Unfair and unnatural: the rule change was rammed through as part of a “take it or leave it” proscription rule package with the collusion of right-wing trade union leaderships (surely a contradiction in terms?) at last year’s farcical Labour conference.
This should sound the death knell for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
It is quite clearly nowhere anybody who believes in the founding Labour values of fairness and equality can stay any more – because Starmer has deliberately removed those values from the way his club treats the people who fund it:
The Labour party’s new 2022 rule book has abolished fairness and natural justice from its expulsion processes.
No, that’s not a joke – though perhaps it is a sick one.
The party’s rules now explicitly rule out those concepts from the entitlement of anyone it decides to expel.
Chapter 2, Clause ii.8 tells members they have a right to dignity, respect and fairness… Clearly that ‘right’ now only applies – and is therefore not regarded as an actual right by the regime – as long as the party feels like keeping you in as a member. If it decides to kick you out, your right to that ‘right’ doesn’t exist.
The regime slipped through this anti-justice horror as part of the ‘take it or leave it’ proscription rule package rammed through at last year’s party conference with the collusion of right-wing union managements.
There are plenty of genuine socialist parties springing up in the UK now, so there is no reason to stick with this hollowed-out hulk that Starmer is milking to destruction before jumping ship – probably to the Tories.
My advice to all members of good character and conscience: GET OUT NOW.
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Peter Mandelson: why isn’t Keir Starmer already investigating his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell?
One of the reasons This Writer appealed for readers to sign a petition against Tony Blair receiving a knighthood was his association with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who procured children for him to sexually abuse.
Blair’s name appears in Epstein and Maxwell’s infamous black book – once.
Blair lieutenant – and now an advisor to current Labour leader Keir Starmer – Peter Mandelson has 10 entries in it.
Starmer seems to think there’s nothing amiss with this.
So there’s a petition calling for Mandelson’s Labour Party membership to be suspended while an independent investigation into the extent of his involvement with Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking, paedophilia and sexual blackmail enterprise takes place.
Visit the petition page to see seven reasons Mandelson’s behaviour should be investigated.
We all learned a lot after This Writer’s court victory over the Labour Party on Tuesday, didn’t we?
Yes, I said victory – even though the case was dismissed. I gained more than Labour did.
The court found that Labour had deliberately ignored its own procedures in order to run an investigation that discriminated against me.
We may therefore conclude that Labour’s finding against me in that investigation also discriminated against me, and that the Vox Political articles that the party complained about were not detrimental to the Labour Party, nor were they anti-Semitic in any way.
In other words, any claim that the party ran its complaints system in good faith is utterly discredited.
Furthermore, the court found that this abuse of its own procedures was fully consistent with Labour Party rules – which says to This Writer that the rule book is not fit to be used and should be re-written, preferably by a committee of constituency-based members, with the help of lawyers hired with party funds. No member of Labour’s ruling elite should be allowed to get their fingers into it.
Further evidence of this came on Wednesday (November 25) when it was revealed that Keir Starmer’s Labour elite have tried to pretend there is a rule allowing him to stifle debate on the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn from the Parliamentary Labour Party. There isn’t.
None of the rules specifically forbid the expression of solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn or criticism of the leadership’s political decisions.
A letter from Fraser Welsh (who?), head of internal governance (oh), states: “The Labour Party disciplinary case against the former Leader has now concluded… However… motions around this issue… are providing a flashpoint for the expression of views that undermine the Labour Party’s ability to provide a safe and welcoming space for all members, in particular our Jewish members. Therefore all motions which touch on these issues must be ruled out of order.
“We are aware that this ruling will be questioned, so the following explanation of the powers exercised by the General Secretary, as well as the rationale for this decision may be helpful:
“The Labour Party’s Code of Conduct: Antisemitism and other forms of racism states (Appendix 9 in the Rule Book): “The Labour Party will ensure the party is a welcoming home to members of all communities, with no place for any prejudice or discrimination based on race, ethnicity or religion.”
“Chapter 1 VIII.3.A tasks the NEC to “to uphold and enforce the constitution, rules and standing orders of the Party and to take any action it deems necessary for such purpose…
“Chapter 1 VIII.5 states: “All powers of the NEC may be exercised as the NEC deems appropriate through its elected officers, committees, sub-committees, the General Secretary and other national and regional officials and designated representatives appointed by the NEC or the General Secretary. For the avoidance of doubt, it is hereby declared that the NEC shall have the power to delegate its powers to such officers and committees and subcommittees of the NEC and upon such terms as from time to time it shall see fit. Further, it shall be deemed always to have had such power.”
None of the rules mentioned specifically forbid the expression of solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn or criticism of the leadership’s political decisions. And Mr Welsh – deliberately? – omits any evidence in support of his wild claims from his letter, meaning local party leaders have no reason to believe him.
So, have I got this right?
Jewish comrades who pledge support for Jeremy Corbyn will now be deemed anti-Semitic?
Insulting, wrong, and highly offensive. @UKLabour has fallen hard.
Having just won a court case on the basis that its rules don’t mean Labour has to follow any procedure that isn’t specifically codified in the rule book, the party’s leaders can hardly insist that, in this instance, they do.
And it is encouraging to see so many local parties overruling the diktat from party HQ in order to continuing expressing their support for Jeremy Corbyn, for free speech and for democracy. I’ve been monitoring Twitter and here is a taste of what’s been happening:
Proud of Pudsey CLP – passed a motion tonight calling on the Labour Party General Secretary to withdraw the gagging guidance to local parties which stifles debate and solidarity ✊🏻
.@WestminsterCLP just voted to call on the General Secretary to withdraw his guidance restricting members' right to debate important internal matters & to call on the Leader to restore the whip to @jeremycorbyn!
Dulwich & West Norwood CLP – expresses solidarity with @jeremycorbyn – calls on the NEC to instruct @Keir_Starmer to restore the parliamentary whip, end all political attacks on Corbyn & work for unity in the party. -calls for an NEC investigation into Corbyn's suspension pic.twitter.com/pRPfDfdhF1
I'm told overwhelming majorities have voted to support reinstating whip to Corbyn in Milton Keynes and Hall Green CLPs this evening. The authoritarian diktats from David Evans are being ignored.
Opposition to Starmer’s power grab has extended to the unions, which are not governed by Labour Party rules and can say and do what they like:
First North Notts Unite Community meeting tonight, no confidence motion in Keir Starmer unanimously passed with only 1 abstention, solidarity with @jeremycorbyn & already working on a letter of solidarity to the trans community from us for our next meeting ❤️🏳️⚧️
Sadly, the Conservatives are doing very well out of the civil war that Starmer has stirred up – and will continue to profit in any forthcoming elections, as long as Starmer and his elites have any power in the Labour Party. Here’s the reason:
"If he can treat Labour Party members like this, how will he treat us?"
That's what the electorate will ask. @Keir_Starmer & his Labour hierarchy are out of control and they're seriously damaging the party.
The longer this continues, the worse it will get. Labour Party members across the UK have made it clear that they do not accept Starmer’s dictatorship and while the dissent is only a whisper at the moment, it will soon become a roar.
Starmer has put himself in an impossible position. Having abused party rules in a vain attempt to assert dictatorial authority, he is unlikely to accept the democratic decision of members to deny him that authority.
I think, therefore, that Labour members will have to consider what other steps they can take to have him removed. Potential left-wing challengers for the leadership position should start generating support – but should wait until large numbers of CLPs have registered their opposition to Starmer’s activities before demanding an election.
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Anybody who hands their personal information to a third party – a company, a club, a political party, the government or whoever – may see that data handed out to others or made public, with no way of seeking legal redress, according to the finding of a court case today.
And Labour members going through the party’s complaints procedure are still unlikely to get justice, even after the party promised to follow recommendations by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
These are the inevitable conclusions drawn from the verdict in This Writer’s court case, in which I accused the Labour Party of breach of contract.
I had said that Labour had failed to follow its own procedures for investigating complaints against party members after an allegation of anti-Semitism was made against me in 2017.
And I had said that a party official – or several – had leaked information, including lies, about me to the press while I was going through that process, in breach of the Data Protection Act.
Both of those claims were found to be accurate.
But in the hearing this afternoon, Deputy District Judge Whiteley said he could not uphold my case against Labour because the party’s Rule Book does not say that it must follow the procedures it has created to investigate complaints, or that it must adhere to the DPA.
That’s right. Unless an organisation’s rules specifically state that it will adhere to the Data Protection Act, then there are loopholes in the law – large enough to drive a lorry through – that mean your personal information can be passed on to anybody at all, regardless of your own wishes.
In this case, I had said somebody within the Labour Party had passed information that I had been accused of anti-Semitism to the Western Mail in 2017, and a Labour employee (I don’t know whether it was the same person) had passed false information about the allegations against me to The Sunday Times in February 2018. I said this breached the Data Protection Act because information about me had been passed on without my permission.
But Labour said that the party itself had not authorised the leak and that it had been unable to identify that anybody within its system had caused it. The party could not deny that the leak came from within Labour because the information had been generated as part of its complaint process and could only, therefore, have come from Labour.
The law states that an unincorporated association (which is how Labour is defined for legal purposes) is responsible for prohibited conduct carried out by its employees and agents against members and prospective members. Breaching the DPA would count as such.
But it also states that an association would not be legally responsible for the act of an employee that was not carried out in the course of their employment – and the court deemed that leaking information was not an act carried out in the course of their employment.
This means that any organisation that has your personal information may pass it on indescriminately – to anybody it likes, no matter what the Data Protection Act says or how avidly it states it adheres to that law, because anybody working there can follow the actions of Labour’s employee(s) and know they will get away with it.
So if you have provided your information to any third party at all, it is not safe.
Nor will it be safe until our lawmakers find a way to close this loophole in the law. They will not even consider doing so unless they are pressured into it. That will be your responsibility.
The judge also said that Labour had not breached its contract with me by failing to investigate the complaint against me according to its own procedures, because those procedures were not enshrined in the party’s Rule Book and therefore it had no obligation to follow them.
Labour leader Keir Starmer has announced that the party will follow the recommendations of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, whose report on anti-Semitism in the party contains a chapter on the failings of the process by which complaints are investigated.
The EHRC recommended that Labour should “publish a comprehensive policy and procedure, setting out how antisemitism complaints will be handled and how decisions on them will be made”.
It says the party should “develop and implement comprehensive internal guidance for all stages of the antisemitism complaints process”.
None of this means a damned thing because anybody challenging a failure by the party to follow its procedures will find that it has no obligation to do so; they are merely procedures, not rules.
Consider the way current complaints procedures have been flouted wholesale recently – not just over the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn but over complaints against allies of Starmer who have been accused of anti-Semitism – and against Starmer himself.
It seems clear that the Labour Party Rule Book is not worth the paper it is printed on – or the electricity required to put it on your screen.
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Tory stupidity: you can’t book a place in A&E because you don’t know when you’ll be involved in an accident, or when an emergency will arise. The best thing to do is ignore this new rule completely and demand your right to treatment.
Yes, you read the headline right: the Tories want to make hospital A&E departments ‘booking only’ by December.
According to The Times (it’s behind a paywall but you can get the sense of it from the preview:
Plans for patients to “call first” and book into A&E via NHS 111 will be implemented before December, NHS bosses were told yesterday.
A joint board meeting of NHS England and NHS Improvement was told that new emergency care standards designed to replace the four-hour waiting time target would also be in place before winter.
The plans were described as a “profound change” by Lord Prior of Brampton, chairman of NHS England. Hospitals will be asked to adapt “rapidly” to the measures, which have yet to be finalised, and make improvements as they learn how they work in practice during autumn, board papers said.
So it seems this “Lord Prior of Brampton” is the airhead who thinks you can book A&E time for events you have no reason to expect.
The thinking behind the change is clear: if the only way into A&E is by booking a place, then there won’t be any waiting times and the Tory government will be spared the embarrassment of being shown to have worsened NHS care.
That could be particularly important – for public relations, but not for public health – at a time when hospitals are otherwise likely to be overloaded with Covid-19 patients, people with regular flu, and other emergency demands.
And I suppose people who die at home because they cannot get a slot won’t be counted.
But isn’t the NHS supposed to consult the public on major changes like this? Aren’t they illegal if that doesn’t happen?
My advice: ignore this new rule.
The National Health Service exists to provide health care, free at the point of use, for every UK citizen, when they need it – not when it’s convenient for Tory politicians.
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Richard Horton has been criticising Tory government policy on Covid-19 since at least January.
And he’d know his subject, being the editor of that most distinguished of medical journals, The Lancet.
Shall we have a quick shufti at a few of his points? Here:
He lambasts the management of the virus as “the greatest science policy failure for a generation”, attacks the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) for becoming “the public relations wing of a government that had failed its people”, calls out the medical Royal Colleges, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the British Medical Association (BMA) and Public Health England (PHE) for not reinforcing the World Health Organization’s public health emergency warning back in February, and damns the UK’s response as “slow, complacent and flat-footed”, revealing a “glaringly unprepared” government and a “broken system of obsequious politico-scientific complicity”.
Details:
The series of five academic papers the journal published in late January first describing the novel coronavirus in disturbing detail went unheeded. “In several of the papers they talked about the importance of personal protective equipment and the importance of testing, the importance of avoiding mass gatherings, the importance of considering school closure, the importance of lockdowns. All of the things that have happened in the last three months here, they’re all in those five papers.”
He still can’t understand why the government’s scientific advisers didn’t consult their counterparts in China.
From the published reports of Sage meetings, … scientists were “trying to be as sensitive to economic issues as they were to health issues”. That, he says, “is a dangerous place to be” because it compromises the ability of the advisory group to protect health.
The book, The Covid-19 Catastrophe: What’s Gone Wrong and How to Stop It Happening Again, is only 140 pages long so it came as quite a surprise that even the e-book edition costs £9.99.
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The arena: The lies Labour used to expel one member are to be exposed at Bristol Civil Justice Centre.
Labour leadership candidates were falling over themselves to apologise for failing to tackle a fabricated anti-Semitism crisis, according to BBC News.
What a shame they have not been so forthcoming in apologising to the members they have wronged.
In my own case, Labour faked evidence and then passed it to like-minded members of the press, in order to create a false impression that I was an anti-Semite. The party then used this as an excuse to expel me.
And now Labour will have to answer for those activities – in court on May 26.
The party breached its own disciplinary rules and regulations, and data protection procedures – in the process breaking the Data Protection Act – in its determination to expel a perfectly innocent member with one of the most abhorrent smears there can be.
But party leaders did not realise that they had laid themselves wide open to a legal challenge in the courts – over breach of contract.
The party is governed by its rule book and it broke those rules in its attack on me. I feel sure that other people will have been similarly wronged.
The court hearing will begin at 10am and a whole day has been allotted to it.
In the meantime, candidates like Emily Thornberry are apologising for failing to kick out members on the basis of nothing more than a flimsy claim – most probably by people who support the Conservatives.
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Jeremy Corbyn: No, he isn’t writing the foreword for another book. If he did, the anti-Semitism police would probably want to burn it.
It’s amazing, isn’t it? Just because Jeremy Corbyn wrote a new foreword for an old book that contains one sentence that might be interpreted as anti-Semitic, not only is that enough to condemn Mr Corbyn as anti-Semitic, but also the century-old text and its well-respected author.
Did I write “amazing”? I mean “utter lunacy“.
And hypocrisy, it seems.
Mr Corbyn wrote a foreword to a new edition of John Atkinson Hobson’s 1902 book Imperialism: A Study in 2011.
Academics and people who are sane consider the book to be a classic text which is still useful today, written by a man of his time. Hobson’s attitudes are acknowledged but are not considered to outweigh the usefulness of what he wrote.
I can certainly understand this. Back when I was at college, studying European literature, we looked at a text by August Strindberg – who was an appalling misogynist. This was acknowledged and formed part of our study of the text.
Were my course leaders misogynists for including this book on my course? Were those of us who were on the course – men and women alike – misogynists for studying it? No – that would be ridiculous.
We acknowledged it for what it is.
As, it seems, Mr Corbyn did in his words about Imperialism: A Study.
As, it seems, did Times journalist and former Tony Blair speech-writer Philip Collins, who was quick to share a link to a Times article condemning Mr Corbyn for writing a foreword to a renowned book, regardless.
Isn’t that a bit hypocritical?
Shadow Business Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey, forced to comment on this storm-on-a-library-card to Sky News, rightly said Mr Corbyn was writing about the book as a whole, and was not supporting anti-Semitic statements.
This makes perfect sense, and for any blame to be attached to him, he would have had to single out an anti-Semitic comment for praise.
I haven’t read the foreword in question, but I would bet money that he didn’t.
Meanwhile the loonies are having their fun:
Will @jeremycorbyn now defend his own decision to unreservedly promote, commend, and write a forward for the re-release of a century's old anti-semitic book, or will he yet again leave it to proxies? It is a very sad time indeed for all of the genuinely good @UKLabour folk.
He could leave it to Gordon Brown, who has also praised Hobson. I wonder how Jeff Phillips would feel about that?
Oh, but wait.
Isn’t there a big election today (May 2)?
Aren’t millions of people set to visit polling stations to vote in local government elections?
I think they are.
And isn’t it a little too convenient that another anti-Semitism smear against Jeremy Corbyn – even one as pathetic as this – should drop on the eve of such an event?
Some people certainly think so:
#Coincidence: On the eve of UK's election (May2) @BoardofDeputies of British Jews predictably produce fresh accusations of antisemitism against @jeremycorbyn (he wrote forward for 2011 book Imperialism by JAHobsen) They express “grave concern” and demand explanation. Triple Yawn https://t.co/vvMns8zWzz
Oh, hey, if we’re finding reasons to censor books – A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle features derogatory references to Mormons. Should that book be deleted from cultural memory too? It’s the one that introduced the world to Sherlock Holmes, but that’s of no consequence, right?
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Theresa May: She should try reading books instead of just waving them around.
Theresa May is a terrible liar – due to lack of intelligence, it seems.
She appears unable to understand that people don’t have to accept her word on anything – we can all fact-check her claims immediately and call her out on her lies.
And that’s what happened on October 24, 2018, when she said this:
She may have had the page marked but she seems never to have read it.
The book was Economics for the Many, edited by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, and she was referring to a chapter by Professor Simon Wren-Lewis, author of the Mainly Macro economics blog. He knows his stuff.
He also knows what he wrote – and what he didn’t.
He didn’t write that Labour’s sums didn’t add up. He wrote that the Institute for Fiscal Studies had claimed Labour’s sums didn’t add up – and then he wrote that it didn’t matter.
Worse still, the IFS didn’t claim Labour’s sums didn’t add up. The think tank had said that it was “hard to say” whether Labour’s pledge to reduce debt was compatible with their promises of a wave of nationalisations of water and energy, as the economic transformation would be so radical nobody could tell whether the manifesto costings would be accurate.
It gets worse.
When Professor Wren-Lewis tweeted a correction, the Conservative Party’s press office doubled down on Mrs May’s claim with an out-of-context quote that he swiftly dismissed. Then it seems CCHQ went all shy and decided to finish the conversation by private message:
“The fact the numbers ‘did not add up’ would have been a welcome feature of Labour’s manifesto” – your words seem pretty clear
The situation reminds me of the way I was accused of anti-Semitism by people who selected words I had written that could be misinterpreted, clipped them out of the articles in which I had written them, and presented them out-of-context as if that were proof of their claims.
I have taken great pleasure, over the summer, in winning multiple battles with national newspapers that quoted these claims – and I intend to demolish the Labour Party’s attempted use of those claims at a disciplinary hearing that will be held very soon.
For Mrs May, retribution has been much more swift:
.@theresa_may keeping it classy at #PMQs once again today: this time, misrepresenting a respected economist in @sjwrenlewis. He didn’t say the numbers didn’t add up, he was quoting the IFS in order to tackle their argument. This kind of spin makes a mockery of political debate. pic.twitter.com/tt00uaj91X
Lying is the main approach employed by the Tories at the mo- whether its spending on schools, the NHS or their Brexit chaos. It’s infuriating that they get away with it. https://t.co/FWcXdaooNd
This is quite astonishing. The Prime Minister got caught lying today. It was the centrepiece of her attack on Corbyn, and it was a lie, yet the trainee running CCHQ Press just keeps digging. https://t.co/4cmDJQWIE4
Lying is not yet a criminal/civil offence. If it was there wouldn't be a "journalist"/spin doctor or MP left in this disunited third world xenophobic nonentity Torydom off the coast of Europe. https://t.co/W4QY2LRPcC
Theresa May waves a book at Jeremy at #PMQs in a tragic display of pre-planned theatre. It’s time for the country to throw the book at Theresa May and her lousy, heartless Government.
Because we can’t believe anything else Mrs May says, if we can’t believe her when she claims to be imparting information to MPs; lying to Parliament is an offence for which even the prime minister may be expelled (although corruption in the corridors of power is so deeply entrenched that it never comes to that).
What if her claim to have 95 per cent of a Brexit deal sorted turned out to be untrue?
Guy Verhofstadt: "As long as there is no solution for the Irish border… for us in our Parliament progress is zero per cent." https://t.co/LrSul6Ly1n
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Jeremy Corbyn, writing about Jews including Roza Robota, Szmul Zygielbojm and Anne Frank, in the Holocaust Educational Trust’s book of remembrance.
One of the themes of Holocaust Memorial Day, and the charity behind the event, is that people should come together to prevent future holocausts and genocides.
It shames us all, therefore, that some people have been encouraged to complain about Jeremy Corbyn’s Facebook message, in which he did not mention Jews.
People were quick to attack the omission, which was said to be from the message he wrote in the Holocaust Educational Trust’s book of remembrance.
In fact, it was not. One wonders how that mistake happened. The message from the book – which certainly does mention Jews, appeared on Facebook later, and can be read here.
But the damage was done. Critics arose to question Mr Corbyn’s omission, including the writer of this on the Christians United For Israel website:
Jeremy Corbyn shared a message ahead of Saturday’s Holocaust Memorial Day. However the Labour leader did so without mentioning Jews.
The omission raised eye-brows with many of social media questioning his reason. Over six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. With the “power of words” being a theme of this year’s Memorial Day, it would have been an appropriate opportunity to have addressed this directly, especially considering the Labour leadership’s recent problems with antisemitism in the party.
Another critical article, in The Tablet, quotes Hugo Rifkind – who This Writer so resoundingly trounced in a discussion on anti-Semitism in 2016 – as follows:
I literally cannot understand why he would do this. Can it be accidental? You mention Jews, just like you mention gypsies, homosexuals and dissidents. If you don’t, you are making a specific point of not doing.
Really?
Perhaps Mr Rifkind had not read Theresa May’s message in the same book of remembrance. Here it is:
The pages of this book unite us in a commitment to remember all those who suffered during the Holocaust. We stand together to honour the lives lost and those who survived.
As Prime Minister, I pledge to do everything in my power to ensure we never forget where prejudice and hatred can lead. The new national Memorial to the Holocaust will sit in the shadow of Parliament, alongside a world class learning centre to do just that. It will make a permanent statement of our promise to remember and our commitment to teach future generations to fight hatred in all its forms.
By supporting the Holocaust Educational Trust and all its partners we will safeguard the memories of survivors and learn the lessons for generations to come.
The evidence shows that it is Mrs May who made not a single reference to the Jews – either individually or as a race.
Nor, for that matter, did she mention Romani, homosexuals or dissidents. Perhaps she was making a specific point not to do so.
It may interest you to recall that in my most recent article on this subject, I mentioned all of the above, along with many other people whose sacrifices should be recalled during Holocaust Memorial Day – if the charity that runs the event is serious about commemorating all victims of holocaust and genocide: The disabled, the mentally ill, neurotics, prostitutes, recidivist criminals, Prisoners of War, and among the political prisoners: trade unionists, Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, and slave workers from the Slav nations. Also: Armenians, and those who died in the genocides in Cambodia, Darfur, Bosnia and Rwanda.
Other genocides go uncommemorated, as I have mentioned in another article.
Do I get some sort of prize for commemorating all victims of these atrocities?
No. As many readers are aware, I have been accused of anti-Semitism.
In fact, one of the accusations against me is for suggesting that, referring to another organisation that did not mention Jews in its discussion of the Holocaust, it seemed likely that the organisation in question was simply being “politically correct” in using an umbrella term – “victims” – to cover them all.
The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is “The Power of Words”, and the Theme Vision statement makes it clear that “words used to good effect can restore hope, courage or faith. Words can challenge prevailing views and can state solidarity”.
This Writer would hope that this is the purpose to which most people are putting their own words with regard to HMD.
But the same document also states that “harsh words, or words that feed negative stereotypes, can fuel tensions, increase vulnerability and even incite violence”.
In other words, they can be hugely divisive – in exact opposition to the aim of the event, which is to “ensure that everyone works together to create a safer, better future”.
I would suggest that the accusations against Mr Corbyn are exactly the kind of “harsh words” that are intended to “fuel tensions, increase vulnerablility and even incite violence” – it is “the language of hatred and exclusion”.
It is language used to attack Mr Corbyn under a false banner, while giving Mrs May a free pass. It is the language of hypocrisy, of division, of hate.
And I’m willing to bet that those responsible will get away with it.
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