Tag Archives: disciplinary

It’s Keir Starmer hypocrisy time! Send in your own favourite clips!

Here’s another hypocrite moment: Starmer took the knee for Black Lives Matter but to him it meant nothing more than a photo opportunity. He attacked the organisation shortly after as a “moment”.

Seriously, send links. I know there are a lot of them out there!

For now, let’s have a look at this moment on Good Morning Britain when Keir Starmer was asked if Diane Abbott would be suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party indefinitely, as Jeremy Corbyn was, if she is found to have been anti-Semitic – for “consistency”. Of course, Jeremy Corbyn has not been found to have been anti-Semitic, so it wouldn’t be consistent with anything.

In the same clip, Starmer refers to an “independent” disciplinary process. But he personally wrote the motion to exclude Jeremy Corbyn from being a candidate in general elections, and he has admitted that he personally intervened to have Diane Abbott suspended. So there’s no independence about the process at all:

Also unearthed on April 27:

Also:

So he wanted proportional representation to be brought in as a new electoral system a few years ago but, now that Labour might be able to win a big victory in a general election, he reckons the First Past The Post, largest-minority-vote takes-the-seat system is okay.

Please send links to more evidence of hypocrisy if you have it. Let’s keep this going!

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Is this the truth of Labour’s disciplinary process under Starmer?

The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s decision to whitewash the Labour Party’s disciplinary proceedings seems doubly contradictory when one considers the words of one of that process’s victims, below.

I’m aware that what’s described below isn’t directly related to the party’s policy on anti-Semitism, but it does provide revealing information on the treatment that anybody undergoing this Kafkaesque process is facing.

It seems clear that the current disciplinary process is being used as an excuse for the persecution of people who have done nothing wrong at all – the example below is of a woman who gave an interview to an organisation within the Labour Party. A year later, Keir Starmer’s bully boys and girls summarily proscribed that organisation and expelled anybody who had anything to do with it – even though they could not possibly have known that it would be proscribed at the time of their own contact.

It also seems clear that the appeal process against expulsion simply doesn’t work at all – most probably because it is run by factional party members who are bent on removing left-wingers from the formerly left-wing party.

The effect on the former party members targeted by this victimisation – this persecution – is predictable: their political careers have been harmed, possibly fatally; they have been prevented from carrying out any of the good work they had been doing previously; their reputations have suffered and they have been shunned by people who were previously colleagues; and their personal life and well-being has suffered hugely.

This is a calculated, desired result. Keir Starmer wants people like Pamela Fitzpatrick to suffer.

Few rank-and-file party members will be in a position to take the Labour Party to the High Court and seek satisfaction via litigation.

Personally, I think Ms Fitzpatrick should invite other wronged party members to join her, and make it a class action, but that’s a matter for her.

Whatever happens in court, her story serves as an example of StarmerLabour’s authoritarian – if not totalitarian – policy: it is no longer a broad church. Members must service Starmer’s increasingly right-wing demands – or he will harm them.

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Police who stop-searched UK athletes could lose their jobs

Remember when Metropolitan Police officers dragged UK sprinter Bianca Williams and her partner out of their car and away from their three-month-old child on false claims that they could smell cannabis?

Nearly two years after the incident, five officers involved will face gross misconduct charges that could lead to them being sacked. Another officer will face a charge of misconduct.

It is understood that a disciplinary panel will also consider whether racial discrimination played any part in the actions of some of the officers, who deny wrongdoing and insist they will contest the charges.

This Site reported on the incident when it happened.

Ms Williams and her partner Ricardo Dos Santos were stopped at 1.20pm on July 4, 2020 in Maida Vale, north-west London, by officers from the Met’s Territorial Support Group. He was driving and she was in the back with their child.

Reports of a police statement at the time claimed,

The Met said the vehicle had blacked-out windows and was “driving suspiciously”, including being on the wrong side of the road. It said when officers indicated for it to stop, the car sped off. Officers caught up with the vehicle when it stopped on Lanhill Road, but the driver initially refused to get out of the car, the Met said.

The occupants, a 25-year-old man and a 26-year-old woman, were detained for the purposes of a search under section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the statement continued. After nothing was found on their person or in the vehicle, no arrests were made and the pair were released.

It was also alleged that the officers justified their search by claiming they could smell cannabis.

Both athletes are trained by the former Olympic champion Linford Christie, who accused police of institutional racism, and they also said they believed racism played a part in the incident.

In a statement, Christie asked,

“Can Cressida Dick [then Met Police Commissioner, who spoke in support of her officers’ behaviour] or anyone please explain to me what justification the Met Police officers had in assaulting the driver, taking a mother away from her baby all without one piece of PPE and then calling the sniffer dog unit to check the car over?

“Was it the car that was suspicious or the black family in it which led to such a violent confrontation and finally an accusation of the car smelling of weed but refusing to do a roadside drug test?

“This is not the first time this has happened (second time in two months) and I’m sure it won’t be the last but this type of abuse of power and institutionalised racism cannot be justified or normalised any long #BLM #MetPoliceRacist.”

A few days later, the Met referred the incident to the Independent Office of Police Conduct, which has taken two years to deliver its findings.

This Writer’s personal opinion is that I would want access to every piece of evidence used in the case, when the disciplinary panel comes to hear it, because I simply don’t trust the institutions involved to make a correct decision without public supervision.

I have grave doubts about the reasons the Met gave to justify chasing, stopping and searching these athletes’ car, and there is also the matter of the distress caused to them as they were separated from their very young child.

The IOPC’s recommendation is a step in the right direction. But will it be a case of one step forward, two steps back?

Source: Police who handcuffed Bianca Williams to face gross misconduct charge | UK news | The Guardian

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Karma: Vicious false anti-Semitism screamer is targeted for exclusion by Labour

Kieron Monks (left) and Gary Spedding (right): they didn’t let the facts get in the way of a rotten story about me in 2018. Now that Mr Spedding is accused, will he finally admit he was wrong about me?

Back in 2018, This Writer was targeted with a series of vicious – and false – accusations of anti-Semitism by the fake charity ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’. The claims were sent to the Labour Party and as a result I was subjected to the party’s kangaroo court disciplinary system and eventually expelled under false pretences.

While that was going on, I was also subjected to shocking abuse by people who were not directly involved in the allegations or investigation but who may be described as “fellow travellers”.

For example, the article to which Kieron Monks’s tweet (below) links repeated one of the false allegations against me.

I stepped in to point out the inaccuracy. At the time, I considered it best to counter the accusations wherever I found them. The response was a false interpretation of my words, in which what I said was edited in order to misrepresent me:

I pointed out the omission:

This was not good enough for the author of the article, but he only gave me another opportunity to clarify the fact:

(Strangely, none of my accusers ever wanted to acknowledge that the incident under discussion happened in 2003 or thereabouts. If Tony Blair had been influenced by a cabal of any kind, it would have become public knowledge long before, and my response to the question about it was made in that context – we all knew that the claim was false.)

Enter one Gary Spedding. His false accusation is undermined by the fact that he published a screenshot of my words, clearly showing that I had been telling the truth and that Mr Monks had not:

I tried to reason with him but he wouldn’t have it – repeatedly accusing me of anti-Semitism:

It seems clear to me that his claim was false, vicious, and intended to harm my reputation and, by extension, my income as a political writer in my own right.

We know his claim was false – libellous, in fact. A Labour Party officer (I still don’t know who it was) leaked the accusations against me to The Sunday Times and they were published in early 2018… and then in early 2019, the same paper had to publish a lengthy correction after IPSO found the allegation to be inaccurate.

I couldn’t sue him, though, because I don’t have the cash to carry out libel litigation. And it is unlikely that he’s worth enough to make it worthwhile.

Labour was later found by a court to have ignored its own regulations for investigating party members in order to justify expelling me.

So that was the end of it.

Now Mr Spedding himself is facing expulsion by the Labour Party – under a trumped-up accusation, but not one of anti-Semitism – and look how his tune has changed!

His statement says: “I am not feeling too well still after the death of my father in late May 2021 and I have chosen to take a break from politics generally to focus on spending time with my family.”

Fine words from a man who had absolutely no interest in the emotional well-being of his victim, back in 2018. I had been battling false accusations for nearly two years by the time he made his attack, and his only reaction to that was to intensify the pressure.

“I didn’t want to face the backlash, bullying and ridicule…”

But he had been quite happy to dish it out.

“… that is now rampant in the Labour Party thanks to the atmosphere of intimidation and fear under Keir Starmer’s leadership.”

The only reason Keir Starmer is leader of the Labour Party now is that people like Mr Spedding spent five years undermining former leader Jeremy Corbyn and his followers with accusations like those he made against me; I was known to be a supporter of Mr Corbyn so the attack on me made him look bad too.

He supported the atmosphere of intimidation and fear imposed on victims of the Governance and Legal Unit whose work, it seems clear, was also intended to undermine the then-Labour leader.

“However, I have no decided to speak out after much deliberation so as to highlight just how ludicrous my own case is and to join in solidarity with others who are facing similar disgusting attacks from within the Labour Party machine.”

The case against This Writer was also ludicrous – but he supported it to the hilt.

And now that he has been accused, he wants to “join in solidarity” with other people in the same situation.

It’s a bit late for that.

Also, given his previous behaviour, I doubt his motivation.

I envy the generosity of people like the owner of the @leftworks1 Twitter account, who is able to protest against Labour’s treatment of Mr Spedding as much as against the party’s treatment of me.

But actions can go a long way towards changing minds.

I notice that Mr Spedding is seeking a formal apology from Labour. But he has never made a formal apology to me, even after his claims against me were shown to be false.

If he really means what he is saying, then I think it would be reasonable for him to make a full and formal apology to me for the wrong that he did to me in 2018.

It seems a reasonable request. We can all gauge his sincerity from his response.

UPDATE: It didn’t take long for the response to turn up:

Right, we’ve got our answer. This guy is toxic. We shouldn’t give him a moment of our time. Whatever happens to him, he doesn’t deserve any help at all.

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Hate-filled Labour now habitually emails notice of disciplinary action to members late at night

Targeted: Jess Barnard has been the victim of a hate campaign by the Labour Party.

“Well, that’s all right then” – said nobody at all after Labour apologised to Jess Barnard for emailing her with a ridiculous Notice of Investigation at one o’clock in the morning.

The party had been planning disciplinary action against the Young Labour chair on the pretext that she was wrong to challenge transphobia. Think about that.

But party officers took a sharp U-turn – not because they acted in error, as they tried to claim, but because Ms Barnard reported the attack to her lawyers and they threatened court action against the party.

Skwawkbox has claimed that the email was demanded by a senior staff member who is carrying out a vendetta against Ms Barnard to punish her for standing up against the party’s attempts at character assassination against her, for standing in solidarity with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and to prevent her speaking at Labour’s conference later this month. The evidence is here.

Possibly worse than this is the fact that the email was deliberately sent to a young woman who has already suffered considerable mental distress because of interventions by Labour Party officers – at one in the morning on World Suicide Prevention Day. Did whoever was responsible think it was funny to do that?

“As a young member already facing hostility from some members of staff, this is very much starting to feel like harassment and intimidation,” wrote Ms Barnard in an emailed letter to NEC members. And rightly so – because that is exactly what it was.

Quite right. And several questions arise. Firstly, why is the party abusing its responsibilities in this way?

We need to know who is responsible for this behaviour and what is going to happen to them as a result. Will they face disciplinary proceedings? (I think we all know the answer to that: no.)

And the second question is: how many other Labour Party members have been subjected to abuse of their mental health in the same way?

You see, Ms Barnard is not the only Labour Party member to have received notice of disciplinary proceedings at such a time.

It is regular Labour Party practice, it seems.

That is what we find from the response to Pamela Fitzpatrick – who is herself taking Labour to court over disciplinary proceedings launched against her, apparently in order to prevent her from attending the party conference and being available as a possible replacement for David Evans if he is removed from his general secretary role by party members angered at his vindictive and unreasonable purges of left-wing members.

She asked whether the party was deliberately timing its letters to cause maximum distress to members and the answer is an unequivocal yes:

I can only agree with Ms Fitzpatrick’s response to the revelations from fellow party members:

Yes indeed.

Where is the outrage from Keir Starmer and his cult members? Where are the announcements of disciplinary action against the culprits? And when will the procedure be reformed?

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LabourLeaks: will party leaders take disciplinary action while inquiry is ongoing?

The scope of an investigation into the leaked Labour report on a right-wing faction’s interference will not stop party members being suspended and investigated for improper behaviour, it seems.

So it is entirely possible for Keir Starmer and his team to suspend the memberships of all those who are named as responsible for misconduct in their roles as party officers, investigate what happened alongside the investigation into the report, and finally expel them if necessary.

The investigation’s full terms of reference have yet to be published but a LabourList report states that:

  • “The inquiry does not preclude disciplinary action by the party… the new leadership team was not trying to discourage such action from being taken by the party in line with normal processes, and in fact “they’re encouraged” to do so.”
  • The person who leaked the report will be protected as a whistleblower. A Momentum spokesperson said: “While the report should not have been leaked unredacted, Labour is Britain’s largest political party and the contents were clearly in the public interest. Labour’s half a million members deserved to know what was happening at the top of their party, and those involved in bringing these actions to light must not be penalised.”
  • Sources say the independent investigation will not focus on the leaking of the report in terms of identifying the leaker(s), though how and why the leak occurred will be considered.

Of course, both Starmer and deputy leader Angela Rayner have said they support introducing an independent complaints system.

For the benefit of Labour members: this means the party, as data controller, would pass your personal details to somebody completely unconnected with it, who you may not wish to have information about you, without consulting you about it and without asking your consent. This runs contrary to the Data Protection Act.

A majority vote in Conference will not be enough to give the party legal justification for such a move. It will have to gain the consent of every single party member – and if just one of you refuses to allow it, then the party will be acting illegally in doing it.

That’s the law.

This Site will continue to report on this matter as developments continue to take place.

Source: Labour’s ruling body agrees scope of investigation into leaked report – LabourList

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Labour: contrite leader candidates will look stupid after former member has his day in court

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.

She’ll be singing a different tune in June.

Source: Labour leadership: Candidates apologise over anti-Semitism – BBC News

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Latest ‘anti-Semitism’ attack on Labour reveals the cruel intention behind it

Injustice: How many innocent Labour Party members have suffered as a result of false accusations?

Labour has been “letting off” party members accused of anti-Semitism, according to the Board of Deputies of British Jews – but they are deliberately misinterpreting party policy.

Still, what can we expect from an unelected self-interest group?

The claim is that Labour’s own disciplinary process shows that members can avoid punishment – by apologising and agreeing to take part in education to show why their actions were wrong.

And why shouldn’t they be excused from suspension or expulsion, if they know they have done wrong, have accepted it, and are willing to learn, so they don’t do it again, even inadvertently.

The Board of Deputies, it seems, wants all offenders to be driven out of the Labour Party, no matter whether they have accepted and apologised for wrong-doing or not. That is unreasonable.

Still, what can we expect from a predominantly right-wing – Tory-dominated – group? It seems to me that this demand springs from a desire to weaken the Labour Party, rather than any wish for justice.

And in any case, there is plenty of opportunity for injustice in Labour’s system as it is.

I was accused of anti-Semitic behaviour on several occasions, based on false allegations by that fake charity, the Campaign Against Antisemitism.

One or several of its members had concocted a press release in which they mangled my words in a bid to claim hatred of Jewish people where there was none.

Accused – and summarily suspended – by Labour, I expected a proper investigation into the truth or falsehood of the allegations against me. I received none.

The party’s attitude was that the accusation against me was proof of my guilt. After I proved that my actions were not anti-Semitic by any accepted definition of the term, the party changed its tune to claim that it did not matter, because my words had caused upset, and that was enough.

(It isn’t enough. And, as the party could not produce anybody who claimed to have suffered such upset, no such person legally exists.)

I was initially offered reinstatement, if I apologised and accepted education on anti-Semitism – in line with the policy against which the Board of Deputies is now protesting.

I refused it because I had done nothing wrong and Labour’s investigation had been a farce.

But because the party’s disputes team had already made up their collective mind that I was guilty, I was subjected to another farce when my case was heard by the National Constitutional Committee.

That was the day it earned its derogatory nickname of “National Kangaroo Court”. It is clear that nobody who enters such a hearing may expect anything even approximating justice.

In fact, the entire procedure shames the Labour Party to the deepest level, and all those who defend it – from the lowest party official posting out suspension notices to the NEC, NCC and the general secretary.

All these people have been complicit in huge harm to the livelihoods and reputations of those whose names their decisions have besmirched.

In the light of these facts, Board of Deputies’ president Marie van der Zyl’s claim that “Labour’s disciplinary processes still seem to be more geared towards protecting antisemites than protecting Jews” is silly childishness.

The process is not a “‘get out of jail free’ card for racists,” as she claims. It is a mechanism to persecute the innocent.

So, by rights, I should be in favour of the now-much-touted demand that Labour turn over its disciplinary system to an independent organisation.

But here’s another stumbling-block: When Labour offered me the chance to apologise and take a course on anti-Semitism, the people running that course would have been the Jewish Labour Movement.

That would be the same Jewish Labour Movement whose members secretly recorded Jackie Walker when she attended a “safe space” meeting (meaning attendees had been promised freedom to discuss anything, without their words being used against them), and then used her words against her by passing a version of that recording on to the press.

I would describe that behaviour, at the very least, as untrustworthy. Wouldn’t you?

The Jewish Labour Movement has been highly-critical of the Labour Party in the past, as have the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, all of whom have endorsed the call for an independent investigation/disciplinary process.

Perhaps they intend to demand that they should carry out such a process?

Whether they do or not, they must certainly never be allowed to do so.

Source: Jewish leaders accuse Labour of ‘letting off’ antisemites | Politics | The Guardian

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Jackie Walker was right to withdraw from a prejudiced disciplinary procedure that makes a mockery of the Labour Party

Everybody who represents the Labour Party – in any role – should be ashamed of this.

Jackie Walker, the Jewish Labour activist who has been subjected to years of abuse after being accused of anti-Semitism for requesting an accurate definition of the offence, has walked out of the party’s disciplinary hearing against her, saying it was prejudiced against her from the start.

Her experiences, as recounted in this article on the Jewish Voice for Labour website, correspond very closely with my own. Her response to them leads me to regret that I did not abandon my own hearing when I realised it was a kangaroo court.

Ms Walker said the disciplinary panel refused to allow her to speak in her defence, and said she had been presented with a large amount of new evidence, only days ahead of the hearing.

This certainly rings true for me. Although I did not try to make an opening statement, as Ms Walker did, I was frustrated in my attempts to establish my innocence by constant interruptions from a panel whose chair was not interested in the evidence.

It seemed clear to me that the panel was under instructions to find against me, no matter what emerged during the hearing – and I note that Ms Walker feels the same way about her hearing.

I was not presented with new evidence days before the hearing; I was presented with it during the hearing itself, in contravention of Labour’s own rules on the presentation of evidence.

Those rules state that new evidence may only be admitted with the express consent of both sides in a dispute, and that time must be allowed for a response to be submitted before any hearing takes place.

This did not happen in Ms Walker’s case, nor did it happen in mine.

Ms Walker also fell foul of the definition of anti-Semitism adopted by Labour for its hearings, which is not the IHRA working definition that the party claims to have adopted last summer.

She wrote: “The LP now submits that the test to be applied to an allegation of antisemitism against me ‘does not require the NCC to engage in a debate as to the proper definition of anti-Semitism’ but rather whether an ‘ordinary person hearing or reading the comments might reasonably perceive them to be antisemitic’.  That is an extraordinary dilution of the adopted test of ‘hatred towards Jews’ which is a definition of antisemitism with which I wholeheartedly agree.”

In my own hearing, the accusation was that somebody (who was never identified and who therefore, legally, does not exist) felt offended or upset by words I had written on This Site.

I had constructed my defence around the IHRA working definition and was therefore wrong-footed by this sudden change of direction. I should have halted the proceedings at once but, perhaps foolishly, I wanted to try to end the matter in accordance with party procedures. What a shame the party’s own representatives had no intention of doing the same!

Ms Walker pointed out that she was given no advance notice of the names of the panellists who were to hear her case, so she had no way of checking whether they were likely to give her a fair hearing. This rings true for me, also.

If I had known the name of the chairperson of my own disciplinary panel, and had been given the opportunity to check her own behaviour in other disciplinary hearings, I would have refused to participate until a new panel was selected. There was clear evidence online, showing that she was extremely prejudiced and would not offer anything approaching justice.

I would be very interested to know the names of the panellists in Ms Walker’s case.

Ms Walker pointed to prejudicial comments made against her by Labour MPs. I have also suffered the attentions of Labour MPs who seemed to want to make a name for themselves by treating people who had merely been accused as if they were guilty.

But it did not occur to me that their comments might constitute a reason for a disciplinary panel to find against me. After all, there was already a directive from Labour’s NEC included in the charge sheet, to find against me, no matter what evidence was presented.

And I note with interest that Ms Walker said the Labour Party was guilty of data protection crimes regarding personal information about her that was held by the party. I am also pursuing the Labour Party over breaches of the Data Protection Act.

Put it all together and we see that Labour’s failure to follow its own rules, and its determination to smear party members who speak out about injustice, is not only habitual – it appears to be party policy.

It is a policy for which every single party representative should feel a deep and burning shame.

Those responsible for it should – if they had any moral backbone at all – resign from their positions and from the party at once. They won’t, I know – they will have to be identified and pursued. And that’s a difficult task when they are gleefully removing anybody who might be a threat to them!

But clear breaches of procedure have been identified here, and that should be enough to start a dialogue, at the very least.

Labour’s NEC – and NCC – has taken sides against the ‘wrong kind of Jews’

Last week I made it clear that Labour’s National Executive Committee has descended into racism in order to attack innocent party members like myself under a false pretence of anti-Semitism.

In the same accusation against me, the NEC also fell into anti-Semitism – by supporting an affiliated organisation that victimises people it considers to be the “wrong kind of Jews” (although they may not be described in that way).

By now, readers of This Site will be well aware that I attended a disciplinary hearing arranged by Labour’s National Constitutional Committee, at which a prejudiced panel arbitrarily decided that all the accusations against me were proved, despite having heard no evidence at all in support of such a claim.

One of these accusations concerns the Jewish Labour Movement and ran as follows:

On 2nd October 2016 Mr Sivier posted: ‘JLM is not a movement that represents Jews; it represents Jewish Zionists’. ‘The Jewish Labour Movement does not represent Jews who are not Zionists. It persecutes them’.

“This comment is grossly offensive to those the Party seeks to represent particularly the Jewish community. Comments like these have had and continue to have a serious impact on the Party’s position as an inclusive organisation, which stands against antisemitism.

“To state that the Labour Party’s official Jewish affiliate does not represent Jews denies Jews the right to self-define. This conduct is abhorrent, antisemitic and falls way below the standards expected of Party members. This is clearly prejudicial and/or grossly detrimental to the Party.”

Of course I was not suggesting that the JLM does not represent any Jews; my words make it clear that I was saying the organisation – the Labour Party’s official Jewish affiliate, according to the NEC – represents only those Jews who support the political doctrine of Zionism (and even then, only those who support the interpretation of that doctrine supported by that organisation’s leaders).

I confess I was amazed to see this put forward as a charge against me, because my reasons for saying this were supported by the Jewish Labour Movement itself.

When I was interviewed by Labour investigating officer Stewart Owadally about this and other charges in October 2017 and he challenged me on this, I asked him if he had read the article – and he said that he had not. He had not read any of my articles beyond the specific parts he had been asked to highlight and question. This explained why he had not spotted the answer to his question, directly below the words he had highlighted. I simply read it out.

My article argues: “Look at the organisation’s own website. It states:

“The Jewish Labour Movement is also affiliated to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Zionist Federation of the UK, and organise within the World Zionist Organisation… Our objects: To maintain and promote Labour or Socialist Zionism as the movement for self-determination of the Jewish people within the state of Israel.”

““Zionist”… “Zionist”… “Zionism”… “within the state of Israel”.

““It seems clear that “Jewish Labour Movement” is a misnomer. It should be “Zionist Labour Movement”.”

In my written defence, I went further: “What about Jews who aren’t Zionists, as the JLM defines them?

“How do you think the members of Jewdas – attacked as the “wrong kind of Jew” after Jeremy Corbyn attended an event organised by the group – would describe the JLM?

“Here’s how. Responding to attacks on Mr Corbyn for attending the event in late March, the Jewdas website – at https://www.jewdas.org/enough-is-enough/ stated: “What has happened over the last week is anything but an attempt to address antisemitism. It is the work of cynical manipulations by people whose express loyalty is to the Conservative Party and the right wing of the Labour Party. It is a malicious ploy to remove the leader of the Opposition and put a stop to the possibility of a socialist government. The Board of Deputies, the (disgraced for corruption) Jewish Leadership Council and the (unelected, undemocratic) Jewish Labour Movement are playing a dangerous game with people’s lives.”

“So these Jews consider the JLM to be unelected, undemocratic, and playing a dangerous game with people’s lives. Representative of Jews in general? No.”

I continue: “What about Jewish Voice for Labour, which admits full membership only to Labour Party members who identify as Jewish – unlike the JLM, which allows full membership to non-Jews, and also to non-members of the Labour Party? This organisation has campaigned against what it sees as false accusations of anti-Semitism against notable figures like Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker, and Marc Wadsworth (as has This Writer), and also campaigns against the persecution of Palestinian people by the state of Israel.

“And JLM members hate it. Responding to Harrow East Labour Party’s decision to affiliate to JVL, JLM chair Ivor Caplin told the Jewish Chronicle it was a “stupid decision” to affiliate with an “obsessive group that is often far too generous to antisemites and Holocaust revisionists”. But at least members of JVL are all Jewish, which is more than can be said for the JLM.”

So how can we describe the claim that I am denying Jews the right to self-define?

Bogus. It is the JLM that denies Jews the right to self-define – by siding with those who treat other Labour-supporting Jewish organisations as the “wrong kind of Jews”.

In declaring support for the Jewish Labour Movement and its anti-Semitic* aggression against such people and organisations, the NEC is also declaring its own anti-Semitism.

*I know – it seems strange to describe an organisation claiming to represent Jews as anti-Semitic. But the JLM’s aggression towards the JVL, Jewdas and the others is entirely due to their identity as groups of Jews, so it is entirely appropriate to describe that organisation – and therefore Labour’s NEC – in that manner.

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