Ken Loach: he has good reason to smile because good people are supporting him.

Good people have lined up to support calls to reinstate legendary film director Ken Loach into the Labour Party. As for his detractors – well, let’s judge them by their actions.

One such detractor is Mike Katz, chair of the Jewish Labour Movement (the Labour-affiliated organisation whose members have to be neither members of the Labour Party or Jews).

He tweeted an ignorant screed against Mr Loach on Saturday (August 14) that attractedThis Writer’s eye – and my ire – as follows:

He hasn’t replied. How could he? he knows I’m right.

So he did what they all do when they’re found out: he ran away like a scalded alley cat.

I’m only surprised that the tweet is still up.

Mr Loach’s position on the Holocaust has since been clarified by his supporters:

On the other hand, members of Labour’s Socialist Campaign Group have made a statement in support of Mr Loach, signed by 21 Labour MPs plus Jeremy Corbyn and Claudia Webbe, who are currently bereft of the Labour whip after previous examples of spite by their party leader:

https://twitter.com/ToryFibs/status/1427257347509002241

It says: “We strongly oppose the expulsion of Ken Loach from the Labour Party and call for his membership to be immediately reinstated.

“Ken is an outstanding socialist and a fierce opponent of discrimination in all its forms, whose work has done more than any other living British filmmaker to shine a light on injustice and oppression. The values embodied in his films – solidarity, compassion, equality – should be the values proudly championed by our party. That Ken is expelled while Islamophobes are welcomed is shameful, and suggests the party leadership is drifting yet further away from these values.

“These attacks are aimed at demoralising and pushing socialist members away from the party. But the only way to return our socialist and internationalist principles to the heart of British politics is for Labour members to stay in the party and champion them. The socialist leadership that hundreds of thousands of you made possible need not be consigned to the past of our party. It can be the future. Let’s fight for it together.”

“Islamophobes are welcomed” seems to be a clear reference to Trevor Phillips, the alleged Islamophobe who is a close friend of Peter Mandelson (with whom Keir Starmer has been chumming up lately) and a member of Starmer’s own Labour Party branch. It is believed that Starmer demanded his reinstatement. Knowing this, the line appears to be an attack on Labour’s current leader.

The last paragraph seems overly hopeful at a time when Starmer appears to be succeeding in pushing people out of the once-great Labour Party by the thousands. Still, we may look forward to the autumn party conference, at which a series of socialist motions are likely to be debated that may push back his tide of intolerance, racism and fascism.

Sadly, people have been lining up on the other side of the fence, to support Mr Loach’s expulsion – by calling for the party whip to be withdrawn from the Socialist Campaign Group MPs who opposed it. They’re the same old faces as usual, pushing the same sad attack lines – and their words were reported in the same old rag: the Jewish Chronicle:

Katz is among them, along with Euan Philipps of disgraced hate group Labour Against Anti-Semitism and Luke Akehurst – the Labour NEC member who lost his seat on Oxford City Council in May after (it is said) Muslims withdrew their vote:

And far-right ex-Labour bully-boy Ian Austin was also among those baying for blood. His attack on Jewish MP Jon Trickett rated an article of itself from Skwawkbox – and don’t you love the image illustrating it?

Austin is infamous as the MP who heckled Jeremy Corbyn from his own benches when he criticised Tony Blair’s 2003 invasion of Iraq:

We must conclude that Austin was 100 per cent behind the invasion of Afghanistan as well – and look at the way that has turned out!

Meanwhile, Keir Starmer’s programme to eliminate “the wrong kind of Jew” is continuing, as the following examples demonstrate clearly:

It seems clear that, if anybody should be removed from the Labour Party then it should not be Ken Loach or the 23 people who signed the Socialist Campaign Group’s statement.

It should be Mike Katz. It should be Ian Austin. It should be Euan Philipps, Luke Akehurst, Trevor Phillips and Peter Mandelson. And above all, it should be Keir Starmer. We all know that. But can we make it happen?