Category Archives: Race

Donor’s Diane Abbott remark highlights racism in both Tory and Labour parties

Diane Abbott: she has suffered more racist abuse than anybody you can name – and now she has to watch Tories scrambling to defend a donor who has allegedly piled more of it onto her, while her own party leader sits on his thumbs rather than supporting her.

A Conservative Party donor, whose business has received huge contracts from the Tory-run UK government, has apologised for passing racist remarks about Labour MP Diane Abbott.

But Frank Hester’s contrition comes too late, as it has demonstrated that both the Conservatives and the Labour Party are now cesspits of racism.

He reportedly said Ms Abbott made him “want to hate all black women”, and that she “should be shot”. That’s not merely insulting to her but racist to every woman in her ethnic group.

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Here’s a neat summary of what happened:

Mr Hester’s apology has proved not to be enough – and his claim that he was not being racist has been dismissed by other Labour MPs of colour. Here’s Dawn Butler:

Ms Abbott herself issued a statement this morning (Tuesday, March 12, 2024), describing Mr Hester’s words as “frightening”.

She said: “It is frightening. I live in Hackney, I don’t drive, so I find myself, at weekends, popping on a bus or even walking places, more than most MPs.

“I am a single woman and that makes me vulnerable anyway. But to hear someone talking like this is worrying.”

There was more to her statement, including an appeal for public support from Labour leader Keir Starmer, as read out by Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain:

Alas, Ms Reid’s hope may be forlorn; if Mr Hester is racist, then Starmer is just as racist as he is. We’ll come back to this.

Conservatives have rallied to support – not Ms Abbott, but their biggest donor. Apparently he can’t possibly be racist because he takes money from people in Jamaica:

Mel Stride, Work and Pensions Secretary, has also come out with much the same excuse.

Here are former Tory chairwoman Sayeeda Warsi and LBC’s James O’Brien with their own opinions about that:

The incident appears to have triggered a crisis within the Tory Party and its supporters, as black people across the UK who may have offered the Tories their vote at the next election now find themselves reconsidering their position:

But Ian Lavery, who is a socialist Labour MP and therefore a close comrade of Ms Abbott, can’t afford to crow too much about this because Labour itself has also treated her abominably.

Press coverage of the story seems to have missed out this vital angle…

Is it because they are backing Labour to form the next government?

Let’s get the facts out in the open, right now, starting with Ms Abbott’s own comments about the racists within her party who backstabbed her for years:

Returning to her appeal for support from Keir Starmer, here’s This Writer’s reason for doubting he’ll offer any: he has spent years doing his best to stifle or ignore any suggestion of anti-black racism in his party, despite the fact that it is clearly riddled with racists:

We can only conclude that Starmer is, himself, deeply racist against black people – at least until such time as he can prove that the words recorded above were never used by Labour staffers and/or that he has acted to ensure that the racists have been removed. I fear we may face a long wait.

I lay the following in support of this belief:

So now, not only the Tories but also Labour MPs and supporters have had to launch a damage limitation exercise. For example, here comes Ed Balls on (again) Good Morning Britain. I tend to agree with the comment by “Teri”:

We judge people on what they do. With the Conservatives scrambling to defend their biggest donor, rather than disown him, take back his contracts and return his dirty money; and with Labour doing almost nothing to condemn the racist discrimination against not only that party’s, but the UK’s, most heavily-abused black female politician, our conclusion must be harsh:

Both parties are racist to the core. Both deserve to be shunned at the next general election.


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Israeli children are indoctrinated into race-hating Palestinians. Why does the UK support this?

Racism – hatred of individuals because of something over which they had no control – is illegal in the United Kingdom.

It was, of course, the principal motivator behind the Nazi Holocaust that killed six million Jews in the 1930s and 1940s.

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It is, therefore, bitterly disappointing to see Jewish Israeli children indoctrinated into race-hate against Palestinians.

It seems the state of Israel has learned nothing from the Holocaust.

Could the problem be… Zionism?


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Racist (?) Labour suspends Kate Osamor for correctly identifying Israel’s Gaza genocide

Suspended: Kate Osamor.

Kate Osamor MP’s membership of the Parliamentary Labour Party has been suspended because she committed the heinous crime of suggesting that the genocide in Gaza, being perpetrated by Israel, should be recognised on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Here’s the gist:

As you can tell, some have seen this as the latest instalment of Starmer Labour’s alleged ongoing attack on the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs.

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Alternatively, it may be the latest instalment of Starmer Labour’s alleged ongoing attempt to stop black women representing that party:

Right-wing? Racist? And here’s the Jewish Labour Movement to support the suspension:

Let’s just remind ourselves that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague has recently confirmed that Israel is now on trial for genocide.

With the court that actually tries nations for genocide trying Israel, it is neither inappropriate nor offensive for people to voice the opinion that it is guilty.

What is inappropriate and offensive is that the Labour Party – the same Labour Party that has endorsed the Tory government’s decision to respond to the ICJ’s ruling by withdrawing funds from the United Nations agency that supports Palestinian refugees – on the basis of flimsy non-evidence from that pillar of propaganda, Israel itself – has suspended an MP for voicing it.


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Police are running glacial investigations into #MrBates Fujitsu/Post Office scandal

The Post Office: this former bastion of British trustworthiness has been tarnished by a harmful software system that it insisted was beyond question. The scandal created by this falsehood has caused people to die.

Those of you who have been following the excellent ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office should be delighted that the police are investigating possible crimes by those acting on behalf of Post Office Limited and Fujitsu. But these inquiries are proceeding at the speed of a glacier.

According to the BBC,

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 branch owner-operators [sub-postmasters] were wrongly prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting, on the basis of faulty information from Horizon software introduced by the Post Office.

Some went to prison. Many were financially ruined. Some have since died.

The affair has been described by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) as “the most widespread miscarriage of justice the CCRC has ever seen and represents the biggest single series of wrongful convictions in British legal history”.

An independent public inquiry led by retired judge Sir Wyn Williams is continuing. Events surrounding the scandal are back in the spotlight because of an ITV drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which has been screened this week.

But there are even more victims, it seems, because:

The Met said it was investigating possible fraud offences from these cases.

It comes as 50 new potential victims of the scandal have contacted lawyers.

The Met Police said the potential offences could have been related to “monies recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions”.

But here’s the rub: the Met has been investigating potential offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice in relation to presecutions carried out by the Post Office since 2020 – and has interviewed just two people. No arrests have taken place.

So don’t hold your breath waiting for any results.

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And remember: 2024 is the 25th year since the prosecutions of sub-postmasters began – based on an insecure software system that provided data that was either false or was altered by staff at the firm that developed it – the Bracknell-based UK branch of Fujitsu.

Why is it all taking so long to resolve?

Well, perhaps the answer lies in the names of the people involved.

For example:

So the UK’s current prime minister’s family has a financial interest in the well-being of the firm whose softward caused this scandal.

So the firm whose software caused this scandal was being run, at the time, by the husband of a senior Conservative Party member (and subsequent Cabinet minister).

Then there’s Simon Blagden (who is apparently a former chairman of Fujitsu):

The perks aren’t all flowing one way, though. Paula Vennells, the CEO of Post Office Limited at the time of the scandal, was awarded a CBE by Boris Johnson when he was prime minister:

For clarity, it seems the Horizon software system developed by Fujitsu was always known to be faulty and those behind it at the company knew it should never have been handed over to Post Office Limited for distribution to sub-postmasters. But it was.

Sub-postmasters soon discovered that the software was faulty when they realised that it was refusing to balance their accounts – instead producing deficits of thousands of pounds. When they complained to the helpline (as pointed out in the Have I Got News For You clip above), they were told that nobody else had complained. This was a lie.

Worse,

And what happened?

This:

It is understood that staff at both Fujitsu and Post Office Limited knew sub-postmasters were being wrongly accused, but stood by and let it happen. As some committed suicide, that would put blood on their hands, as indicated by the following post, commenting on information from a former sub-postmaster who was (wrongly? – I put this with a question-mark because I don’t know whether proceedings are taking place or have in the past) prosecuted and suffered a nervous breakdown as a result

The TV drama suggests that former sub-postmaster’s union rep (and a prosecuted sub-postmaster himself) Michael Rudkin visited Fujitsu and witnessed staff tampering with the accounts of other sub-postmasters.

Here’s what (it seems) Fujitsu did when an independent investigator inquired about the visit:

The man who played Mr Rudkin on TV has posted on ‘X’ in support of him – but I want to draw your attention to Mark Hirst’s comment:

How many of us are being ripped off by faulty or fraudulent IT systems produced and marketed by unscrupulous corporations?

And here’s the real burn: Fujitsu, now known to have sold rubbish to one of our (formerly) most-trusted institutions – rubbish that has ruined its reputation – is still receiving public-sector contracts from the UK’s Tory government (that has so many members and former members connected to the firm in some way).

Looking at the post immediately below: given the first two facts, is the third any surprise at all?

Consider also this:

And this:

All of the above is happening despite this:

So even when this corporation was known to have bungled a job, it still managed to sue the contractor and come out on top. That in itself should be enough to halt the flow of money from the UK Treasury to this organisation – but it hasn’t.

Conclusion: don’t expect any joy from police investigations or the public inquiry into the Post Office scandal; Fujitsu and the Post Office are too big to take down, and they are too well-connected to government figures. Any corruption – and all the indications are that all three organisations are institutionally corrupt – will be disputed in the courts, where any cases are likely to be delayed continually by the use of a never-ending supply of money from the public purse.

In effect, these organisations will use our own money to harm us.

Oh – on the subject of money: what happened to all the cash that Post Office Limited demanded that sub-postmasters had to pay back? The amounts Horizon said they owed never existed, so if they were forced to pay money to “balance” their accounts, they deserve to have it returned. If it has been sitting in bank accounts, they deserve to have it returned along with any interest it has accrued.

Has that happened? Will it? I’m betting that the answer to both questions is a big, fat “no”.

Last word on this goes to Phil BD, below, who received a curious response when he tried to find out Fujitsu’s current share price:


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Police more likely to Taser black people due to institutional racism | The Guardian

Police: black people were eight times more likely to be Tasered by them, and now only 4.2 times more likely. So what? It’s still institutional racism.

This is bad news for anyone who thought the police were going to reform after the Met was found to be institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic:

Police are far more likely to use a Taser electrical weapon against black people due to structural and institutional racism rather than the views of individual officers, a new report says.

The report says: “Our study suggests it may be a combination of societal issues and institutional policing priorities, policies and practices which are systematically and disproportionately affecting black and other ethnic minority communities in deprived neighbourhoods relative to the populations of more wealthy surrounding, predominantly white areas.

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“In other words, our study supports the idea that the patterns of ethnic disproportionality evident in the UK Home Office statistics cannot be explained solely or even primarily at the level of individual officer behaviour or psychology because they are an outcome of an interaction between structural and institutional racism.”

Chief constable Lucy D’Orsi, who speaks for the NPCC on use of the weapon, said: “In 2019-20 black people were eight times more likely to have it used on them. Whilst figures from 2022-23 stats have shown a reduction to 4.2 times more likely, it is vital that we question why that is and take action.

“We welcome the findings of the report and are committed to thoroughly reviewing the content so that we can make appropriate changes to have a positive impact on the lives of black people.”

This Writer would suggest that the way police use Tasers is already impacting the lives of black people.

Source: Police more likely to Taser black people due to institutional racism, report finds | Police | The Guardian


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Here’s the only response to Suella Braverman’s US immigration speech you need

Suella Braverman: racist, sexist, homophobic. Right?

If you’re hoping for an in-depth analysis of all the Tory crowing in support of Suella Braverman’s racist, sexist and homophobic speech against immigration at a US think tank last week, I’m happy to disappoint you.

There’s really very little to say about a lot of Tories supporting an unacceptable view.

I’ve already provided my comments on the speech itself, here.

But I did want to highlight what I think is the best comment on it, which came in musical form. Here it is:

Any questions?


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Suella Braverman’s speech: a self-hating bid for Tory leadership?

Suella Braverman: this product of UK multiculturalism reckons multiculturalism has failed.

The UK’s Tory Home Secretary has continued her hate campaign against immigrants in a speech to an American think tank – earning widespread condemnation from all but her own Tory cronies.

She was discussing policy, which means she would have needed to get permission to say her words from the Cabinet Office.

Commentators may be right to suggest that it is a first move in a bid to become leader of the Conservative Party, challenging Rishi Sunak’s ever-weakening position.

(Sunak appears to have given up any pretense of trying to run the country and seems to be devoting himself to projects that will make money for himself and his family.)

Of course, as she did have permission (the speech was signed off by Downing Street), then the Tories should lose votes from gay people and women – because she promoted discrimination against both those segments of the population in her speech; this is now Tory government policy.

The fact that she was speaking to a US think tank suggests that she was making a pitch to the kind of international oligarchs who provide much of the Tory Party’s funding (do I have to attach the word ‘allegedly’ to that?) in order to gain support for such a bid.

But the speech also opens up the main fault with Braverman’s candidacy – for anything: her opposition to immigration indicates hatred of the very mechanism that has put her in a position even to make her speech, let alone seek power as a world leader.

Her own prime minister is of Indian descent, yet has risen to become the political leader of a country that is not, ancestrally, his. Doesn’t that, alone, destroy her arguments?

She is, herself, a daughter of immigrants, but the way she speaks about them reveals not the calculated reasoning of a seasoned politician but the irrational hatred of an unbalanced child.

Remember when Jewish people were labelled “self-hating” if they campaigned against the policy of Israel to persecute Palestinians on the lands that country has illegally occupied? It was a misnomer, because they did not hate their religion, culture or ethnicity – just a policy of a country that claimed to represent that religion, culture and ethnicity.

But that issue brought the phrase “self-hating” into modern parlance and we may now attach it to Braverman with far more accuracy than was ever applied to it in relation to Jews.

She is the daughter of immigrants; she does clearly hate them (and, by extension, their offspring), so she’s very definitely self-hating.

And she knows it’s her weak point, too. That’s why she went on the attack when she was challenged about it after her speech:

In this part of her speech, Braverman claimed that multiculturalism – allowing people of other cultures to settle in the UK – has failed because they don’t integrate into society:

Her arguments about the results of immigration are not new; they are the same arguments that were put forward by Enoch Powell in 1968. Fortunately, we had people like Jonathan Miller to present the other side, back in those more enlightened days:

The claim that people come here to create communities of their original countries, rather than integrate into our culture, falls because only a minority do this:

Braverman is the daughter of Mauritian and Kenyan immigrants who integrated into UK society. Her prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is of Indian extraction but has also integrated into UK society. They are both living proof that her claim is false.

In fact, the debate over immigration goes back centuries; Shakespeare discussed it – and it is appropriate to end this article with a speech from the man who is considered to be England’s greatest writer.

If you claim to love England, Britain, the UK, and the culture that we have built, then you should love and live by these words:


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Diane Abbott reckons she’ll get no justice from a racist, paedophile Labour Party

Diane Abbott: she has suffered more racist abuse than anybody you can name.

“As a Black woman, and someone on the left of the Labour Party… I will not get a fair hearing from this Labour leadership.”

That is the verdict from Diane Abbott on an apparent non-investigation into racism that she – the MP who has received more race-hate messages than every other MP combined – is alleged by party leader Keir Starmer to have committed.

The allegations arise from a letter she wrote, that was published in The Observer in April. I wrote at the time:

Here’s the letter in full:

Racism is black and white

Tomiwa Owolade claims that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from “racism” (“Racism in Britain is not a black and white issue. It’s far more complicated”, Comment). They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable.

It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.
Diane Abbott
House of Commons, London SW1

Anybody can see what she was trying to do: she was pointing out that people of colour suffer racism far more often in their daily lives than those who might be defined as “white/European”, because the difference is visually obvious.

(It is also misleading. I have a friend who is white and Welsh, but whose face might seem to have a Middle-Eastern look about it to those who live by stereotypes. He tans very easily, and tells me that, when he has been on holiday abroad (lucky fellow!) he is habitually picked out for a “random” bomb check on the way back into the UK, by security officials who think he looks like an Islamic terrorist.)

Nobody who knows her history could deny that she has a very strong point; if I recall correctly, Ms Abbott receives more racist hate mail than all other MPs put together.

She tried to make a distinction by saying people of colour suffer racism while Irish people, Jews and Travellers (the GRT community), suffer prejudice instead – and that’s where she went wrong.

It’s all racism. Jewish people (for example) were originally Semitic (hence the word for hate against them: anti-Semitism), and the fact that their culture, like Christianity, has been successful in absorbing people from other races does not stop hatred being directed at them because they are different.

I was going to suggest that she could have used the word “xenophobia” to describe the hatred of people of colour in this context – the so-called “dislike of the unlike”. But that does not only refer to race/skin colour but also to culture, so it might be a better umbrella title for the prejudice faced by all the groups she mentions.

The problem here is simply finding the right word for the distinction she intended, which is that the other groups can avoid abuse on occasions because their skin colour means they can blend in with what, for want of a better word, I’ll describe as the majority.

But it was enough for the usual suspects to spring to the attack – presumably secure in the knowledge that nobody is about to ask them to compare the amount of abuse those of them who present as white/European receive against Ms Abbott’s.

(Indeed, judging from the abuse that Ms Abbott has received over this letter, it seems some of them may even have perpetrated some of it.)

At the end of the day, it was a valid point made in a very clumsy way.

Ms Abbott has apologised for it, claiming that the letter published in The Observer was a draft that should not have gone out. That’s still her mistake, though – and one she should not have made. Here’s what she said:

I am writing regarding my letter that was recently published in the Observer.

I wish to wholly and unreservedly withdraw my remarks and disassociate myself from them.

The errors arose in an initial draft being sent. But there is no excuse, and I wish to apologise for any anguish caused.

Racism takes many forms, and it is completely undeniable that Jewish people have suffered its monstrous effects, as have Irish people, Travellers and many others.

So she accepts that she was at fault and has apologised.

If she was a member of Keir Starmer’s gang, that would be the end of it. But she isn’t, so she has lost the whip and there will undoubtedly be attempts to push her out of the party (or at least out of ever again being able to stand for election to the Hackney Parliamentary seat).

Never mind his gang; Keir Starmer’s response was unequivocal. According to the BBC:

Asked about Ms Abbott’s comments the following day, Sir Keir condemned them and said they were antisemitic.

The BBC also stated:

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “The Labour Party rightly expects the highest standards of behaviour from its elected representatives, and has introduced an independent complaints process to investigate cases.

“We do not give a running commentary on ongoing investigations.”

Fortunately for the British sense of fair play, Ms Abbott has provided a commentary on it – she has condemned it as “fraudulent”.

In a statement published on ‘X’, she said:

“I was told by the Chief Whip to ‘actively engage’ with an investigation.But the Labour Whips are no longer involved – it is now run entirely out of the Labour Party HQ, which reports to Keir Starmer – and there is no investigation.

“This is the same Keir Starmer who almost immediately pronounced my guilt publicly. This completely undermines any idea that there is fairness or any natural justice. It is procedurally improper.”

It certainly is. Remember the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, and its report on Labour anti-Semitism that stated that the party leader’s office must not take part in or influence any investigations. At the time, Starmer undertook to adopt this demand fully. It seems he has chosen to forget this agreement.

Of course, no Labour complaints process can be said to be independent if it is being run from the party leader’s office, so the statement by the party spokesperson must also be considered – at the very least – questionable.

Notice also that Ms Abbott says Labour has not charged her with anti-Semitism, despite this being the basis of Starmer’s accusation against her. What is the charge, then?

Ms Abbott’s statement goes on to identify inconsistencies in the way Starmer’s party handles proven cases in which party members have been found guilty of wrongdoing. So:

“Others have committed far more grave offences, and belated or grudging apologies have been wrung from them, Yet they have been immediately excused as [they are] supporters of this leadership.”

Among those who have apparently been excused are those right-wing party members who were identified in the Forde Report which Starmer commissioned and then disowned when he realised it did not say what he wanted. Ms Abbott wrote:

“A large proportion of the racism that the Forde Report uncovered [within the Labour Party] was personally directed against me… I have never received an apology from the Leader, the General Secretary or any of the perpetrators [of] that racism. I am not even aware of any of the culprits facing disciplinary measures, as I am obliged to do.”

The implication is clear: not only is Labour still a hotbed of the most vile racism imaginable, but those responsible are actively protected by the party’s leaders – meaning Keir Starmer himself. This alleged racism goes right to the very top – and unlike that which was claimed against Jeremy Corbyn, there seems to be an evidential basis for it.

Where is the investigation into Keir Starmer’s apparent racism?

Perhaps even more shocking is Ms Abbott’s description of the way questions about child safeguarding, posed after a former Labour councillor who had been election agent for Hackney South MP Meg Hillier and shared a house with Hackney’s Mayor, Philip Glanville (who continued to associate with him, even after being informed of his arrest), were used to suppress members in the relevant Constituency Labour Party.

Is Starmer’s party now protecting paedophiles or excusing paedophilia? Where is the investigation into this?

The evidence Ms Abbott provides paints a picture of a political party that, under its current leader, has been corrupted to its core, with outrageous privileges apparently granted to racists and paedophiles because they are on Starmer’s side of the party. Or am I mistaken?

Ms Abbott concludes – rather mildly in This Writer’s opinion: “Taken together, the procedural impropriety, Starmer’s pronouncement of my guilt, the four-month delay in the investigation, the repeated refusal to reach any accommodation, all point in the direction that the verdict has already been reached.”

It reminds me very much of the situation when I was put through Labour’s disciplinary procedure. The public allegation was anti-Semitism then, as well – it took a subsequent court case to reveal the fact that the real reason for the action was that my accurate articles about the anti-Semitism claims against party members were upsetting those who wanted to use the false claims against then-leader Jeremy Corbyn.

My case was subject to more than a year’s delay and, while the court ultimately found no rules had been broken, the regulations informing those rules had not been properly observed.

My disciplinary hearing, before a kangaroo court of the party’s National Constitutional Committee, was a farce. The evidence was not examined properly because the party did not produce anybody who was familiar with it. Despite the fact that this meant the party could not contest my case, the finding still went against me. I tend to the opinion that the verdict had already been reached before that investigation happened, as well.

And what about the way false claims about me were leaked to The Sunday Times, which was subsequently forced to retract its libellous claim that I was a Holocaust denier, that was based on lies in the Labour Party’s information about me?

It seems clear that, despite promises to follow the EHRC’s recommendations, Labour has changed nothing since the bad old days of the biased right-wing disciplinary machine under former General Secretary Iain McNichol.

In This Writer’s opinion – based on personal experience – Ms Abbott is right to conclude that she’ll get no justice there.

Worse still is the astonishing, blinkered attitude of other – elected – representatives of the Labour Party. Here’s one “Cllr Matt Dent”, who I had to put straight shortly before writing this article:

Now Ms Abbott expects to be deselected after the elected leadership of her Constituency Labour Party was undemocratically removed by Keir Starmer and his cronies.

What should she do?

I tend to agree with the sentiment of Jackie Walker – herself mistreated brutally at the hands of the Labour disciplinarians:

“Diane Abbott, it’s time to leave Labour and stand as an independent. Rally the black, left, radical voters and campaigners.”


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Met police apologises, compensates women arrested at Sarah Everard vigil

Orwellian: police at Clapham Common weren’t actually stamping on Patsy Stevenson’s face, but they might as well have been.

It seems Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley wants to draw a line under his service’s shameful treatment of women. It may not be that easy.

But while the Met has issued an apology and “substantial” payouts to Patsy Stevenson and Dania al-Obeid, who were arrested at a vigil for Sarah Everard in 2021, both have said they will continue to “speak up about police abuse”.

Ms Everard was kidnapped, raped and murdered by then-serving Met Police officer Wayne Couzens, who is now serving a whole-life prison sentence for his crimes.

Ms Stevenson and Ms al-Obeid attended the vigil on Clapham Common while Covid-19 restrictions were in place in March 2021 because they felt women had been “badly let down”, and the Met has now officially admitted that this was “understandable”.

In letters to the two women from Commander Karen Findlay, the Met acknowledged that even during Covid, their “fundamental right to protest remained”, but noted that the pandemic “presented an extremely difficult challenge for policing and the officers present”. It added: “That aside, I appreciate the anger, frustration and alarm your arrest undoubtedly caused you, exacerbated by the subsequent proceedings.”

Ms Stevenson tweeted:

The Guardian reported,

On Wednesday, Stevenson expressed relief that this chapter of the “tiring” fight was over, but said that while the apology was welcome, it was “half-arsed”. She added that the controversial Public Order Act had “further eroded and undermined” citizens’ fundamental right to protest.

“Every step has been a huge hurdle, so I appreciate what they’ve said, but […] even if you go through a [legal battle], they still won’t hold themselves accountable for what they’ve done. But this is a very big win for us, and for everyone who attended the vigil.”

And Ms al-Obeid was reported as receiving the information in the following way:

Al-Obeid, who was handcuffed and arrested at the vigil, discovered that she had been convicted behind closed doors under the Single Justice Procedure (SJP) only after being contacted by media.

She challenged the conviction on the grounds that she had no opportunity to plead not guilty, and the case was then dropped by the CPS and her “crime” removed from the record. She called the apology “empowering”, but said victims of abuse needed more support that could not be provided by the police.

“The police are not the right organisation to be on the frontline for victims of violence. They just end up re-traumatising them,” said Al-Obeid, herself a victim of domestic abuse. “There is a real need for specialised resources to deal with these situations.

“I will continue speaking out about the abuse that goes on in police forces and their lack of support for victims of abuse.”

The covert conviction under the Single Justice Procedure is deeply concerning in itself.

How many other people have been convicted of crimes without even knowing they had been accused?

That in itself suggests that the apology from the Met is hollow.

Also in the news today is this:

Scotland Yard has admitted overusing its power to strip-search children after four of its officers were told they would face disciplinary proceedings over allegations that their search of a 15-year-old black schoolgirl known as Child Q was inappropriate and amounted to discrimination owing to her race and sex.

Remember this story?

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said three of the officers faced accusations of gross misconduct over the search, carried out at a school in Hackney, in east London, in December 2020. A fourth officer faces lesser misconduct action over the absence of an appropriate adult.

It is alleged that the decision to carry out the strip-search, while the girl was having her period, was inappropriate; that Child Q was treated differently because of her race and sex; that there was no appropriate adult present; and that the officers did not get authorisation from a supervisor.

So disciplinary proceedings are to begin, nearly three years after the incident.

This Writer can’t see the result affecting the careers of those involved.

At the rate the case is proceeding, they will all have retired long before any verdict is reached.

Source: Met police pays damages to women arrested at Sarah Everard vigil | Metropolitan police | The Guardian


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Deporting people from foreign countries is not new – but it shows we are regressing

The Empire Windrush: the people brought to the UK on this ship in 1948, the Chinese deported back to that country two years before, and Afghan asylum-seekers who face death trying to cross the English Channel are all victims of the same primitive racism.

It’s always sad to see proof that a country is evolving backwards – especially when that country is your own.

That’s exactly what This Writer saw, watching an old BBC documentary series called Mixed Britannia.

It showed me that the current fervour for shipping people of foreign extraction who have been re-defined (take careful note of that: re-defined) as “undesirables” out of the UK (destination: anywhere) is a regression to the attitudes of more primitive times.

In the series, the late George Alagiah relates what he describes as the “shameful” episode in which people who were originally from China but had settled in Liverpool, some having married local women, were separated from their families in a night-time raid, thrown onto a ship and sent directly back to their country of origin.

Their labour had previously been welcomed but then it was considered no longer to be needed and racist law-makers dispensed with their services, with extreme prejudice.

Their wives and children were not told the truth about what had happened; they were left to believe they had been deserted by their husbands.

This happened under the otherwise-progressive Labour government of Clement Attlee; it should perhaps serve as a warning to us all that we should be careful not to view history through rose-tinted glasses, or any other distorting prism.

Mr Alagiah went on to show how attitudes had improved over the decades leading to 2011, when Mixed Britannia was made.

Hindsight renders it ironic that he referred to the arrival of the Empire Windrush, packed with passengers from the West Indies who had been promised UK citizenship in return for their help in rebuilding our then-war-torn nation, as a great step forward that happened only a few years later.

Today, the Windrush Scandal is one of the deepest scars on the face of the Conservative administration of 2010 onwards; documentation proving the right of the Windrush generation to live in the UK was deliberately destroyed and people who’d had every right to believe they were UK citizens were forced through a deportation process that was entirely unwarranted, unfair, and illegal. The Tories have yet to make full restitution to those they wronged.

Today we live overlooking the river of blood (to adopt a phrase) that used to be the English Channel – where refugees and asylum-seekers place their lives in the hands of criminal gangs because they have no safe, legal route to claim asylum in the UK; the Tories have closed them all off and say anybody trying to make the crossing is coming here illegally.

Does that include people from Afghanistan who worked as employees of the UK government and its forces there for 20 years after the post- 911 invasion, as implied by this social media post about the people who died or were rescued in the tragedy that happened on August 12:

“Their labour had previously been welcomed but then it was considered no longer to be needed and racist law-makers dispensed with their services, with extreme prejudice.”

It fits, doesn’t it?

Remember: The current Conservative government has deliberately dismantled the UK’s immigration and asylum system in order to make it impossible to properly process people coming to these shores to claim asylum.

They have done this in order to fool you into thinking that our borders are being overrun by foreigners who have no reason to come here.

They believe they need to put a fake enemy in front of you because otherwise you will realise that the only real enemy you have is the current Conservative government.

At the time of writing, Mixed Britannia may be viewed via the BBC iPlayer here.


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