Long-Bailey’s sacking tells us all we need to know about Keir ‘double-standard’ Starmer and his racist Labour Party
Racist anti-Semite: Keir Starmer’s sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey shows support for Israeli organisations teaching US police how to subjugate – and in the case of George Floyd, kill – black and minority ethnic people. Paradoxically, he also supports the presence of anti-Semite Rachel Reeves in his Shadow Cabinet.
This is the end of the Labour Party as an inclusive, anti-racist organisation.
Keir Starmer has sacked Rebecca Long-Bailey from the Shadow Cabinet after she retweeted a link to an Independent interview with one of her constituents, the actor Maxine Peake.
Starmer’s excuse is that Ms Peake’s article includes an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. He is lying in one of the most disgusting ways possible.
Here’s the passage in Ms Peake’s interview that has caused the offence:
“Systemic racism is a global issue,” she adds. “The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.”
It is not anti-Semitic to suggest that. She wasn’t saying, “The Jews taught police to kneel on George Floyd’s neck.”
In fact, it seems widely accepted that Israeli organisations do indeed teach tactics to US police.
So this isn’t anti-Semitic to Keir Starmer:
Baltimore law enforcement officials, along with hundreds of others from Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington state as well as the DC Capitol police have all traveled to Israel for training. Thousands of others have received training from Israeli officials here in the U.S.
The U.S. Department of Justice published a report … that documented “widespread constitutional violations, discriminatory enforcement, and culture of retaliation” within the Baltimore Police Department (BPD).
Nor is this, which you should note is from the Jerusalem Post:
A city in North Carolina has become the first municipality in the United States to ban training and other forms of exchange between its police department and Israel’s military or police.
“The Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Police have a long history of violence and harm against Palestinian people and Jews of color,” [a] petition stated. “They persist in using tactics of extrajudicial killing, excessive force, racial profiling and repression of social justice movements. Such tactics have been condemned by international human rights organizations for violating the human rights of Palestinians.”
But Starmer seems to think that Ms Peake’s comments are anti-Semitic – despite their factual accuracy.
Doesn’t that suggest that Starmer is himself a… you know… racist?
He has deliberately attacked people who have exposed the way racists in one country – “The Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Police have a long history of violence and harm against Palestinian people and Jews of color” – have been teaching their methods to racists in another – “’widespread constitutional violations, discriminatory enforcement, and culture of retaliation’ within the Baltimore Police Department”.
Anyone who genuinely wants to fight racism would be thanking Ms Peake and Ms Long-Bailey for bringing this issue to public knowledge. Instead, he has sacked his MP from the shadow cabinet.
Meanwhile, Rachel Reeves – who made public her own support for a very well-documented anti-Semite – remains in the Shadow Cabinet with Starmer’s full support:
@JennieGenSec Will @UKLabour be suspending this party member for her very clear support of a known anti-Semite, and therefore of anti-Semitism in general? If not, why not?
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) February 24, 2020
It seems clear that in Starmer’s Labour, racism and anti-Semitism are supported, and their opponents are opposed – all while the Labour leader glibly mouths platitudes claiming the exact opposite.
For those of us who have been contesting decisions to expel us from membership of Labour, this presents a thorny problem.
I had always intended to return to the party and campaign for reform, after I win my court case against Labour, which is now set to take place in October.
But I think it would harm my position if I were to say that now, because I do not want to be associated with any organisation that can be clearly identified as a racist, anti-Semite endeavour.
And Labour under Starmer is a racist, anti-Semite endeavour in a way that the party under Corbyn never was.
Or so it seems to me.
Ms Long-Bailey has put her side of this story in a Twitter thread:
https://t.co/XyTPHR40Qd I retweeted an interview that my constituent and stalwart Labour Party supporter Maxine Peake gave to the Independent. Its main thrust was anger with the Conservative Government’s handling of the current emergency and a call for Labour Party unity.
— Rebecca Long-Bailey (@RLong_Bailey) June 25, 2020
https://t.co/83kCSyj9FG no way was my retweet an intention to endorse every part of that article.
— Rebecca Long-Bailey (@RLong_Bailey) June 25, 2020
5.I could not do this in good conscience without the issuing of a press statement of clarification. I had asked to discuss these matters with Keir before agreeing what further action to take, but sadly he had already made his decision.
— Rebecca Long-Bailey (@RLong_Bailey) June 25, 2020
7.I am clear that I shall continue to support the Labour Party in Parliament under Keir Starmer’s leadership, to represent the people of Salford and Eccles and work towards a more equal, peaceful and sustainable world.
— Rebecca Long-Bailey (@RLong_Bailey) June 25, 2020
This puts a nastier complexion on the matter still, because it seems Starmer used this issue as a pretext to eliminate Ms Long-Bailey – one of the last left-wingers, if not the last, from the Shadow Cabinet. He could have given her a chance to do as she suggested but he didn’t. That says it all.
Well, he should be gratified to know that we’ve all got the message. Take a look at some of the responses on Twitter:
There is nothing antisemitic here. @RLong_Bailey has been falsely accused.#IStandWithRebecca
— simon maginn (@simonmaginn) June 25, 2020
It's either true or false that 'Israeli Secret Services' train US police to use chokeholds. If it's true, it can be proven to be true, and if false, proven false.
Neither has anything whatsoever to do with antisemitism.#RebeccaLongBailey
— simon maginn (@simonmaginn) June 25, 2020
https://twitter.com/TheMendozaWoman/status/1276082599388160001
https://twitter.com/AmmarKazmi_/status/1276157080819372037
Long Bailey being sacked is clearly absurd, & shows a clear double standard with many others. In 2005 the party were set to run Fagin posters, recently Rachel Reeves commemorated Lady Astor. And yet…
For the left it should be an educative moment, the right don’t want ‘unity’.
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) June 25, 2020
I am Jewish
I am a member of the Labour Party
I am furious at RLB's sackingGenuine question
How was the article that RLB retweeted antisemitic?
Anyone care to explain?— Tom London (@TomLondon6) June 25, 2020
Keir Starmer sacking Rebecca Long-Bailey is an utterly disgraceful decision. It undermines the position the Labour Party has insisted on all along that it’s possible to criticise Israeli policy without being antisemitic. Shameful, shameful stuff.
— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) June 25, 2020
Sacking Rebecca Long-Bailey for sharing an interview in *the Independent* with one of Britain's most celebrated actors because of a sentence uttered by Maxine Peake which the Independent initially justified with a link to an Amnesty International report is an absurd overreaction
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) June 25, 2020
In fact, Israeli training is so associated with police violence in the US – in particular against black people – that cities have begun to ban it.https://t.co/PPZD0HOucI
— Ronan Burtenshaw (@ronanburtenshaw) June 25, 2020
https://twitter.com/TheMendozaWoman/status/1276177973431894016
https://twitter.com/williamwallbook/status/1276163966574776323
https://twitter.com/simonmaginn/status/1276177278007939072
It does.
If Ms Peake does decide to sue Starmer, I would certainly consider helping fund her case.
Alternatively, Starmer could put us all out of our misery by making a full apology and resigning his membership of UK Labour with immediate effect.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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Stammer the spammer isn’t true labour but untill they gone which even Corbyn couldn’t rid himself of these blairites the crap goes on
Starmer just used any old trumped up excuse to get rid of RBL. Disgusting.
The ‘offending’ information comes from Amnesty (though @Independent have now cut that bit from the article) and was a reference to the Israeli forces linking to a wider point on the international nature or racism.
To sack an MP for retweeting that is ludicrous.
Just one more step back towards Blairite Conservatism making Labour unelectable for another 10 years at least – no wonder the right-wing press love Sir Spanner !
Any legitimate criticism of the Likudist regime has effectively been outlawed in Britain.
If you do criticise Israel (and it’s non-stop illegal settlement building pogrom on Palestinian territory) the Westminster clique, the vast bulk of the Fourth Estate and right wing botheads on social media will come after you and try to shut you down, one way or another.
How long has Sir Keir been leader? 3-4 months?….the Corbynistas who are still paid up members of Blue Labour should put their pennies to better use. If the treatment of RBL isn’t a blatant wake up call, nothing else will be.
I thought the writing was on the wall when Starmer was announced leader and on the very same day he sent a grovelling letter to the BoDs. Nothing he has done – or not done – has made me think differently but this is utterly shameful and is indeed the last straw. My membership, which ironically is up for renewal this week, has now ended. I am very sad but as you say our hard earned pennies can be put to better use….