection and other democratic reforms has brought him into close contact with thousands of members up and down the country. Having undergone quite a dramatic political transformation from Blairite to Corbynista, he is now the only MP who still dares to speak out in defence of the many members who have been suspended and expelled on trumped-up charges of anti-Semitism or ‘bringing the party into disrepute’.

As I have pointed out, thousands signed petitions and open letters within days of his suspension. We know of six CLPs that have issued public resolutions condemning the decision (and we know of a couple of others who decided not to publish their resolutions after the media shitstorm hit Hackney North CLP). In many more branches and CLPs, members have tried to put motions forward, but were prevented by their chair, who said they could not be “allowed”.

This is the actual quote from Jennie Formby, which was, we believe, sent out in relation to Marc Wadsworth’s suspension and subsequent expulsion from the Labour Party in April last year:

Please note that individual disciplinary cases that are being dealt with through the NEC disputes processes are confidential. Motions on individual cases are therefore not competent business for discussion at CLPs and will not be discussed by the NEC or any associated bodies.

Even if this had been new advice given out by Formby, we would still make the following points about it. Firstly, the suspensions of both comrades Williamson and Bird have been publicised by every British news outlet, with rightwing MPs falling over themselves to make their outrage heard. The cases have not been treated as “confidential” by those who have leaked the news and have thereby quite clearly become “competent business” for branches and CLPs to discuss.

Sure, the NEC might not discuss such resolutions. But it is pretty doubtful if that body, meeting every two months for a few compressed hours, spends much time discussing any branch and CLP resolution. On the other hand, every resolution and statement published that speaks out against the witch-hunt in the party adds an enormous amount to the political pressure on Labour HQ.

In any case, it is always up to the members of any Labour Party meeting to decide what should be discussed and which motions should be voted on. LAW has published useful information on how to move a motion or emergency motion and what to do if your chair refuses to table it. Comrades should not be intimidated by this attempt to silence them.

Lord Falconer

The formation of the Independent Group and Tom Watson’s efforts to put together a merry band of Blairite MPs have played a huge role in the suspensions of Chris Williamson and Jo Bird (as they did in the apparent decision to delay the publication of guidelines on trigger ballots – which is the only way local members can get rid of their rightwing, anti-Corbyn MPs).

The civil war in the Labour Party has reached a critical point and the case of Williamson in particular is of extreme importance. Whichever way the decision on his disciplinary case goes, it will have huge implications: should he be cleared, we can expect more rightwing MPs to walk, amid yet more accusations of “institutional anti-Semitism”. But, should he be expelled, that would do huge damage to the ‘Corbyn project’ and would no doubt lead to massive demoralisation among Labour members (the majority of whom joined to support the leftwing politics of Jeremy Corbyn). Expelling Williamson would be a dramatic symbol of the victory of the right over the left. It would also represent a massive defeat for Corbyn himself. The next attempted coup against Corbyn will happen before long – but how many people will still be left in the party to fight his corner or vote for him?

Unfortunately, the Labour leadership still does not seem to grasp this pretty basic reality, despite the fact that the civil war is currently being played out in branches up and down the country. What else shall we make of the attempt to appoint Lord Falconer to lead yet another inquiry on anti-Semitism? As an attempt to put a lid on the anti-Semitism ‘scandal’, it has backfired rather spectacularly – and deservedly so.

The mere fact that there will be another inquiry plays straight into the hands of the right, who have been saying all along that Corbyn and Formby are incapable of understanding even what anti-Semitism is and that their disciplinary process therefore cannot be relied upon.

It seems the main qualification for the job of leading the inquiry is that the candidate must be a rightwinger. Lord Falconer certainly seems to tick a few boxes there: he is an arch-Blairite, was a member of his former flatmate’s war cabinet and even provided the legal advice that was used to take Britain into war against Iraq. His legal advice was also used in moves to destroy the National Union of Mineworkers. In an interview with The Sunday Times (March 3 2019), Falconer went out of his way to show that he was the right man to see off the left:

The most frightening thing is the profound and almost universal sense within the Jewish community that the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn are anti-Semitic. They feel they are not safe … because the potential prime minister and the main opposition party are anti-Semitic.

Well, that certainly does not sound like he has much of an open mind on the matter. And what exactly is “the Jewish community” that apparently feels unsafe in the Labour Party? There is no such thing, of course. There are pro-Zionist Jews and anti-Zionist Jews – and that is just for starters.

Falconer also promised to reopen investigations into “stone-cold cases” of anti-Semitism, including allegations made by pro-Zionist MP Louise Ellman against leftwing members in Liverpool Riverside.

But nothing Corbyn and Formby can do now is considered good enough in the ever-growing campaign to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. So we hear from the usual suspects like Margaret Hodge and Ruth Smeeth that Falconer is unacceptable, because he is a member of the party. Only a really “independent person” could lead such an inquiry … We presume they mean somebody as ‘independent’ as those running the Jewish Board of Deputies, the organisation that organised the anti-Corbyn ‘Enough is Enough’ demonstration outside parliament.

The current civil war can be resolved in only one of two ways: either the left or the right will win. Muddling on for the sake of some sort of ‘unity’ will not remain an option for much longer – even for Jeremy Corbyn.

 

Anti-Semitism, Democracy and the Labour Party

Anti-Semitism: Still weapon of choice

The PLP as presently constituted will never be appeased, writes Carla Roberts

The Parliamentary Labour Party is doing everything it can to undermine Jeremy Corbyn – and ‘anti-Semitism’ is still their weapon of choice, as was shown vividly at this week’s meeting of the PLP. This was dominated by the news that of the hundreds of Labour Party members suspended and investigated over anti- Semitism, 20 had been “allowed to remain in or return to the party” – in the last four months!

That includes, for example, a member in Sheffield whose only ‘crime’ consisted in sharing a montage of the Jobcentre sign with the words Arbeit macht frei imposed on it. You see, because the Nazis used the slogan over some of their concentration camps it follows ipso facto that the comrade must be anti- Semitic. This is so absurd, it beggars belief. Clearly, the comrade was accusing the government of acting like Nazis in their treatment of the unemployed and disabled. It is a disgrace that she had to wait months to be cleared.

Not only that: her name (and those of others cleared) was then leaked to the outraged Daily Telegraph, adding more distress to the comrade and her reputation – and giving the right more ammunition. As disciplinary cases are supposed to be treated confidentially, it seems that somebody on the NEC had leaked the info. Unfortunately, there are toomanysuspectstostartguessing-the list includes, unfortunately, Momentum owner Jon Lansman and his close allies, who have thrown themselves into the campaign to equate anti- Zionism with anti-Semitism. Perhaps his low point – which cost him the last bit of respect he had commanded on the Labour left – came when he implied his former comrade, Pete Willsman, was anti-Semitic, removing him from Momentum’s recommended list of NEC candidates (he was re-elected anyway).

Whoever leaked this info, it was a welcome weapon for the PLP, which is, of course, still totally dominated by the right. A motion was “unanimously supported” (Or, as the Skawkbox writes, it was not actually voted upon, but left unopposed, as, ridiculously, frontbenchers are apparently not allowed to speak in PLP meetings) that criticises the party leadership and particularly general secretary Jennie Formby and asks them “to adequately tackle cases of anti-Semitism, as failure to do so seriously risks anti-Semitism in the party appearing normalised and the party seeming to be institutionally anti-Semitic” (The Guardian February 5).

This is utter nonsense, of course: the party has become so over-sensitised to the issue that knee-jerk investigations are being launched left, right and centre against anybody criticising Israel or the Zionist lobby (often, evidence for these investigations has been collected by software that automatically scans Facebook posts to find particular words like ‘Rothschild’ or ‘Zionist’). By trying to appease his critics – rather than stand up to them – Jeremy Corbyn has allowed things to get this far. Every time he lets the right take a step forward, he is being pushed two steps back.

Formby has been given seven days – until February 11 – to tell the PLP “how many complaints of anti- Semitism levelled against members remained unresolved”. Actually, we would love to see that figure too: judging by the number of vexatious complaints we have seen, it will be absurdly high – probably in the thousands.

Formby’s written answer to the PLP is as bland and conciliatory as could be expected. She promises, for instance, that she is “committed to implementing a world-class education programme on anti- Semitism”, and that “it’s essential that this is done with the support ofJewish organisations, to ensure our education programme commands their confidence and support.” We somehow doubt that anti-Zionist Jewish groups like Jewish Voice for Labour or the Jewish Socialists Group are among those she is thinking of.

More interesting, however, was her speech to the PLP (which has naturally been leaked to the media too): she quite rightly stated that she will not be able to comply with the request for reasons of confidentiality and, after all, she only answers to the NEC anyway, not the PLP. That must have gone down like a lead balloon. She then went on to say that it is “impossible to eradicate anti- Semitism and it would be dishonest to claim to be able to do so” (Daily Telegraph, February 5).

That is a rare admission of the political reality. As long as prejudice and racism exist in society, they will find reflection in a tiny minority of Labour’s mass membership. That kind of prejudice is best fought with education through open and transparent debate (not by ‘rehabilitation’ lessons organised by the Zionists in the Jewish Labour Movement or the Board of Deputies).

Needless to say, the right is not really concerned about anti- Semitism, Islamophobia or any other kind of racism or prejudice in society. They have joined forces with the Zionist lobby simply because it suits their agenda: getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn at all costs. They have discovered that charges of anti- Semitism stick best – because Corbyn has allowed them to stick. And so the most ardent rightwingers have reinvented themselves as courageous fighters against anti-Semitism (a bit like the three eccentric Britain First supporters outside Labour Against the Witchhunt’s conference, who accused attendees of being ‘Nazis’). The Labour leadership bears a huge responsibility for this topsy-turvy, Orwellian situation.

This includes John McDonnell, who was asked during a radio interview this week why the “team around Jeremy Corbyn” was not standing up to the “smear campaign that paints Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite and which needs to be confronted head on”. His answer was as disappointing as we have come to expect of him in recent years: there’s “no smear campaign I’ve seen the evidence of”, he said. “We’ve got to root it out: having one anti-Semite in the Labour Party is not good enough.”

John, you just do not get it. The day the right stops going on about the ‘anti-Semites’ in the party is the day when you and Corbyn have finally been defeated. Time to stand up to them.

Democracy and the Labour Party, Witch-hunts and expulsions

LAW conference: Standing up to the right

David Shearer reports on the threats, debates and decisions at Labour Against the Witchhunt’s first conference

The first national conference of Labour Against the Witchhunt, which took place in London on February 2, was a success, with around 50 comrades from around the country attending.

That, of course, is not a huge figure, but in view of the various attempts made to sabotage the event, it was excellent that so many were determined to come along, despite the snowy conditions. The conference was originally to have taken place in a church hall in west London, but, just two days before the agreed date, the booking was cancelled. The normal threats and accusations of anti-Semitism were made. According to the email received by LAW, the venue was “not really appropriate for such a conference, bearing in mind safeguarding and security issues”.

It goes without saying that the anti- Semitism allegations are totally false. It is true that among those attending were comrades who had been falsely accused of anti-Semitism, in the witch-hunt driven by the Labour right and backed by the establishment, but no such allegations have been upheld against any of them. In fact Moshé Machover – an Israeli Jew who was summarily expelled from Labour in 2017 for writing an article noting the collaboration that occurred between German Zionists and the Nazis – was quickly reinstated following the outrage this called.

Another speaker was Tony Greenstein – another Jew accused of anti-Semitism because of his staunch anti-Zionism. But in his case too the allegations were quietly dropped – although he was eventually expelled from the Labour Party under the catch- all charge of “bringing the party into disrepute” – basically for being ‘rude’ online. Then there was Jackie Walker, whose case has not yet been heard (see below).

Fortunately LAW booked an alternative venue, but, in order to avoid further malicious threats, the location was not publicised. It comes to something when a democratic campaign has to keep details secret – comrades were asked to meet outside a nearby tube station. Unsurprisingly, however, people were followed. We had a little reception committee, including a well known member of the far-right Britain First. One his Zionist chums filmed herself screaming, “Why do you call Jews Nazis?”

Extremist

Opening the conference was LAW chair Jackie Walker, who has recently been named by the neoconservative Henry Jackson Society as an “extremist figure”, comparable to Tommy Robinson. She described this as a “hate campaign that puts my quality of life at risk”. In other cases, she said, people had lost their jobs, and at least one person had even attempted suicide.

Suspended from Labour since November 2016 merely for saying she knew of no definition of anti-Semitism she could work with, comrade Walker – another Jewish comrade (she pointed out that there were a disproportionate number of Jews who were victims of the witch-hunt) – has now learnt that the hearing is finally expected to take place on March 26-27. But she still does not know what exactly she is accused of and who her accusers are.

Despite the disgraceful nature of this campaign, comrade Walker noted, some on the left had been complicit – not least Momentum owner Jon Lansman. She predicted there would be a “miraculous change” if the right succeeded in removing Jeremy Corbyn – Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ problem would suddenly disappear.

Our first session discussed a motion entitled ‘The slow coup against Jeremy Corbyn’, which was introduced by comrade Machover and investigative journalist Asa Winstanley of The Electronic Intifada, who emphasised how false claims of anti-Semitism have been weaponised in order to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. As comrade Winstanley put it, “They’re trying to defeat the man by demoralising, splitting and defeating the left movement supporting him.”

Comrades Winstanley and Machover were both supposed to be introducing the steering committee motion, but, in my opinion, it was unnecessary to have two people doing that job. Comrade Winstanley in particular took up a lot of time going back to the beginning of the anti-Corbyn campaign, which began three years ago. He highlighted the role of the Israeli government and described Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement as “proxies for the Israeli embassy”. He quite rightly pointed out that such people should have no place within Labour.

Comrade Machover talked about Corbyn’s “big mistake” in not challenging the smear campaign. Yes, of course, there are some anti-Semites in the party, he said, just as no doubt there are some paedophiles, but it is definitely not the major problem it has been portrayed to be. Corbyn should have said right from the beginning, “This is clearly not about anti- Semitism”. Comrade Machover went on to point out that Israel and Zionists claim to speak on behalf of all Jews, but we need to combat that through political education, and not react against the Zionist lobby in a way that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic.

When the debate was opened up to the floor, one comrade pointed to the positive signs – at the Labour conference, Palestinian flags had been raised on numerous occasions in the hall – and the members knew what the truth was, he said. In the end McCarthyism was discredited in the United States and surely the same would happen with the parallel campaign here in Britain. In reply to this, comrade Walker agreed that support for the Palestinians within Labour was positive, but that did not mean that the mass of delegates were strongly opposed to the witch-hunt.

For his part John Bridge of Labour Party Marxists also warned against any complacency. Anti-Semitism had now been redefined to mean ‘criticism of Israel’ – Labour’s national executive has gone along with that by adopting the International Holocaust Alliance so-called ‘definition’ of anti-Semitism – including all 11 of the “examples”, seven of which relate to criticism of Israel. Comrade Bridge concluded that what we are seeing could be “only the beginning”: we might even see legislation based on the IHRA, which would criminalise such criticism.

The motion was carried unanimously.

IHRA

In the afternoon session, comrade Greenstein introduced the steering committee motion on the IHRA, whose actual ‘definition’ is limited to stating that anti-Semitism “may be expressed as hatred toward Jews” (my emphasis – yes, that really is as far as the ‘definition’ goes). The real purpose, stated comrade Greenstein, was to “equate everything but the most benign criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism”.

Glyn Secker of Jewish Voice for Labour also spoke on the IHRA from the platform, even though he is not a LAW member. He pointed out that he had lost a whole generation of his family in the holocaust, yet he is still accused of anti-Semitism for his critique of Zionism – there is a deep conflict between Zionists and “revolutionary socialist Jews” like himself, he said. Yet, while there was an outcry against such “manufactured anti-Semitism”, asked comrade Secker, where was the mainstream campaign against the growth of the far right?

Another comrade, speaking from the floor, thought that “the train has left”, in that the IHRA had now been adopted by Labour. So it was best not to continue campaigning against the whole IHRA definition, but to demand the ditching of the examples and their replacement by the JVL’s own code of conduct. However, Tina Werkmann – a member of the LAW steering committee – stressed that the IHRA symbolised the political collapse of the Labour left – it had to be opposed “in its entirety”. Comrade Bridge agreed and added: “In the middle of a witch- hunt, silence is as good as complicity.” That is why we need to be critical of Jeremy Corbyn, he said.

Because the motion drafted by comrade Greenstein quoted a dictionary definition of anti-Semitism in contrast to the IHRA nonsense, conference – quite unnecessarily in my view – spent a long time discussing alternative definitions. Several last- minute amendments were drafted in relation to that. But, as one comrade asked, why does LAW need a definition at all? We are a campaign against the witch-hunt – that is why we are opposed to the IHRA, which equates anti-Zionism with anti- Semitism. But that does not mean we have to agree on the precise wording of a replacement definition.

When the vote was taken, however, all amendments to that effect were defeated – although some minor changes to the wording were accepted and the motion, as amended, was carried unanimously. Two motions from Pete Gregson were also passed overwhelmingly: the first called for support for targeted activists and the second was a model motion on opposition to the IHRA. Once again there were attempts to insert references to a particular alternative definition of anti-Semitism.

Because so much time had been taken by this – and by platform speeches – there was very little time left for what turned out to be the most controversial debate – over LAW’s draft constitution. While most of it was clearly approved by those present, there were two alternative and mutually contradictory amendments to the steering committee draft. After the sentence, “The national all- members meeting (including conference) is the highest decision- making body of LAW and it elects the steering committee”, comrade Werkmann proposed to add: “A simple majority at any all-members meeting can decide to appoint or recall a member of the steering committee.”

Comrade Greenstein’s alternative amendment on the steering committee sought to delete, “It elects its own officers and sub-committees” and replace this with a provision for the four main officer posts to be elected by “the annual general meeting”. Most controversially, he proposed adding: “Officers can be recalled by a two-thirds majority of the all-members meeting” (my emphasis).

Ironically, comrade Greenstein claimed that we had to guard against LAW being taken over by some sect, which might be able to mobilise its supporters to turn up at a poorly attended members’ meeting and vote off the committee a member who had been democratically elected at an AGM. That was why there must be a two-thirds majority to recall an officer or committee member, he contended. In reality, the opposite is the case. Rather obviously, such a requirement would make it more likely that the will of the majority of members was thwarted. For example, if we assume that the attendance at Saturday’s conference was exactly 50, it would only have needed 17 of those present (whether members of the same ‘sect’ or not) to veto a decision favoured by a substantial majority, if comrade Greenstein’s proposal had applied.

Fortunately, however, it was comrade Werkmann’s amendment that was carried (by a narrow majority), which meant that comrade Greenstein’s automatically fell. Clearly a good number of comrades have not grasped the benefits of genuine representative democracy and hopefully the article accompanying this one – William Sarsfield’s ‘Real workers’ democracy’ (which outlines the case, in particular, against the allocation of individual officer responsibilities by the entire membership, as opposed to the committee itself) – will help bring out those advantages.

All in all, as I pointed out at the start of this report, the conference marked a step forward for LAW – and struck a blow against those who have sought to cow the left in order to return the Labour Party into safe, Blairite hands.

Anti-Semitism, Democracy and the Labour Party, Witch-hunts and expulsions

Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt: The latest victim of the witch-hunt

The NEC refuses to endorse the Corbyn supporter in South Thanet – and it seems Momentum is complicit, writes Carla Roberts

In April 2018, Corbyn supporter Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt was selected as Labour’s parliamentary candidate for the “key marginal” seat of Thanet South. She beat the more ‘moderate’ local councillor, Karen Constantine, by 17 votes – despite the fact that the latter was backed by a rather unholy alliance of Unite, Unison, GMB and, somewhat strangely, Momentum.

We hear that Constantine had never been seen at a Momentum meeting and only started to back Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader once he was sure to win. On Twitter, she proudly declares that her “motto” is: “An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory”. Gordon-Nesbitt, on the other hand, is known as an outspoken Corbyn supporter and life-long socialist campaigner. So no real surprise then that local members chose the more leftwing candidate (as would probably be the case almost everywhere, if members were allowed to democratically select their prospective candidate via a system of mandatory reselection).

But clearly, not everybody was happy about the result. Two weeks after the local decision, the revolting Guido Fawkes published a take-down piece on Gordon-Nesbitt, who works as a researcher to, among others, Labour peer Lord Howarth of Newport. Fawkes published a small number of tweets released by the Centre for Cultural Change in 2016, to which Gordon-Nesbitt contributed.

As is unfortunately now the norm in the Labour Party, the tweets were – probably simultaneously – passed on to the compliance unit of the Labour Party, an investigation was opened and Labour’s national executive committee decided to put on hold the required endorsement of her candidacy – a highly unusual decision. Guido Fawkes seems to have had already had a good inkling of the result of the investigation even before it started: “Assume Gordon-Nesbitt will be deselected if Corbyn is really taking anti-Semitism seriously…”, he wrote in April.

And he was right. Still, it took the Labour Party bureaucracy a staggering eight months to look into those few tweets – three of which were authored by Gordon-Nesbitt:

“Accusations levelled at Jackie Walker are politically motivated.”

“Anti-Semitism has been weaponised by those who seek to silence anti-Zionist voices. See The Lynching, endorsed by Ken Loach, for elucidation.”

“Accusations of AS levelled in an attempt to discredit the left.”

Even the most biased bourgeois justice system would have laughed this ‘evidence’ out of court. Not so today’s Labour Party, unfortunately, which is cleaved apart by the ongoing civil war that began with the election of Corbyn. In July 2018, the NEC – even though it was now ostensibly dominated by the ‘left’ – voted to refer the case to its kangaroo court, the national constitutional committee (NCC). This is a crucial body in the party. It deals with all disciplinary matters that the NEC feels it cannot resolve and – given that the NCC is dominated by the right – the referral of a leftwinger usually results in expulsion from the party. Incredibly, even after its recent expansion from 11 to 25, only a minority are chosen by rank-and-file Labour members.

Gordon-Nesbitt describes how “months went by, but nothing happened”. She continued to be the officially selected candidate and campaigned with local party members. Six months after the referral to the NCC she was invited to an interview – not with the NCC, but with a panel of three NEC members.

Gordon-Nesbitt writes that she came to the hearing on December 18 “armed with a dozen endorsements from local party members, a respected rabbi, an Oxford University anti-Semitism expert and a sizeable group of parliamentary candidates from around the country, all of whom said in various different ways that neither I nor the tweets were anti-Semitic”.

Still, a few hours after the meeting, Gordon-Nesbitt received a letter stating that the NEC had “decided not to endorse my candidacy on the basis that: “In light of these posts your conduct does not meet the high standards that are expected of parliamentary candidates and has the potential to bring the party into disrepute.”

Her local Labour Party continues to support her: The CLP executive, its branches and the CLP women’s forum have all rejected the NEC’s decision. An emergency meeting of the CLP’s general committee is scheduled for later this week.

We understand that, worryingly, leftwinger Claudia Webbe was one of the three NEC members on the panel. In fact, she was the only one who was there in person – the other two were listening in via speakerphone. In July, Webbe replaced Christine Shawcroft as chair of the NEC’s disputes panel, having been nominated to the post by both Momentum’s Jon Lansman and Pete Willsman, secretary of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (Webbe also serves as chair of the CLPD). It is unusual for Lansman and Willsman to agree on anything these days – the former comrades who worked together for decades in the CLPD have fallen out spectacularly over the last 12 months or so, after Lansman falsely accused Willsman of anti-Semitism and dropped him from Momentum’s list of recommended candidates for the NEC (Willsman was elected anyway).

Of course, we do not actually know how Webbe voted. These hugely important decisions are kept secret, away from the membership. She certainly has not made her views on the matter public. But we know that she is an ally of Lansman, who, we have been told, is campaigning against attempts to allow the next full NEC meeting (January 22) to revisit the panel’s decision on Gordon-Nesbitt. Momentum locally and nationally has certainly not raised a finger to defend her or the democratic will of the local members.

NEC panels have the right to make decisions on behalf of the executive and those decisions do not have to be ratified by the full NEC. But, as Darren Williams explains, they can be “revisited” and overturned by the NEC. Williams seems to be the only NEC member who has come out publicly on this case, though we understand that he is not the only leftwinger on the NEC who is “unhappy” about the panel’s decision.5 We might find out more on January 22 – but isn’t it a pity that there are no official minutes of NEC meetings? We have to rely on the few reports produced by individual members (who only report on decisions they find interesting or important, of course).

This case does shed a rather worrying light on the state of the so-called ‘left’ on the NEC (and the wider party). Lansman has thrown himself with gusto into the campaign to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism – a campaign whose chief target is, of course, Jeremy Corbyn himself. While Lansman has always been a soft Zionist, he has certainly found his hard-core Zionist feet in recent months. He successfully campaigned for the NEC to adopt the ludicrously inaccurate and pro-Zionist ‘Definition of anti-Semitism’ published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, with all its disputed 11 examples.

Lansman and his close allies make up about half of the nine NEC members elected by party members on the slate pushed by the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance. Darren Williams, Pete Willsman and Rachel Garnham seem to be the only NEC members with at least half an occasional backbone. Even though Unite is run by Corbyn ally Len McCluskey, the numerous Unite members on the NEC tend to vote – in general – with the rest of the unions on Labour’s leadership body.

This is particularly worrying, as Jeremy Corbyn remains a prisoner of Labour’s MPs, who are far to his right and, of course, to the right of the majority of members. Refusing to endorse a candidate who would have been a very valuable ally of Corbyn makes you wonder on which side Jon Lansman and some of his allies on the NEC really stand.

For model resolutions, see Labour Against the Witchhunt’s website.

 

Anti-Semitism, Democracy and the Labour Party

AWL: Despicable participants in an ongoing witch-hunt

In their latest attack on Jackie Walker, Chris Williamson MP and LPM, the social-imperialists of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty have shown once again that they constituted themselves as allies of the Labour right, the mainstream media and the Israeli political establishment, writes Carla Roberts

The latest issue of Solidarity features an unpleasant, unsigned ‘Diary of a delegate’, who only seems to have managed to attend one session at Labour Party conference: namely the afternoon of Tuesday September 25, which saw the debate around the motions on Brexit and Palestine. The unnamed author writes:

Emily Thornberry’s speech was rambling, but she said; “There are sickening individuals on the fringes of our movement, who use our legitimate support for Palestine as a cloak and a cover for their despicable hatred of Jewish people, and their desire to see Israel destroyed. These people stand for everything that we have always stood against and they must be kicked out of our party.”

These people are not just on the fringes of our movement. I sat just behind the honourable member for Derby North – a man who is happy to peddle the idea that the whole anti-Semitism issue is really a matter of it being “weaponised” by the right to harm Jeremy Corbyn. Extreme holocaust denial may be on the fringes, but anti-Semitism in the form of wanting to see Israel destroyed, as shown by the chanting at Labour conference, is not.

In a disgusting attack, ‘Labour Party Marxists’ in their Red Pages bulletin took exception with Rhea Wolfson being allowed to chair the session on Palestine! She has pro-Palestinian views? Ah, she is a member of the Jewish Labour Movement and a Zionist! They raised no objections to anyone else chairing sessions.

That sort of dog-whistle anti- Semitism from LPM, coupled with the glowing reception two members of Neturei Karta got when leafleting, shows that some Labour members have a long way to go on managing to make solidarity with Palestinians without falling into the trap of anti-Semitic actions and views. 

This is pretty low even by the standards of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. Of course, everybody knows that it has a thing about ‘anti-Semitism’. Their leaders and writers see it everywhere – and have been doing so long before it became quite so fashionable with the Daily Mail and the right wing in the Parliamentary Labour Party. It is, after all, the AWL’s ‘unique selling point’, with which it tries to distinguish its otherwise pretty unexceptional Trotskyist economism from that of the rest of the left. Or “fake left”, as AWL guru Sean Matgamna insists on calling all other leftwing organisations in its irregularly published Solidarity.

Back in 2003 Matgamna declared that, forthwith, AWL members shall proudly call themselves “Zionists”. And, boy, have they made their master proud. In 2016, the AWL’s representatives on the then steering committee of Momentum voted enthusiastically with Jon Lansman to kick Jackie Walker off the organisation’s leading body when she was first falsely accused of anti- Semitism – perhaps giving the owner of the organisation’s database the last bit of courage he needed before he went on to abolish all democratic structures in Momentum in his coup of January 10 2017.

This episode could stand symbolically for the AWL’s whole misguided approach to the witch-hunt. Some people just cannot see the wood for the trees (or maybe they just ignore it). Even when AWL member Pete Radcliffe was expelled from the Labour Party two days after a hilariously misinformed Owen Smith (remember him?) accused the AWL on Question time of “flooding the Labour Party” and “bringing anti-Semitic views”, the penny did not seem to drop.

While there are a few isolated cases of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party (just as there must be, statistically speaking, of Islamophobia, homophobia, paedophilia and even bestiality), the witch-hunt has clearly had nothing to do with opposing anti- Semitism. The aim of the charade is to get rid of a certain Jeremy Corbyn.

By accepting the false narrative that Labour is awash with anti-Semitism, the AWL has provided leftwing cover for the witch-hunt – even while its own members became collateral damage. You could not make it up.

Zionist chair

According to Sean Matgamna, a Zionist nowadays is anyone who believes “in the right of Israel to exist and defends its existence”.

Of course, historically, Zionism was a “definitely reactionary ideology“ (Lenin), according to which Jews and gentiles could never live together peacefully and Jews therefore needed a separate Jewish state. The creation of Israel and subsequent expansion has been characterised by horrendous crimes against the indigenous Arab population, including, crucially, the nakba – the forced expulsion of around 800,000 Palestinians. What began as a colonial ideology of the oppressed has metamorphosed into a full-blown ideology of colonial oppression. Modern-day Zionism, as the state ideology of Israel, not only retrospectively justifies the foundation of Israel, but seeks to perpetuate and extend the privileged position of Jews in that state. Witness the recent passing of the Nation-State of the Jewish People’ law, which constitutionally enshrines the long-established discrimination against Israel’s non- Jewish citizens.

So, yes, we should oppose in the strongest terms the fact that Rhea Wolfson, who proudly self-defines as a Zionist, chaired a session debating the oppression of Palestinians! Wolfson – until recently an editor of the AWL’s magazine The Clarion – is a member of the pro-Zionist Jewish Labour Movement, which supports and aligns itself with the Israeli Labor Party: the same party that orchestrated the nakba and presided over the conquest of the Golan Heights and the West Bank in 1967.

Hilary WiseIt is no surprise then that Wolfson chaired the session in a highly biased way. For example, she rudely interrupted Hilary Wise from Ealing and Acton Central CLP (pictured), who spoke passionately about the anti-Semitism smear campaign: “I never seen anything like the current campaign of slurs and accusations made against Jeremy Corbyn and the left in the party. I am afraid it is an orchestrated campaign and if you want to know how it works I urge you to watch ‘The lobby’ on Al Jazeera.”

At that point Wolfson warned her: “I would ask you to be very careful. You are straying into territory here.” What “territory” exactly? Telling the truth about the smear campaign?

Comrade Wise went on to warn quite rightly that “this campaign will only get worse and the list of people being denounced as anti-Semitic will get longer, often simply for being proponents of Palestinian rights”. Here, Wolfson interrupted her again: “I urge you to be careful” – and then went straight on to tell her abruptly: “Take your seat – your time is up now.”

After two minutes and 45 seconds, that is. All other delegates got a minimum of three minutes, with Wolfson gently requesting that they finish when their time was up. The video of comrade Wise’s speech and Wolfson’s interruptions is available online.

palestine flagsFlags everywhere: conference was in full solidarity with the Palestinian cause. The Labour membership clearly rejects the ‘Anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ slurs and lies

 

 

 

Choosing a Zionist to chair this most controversial session of the whole conference (which also included the debate on Brexit) was, of course, a highly political move by the party leadership, intended to show that it ‘takes anti-Semitism seriously’. A bit like if Barbara Castle had been asked to chair a session on the impact of Ted Heath’s anti-trade union laws. Or Jack Straw on the Iraq war.

It was another sign, if one was needed, that Corbyn is still not prepared to take on the right, but continues to try and appease members of the PLP, etc, in the vain hope of keeping them quiet. Fat chance. Wolfson was not a neutral chair – and was not supposed to be one. The AWL might pretend not to understand that, but it was pretty obvious to the rest of us.

But then, the AWL is more than friendly with the JLM – in 2016 it even organised a joint meeting with this Zionist outfit – along with, wait for it, the pro-Blairite Progress group. After all, on the question of Israel-Palestine, there is nothing that indicates that the AWL might stem from a socialist tradition. Mike Cushman brilliantly describes this bizarre meeting as a “love-in” over a “common object of affection”: Israel. He writes:

But not the Israel we see every day abusing Palestinians and harassing dissident anti-Zionists. It was an Israel of their imagination, moving gracefully to a two-state solution, abandoning settlements and occupation on the way.

What he says is well worth a read if you want a taste of the AWL’s ahistorical and emotional attitude to the question.

Qualitative difference?

It is difficult to talk of ‘quality’ in this context, but the latest rant in Solidarity represents, perhaps, a qualitative difference. AWLers used to be rather careful, for example, not to label Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker as full- blown anti-Semites and desisted from calling for their expulsions from the Labour Party. When Matgamna fumed that Livingstone is a “functioning anti-Semite”, who “should be expelled from the Labour Party”, the Solidarity editorial committee quickly pointed out that “our editorial position is that we do not call for Livingstone to be expelled. We want to limit, not expand, the powers the current party regime has to ‘ban’ political views.” All clear then?

Now Labour Party Marxists is accused by the AWL not just of “dog- whistle anti-Semitism”, but also of “anti-Semitic actions and views”. We did not see Matgamna at conference, so we presume this is not one of his ‘special’ articles that have to be taken with a handful of salt, but the “editorial position”.

The article does not specify if the AWL thinks LPM members should be expelled from the Labour Party. But clearly this is the logic of what it is doing by naming and ‘shaming’ people in the middle of this vile witch-hunt directed against Corbyn and those who defend him from the right.

We have been assured that the AWL does not actively report people to the Labour Party’s compliance unit – but it might just as well. Its poisonous campaign has certainly helped to create and maintain today’s toxic and fearful atmosphere in the party and will no doubt have encouraged others to report cases of alleged anti-Semitism to the thought police. This has nothing to do with helping to ‘cleanse’ the workers’ movement, as some turncoats on the left seem to think.

Labour Against the Witchhunt was spot on to launch its open letter, ‘No, Jennie, we will not be informers’, in response to requests by general secretary Jennie Formby that members should report cases of alleged anti-Semitism to the Labour Party’s ‘complaints department’ (aka compliance unit).

As LAW writes elsewhere, “We have seen people being suspended for using the word ‘Zio’ or for expressing their outrage of the horrendous crimes committed by the state of Israel in a confused manner. The vast majority of these people are clearly not anti-Semitic. And yet, they have been publicly labelled as such” by the mainstream press and the right inside and outside the party, “often causing great distress to the member” in question.

We agree with LAW that “open and democratic debate, without fear of being reported, is the best way to educate people and fight prejudice and racism”. Reporting people to the thought police in the party, however, will only strengthen the hand of the witch-hunters and the right wing.

Neturei KartaMembers of Neturei Karta, an anti-Zionist, ultra-orthodox Jewish sect, handed out a good leaflet, ‘Jews in support of Jeremy’, at Liverpool conference. They condemn the foundation of a secular state of Israel as religiously blasphemous. The so-called Alliance for Workers’ Liberty prefers Zionist advocates of colonisation and ethnic cleansing

 

In its article, the AWL does not just attack us, but also the two members of Neturei Karta, anti-Zionist ultra- orthodox Jews who were calmly giving out their rather good leaflet, ‘Jews in support of Jeremy’, at the Labour conference; not to mention Chris Williamson MP, whom the AWL labels a “sickening individual” with a “despicable hatred of Jews”. Now, I am not an expert on legal questions, but that is not just pretty stupid and clearly untrue, but also sounds pretty libellous to me. Talking of which, it seems the AWL has now also taken to calling Jackie Walker an “anti-Semite”. Or, more precisely, to shout about it.

According to a statement posted on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/jacqueline.walker.3990, October 5 2018), AWL members told students at a fresher’s fair that they are “fighting anti-Semitism in the Labour Party” and that “we’ve got known anti-Semites living in this area. Jackie Walker, for example”. Jackie Walker has sought a retraction from the AWL and has emailed it twice, but has so far not even received an explanation. She says she is now considering reporting it to the police as a “hate crime”. [Update from Jackie Walker, October 12: “The AWL finally finished their investigation and got back to me …. and guess what, none of their activists owned up as having named me as an antisemite in their local recruitment drive. Everything however about this incident is now on file. I know the time it happened so identifying the person involved from the description would not be problematic.”]

We do not advocate bringing the state into disputes inside the workers’ movement and we would urge comrade Walker not to get the police involved. Having said that, it is, however, questionable whether the AWL should still be considered a part of the left.

We should also consider the actual, real-life implications of the AWL’s comments and articles. Being expelled from the Labour Party is one thing. But comrade Walker has become something of a pin-up for the witch-hunters; her face is plastered all over the hate-filled outputs of GnasherJew, Guido Fawkes and other such unpleasant mediums. The bomb threat made during the screening of the documentary, ‘The political lynching of Jackie Walker’, at the Labour conference was ‘only’ a hoax, but one can imagine the possibility of some deranged person being tempted to ‘do a Jo Cox’.

By supporting and perpetuating the witch-hunt against comrade Walker, Chris Williamson MP and Labour Party Marxists, the AWL has managed to stoop to a new low, even by its standards.

Anti-Semitism, Conference 2018, Democracy and the Labour Party

Rhea Wolfson and Emily Thornberry: pro-Zionist sisters in arms

On Tuesday afternoon, Labour Party conference staged the absurdly titled session ‘Security at home and abroad’, which included the debate on Brexit – and Palestine. This session was, incredibly, chaired by NEC member Rhea Wolfson, a member of the pro-Zionist Jewish Labour Movement. She started the session by warning conference to stay away from “inward-looking debate which focuses on internal matters and NEC decisions. Please be careful about the language you use. Make everybody feel welcome and do not boo.”

Hilary WiseWolfson was, however, less than “welcoming” when Hilary Wise from Ealing and Acton Central CLP spoke passionately about the anti-Semitism smear campaign (Youtube video here). She stated that as a campaigner on Palestinian rights for 30 years, she had “never seen anything like the current campaign of slurs and accusations made against Jeremy Corbyn and the left in the party. I am afraid it is an orchestrated campaign and if you want to know how it works I urge you to watch ‘The Lobby’ on Al Jazeera.”

At that point Wolfson warned her: “I would ask you to be very careful. You are straying into territory here.”

Comrade Wise went on to warn quite rightly that “this campaign will only get worse and the list of people being denounced as anti-Semitic will get longer, often simply for being proponents of Palestinian rights.” Wolfson interrupted her again: “I urge you to be careful” and then went straight on to tell her abruptly: “Take your seat – your time is up now.”

After two minutes and 45 seconds, that is. All other delegates got a minimum of three minutes, with Wolfson gently requesting that they finish when their time was up. But Wolfson is not just a member of the JLM: she used her vote on the national executive committee (NEC) to send Jackie Walker to the national constitutional committee (which will in all likelihood expel her later in the year), pushed through the ‘working definition’ on Anti-Semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and has ambitions to become an MP. She will fit in well with the current PLP. Her fellow travellers in the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty must be so proud (she was – until very recently – listed as an editor of their magazine The Clarion).

In this context, the role of Emily Thornberry at conference was interesting: As a member of the pro-Zionist Labour Friends of Israel, she is not tainted by the ‘anti-Semitism scandal’ in the Labour Party and is groomed by ‘moderates’ and some on the left alike to take over from Jeremy Corbyn (note her positive reference to fellow soft Zionist Jon Lansman in her speech).

palestine flagsAccording to Asa Winstanley of the award-winning Electronic Intifada, in an hour-long meeting, she heavily leaned on the movers of the motion on Palestine to delete any reference to the nakba (a reference to Israel’s expulsion of some 800,000 Palestinians to establish a “Jewish state” in 1948) and demanded that the motion’s call for an immediate arms trade freeze be removed. But they refused on both counts and even made reference to her in their speech. Good on them! Thousands of comrades waved Palestine flags, handed out by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Labour Against the Witchhunt – a fantastic sight.

Then came Thornberry’s already infamous conference speech – well-delivered, but playing hard and fast with working class history, using references to the International Brigades and the Anti-Nazi League to support the witch-hunt against many Corbyn supporters who have been accused of anti-Semitism (most of them falsely).

“There are sickening individuals on the fringes of our movement, who use our legitimate support for Palestine as a cloak and a cover for their despicable hatred of Jewish people, and their desire to see Israel destroyed. These people stand for everything that we have always stood against and they must be kicked out of our party, the same way Oswald Mosley was kicked out of Liverpool.” Her dramatic shouts of “No pasaran, no pasaran!” tricked some people into giving her a standing ovation.

Needless to say, Rhea Wolfson made no attempt to reign in Thornberry, who was basically comparing comrades like Tony Greenstein, Marc Wadsworth (both already expelled) and Jackie Walker, who is about to be thrown out of the party, to fascists. Thornberry is a fellow Zionist, after all.

To quote Chris Williamson MP at the fringe organised by Labour Against the Witchhunt:

“The only way you stop a playground bully is to stop running. The monster is getting bigger, the more you feed it. Stop feeding the beast! They are trying to pick us off, one by one. Which is why we need to call this campaign out for what it is: a pile of nonsense.”

Conference 2018, Trade unions

John McDonnell’s 10% shares plan: There is no ethical capitalism

WEDNESDAY fullRed Pages, Wednesday September 26 – download the PDF here

In today’s issue:

There is no ethical capitalism
John McDonnell’s 10% share scheme sounds radical, but it is an old trick

Bomb hoax at Jackie Walker film

Right wing damp squib
The Jewish Labour Movement and other right wingers kept their heads down – some thugs did their dirty work

No Momentum
Conference proved that it is time for Jon Lansman to step aside

There is no ethical capitalism

John McDonnell’s 10% share scheme sounds radical, but it is an old trick

In his key speech to conference, John McDonnell outlined his plans for “true industrial democracy”. After all, “workers, who create the wealth of a company, should share in its ownership and, yes, in the returns that it makes”. So, up to a third of the seats on company boards would be “allocated to workers”. Companies employing more than 250 staff would have to pay 1% of their assets, or up to 10% of their shares, into an ‘inclu- sive ownership fund’. Although they would not be compelled to pay out dividends, McDonnell reckons that most companies would do so, which would mean up to £500 a year for perhaps 11 million workers.

Anything above £500 would be paid into a fund to help finance pub- lic services. McDonnell believes that would provide an extra £2 billion a year for the NHS, etc. Although he was trying to sell all this as very radical, he was careful to emphasise that it was actually in the interests of capital too. You see, “employee owner- ship” is likely to increase “a company’s productivity” and encourage “long-term thinking”.

In reality there is nothing radical about such schemes. Far from em- powering our class, the intention is to emphasise a ‘common interest’ with the capitalists – if we cooperate, both sides will benefit, right? That is why similar programmes have been introduced in several countries – often by rightwing parties. Surely if we have a share in the ownership of the company employing us, that will make us more likely to work alongside the bosses to help increase profits, won’t it? And it wouldn’t be a good idea to go on strike.

This scheme would be unlikely to make workers better off. It is obvious that funds diverted to shares for em- ployees would have to be taken from somewhere – companies would argue that this additional cost would reduce their ability to increase wages.

McDonnell once knew that workers and capitalists have no common interest, and that, far from promoting a more cooperative form of capitalism, we need to establish our own system, based on production for need, not for profit. But now, instead of targeting the system of capital itself, he restricts his criticism to the “financial elite”.

When it came to the proposed public ownership of industries like water, energy, Royal Mail and the railways, McDonnell reiterated that this would not represent a “return to the past”. This time the nationalised sector would be “run democratically” – with workers’ representatives sitting alongside state appointees.

Despite this vision of a more ethical, participatory form of capitalism, McDonnell had the cheek to end his speech by describing it as “socialism” – before shouting “Solidarity!” to the largely approving delegates.

The problem he and Corbyn have is that, no matter how much they go out of their way to reassure the estab- lishment, the latter just doesn’t buy it. It knows that, with their past record of siding with the workers, neither can be trusted to run the system.

John and Jeremy – drop the reassurances to capital and stick with the interests of the workers!

 

Right wing damp squib

The Jewish Labour Movement and other right wingers kept their heads down – some thugs did their dirty work

In the run-up to conference there were reports that rightwingers were planning to “force conference dele- gates to ‘run the gauntlet’ of a placard-waving demonstration that will claim to be about anti-Semitism”; that “disruption was planned at any fringe event that Corbyn is expected to attend”, and that “any appearances by Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, Labour general secretary Jennie Formby or Chris Williamson are on the hit list”. There were also rumours of some sort of anti-Corbyn demonstration along the lines of the ‘Enough is enough’ outing on March 26. Various leftwing ‘rapid response teams’ had started to organise in or- der to mobilise for a quick counter-demonstration.

Tweet on LPMIn the end, none of it happened. Supporters of the pro-Zionist Jewish Labour Movement and other rightwingers kept to themselves and made no attempt to engage delegates and visitors. We also received markedly less abuse this year compared to the 2017 conference in Brighton. Last year, our Labour Party Marxists front-page article – ‘Anti- Zionism does not equal anti-Semitism’, written by Israeli socialist Moshé Machover – led to huge uproar. Assorted rightwingers and supporters of the JLM gathered aggressively around our stall, snatched copies of LPM and tried to provoke our distributors. It was all pretty small-scale and pathetic, but the right was in an aggressive and offensive mood.

It got worse: John Mann MP and the JLM complained to Labour’s compliance unit. It led to the suspension and then expulsion of comrade Machover over his links with LPM. After a huge international outcry and a pointed lawyer’s letter to the Labour Party, Iain McNicol relented and reinstated comrade Machover within a month.

But that was 2017. This year, the response has been far more mooted.

Again, our excellent front-page article was written by comrade Machover. Its headline is intentionally provocative: ‘Why Israel is a racist state’. This refers, of course, to the NEC’s ill-judged adoption of the full ‘working definition’ of anti-Semitism published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), including all 11 disputed examples – which includes a ban on describing Israel as racist. Clearly, comrade Machover’s article is perti- nent and we were not surprised that many delegates and visitors were attracted by the headline. We handed out over 2,000 copies of LPM, in addition to the 1,300 daily copies of our Red Pages. Reactions were 95% favourable, with many thanking us, and some commenting along the lines of: ‘At long last, somebody is giving some political guidance!’ Even Labour First’s Luke Akehurst could not help admitting that he was “very impressed” by our daily output (he seems to have been the only one handing out his A4 Labour First leaflet).

palestine flags 2We got a few quietly huffed comments along the lines of ‘Don’t you know that’s anti-Semitic?’ But that’s about it. While the right has been incredibly successful with their smear campaign in the mainstream media, that kind of bubble bursts pretty quickly once you come to con- ference. Party delegates are usually among the most active Labour members – they know from first-hand experience that the party is not riddled with anti-Semites. It seemed as though every other delegate or conference visitor had swapped their official lanyard (featuring the logo of the rightwing Usdaw union) with that handed out by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Yesterday, hundreds of delegates waved Palestinian flags (which had been distributed by the PSC and Labour Against the Witchhunt) when a composite motion on Palestine was debated and, like last year, every reference to Palestine was greeted with huge applause.

No wonder then that rightwingers are not exactly keen to openly show their face at conference any more. We can just about imagine the reception they would have got if they had tried to hold up ‘Corbyn is an anti- Semite’ posters.

However, we hear of two instances where small groups of Zionist thugs from ‘Jewish Human Rights Watch’, armed with video cameras, followed Jewish pro-Palestine campaigner Jenny Manson and Unite general secretary Len McCluskey after fringe meetings, trying to threaten and provoke them. The bomb scare at the screening of the Jackie Walker documentary certainly falls into that category (see below).

Screenshot 2018-09-25 20.04.39Clearly, the civil war is far from over and the smear campaign in the media continues unabated. For example, the right has been busy fingering comrade Machover and LPM: The Jewish Chronicle shouts that we were distributing “vicious anti-Israel hate material, Breitbart calls it an “inflammatory article”, while The Times of Israel complains, wrongly, that comrade Machover was “comparing Israel to Nazis”.

Comrade Machover has responded in an admiringly calm manner to all this: “If you are interested in the truth, please read my article and the two attacks. You will see that the Jewish Chronicle and Times of Israel articles contain several lies and distortions, among which are the very headings of the said articles.”

We cannot rule out that comrade Machover may once again be reported to Labour’s compliance unit. We cannot rule out that he will once again be suspended. We cannot rule out further expulsions of LPM supporters. Although Jeremy Corbyn publicly stated last year that he was “glad” that comrade Machover had been reinstated, a lot has happened in the last 12 months. Because of the ongoing and doomed strategy of the party leadership around Corbyn to try and conciliate and placate the right, the fake anti-Semitism campaign has gained an incredible amount of ground.

Take the conference session on Tuesday afternoon with the rather absurd title of ‘Security at home and abroad’, which included the debate on Brexit – and Palestine. This session was, incredibly, chaired by NEC member Rhea Wolfson, a member of the JLM. She started the session by warning conference to stay away from “inward-looking debate which focuses on internal matters and NEC decisions. Please be careful about the language you use. Make everybody feel welcome and do not boo.”

Wolfson was, however, less than “welcoming” when Hilary Wise from Ealing and Acton Central CLP spoke eloquently about the anti-Semitism smear campaign. She stated that as a campaigner on Palestinian rights for 30 years, she had “never seen anything like the current campaign of slurs and accusations made against Jeremy Corbyn and the left in the party. I am afraid it is an orchestrated campaign and if you want to know how it works I urge you to watch ‘The Lobby’ on Al Jazeera.”

At that point Wolfson warned her: “I would ask you to be very careful. You are straying into territory here.”

Comrade Wise went on to warn quite rightly that “this campaign will only get worse and the list of people being denounced as anti-Semitic will get longer, often simply for being proponents of Palestinian rights.” Wolfson interrupted her again: “I urge you to be careful” and then went straight on to tell her abruptly: “Take your seat – your time is up now.”

After two minutes and 45 seconds, that is. All other delegates got a minimum of three minutes, with Wolfson gently requesting that they finish when their time was up. But Wolfson is not just a member of the JLM: she used her vote on the NEC to send Jackie Walker to the national constitutional committee, pushed through the IHRA definition and has ambitions to become an MP. She will fit in well with the current PLP. Her fellow travellers in the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty must be so proud (she is an editor of their magazine The Clarion).

Thornberry

In this context, the speech by Emily Thornberry, groomed by ‘moderates’ to take over from Jeremy Corbyn, was interesting. She clearly had been picked to speak in favour of the anti-Semitism witch-hunt – the only person at conference to do so. “There are sickening individuals on the fringes of our movement, who use our legitimate support for Palestine as a cloak and a cover for their despicable hatred of Jewish people, and their desire to see Israel destroyed. These people stand for everything that we have always stood against and they must be kicked out of our party, the same way Oswald Mosley was kicked out of Liverpool.” Her dramatic shouts of “No pasaran, no pasaran!” tricked some people into giving her a standing ovation.

Needless to say, Rhea Wolfson made no attempt to reign in Thornberry for these crass insults, no doubt directed at comrades like Jackie Walker, who is about to be thrown out of the party. Thornberry is a fellow Zionist, after all.

To quote Chris Williamson MP at the fringe organised by Labour Against the Witchhunt: “The only way you stop a playground bully is to stop running. The monster is getting bigger, the more you feed it. Stop feeding the beast! They are trying to pick us off, one by one. Which is why we need to call this campaign out for what it is: a pile of nonsense.”

Bomb hoax at Jackie Walker film

bombLast night’s film preview of the new documentary, ‘The political
 lynching of Jackie Walker’, had to be stopped a few minutes in.
 After an anonymous phone call (“there are two bombs in the
building that will kill many people”), all 150 visitors had to evacu
ate Blackburn House on police orders. Of course, no bomb was
found. By the time the police gave the all-clear, the staff wanted 
to go home. This hoax is almost certainly part of the campaign
by pro-Zionist forces to disrupt and intimidate the pro-Palestinian left. But, of course, this kind of cowardly behaviour will only
 increase the feeling of solidarity for Jackie Walker and all the
other victims of the witch-hunt – and interest in the film. Director Jon Pullman announced outside Blackburn House that anybody who wants to show the documentary should contact him: www.jonpullman.com.

No Momentum

Conference proved that it is
 time for Jon Lansman to go

Momentum played almost no role at conference. Of course, it organised The World Transformed across three venues, but with varied levels of success. It felt smaller than previous events and much less relevant, with most sessions having been outsourced to other organisations. While Freedom of Speech on Israel, the Liverpool 47 and Labour Against the Witchhunt were denied spaces, those allowed to organise at TWT made use of it by putting on valuable sessions like ‘Decolonising yoga’ and ‘Acid Corbynism’.

Last year, Momentum made a huge effort in advance of conference to gather data from delegates, so that they could be regularly sent text messages, carrying frequently useful voting guidelines. None of that happened this year. Momentum had published an app, but, unless you actively went looking for recommendations, you wouldn’t know how Jon Lansman (the owner of Momentum’s database) felt about the various conference motions.

Momentum also did not put forward any candidates – or voting recommendations – for positions on the conference arrangements committee or the national constitutional committee (which deals with all disciplinary matters passed on to it by the NEC).

Crucially, Lansman badly folded on the question of open selection of parliamentary candidates (also known as mandatory reselection). Moved by International Labour, this rule change would have done away with the undemocratic trigger ballot, which always favours the sitting MP, who has to be actively challenged. Open selection would have created a level playing field between all interested candidates. Clearly, a much better and far more democratic system.

Having opportunistically jumped on the open selection bandwagon about a week before conference, he let it be known during the debate on the Party Democracy Review that Momentum would now prefer that delegates voted in favour of the NEC compromise after all – ie, a reform of the trigger ballot rather than its abolition. This followed hot on the heels of Unite general secretary Len McCluskey’s intervention, who kept on insisting that he would ask his delegates to vote for mandatory reselection – if such a motion should reach conference floor. But, in the meantime, he did everything in his power to stop the motion coming before conference.

Most delegates were fuming and the NEC amendment only scraped through because of the support of the unions. Momentum was clearly not representing CLP delegates – the vast majority of whom are in support of mandatory reselection (see yesterday’s issue of Red Pages).

Momentum has proved once again how utterly useless it is when it comes to actually organising the Labour left. Things really started to disintegrate in the wake of the Lansman coup of January 10 2017, when Lansman abolished all democratic structures in Momentum and imposed his own constitution. But the whole farce over the defeat of the principle of mandatory reselection exposed really rather dramatically the huge vacuum that exists on the left of our party. We urgently need a principled, effective organisation of the Labour left that can coordinate the fight for the democratic transformation of the party and coordinate a national campaign for mandatory reselection and other important democratic demands. Momentum clearly cannot fill that role.