If someone leaps on a bandwagon against somebody else, it’s usually because they’ve got something to hide – and that is certainly true of the Conservative Party, with regard to racism.

Perhaps the Tories were hoping we’d be too busy looking at Jeremy Corbyn’s fight against trumped-up tales of anti-Semitism to notice.

Too bad.

Let’s start with Boris Johnson – because he’s the most high-profile racist on the Tory front bench. Here’s The Guardian:

Boris Johnson has been urged to apologise after it emerged that he attended the launch of local Tory campaign that has been accused of “dog-whistle racism”.

The foreign secretary was pictured on a visit to Romford market, in east London, last December to help launch the “Keep Havering Safe” campaign before the local elections.

The campaign went on to distribute leaflets claiming that a Labour victory would result in the borough becoming increasingly like an inner-city area with a “massive population” rise and a “crime wave” arriving from central London.

It warned that the influence of London mayor, Sadiq Khan, could lead to the borough ending up “resembling Hackney, Newham, Camden and Barking” rather than “traditional” parts of Essex.

The Conservative party chairman, Brandon Lewis, was also under pressure to intervene in the row after the local election leaflet, which one of the councillors behind it said was signed off by national party headquarters, came to light.

Former Tory minister Nick Boles was among those who criticised the campaign, tweeting: “This leaflet is disgraceful. The individuals responsible should apologise, and withdraw it, or face disciplinary action. We cannot attack Corbyn for indulging antisemitism in Labour and allow messages like this to go unchallenged. @BrandonLewis over to you.”

David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, called the leaflet “one long dog whistle about race”, saying it marked a return to the controversial tactics used against Khan when he defeated Zac Goldsmith to become mayor in May 2016.

Goldsmith was heavily criticised, including by some Conservatives, for repeatedly raising what he said were Khan’s previous links to extreme Muslim figures and for not being sufficiently tough on Islamist terrorism.

Here’s the leaflet:

See, while it’s nothing like the general election campaign of 1963 (“If you desire a COLOURED for your neighbour, vote Labour. If you are already burdened with one, vote Tory”), there is an underlying message that people of minority ethnic groups would flood into the borough, leading to the changes alleged in the leaflet – including, take note, a crime wave.

The claims are unsubstantiated – there is no factual evidence to support them – leading to concerns that the leaflet is exactly the kind of “fake news” for which Theresa May created a special ‘rapid response’ team, not very long ago.

This disgusting leaflet from the Tories in the local election campaign must surely break the Tory pledge on respect? I hope @BrandonLewis @JamesCleverly will be making sure these local Tories apologise? I am sure the rapid response Tory #fakenews unit will be on this as well? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/2gVHI0sNvM

— 🌈 Angela Rayner 🌈 (@AngelaRayner) March 28, 2018

The launch attended by Mr Johnson would, therefore, have been a perfect opportunity for him to start banging on about “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” again. Sorry to keep harping back to his use of those words but it never gets old.

Let’s move on. Here’s Aleesha:

Ooh, ooh, I know who that was. Was it this man? https://t.co/r6vMZ1NZvx

— Adam Bernard (@AdamBernard_HA) March 28, 2018

I have to admit I didn’t recognise Mr Blackman’s name, so I went searching. Here‘s Tim Fenton, in his Zelo Street blog, to explain:

Harrow East’s Tory MP Bob Blackman, who exploited prejudice against Dalits, sometimes also called Untouchables, in order to secure the backing of the National Council of Hindu Temples in the run-up to last year’s General Election. He was not alone in indulging the racism of the Indian sub-continent to garner votes. But there was more.

Blackman had also hosted a hate preacher in a meeting at the House of Commons. Tapan Ghosh, who is not merely anti-Islam but also anti-Christian, has endorsed Geert Wilders.

Particularly interesting for readers of This Site will be the fact that Mr Blackman is an honorary patron of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, the right-wing, politically-motivated so-called charity that, it seems clear, attacks political targets such as This Writer in order to weaken left-wing politics in the UK.

Mr Fenton writes:

This organisation has assembled within its list ofHonorary Patrons at least six individuals who have either exhibited racist behaviour, used racism for their own ends, or been singularly unwise in their choice of language in areas concerning race.

[On Bob Blackman:] This less than distinguished Honorary Patron endorsed a figure – Tapan Ghosh – who “praised the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Burma, and said Muslims should be forced to leave their religion if they come to a western country”. Yet the CAA has no problem with Blackman’s presence.

The article goes on to report that Mr Blackman shared an anti-Muslim story on his Facebook page, Muslim Somali sex gang say raping white British children “part of their culture”’ from a site calling itself Hardcore News.

Mr Fenton ends in the (forlorn?) hope that CAA chair Gideon Falter will address this “minor inconsistency” in the approach of some of his honorary patrons to racism. This Writer doubts it.

After all, the CAA is thoroughly Islamophobic from top to bottom, claiming that British Muslims are highly anti-Semitic. To Mr Falter, it seems, they are just another target for his aggression.

Perhaps he should give up the pretence and join the Conservative Party. Ah, but would the CAA then lose its undeserved charity status?

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Momentum, set up by 2 prominent Jewish labour activists, was called 'neofascist' today by a serving minister hiding behind parliamentary privilege. Troubling times we live in.

— Gareth (@GarethFearn) March 28, 2018

How wrong can one Tory government minister be?

About as wrong as it’s possible to get!

Here‘s the story, courtesy of Evolve Politics:

Jeremy Corbyn’s activist group Momentum have threatened a Tory Minister with legal action after he wrongly labelled the left-wing grassroots organisation as ‘neo-fascist’ during a debate in the House of Commons.

The Conservative Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Sajid Javid, made the incredible claim during a speech replying to Andrew Gwynne in a debate on Tory cuts to local government.

Knowing he was safely protected from British libel laws through his Parliamentary privilege, Javid said [15:27.56]:

“Just yesterday there were reports of a meeting by the hard left neo-fascist Momentum group in Wandsworth trying to remove Wandsworth Councillors”

Momentum’s response was immediate:

.@sajidjavid, do you really believe we're a 'neo-fascist' organization? Say it outside parliament and you'll hear from our lawyers. 🤣💵💵💵

— Momentum 🌹 (@PeoplesMomentum) March 28, 2018

Here’s an interesting thing, though – Labour MP Clive Lewis reckons Mr Javid has said it outside the Commons chamber.

.@sajidjavid you muppet. Said outside the chamber as well. https://t.co/tcZJGj4fr6

— Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) March 28, 2018

This means Mr Javid is entirely open to prosecution, as This Writer understands the law.

Meanwhile, responses from the public have ranged from outrage…

I'm a member of @PeoplesMomentum
All members I've met are decent people who want social justice & are prepared to work for it@sajidjavid “neofascist” slur is vile. Theresa May should force him to apologise

Javid is a disciple of noxious Ayn Rand – high priestess of selfishness

— Tom London (@TomLondon6) March 28, 2018

So @sajidjavid describing @PeoplesMomentum as "neofascist" in Parliament today is a disgraceful smear against tens of thousands of anti-fascist activists who believe in a more just and equal world, and also belittles the horror of actual fascism. He should apologise in full.

— Owen Jones 🌹 (@OwenJones84) March 28, 2018

Whether you share the politics of @PeoplesMomentum or not, it is absurd and disgraceful to call them 'neofascist'. The minister should apologise. https://t.co/A2ItAb8nkX

— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) March 28, 2018

Momentum being called “neofascist” by @sajidjavid is part of a concerted right-wing attempt to demonise and delegitimise all dissent.

“Enemies of the people”, “crush the saboteurs”, “traitors”, “Labour are terrorist sympathisers/foreign stooges”.

It’s sinister and must stop. https://t.co/FUVcd1PegU

— Owen Jones 🌹 (@OwenJones84) March 28, 2018

… to support (from the usual suspects)…

https://twitter.com/KamBass/status/979111262843006976

… to satire. After the Twitter hashtag predicting the next smear against Jeremy Corbyn on Monday, there now appeared #MyHardLeftNeoFascistConfession:

#MyHardLeftNeoFascistConfession – I think the money for trident could be better spent on building social housing and training nhs staff. Don't let on

— Jeremiah, Mad as hell (@R_O_Shipman) March 28, 2018

I sold Porton Down out of date baking soda and passed it off as military grade Novichok of a Russian type. #MyHardLeftNeoFascistConfession

— Nicola James 💚💙🇵🇸#BlackLivesMatter (@NAJ562) March 28, 2018

The real question is whether Mr Javid has made his “neofascist” comment outside the protection of the Commons chamber. If he has, or if he does, then Momentum will certainly launch a lawsuit against him – and rightly so.

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You thought this was about me, didn’t you?

Sorry to disappoint, but this is about someone who, it appears, may have genuinely suggested that the Holocaust was a hoax.

That being said, Alan Bull’s claim that the accusations took his Facebook postings out of context chimes right – that’s the way with many false, malicious and opportunistic claims of anti-Semitism.

It doesn’t mean he’s innocent; it means Labour Party investigators need to look at the original posts.

If Ms Shawcroft had done so, she might not have made the comments that led to her resignation (or did Jeremy Corbyn really tell her to quit, as some are suggesting?) – or she might have had the evidence she needed to prove herself right.

In these matters, context is everything. That’s why so many false accusations are stripped of context, or doctored to create a completely false impression. Without seeing the original posts, it’s impossible to know the facts of the matter.

Now, it seems timing is equally important.

Would Ms Shawcroft have been forced out if the latest anti-Semitism row had not happened last weekend?

Probably not.

It did happen, her email was publicised by some unscrupulous Labour source, and she was out of time.

What now?

Well, Labour is likely to (finally) enact the recommendations of the Chakrabarti report, bringing a level of transparency and even, possibly, legality to its dispute resolution process. So we may hope the removal of Ms Shawcroft will have achieved nothing for those who engineered it.

Mr Ball will likely see his case handled under the new process – let’s face it, the current one is cripplingly slow – and we’ll find out what was going on with Mr Ball, one way or the other.

And of course we now have further proof that Labour is leaking like a sieve because it has at least one traitor working at the highest level. The party needs to identify this person.

Fortunately, the more they leak, the easier it will be to find them.

Labour’s disputes chief resigned tonight after asking for a council candidate embroiled in a “Holocaust denial” row to be let back into the party.

Christine Shawcroft said she was “deeply sorry” for her comments as she quit as head of the party’s powerful disputes panel.

It emerged Ms Shawcroft sent an e-mail, which was leaked to The Times, asking party officials to reinstate Peterborough council candidate Alan Bull.

Mr Bull was suspended after a screenshot apparently showed he had shared an article on Facebook called: “International Red Cross Report Confirms the Holocaust of Six Million Jews is a Hoax.”

But in the leaked e-mail Ms Shawcroft wrote she was “concerned” about Mr Bull’s suspension, adding the original Facebook post was “taken completely out of context and alleged to show anti-Semitism”.

In her e-mail Ms Shawcroft also suggested “partisan” disputes were “wasting a great deal of staff time.”

She said it was received by the party almost a year earlier yet Mr Bull was suspended “just in time” to stop him standing in the local elections.

She added: “As it is hardly Mr Bull’s fault if the party has sat on the complaint for months without investigation, I think we should reinstate his membership and allow him to contest [the election].”

A Labour source confirmed the e-mail was genuine.

Source: Labour disputes chief Christine Shawcroft RESIGNS after opposing suspension of man mired in ‘Holocaust denial’ row – Mirror Online

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If there’s going to be a workforce crisis, that usually means the potential employees can name their price – especially if they have experience or expertise in a particular field.

The claim that the health and social care sectors will take the lion’s share of the workforce by 2025 therefore suggests a large boost in public sector pay, undoing the work of the last eight years as far as the Tories are concerned.

It is exactly the opposite of what Margaret Thatcher intended when she first planned to dismantle British industry, back in the 1970s.

The good news, for the Tories, is that their genocidal policies are bringing life expectancy down – so it is possible that demand may not be quite as high as predicted.

Just remember that this saving to the public purse is bought with the lives of your beloved grannies, granddads, great uncles and aunts.

As for the rest of the economy – it would be interesting to see how the Tories might propose to fix this huge potential problem they’ll have created.

My guess is they’ll have to go back to unrestricted immigration, meaning Brexit will have been a hugely expensive waste of time.

It’s a huge joke, really.

The question is: Who’s laughing?

British businesses have been warned to brace for a severe workforce crisis triggered by Brexit, with the number of workers entering employment expected to fall behind the rate of population growth for the first time in half a century.

According to employment consultant Mercer, the size of the British workforce is expected to rise by just 820,000 by 2025, marking a dramatic slowdown from the previous decade, when almost 2 million people entered employment.

The increase would cut the workforce growth rate from 9% in the 10 years to 2015 to 2.4% six years after Britain leaves the EU at the end of March 2019, underscoring businesses’ fears over a potential labour shortage.

The slowdown is also forecast to have worrying consequences for the government at a time when more workers are needed to enter the health and social care professions to care for Britain’s ageing population. Mercer estimates there will be an additional 2 million people aged 65 and over by 2025.

The consultancy firm said as many as 710,000 people are likely to be required by the health and social care sector over the coming few years, leaving just 110,000 available for the rest of the economy.

Source: UK businesses told to expect workforce crisis after Brexit | Politics | The Guardian

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This is a particularly disturbing development.

I don’t know about you, but I know of several children with parents from the EU.

It seems that, due to a loophole in the law, they may end up being deported when they reach the age of 18, even though their parents have the right to stay in the UK.

Handy little trick, that, for a government that wants to cut the number of immigrant families on British soil; parents who fall foul of this loophole may feel bound to leave as well.

Of course, Brexit is a divisive issue. I wonder how many people who learn of this will tell their colleagues, neighbours, or even friends who happen to be from an EU country.

Internationally blended families involving EU citizens and British-born children are being warned that their children could face “serious problems” after Brexit if they do not already have documentation to stay in the UK.

Parents from the EU are being urged to get their children’s status documented as soon as possible if they want them to avoid hostile environment checks by the Home Office which could mean measures such as bank accounts being closed, driving licences cancelled and job offers being withdrawn.

The consequences for those that have not obtained British citizenship for children of two EU citizens living in Britain are “potentially severe”, according to the paper published by immigration law experts at the University of Birmingham.

Source: EU parents warned children need papers to stay in UK after Brexit | Politics | The Guardian

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Here’s a perspective on the row about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party that has gone relatively unreported – that of young, Jewish Labour supporters.

I’m not saying I support everything Annie Cohen states in her piece (it is much longer than the excerpt below, and the parts about Ken Livingstone seem to have misunderstood his point*).

But you can see for yourself that this is a person who hasn’t been fooled by the nonsense put about by the Board of Deputies of British Jews or the Jewish Leadership Council – or any of their friends in the Labour Party itself.

She can think for herself and has drawn her own conclusions.

We would all be wise to do the same.

Corbyn is the first political leader in our living memory who we’ve heard say anything real, with policies that go beyond buzzwords, that might actually change the future we are facing. Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell are the only MPs who have actually listened to my concerns, and responded to them. Last year, many of my friends who had never before shown any interest in electoral politics not only turned out and voted, but actually campaigned on the streets for the Labour party.

It may surprise you to learn that of those of us who voted Labour last year, many were Jewish. Many of us have met Corbyn through our own activism, and some of us, along with others in the Jewish community, have criticised him for some of his past associations.

But none of us have witnessed him saying or doing anything anti-Semitic.

And yet, I and the rest of Corbyn’s Jewish supporters have watched aghast as the first politician in our lifetimes who has actually promised us meaningful change has come under increasing attack from the supposed representatives of our community.

Of course, anti-Semitism on the Left is a problem.

Corbyn’s critics, including much of the Jewish leadership in the UK are also guilty of misusing the Holocaust and our awful history for their own ends.

In the context of Labour and the wider UK Left, where false accusations of anti-Semitism have frequently been used to shut down protest against Israel, the first and most important step is to get people to acknowledge that anti-Semitism is still a problem, and one that cannot be swept under the carpet by quoting your anti-racist record, or crew of Jewish friends. A full throttled and blatantly ideological attack on one particular party and one particular politician, manipulating every tiny bit of circumstantial and even Facebook evidence, is not the way to achieve this, particularly as Corbyn has acknowledged the need for action.

If the Board of Deputies really wants to tackle anti-Semitism, it would do well to spend some time focusing on the conversations that need to be had in our own community, and working to include non-Zionist voices.

Source: Leave Jeremy Corbyn Alone. He’s The Leader We Young Jews Have Waited For. – The Forward

*I state this with the advantage of my own research. It isn’t anti-Semitic to state historical fact, although some might suggest it for their own political ends. Beware of such people.

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This is sickening, isn’t it?

An MP who owes everything he has to the Labour Party has (apparently) said he is planning to resign the party whip in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

But he hasn’t done it yet – and my bet is he won’t until the most damaging moment possible for the party that has supported him for his entire political life.

Otherwise, why not do it now?

Most of us can’t wait to see the back of him. Some are even satirising the moment he does go:

Has he done it or is he just threatening still? @JWoodcockMP do us all a favour and bugger off.

— Paul (@PaulOnBooks) March 28, 2018

And one more thing…

What about this?

The company that funded @JWoodcockMP's jaunt to Turkey, Bosphorus Global, is bankrolled by Berat Albayrak, who profited by selling ISIS oil. I wonder whether @UKLabour should investigate one of their MPs receiving such shady expenses, looks very bad!https://t.co/ZGLFm77cJZ

— Kurdistan Solidarity Campaign (@KurdsCampaign) February 12, 2018

John Woodcock is planning to resign the Labour whip in protest at the party’s direction under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

The Barrow and Furness MP has told friends that recent rows over Russia and anti-Semitism, as well as Owen Smith’s sacking and moves to unseat Dan Jarvis have pushed him to breaking point.

Mr Woodcock has long been been an outspoken critic of Mr Corbyn, and said before last year’s general election that he could not vote to make him Prime Minister.

Source: EXCL Labour MP John Woodcock ‘planning to resign party whip’ | PoliticsHome.com

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I doubt This Writer is alone in being slightly dizzy due to the whirl of evidence, counter-evidence, lies, falsehoods and half-truths about Conservative MPs and activists, Vote Leave and BeLeave working together to illegally influence the result of the EU referendum.

As I understand it, Shahmir Sanni was outed as gay by Stephen Parkinson, Theresa May’s political secretary, as a reprisal for blowing the whistle on the connections. This endangered the lives of Mr Sanni’s relatives in Pakistan, where homosexuality is illegal – and strongly suggests that the Conservative Party currently believes that protecting the illegally-won result of the referendum as more important than human lives.

This is an unacceptable attitude for any UK political organisation to have, and Mrs May should be made to account for it. Sadly, in Prime Minister’s Questions today (March 28), she ducked the issue. Perhaps legal force should be brought to bear.

In the meantime, we should all be grateful to Carole Cadwalladr, who continues to release valuable information to the public. What follows is a Twitter thread she published yesterday evening, detailing some of the connections between Vote Leave and BeLeave, and showing that these campaigns were co-ordinating with each other in a way that is illegal.

In a reasonable democracy, the revelations of interference by Cambridge Analytica and co-ordination between Vote Leave and BeLeave, on top of the fact that much of the Leave campaign was based on lies, would be enough to render the referendum null and void. The result is compromised beyond redemption and we are being taken out of the EU on the basis of a decision made in defiance of democracy.

Clearly we don’t live in a reasonable democracy. What will it take to stop the madness?

Emergency debate in parliament today re Vote Leave.
MPs: this Google drive is key evidence.
Set up by VL to co-ordinate BeLeave's content. On right: the deletion log.
March 1, Electoral Commission opened investigation.
March 17, Vote Leave deleted itself from 140 files pic.twitter.com/7QkgrojWPU

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) March 27, 2018

If proven, this would be the biggest election scandal of modern times. The biggest overspend. Our electoral laws were overhauled in 19th century to stop elections being bought. But they're now unenforceable, because: Facebook.

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) March 27, 2018

This was the cynical exploitation of two young, idealistic people. Here's Darren – the founder of the entirely independent & separate BeLeave campaign – wearing his Vote Leave badge in Vote Leave's headquarters. pic.twitter.com/i35qOGjiXp

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) March 27, 2018

"Everyone knew who we were," says Shahmir. "Michael Gove knew Darren. Boris Johnson knew Darren. Everyone knew who BeLeave were and how important we'd been to the campaign." pic.twitter.com/TvQIYoN062

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) March 27, 2018

https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/978544213129392128

And here are Theresa May’s advisers Stephen Parkinson & Cleo Watson helping BeLeave set up their constituition pic.twitter.com/3mvVj5mA33

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) March 27, 2018

And this may be the document that I find most appalling. Theresa May’s adviser tells Vote Leave’s lawyer ‘Darren & rest of the group (18-22) don’t feel comfortable handling the money side of things’ pic.twitter.com/7muz1euKHY

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) March 27, 2018

And here’s a Vote Leave senior director instructing Darren what to tell press re donations. pic.twitter.com/8Y2SOnAGCP

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) March 27, 2018

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The UK is living in a febrile climate at the moment, with the language being used by our representatives under close scrutiny by those who will take offence at anything they can twist into an insult. Look at the ‘anti-Semitism’ issue.

Into this atmosphere wades Boris Johnson, fearlessly wagging his foolish tongue where, no doubt, angels would fear to tread – repeating an insult to Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry that earned his own prime minister an admonishment a year ago. Here he is, getting a proper telling-off for it from Commons Speaker John Bercow:

Boris Johnson called out for 'sexism' after referring to Emily Thornberry by her husband's name pic.twitter.com/aag4kD41T6

— The Independent (@Independent) March 27, 2018

Here‘s The Guardian:

Johnson said: “It is the most astonishing … ‘no’ says the Labour frontbench, that’s their attitude, that’s their attitude, isn’t that extraordinary, this is an institution … ‘Say no,’ says the noble and learned Lady Baroness whatever it is, I can’t remember what it is … Nugee.

Bercow interrupted Johnson: “First, we do not name call in this chamber, and secondly … we do not address people by the titles of their spouses. The shadow foreign secretary has a name and it is not ‘Lady Something’.

“We know what her name is and it is inappropriate and frankly sexist to speak in those terms, and I am not having it in this chamber. That is the end of the matter. That parlance is not legitimate and it will not be allowed, and it will be called out.”

Sexist and inappropriate. And Mr Johnson knew this, because Theresa May earned a similar telling-off from Mr Bercow a little more than a year ago, on February 6, 2017.

Here‘s the Huffington Post:

Emily Thornberry complained to Commons Speaker John Bercow today after Theresa May called her “Lady Nugee”.

Labour’s shadow foreign secretary is married to High Court Judge Sir Christopher Nugee.

Thornberry’s critics like to poke fun at the Islington South MP by invoking her formal title.

Speaking in the Commons today, the prime minister became irritated at Thornberry’s heckling and deployed the name.

Thornberry later complained to Bercow. “Is it in order for the prime minister to refer to a member of this House not by her own name, but by the name of her husband?” she asked.

“I have never been a Lady and it will be a great deal more than being married to a Knight of the Realm in order to make me one.”

May said she would “of course apologise” to Thornberry, but added quickly: “for the last 36 years I have been refered to by my husbands name.”

So Theresa May is sexist as well.

But we should also remember that Boris Johnson has a long history of racism. That’s right – the UK’s Foreign Secretary considers foreign people of certain races to be – well, I’ll let Marcus Chown spell it out for you:

We have a Tory foreign minister who called black people "picanninies" with "water-melon smiles". Remember that.

— Marcus Chown (@marcuschown) March 27, 2018

At a time when Labour’s leader has been attacked – bitterly – over a six-year-old mistake for which he has apologised, the real, intentional racism and sexism of Mr Johnson goes almost unremarked by the mainstream media.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is racist, sexist and an all round despicable person and yet there hasn't been a protest outside parliament by Labour or Tory MPs outraged at the hate this man spews daily. #emilythornberry

— John Smith (son of Harry Leslie Smith) (@Harryslaststand) March 27, 2018

Johnson is a habitual, casual racist and sexist who belongs to a party that tolerates racism and sexism. I have previously remarked on its history of anti-Semitism. It’s past time the Tories were brought to book for their gutter-vermin attitudes.

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As someone with quite a large stake in the issue of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party (I was accused of it last year, and again in the national newspapers last month, despite being innocent of any wrong-doing) it dismayed me that I had to sit out some of the latest developments without comment.

I couldn’t do anything about it; I was a long way away from my desk, having been asked to act as a taxi service for a relative whose heart pacemaker needed checking.

I was dismayed by the news coverage I was able to catch.

The BBC seemed keen to go back as far as the Naz Shah affair, broadcasting the two images she tweeted that were allegedly anti-Semitic (but in fact weren’t) – once again allowing the fact that one of the images was of that most famous of civil rights campaigners, Martin Luther King, pass without comment. The segment also misreported Ken Livingstone’s defence of Ms Shah. While it was true that he said Adolf Hitler had supported Zionism in Germany in the 1930s, the report was misleading in that it encouraged the viewer to believe that this was not true. In fact, the Nazi party in Germany did indeed support the German Federation of Zionists at that time, in a plan to transport German Jews to what was then British Mandate Palestine (and is now Israel). If that had not happened, scores of thousands of Jewish people would not have escaped persecution and would almost certainly have died in the extermination camps. You see, just because they helped some Jews out of Germany (in a deal that improved their standing internationally), that didn’t mean the Nazis didn’t hate Jews.

The demonstrations outside Parliament on March 26 had been prompted by the sudden appearance on the news agenda of a Facebook post by Jeremy Corbyn from 2012 – six years ago – in response to a street artist complaining about the effect on free speech of his mural being removed. Without having seen the mural properly, and thinking this was a free speech issue, Mr Corbyn had asked why it was being done. This, in the minds of some, was enough to tar the Labour leader with the brush of anti-Semitism. Of course, it isn’t – but Mr Corbyn was quick to set the record straight. Nevertheless, opportunists among his critics organised a protest against what they described as his poor handling of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, and Mr Corbyn received a strongly-worded letter from the Tory-supporting leader of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the leader of the Jewish Leadership Council (whose political stance remains unknown to me).

The letter freely mixed anti-Semitism with criticism of the government of Israel and with opposition to Zionism in a way that showed up its authors’ political motivations demonstratively – to the detriment of their argument.

But the falsehoods aren’t only on the accusers’ side, unfortunately:

I have asked in at least 8 different chats today for any evidence of labour’s anti-semitism problem. So far, not a single response.
The papers and the BBC disgust me, using an issue like this as a political lever. Sad days.

— eddie mckeown #NHSLove (@eddiemck) March 27, 2018

Yes I'm not getting any answers to that question either. Anti Semitism isn't automatically there just because they say so!

— Han (@HanDusty12) March 27, 2018

But it is there. Labour’s disputes panel (a sub-committee of the National Executive Committee) deals with allegations of anti-Semitism all the time and there are plenty that are undeniable.

Like all large organisations, Labour attracts people who have many other opinions and beliefs, besides support for the party’s main policies. I recently met a man from southeast England who had been a Labour councillor (briefly), and who was also shockingly racist about people of colour, as I understand the current vernacular describes them.

Of course the party attracts anti-Semites. So does the Conservative Party; so do the Liberal Democrats. Labour is simply a far larger organisation, and may expect to have a larger number (although not necessarily a larger proportion) of anti-Semites among its ranks, to be weeded out.

I said as much in 2016, in response to a commenter to This Site called ‘Ben’: “I’m not pretending there isn’t a problem, though. I’m simply not pretending it’s a big problem.”

My words were then taken out of context by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, to claim that I said it wasn’t a big problem if Jews were omitted from a list of those who were persecuted and killed in the Holocaust. As you can see, this was a lie.

And it is why I take exception to Mike Katz, deputy chairman of the Jewish Labour Movement, who wrote on LabourList: “It’s certainly not something that any other minority group would be expected to tolerate[:] Not believing the victim in line with the Macpherson principle, but second-guessing their motivation.”

When someone takes my words and twists them in order to pretend that they mean something entirely contrary to their original meaning, I am entirely justified in guessing that their motivation is dishonest. That is what the Campaign Against Antisemitism did to me and if Mr Katz wants to be taken at his word, then he needs to take the matter up with his fellows in that organisation.

Take no notice Hannah. It was another Tory scam, and it went pear shape because hardly anyone turned up! People are not stupid and they're putting two and two together, and realising what an evil conniving bunch of twats the Tories are! https://t.co/LUpfz2xgHO

— richard oneill (@silverrich39) March 27, 2018

Let’s be fair – a lot of people turned up. Many supported the claim that anti-Semitism was a huge problem and that Jeremy Corbyn was ineffectual in combating it, but many others – including representatives of Jewish organisations – came to say the exact opposite.

Robert Peston – who fell foul of me a few weeks ago while discussing this subject, and had to read out a clarification in the following edition of his programme – entered the fray with the following:

Although @jeremycorbyn was clear yesterday that Labour has an antisemitism problem, the comments on my blog show that many of his supporters believe that to suggest such is a smear. Depressing https://t.co/6gPPzYL36x

— Robert Peston (@Peston) March 27, 2018

I haven’t read the blog comments in question so I can’t really comment except to say that it would be a smear to suggest that Labour is riddled with anti-Semites, as I understand some people who should know better, such as Labour MP John Mann, are suggesting. Here’s Tom Clark of my fellow Leftie blog, Another Angry Voice:

The problem Mr @Peston, as you well know, is the way mainstream media (yourself included) have whipped up a huge storm over this, yet repeatedly ignored the numerous stories of outrageous Tory bigotry and bullying from the last week alone 1/8 https://t.co/LQi4JEIL7r

— Another Angry Voice (@Angry_Voice) March 27, 2018

Unfortunately there’s a false argument in there – as Mr Clark is effectively saying “But Tories!” He is right to point out that Conservatives are responsible for huge amounts of racism and bigotry – and that’s even if you remove Boris Johnson from your calculations – but the issue is Labour anti-Semitism and it would have been better (in This Writer’s opinion) if he had concentrated on the fact that the mainstream media have made a huge issue of this without actually showing any examples of Labour anti-Semitism at all.

Also damaging for the anti-Corbyn argument is the following:

Tory commentators (almost all not Jewish) claimed the Corbyn supporters at the counter-demo by Parliament were Anti-Semitic. Well these are some of the people they labelled Anti-Semitic. pic.twitter.com/lc8j887Ch8

— The Pileus #RefugeesWelcome (@thepileus) March 27, 2018

This is, of course, grievously damaging to the anti-Corbyn, anti-Semitism accusers. The stereotype of the self-hating Jew is, of course, anti-Semitic in itself. So if anybody was suggesting Mr Corbyn’s Jewish supporters were anti-Semites, then they were themselves guilty of anti-Semitism. And it was noticed:

The number of insults we get from Tory supporters, mostly non-Jews for backing Labour shows how toxic this debate is. Non-Jews talking down to Jews on the issue of Anti-Semitism as if our voice not only does not matter but how dare we even speak out.

A new low for the Tory party

— Workers of Zion (@WorkersofZion) March 26, 2018

See the following, also:

This week saw a record Tory low with some of their supporters labeling Jews who back Corbyn as Anti-Semitic, even though many are the grandkids of Holocaust survivors.

However do you think this record is their limit or do you think the Tories can go even lower?

Please Retweet

— Workers of Zion (@WorkersofZion) March 27, 2018

When I voted, the tally stood at 99 per cent for “Yes, they can go lower”. Telling!

Possibly the most balanced comment on LabourList came from Joseph Finlay of Jewish Voice for Labour. He wrote: “Ideological individuals and groups, aided by the Conservative Party and the right-wing media have helped create a narrative in the Jewish community that Labour is riddled with antisemitism. This is not and has never been the case. There are undoubtedly individuals within Labour who have said or posted offensive things, and the party has rightly taken action against them.”

Yes – but Labour has also wrongly taken action against entirely innocent individuals such as myself, who have been attacked with lies. You can see that for yourself in the example I used in this very article.

That’s why, when Labour NEC member Rhea Wolfson, who happens to be a Jew, commented on Twitter about the current efforts to combat Labour anti-Semitism, I challenged her:

That's really good. And what action is being taken to combat and punish false, frivolous and politically-motivated accusations?

— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 27, 2018

There had been no response at the time of writing.

That is a real shame because, for all Mr Katz’s posturing, there are plenty of false accusations flying about.

And false accusations tend to increase anti-Jewish sentiment; people see that innocents have been accused by people with a political motive, and react against that.

So a robust campaign against anti-Semitism in the Labour Party won’t achieve anything – until Labour acknowledges that false, malicious and opportunistic claims are also made, and launches a robust policy to root out, discredit and expel those who are responsible for them.

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