Labour expels members for quoting facts about anti-Semitism, deputy leader admits
Rayner and Starmer: who knew their “new direction” would be towards blatant dishonesty?
We all owe Angela Rayner a debt of gratitude for admitting publicly what some of us have known for years: that the Labour Party will expel members for quoting facts about anti-Semitism complaints.
That is what she said in front of television cameras in an interview yesterday (October 31) – albeit not in so many words.
Referring to Jeremy Corbyn’s statement that the amount of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party had been exaggerated – a statement borne out by the facts – she said this:
“Hurt” and “distress” are irrelevant if they are not based on facts. And how do we know that the people saying they were “hurt” and “distressed” actually were? There are a lot of liars out there.
And now we know they include the current Labour leadership among their number.
Rayner was saying that she and current leader Keir Starmer will lie about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, to keep on the right side of people who aren’t even members (and who are probably Conservatives).
She was saying that any party member who quotes factual information contradicting the party line will face suspension and possible expulsion for doing so.
And in doing so, she has said that Starmer was lying when he said he accepted in full the report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party by the Equality and Human Rights Commission; after discriminating against 60 per cent of party members accused of anti-Semitism (as noted in the report), it is clear from Rayner’s words that such discrimination will continue.
It makes me glad to be out of the Labour Party.
I don’t want to be a member of an organisation whose leaders admit they will lie freely about an issue as important as anti-Semitism – and who are saying they will only allow other people who lie about it to be party members.
Who would?
I don’t know – but I’m willing to bet that, among those who would, we would find a high number of anti-Semites.
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I joined the labour party under Jeremy Corbyn. It didn’t take me long to cancel it under Starmer.
Ken Livingstone’s treatment comes to mind.
I fancy writing to the EHRC about that. Some of the conclusions seem a little unfair to me – as someone who took an active part in that debate at the time.
But Mike: you are a well-known and unashamed antisemite
You make my point for me very well.
Some people may have said I am an anti-Semite, but they have no evidence with which to support the claim apart from a few doctored quotes; in context, nothing I said can be construed to constitute hatred against Jewish people. Some people may consider me to be anti-Semitic after coming into contact with this misleading material, and they are encouraged to research the facts. Doing so should correct their viewpoint.
Here’s a quote from an article by someone (Bob Pitt) who started out trying to *defend* you:
“However, there were some examples of alleged antisemitism produced by CAA that did appear to cross the line, notably when they accused Sivier of linking to an article by Gilad Atzmon on the Redress Information & Analysis website. This arose from Sivier’s defence in 2016 of Labour MP Naz Shah over her tweeting of a satirical meme proposing that the Israel/Palestine conflict could be resolved by relocating Israel to the United States — a meme that Sivier identified as originating in a Redress article co-authored by Atzmon. (He was probably mistaken — the image was in general circulation at the time.) CAA objected that Atzmon “has taken antisemitism to a new level, asserting that ‘Jewishness’ is toxic” and that Redress is “a website so antisemitic it features Mr Atzmon’s work on a regular basis”. They were right.
In a discussion on the Facebook group Labour Against the Witchhunt –UNOFFICIAL, I pointed out that we don’t know what the list of charges was against Mike Sivier, because he still hasn’t provided the full details (unlike, say, Ken Livingstone). I asked him whether the Redress/Atzmon business had been included in the charge sheet, adding that I thought that he was in the wrong over that particular issue, and that there was no justification for linking to an article on an antisemitic website written by a virulently antisemitic author.
To say this criticism was not welcomed by Sivier would be an understatement. His response was to launch an attack on yours truly on his Vox Political blog, quoting an excerpt from my Facebook comments on the issue. He named me as one of his “fake ‘anti-Semitism’ accusers” and claimed I had smeared him by means of “guilt through association” (i.e. association with an antisemitic author and website that he had in fact linked to and quoted from).”
Case proven, I’d say.
Bob Pitt’s inaccuracies were debunked years ago – before he even wrote them! If the best you can do is resurrect tired falsehoods then you should apply for a job in Keir Starmer’s GLU at once.
It’s worth looking into who the “Equality and Human Rights Commission” are before simply accepting them as the arbiters of truth & fairness in any matter.
That’s always good advice when considering what anybody says. In this instance, my own experience tallies with the report’s findings so my opinion is that the report can, by and large, be trusted.
I watched the full interview on IPlayer – It gets more surreal as it goes on.
Antisemitism (as in statements which indicate an AS perception) in LP actually went down during Corbyn’s leadership.
The interviewer went on to say that Antisemitism including attacks on Jewish people and Synagogues had increased in UK over last 4 years.
This is nothing to to do with labour Party yet Rayner went on about how shameful this was for Labour and
how her and Starmer were going to root it out.
Surreal and totally stupid.
Labour has now lost my vote. I want to vote for a genuine left wing party not a Tory-lite/red Tory party.