The double-standard that is crippling Labour
Tom Watson: As a member of the Labour Party’s privileged few, he can say whatever he likes. It is only rank-and-file members who are threatened with suspension and expulsion for expressing an opinion.
On Monday (March 11 – possibly today, by the time you read this), Tom Watson will launch his new Future Britain Group of Labour Party MPs – and it will be based on at least one enormous hypocrisy.
It can be explained very quickly:
When I attended Labour’s tribunal – the kangaroo court set up to find me guilty of anti-Semitism, no matter what the evidence showed – I was not questioned on the facts of my case. My argument was not disputed at all.
Instead, I was asked repeatedly why I had discussed an internal Labour Party matter in public. As a party member, did I not think that such things should remain confidential?
My response was that the anti-Semitism row was not an internal Labour Party matter, and had not been an internal Labour Party matter since Labour MPs had created such a fuss about it in the media, starting in 2016 with the Naz Shah affair. It was now a matter of public interest and it would be a mistake for Labour Party members to avoid the debate; false arguments would be allowed to go unchallenged.
Of course the tribunal’s members were well in favour of those false arguments, as their verdict shows.
Mr Watson, on the other hand, has done little else but agitate about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party since the current allegations first came to public attention. I don’t see him having to argue for his continued membership of the party before a tribunal.
The contradiction is clear.
Labour was founded to be a party representing those who did not have the benefits of privilege, in which ordinary people would have an equal voice.
But the party as it currently exists doesn’t want to hear the voices of ordinary members; our their purpose is to work for those who are privileged enough to be elected representatives and/or candidates; to listen, but not to speak. And under the Blairite system, elected representatives and/or candidates owed their positions to the patronage of the leadership. It became a system of privilege – exactly what Labour had been founded to oppose.
Mr Watson considers the party’s current direction of travel to be away from this; his Future Britain Group is an attempt to halt that movement and restore the Blairite system of patronage and privilege.
You can hear the proof of it every time he speaks up in support of the anti-Semitism witch-hunt, while ordinary party members who dare to do otherwise have their memberships suspended and are threatened with expulsion.
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spot on but until these greedie ones are deselected whip taken away how are we to rid ourselves of these spiteful creatures
When Tom Watson continually agitates about AS in the Labour party – why does he not seem to bear some of the responsibility of how it is handled himself? Why is the problem always Corbyn’s? As deputy leader I don’t see why he gets to complain about it along with the conservatives as if he is not part of the leadership?
Ben, I totally agree.
Mike, you’re right. The battle is between the new left democracy and the old Blairite way of micromanagement of the CLPs from Westminster. As an ordinary Corbyn-supporting party member, I felt from day one, bullied by the right wing and now I’m scared to comment at all on the situation in Palestine, in case I get expelled. They have silenced me.
A lot of excellent, loyal supporters of the true values of the Labour Party that Jeremy Corbyn has been trying to implement, have been – falsely in my view – accused of antisemitism and have been sanctioned.
It seems to me that there is a co-ordinated attempt, on the part of the Blairites, to discredit the leader by making false statements, on little or no evidence, against his allies in order to weaken his position by removing his strongest supporting MPs.
If anyone should be removed, it should be Tom Watson. As deputy leader, he should be supporting JC but he is constantly abusing his position. Unfortunately, JC is hamstrung because if he removes him, it will add fuel to the fire.
I’m 79 years of age and have been a member since the age of 21. I nearly relinquished my membership when Blair took the country into an illegal war in Iraq. Fortunately, I attended the Stop The War march (Feb 2003), where I heard many good Labour speakers, including Jeremy Corbyn and that encouraged me to stay.
It seems to me that the right thing for the Labour Party would be to remove Tom Watson as deputy leader but that isn’t possible because the LP would be accused of defending antisemitism in it’s ranks. What a muddle!