Please share the image, or even tweet it to @Keir_Starmer if you like it.
Those of us who have taken to watching the anti-Semitism of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party from outside can only gape appalled at the latest announcement from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
According to that body, it is satisfied that Labour has made enough changes to the way it handles complaints of anti-Semitism to counter the criticisms it made of how the party handles anti-Semitism complaints and will be winding up a two-year monitoring process.
But you’ll also need to be aware that since Keir Starmer took over as party leader, Labour has embarked on a programme (or should that be pogrom) of removing Jews from the party – specifically targeting Jewish people with left-wing views.
Here‘s a report from December last year, on the removal of three high-profile left-wing Jews. All anti-racists, they were accused of anti-Semitism.
Notice that, in this report, Heather Mendick commented that “her branch used to have ‘lots of active Jewish members’. All were ‘lefties’ but just one of them is still a member.”
How about the resignation from Keir Starmer’s own Constituency Labour Party of Stephen Kapos, a Holocaust survivor who the party told must choose between his duty to teach people about its horrors and Labour policy demanding he may not support a group that has been proscribed by the party (albeit for questionable reasons)?
And the Jews named in this article (which I’m aware includes some of those mentioned above).
It has been claimed that Jewish Labour members are almost five times more likely to face anti-Semitism charges than non-Jewish members.
But against this background of shockingly anti-Semitic behaviour, Starmer has issued an ultimatum to all remaining left-wing Labour members: support him or leave.
The BBC reports him saying:
“We are never going back. If you don’t like it, nobody is forcing you to stay.”
What a horrifying message for Jewish members of the Labour Party.
Starmer is saying that he will continue to purge them from their political home; to deny them a voice; to remove their identity (shades of Germany in the 1930s).
And their only alternative is to leave before they are forced out.
And that is what the euphemistically-named Equality and Human Rights Commission is praising.
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For the many? Keir Starmer’s Tepid Tories are expelling people for being socialists. So much for their ‘broad church’!
What a rotten day for democracy in the Labour Party.
The ruling National Executive Committee of Keir Starmer’s Tepid Tories has voted to continue expelling people retrospectively for having anything to do with organisations that the party has since proscribed.
These people would have had no idea that they were doing anything wrong by their contact with these groups.
Indeed, at the time they weren’t doing anything wrong at all.
And in many, if not all, cases there is no reason to believe these groups have done anything to justify being proscribed, even now.
… And that means there is no reason to believe these now-former Labour Party members have done anything to justify the party expelling them.
On the other hand, there is ever reason to believe that Keir Starmer – and those others of his ilk who are responsible for this travesty – have done wrong.
But they can’t be expelled because they twist Labour’s rules to mean anything they want.
I find myself agreeing with a tweet I’ve just read, although I would paraphrase it slightly:
It’s a bad day for democracy, but a great day for corruption.
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Shamed: keep your eyes down, Keir – otherwise you’ll read another tweet taking you down.
Earlier this week, members of the public were scandalised to learn that former Labour General Secretary candidate Pamela Fitzpatrick is being threatened with auto-exclusion from the party, because she gave an interview to now-proscribed organisation Socialist Appeal.
She did it more than a year ago, when it was not proscribed and she had no reason to believe it ever would be.
Obviously, Labour’s position is ridiculous. The threat against Ms Fitzpatrick should be dropped and a fulsome apology issued. The party has put itself in yet another humiliating position.
But critics have decided that it’s not bad enough, and have provided their own contribution to the debate. Let’s enjoy some of them.
Today I was notified that I am being formally investigated by the Labour Party following the emergence of my membership of the Tufty Club in 1976.
I have just received a letter from the Labour Party threatening me with auto exclusion because I once gave someone my last Rolo, and this kind of socialism cannot be tolerated.
If This Writer hadn’t been kicked out of Labour for being an impartial political journalist, I might be worried.
They can’t get me on the Blockbuster rap but I fear my record on Rolos, and membership of the Tufty Club, may have mitigated against me.
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Ken Loach: he has good reason to smile because good people are supporting him.
Good people have lined up to support calls to reinstate legendary film director Ken Loach into the Labour Party. As for his detractors – well, let’s judge them by their actions.
One such detractor is Mike Katz, chair of the Jewish Labour Movement (the Labour-affiliated organisation whose members have to be neither members of the Labour Party or Jews).
He tweeted an ignorant screed against Mr Loach on Saturday (August 14) that attractedThis Writer’s eye – and my ire – as follows:
As the #Holocaust is not mentioned in the article, and you do not provide evidence to support your claim in your tweet, please explain why YOU, Mr Katz, are trying to exploit the Holocaust for political ends. #KenLoach#UKPolitics#SaturdayMotivation#SaturdayThoughts
He hasn’t replied. How could he? he knows I’m right.
So he did what they all do when they’re found out: he ran away like a scalded alley cat.
I’m only surprised that the tweet is still up.
Mr Loach’s position on the Holocaust has since been clarified by his supporters:
Here in this article, Ken Loach make it crystal clear for simpletons. He says
“The Holocaust is as real a historical event as the second world war itself, and it is contemptible to imply that I have anything in common with people like David Irving”https://t.co/BrNpIruL2F
— Ramesh Patel – They Would Rather You Ignore This (@Imalright_Jack) August 15, 2021
On the other hand, members of Labour’s Socialist Campaign Group have made a statement in support of Mr Loach, signed by 21 Labour MPs plus Jeremy Corbyn and Claudia Webbe, who are currently bereft of the Labour whip after previous examples of spite by their party leader:
It says: “We strongly oppose the expulsion of Ken Loach from the Labour Party and call for his membership to be immediately reinstated.
“Ken is an outstanding socialist and a fierce opponent of discrimination in all its forms, whose work has done more than any other living British filmmaker to shine a light on injustice and oppression. The values embodied in his films – solidarity, compassion, equality – should be the values proudly championed by our party. That Ken is expelled while Islamophobes are welcomed is shameful, and suggests the party leadership is drifting yet further away from these values.
“These attacks are aimed at demoralising and pushing socialist members away from the party. But the only way to return our socialist and internationalist principles to the heart of British politics is for Labour members to stay in the party and champion them. The socialist leadership that hundreds of thousands of you made possible need not be consigned to the past of our party. It can be the future. Let’s fight for it together.”
“Islamophobes are welcomed” seems to be a clear reference to Trevor Phillips, the alleged Islamophobe who is a close friend of Peter Mandelson (with whom Keir Starmer has been chumming up lately) and a member of Starmer’s own Labour Party branch. It is believed that Starmer demanded his reinstatement. Knowing this, the line appears to be an attack on Labour’s current leader.
The last paragraph seems overly hopeful at a time when Starmer appears to be succeeding in pushing people out of the once-great Labour Party by the thousands. Still, we may look forward to the autumn party conference, at which a series of socialist motions are likely to be debated that may push back his tide of intolerance, racism and fascism.
Sadly, people have been lining up on the other side of the fence, to support Mr Loach’s expulsion – by calling for the party whip to be withdrawn from the Socialist Campaign Group MPs who opposed it. They’re the same old faces as usual, pushing the same sad attack lines – and their words were reported in the same old rag: the Jewish Chronicle:
I love that the JC give great credence to the idea that there was never a Labour witch hunt, and then roll out quotes from the very people that continue to carry it out. Priceless. https://t.co/XFuyQO5hTU
Katz is among them, along with Euan Philipps of disgraced hate group Labour Against Anti-Semitism and Luke Akehurst – the Labour NEC member who lost his seat on Oxford City Council in May after (it is said) Muslims withdrew their vote:
Source from Oxford on Labour NEC member Luke Akehurst losing council seat:
“In Oxford there was a huge uproar amongst Muslim community about Labour, Starmer & Akehurst….Loads of WhatsApp messages going around all Mosque WhatsApp groups saying boycott Labour. We expected this”.
And far-right ex-Labour bully-boy Ian Austin was also among those baying for blood. His attack on Jewish MP Jon Trickett rated an article of itself from Skwawkbox – and don’t you love the image illustrating it?
Non-Jewish Ian Austin demands removal of whip from Jewish Trickett for supporting Loach https://t.co/13u9NvdPkU
Austin is infamous as the MP who heckled Jeremy Corbyn from his own benches when he criticised Tony Blair’s 2003 invasion of Iraq:
Remember when Austin heckled Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn by shouting "sit down and shut up" and "you're a disgrace", as Corbyn criticised the 2003 invasion of Iraq in his response to the publication of the Chilcot Inquiry. We do..and we will not forgive or forget #corbynwasright
We must conclude that Austin was 100 per cent behind the invasion of Afghanistan as well – and look at the way that has turned out!
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer’s programme to eliminate “the wrong kind of Jew” is continuing, as the following examples demonstrate clearly:
How dare they call me 'anti-Semitic'! Jewish 82-year-old lifelong anti-racist tells her life story and reveals the pain caused to her by Labour Party claims she is anti-Semitic. Watch the whole of Diana Neslen's story here👇https://t.co/gJ2TLYmp1Qpic.twitter.com/HzydplsDWV
It seems clear that, if anybody should be removed from the Labour Party then it should not be Ken Loach or the 23 people who signed the Socialist Campaign Group’s statement.
It should be Mike Katz. It should be Ian Austin. It should be Euan Philipps, Luke Akehurst, Trevor Phillips and Peter Mandelson. And above all, it should be Keir Starmer. We all know that. But can we make it happen?
Jeremy Corbyn: He has put himself in an extremely difficult position by trying to pander to the backstabbers accusing Labour of “institutional anti-Semitism” – and his new offer on disciplinary procedures is unlikely to help.
The details of the new system to speed up expulsions of Labour Party members accused of anti-Semitism are deeply disturbing.
Apparently the procedure put forward by Jeremy Corbyn yesterday (July 22) would mean that high profile cases and those that seem, on the face of it, to be extreme would go to a panel of NEC members plus the general secretary.
This panel would be advised by an independent barrister who is an expert in discrimination law.
And it would only be activated in “clear cases”.
As defined by whom?
I have no doubt that there are still people in the Labour Party who would describe my case as “clear anti-Semitism” – even though there wasn’t a single particular of it that fits any accepted description of that offence!
Remember: This is the organisation that wrongly expelled me for suggesting that British Jews are more loyal to Israel than the UK. A commenter on This Site had claimed that most British Jews identify with that country in some way. I asked: “If Jews in the UK identify with the state of Israel, why aren’t they Israeli citizens?“ This is the line used by the party to expel me. But later in the conversation I stated: “How about applying the most simple answer: They aren’t Israeli citizens because they don’t identify with the state of Israel, to anything like the degree required. Possibly because they actually disagree with the actions of the Israeli government.” My Labour Party accusers would certainly have read those words – but ignored them in order to frame me as an anti-Semite. That is the problem here.
Steve Walker, over at Skwawkbox, may be optimistic about this (see link below), but he has not been through the process.
Any panel dealing with any particular case needs to be provably impartial – that is, its members must not be affiliated to any part of Labour that is unsympathetic with the defendant’s own political views, nor should they be part of any organisation with sympathies to Israel or Zionism (or hidden sympathies to the same, as with the Jewish Labour Movement).
No panel should be allowed prior site of the details of any case it is to handle.
And the Labour Party’s case should not include instructions to any panel that it is to find a defendant guilty whether the evidence indicates this or not.
Would a defendant be present at meetings of such a panel? Or would they simply be informed that this organisation had kicked them out? This would violate the right of any accused members to defend themselves.
The addition of the right of appeal (which I didn’t have after my case was heard) is a good sign – but who would handle such an appeal and in what manner?
The devil is indeed in the detail – but from the details on offer so far, this arrangement is just as diabolical as the last and I can see no justice in it.
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Facepalm: And quit right – Jeremy Corbyn should be ashamed of the cop-out he delivered to the shadow cabinet – and the Labour Party at large.
According to the Labour Party, these are the figures on anti-Semitism by members since January:
Between January and June 2019, Labour received 625 complaints about members relating to anti-Semitism, and a further 658 complaints about people who weren’t in the party.
So Labour received more complaints about anti-Semitism by people who weren’t even members than it did about members themselves. What happened? Has Margaret Hodge been submitting complaints again?
[The National Executive Committee] referred 97 members to the National Constitutional Committee [which has power to suspend or expel offenders] over their cases, handed out 41 official warnings and a further 49 “reminders of conduct”.
So cases proceeded in 187 out of 625 cases – less than one-third of the total number of complaints. That’s right – 438 party members were found innocent of any wrongdoing, instantly.
And over those six months, the NCC expelled eight people, gave out three extended suspensions, and issued four warnings.
Another 12 members left the party after being referred to the NCC, and one member’s case was unproven.
We cannot assume that the 28 people mentioned above were among the 97 referred by the NEC. I’m willing to be the “unproven” case involved a member who brought a lawyer.
So, out of 187 people about whom Labour’s disputes team decided there was a case to answer, anything between 69 and 97 cases remain to be closed.
You can understand why Jeremy Corbyn was keen to announce that the process would be expedited, in the face of those numbers.
There’s just one problem:
Labour is still ignoring the main principle of British justice – all 97 of those members are innocent until they are proven guilty by the evidence.
And Labour has a real problem with that.
See, if a member produces evidence to show that they didn‘t do anything anti-Semitic, it is not acceptable for NCC panels – even (especially) those chaired by Maggie Cousins – to reject that evidence out-of-hand.
If the member’s evidence outweighs that of the party – or the party’s representative cannot argue against it – then that member is innocent.
And no, Mr Corbyn – if the evidence is in favour of the member, it is not acceptable for your NCC to say “someone was offended by it” and expel the member on the trumped-up, nonsensical and meaningless charge of “bringing the party into disrepute”.
Trouble is, though, every case that goes up to the NCC has a note on it from the NEC, ordering the panel to find the defendant guilty. I know because I’ve been through the process and seen the paperwork.
What I’m saying is that on anti-Semitism, Jeremy Corbyn has let down the Labour Party yet again.
It is his only significant failure – but it is huge.
And how sad that the right-wingers in his party – and the right-wingers in the mass media – will pretend that he is letting the party down by failing to punish the nonexistent huge proportion of anti-Semites in the party.
Protest: Labour Against the Witch-hunt was set up to defend party members – including Jews – who have been falsely accused of anti-Semitism by people and organisations with an agenda.
It will be a long time before Labour lives down the shame.
Socialist Voice puts the decision to expel Jackie Walker from the Labour Party into context:
BREAKING: Jackie Walker, a black Jewish political activist, has been expelled by the Labour Party
That’s about the size of it. Thanks to its hugely prejudicial and politically-motivated “disciplinary” (if you can call it that) procedure, Labour has positioned itself as the party that persecutes left-wing Jews who support a peaceful solution to the Israel/Palestine question.
You can reverse-engineer that statement to work out Labour’s definition of anti-Semitism – any statement that might be said (you can’t put it any more strongly than that) to offend a right-wing, Zionist/pro-Israeli-government Jew.
Ms Walker was expelled after a panel of Labour’s National Constitutional Committee said she had committed “prejudicial and grossly detrimental behaviour against the party” – by being secretly recorded taking part in a training session on anti-Semitism run by the Jewish Labour Movement.
That’s right – she was asking perfectly reasonable (in context) questions about how the organisers defined anti-Semitism; about the genocides commemorated by Holocaust Memorial Day; and about the necessity for security at Jewish schools. Her crime, it seems, was in not knowing that somebody was recording her, intending to use her words to set her up as an anti-Semite herself.
Labour has said the finding against her also took account of a pattern of behaviour in the two-and-a-half years or so since her membership of the party was suspended – but I think it’s clear that this is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to justify the unacceptable.
A previous attempt to frame her – by hacking into her Facebook account and sending the most prejudicial material to be found (a claim – accurate – that Jews were among the financiers of the Caribbean slave trade) to a Jewish-orientated newspaper that turned it into a smear piece – had failed.
Members and supporters of the Labour Party, who know the history of this squalid smear, have been tweeting their support for Ms Walker since the verdict was revealed:
I stand behind Jackie Walker. She has done nothing wrong and is not anti-Semitic or racist. This is just a witch hunt against her because she supports the Palestine cause.
Good people like her are expelled and war criminals like Blair etc remain. It’s unfair.
“The subtext being that if you are Left and you have any opinions at all, then consider the trapdoor open anyway. The NCC are cowards. The system at the top, as regards these glorified back-room office drones, really needs an overhaul,” added Michael Clarke.
The expulsion of Black Jewish anti-Zionist Jackie Walker by Labour's desiccated bureaucrats is a stark injustice that must be reversed before the party can ever truly call itself an anti-racist body https://t.co/swGyHifCI5
Hear, hear. This is an assault on people who have been termed “the wrong kind of Jew” – and is therefore racist in itself.
In stark contrast to the public response is the coverage by the (ha ha) mainstream news media and those who claim to represent British Jews. Consider:
Agree with Jackie Walker's expulsion or not, surely one thing we can all agree on is that the Guardian's deliberate refusal to mention that Walker is Jewish in this article is the kind of grossly deceptive journalism we're all utterly sick of?https://t.co/tfHpDW68Hy
Tom Clark of Another Angry Voice is right – there isn’t a single mention of Ms Walker’s own ethnicity in the article. Is someone ashamed of the fact that this crusade against anti-Semitism actually targets Jews?
It does mention the fact that her words were secretly recorded – but fails to question this unethical behaviour or why it should stand as evidence against her.
Apparently the Jewish Chronicle couldn’t bring itself to admit that immoral methods were used to frame Ms Walker – it couldn’t even get the charge right:
Anti Racist and Pro Palestinian Activist Jackie Walker was NOT Charged with Antisemitism and was NOT expelled for Antisemitism regardless of the Twisted report by Jewish Chronicle. @jewishchron
— Luqman Khan Power concedes nothing without Demand (@luqmankhan555) March 27, 2019
LabourList carried a hideously one-sided piece that would put a professional news organisation in danger of legal action for failing to be fair or accurate. It carried no comments in support of Ms Walker – had reporter Sienna Rodgers even sought any?
But it did feature several paragraphs of hate speech from the Jewish Labour Movement in which it accused her and others (who, me? I would hope not, after I forced that … organ to retract its smear piece against me) of “perpetuating a culture of denial and obfuscation”, whatever that is supposed to mean.
“She was free to make a mockery of the Party’s processes because she was a political ally of the leadership, NEC members and had support from MPs.” Such as the 38 members of Labour Tribune who signed a letter to Jennie Formby, Labour’s general secretary, less than a month before Ms Walker’s hearing, describing her as “…someone who has been thrown out of the party for making antisemitic comments” in the certain knowledge that it would prejudice the panel at her hearing?
Or like our old friend (ha ha) Margaret Hodge, who “welcomed” Ms Walker’s expulsion, according to the JC report?
The JLM statement concluded: “Despite warm words, very little action has followed in truly addressing the scale and impact of antisemitism within the Labour Party.” That is a bold statement to make after a verdict based on the unethical secret recording of honest, innocent questions at a session where it is reasonable to expect such questions to be addressed!
A joint statement from the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Community Security Trust stated: “Nobody wins in this latest ugly case of disreputable behaviour.” Certainly not the facts, it seems; the “disreputable behaviour” to which the statement referred was not that of the JLM in recording Ms Walker.
As for the Campaign Against Antisemitism – a right-wing fringe group masquerading as a charity that has been using trumped-up, falsified claims of anti-Semitism to attack left-wingers in the Labour Party for years – well, see for yourself:
According to the Campaign Against Antisemitism, Jackie Walker's expulsion means that Labour "has shown itself incapable of addressing antisemitism cases in a fair, transparent and timely manner". What do they want? A public stoning?
— CrémantCommunarde#ActivistLawyer ⚖️ 😷 ✋ (@0Calamity) March 27, 2019
“What do they want? A public stoning?”
I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
I can mock these clowns – The Guardian, The Jewish Chronicle, LabourList, The Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Community Security Trust, the Jewish Labour Movement, the Campaign Against Antisemitism, Margaret Hodge and all the others – for as long as you like. Let’s face it – they provide plenty of material.
But the simple fact is that Ms Walker’s expulsion is mortifying – for everybody who thinks members of the Labour Party deserve better from their leaders.
Look at the charge – Prejudicial and grossly detrimental behaviour against the party. It’s a nonsense. It can be made to mean anything Labour’s highly-prejudiced and right-wing disciplinary team want it to mean – as Martin Odoni points out in this revealing article.
Look at the way Labour ignored the definition of anti-Semitic behaviour it adopted in such a high-profile way only last summer, in favour of a claim that Ms Walker would be guilty if an “ordinary person hearing or reading the comments might reasonably perceive them to be antisemitic”. Claptrap!
Look at the way Labour ignored its own disciplinary procedures – most notably in presenting Ms Walker with details of the evidence against her only days before her hearing. This runs contrary to the rules in that any evidence produced at such a late stage cannot be introduced into a case unless both parties agree to it, and time must be allowed for a response to be prepared and submitted. That is just one example among many.
We are left to contemplate – not a disgraced anti-Semite who has finally been made to face justice, but an honourable campaigner, falsely-accused, falsely-expelled, and wrongly vilified by a disgraced, debased and corrupted political machine.
If Jeremy Corbyn ever gets to read these words – and he should – it is to be hoped that he burns with shame at the travesty committed by his subordinates, not in his name, but in an underhanded and foul-spirited campaign to remove him from the party leadership.
He has been able to beat the false accusations against him – possibly because of his position. So his enemies have attacked his high-profile supporters instead. And he has let it happen.
But he can’t stop this persecution alone. Labour’s ruling organisation is the National Executive Committee, whose members have failed to lift a single finger in the cause of justice. In fact, they have cheered on the persecution carried out by the compliance unit and the NCC.
Labour needs root-and-branch reform of all three organisations. And it needs it yesterday.
Or the party will never be fit to govern.
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Former Labour Party member Krystyna Koseda out campaigning for Labour with Sadiq Khan (that’s her, just to the left of him). She was expelled from Labour in September, on the grounds that she had campaigned for George Galloway.
I received a message today from a former Labour Party member who was booted out in the NEC’s summer purge after around six years as an active member. Her question: Where’s the justice for Labour members who have been expelled?
Krystina Koseda was active in Hornchurch and Upminster Labour Party, and spent spring campaigning with Sadiq Khan for him to become Mayor of London (and, as we all know, he succeeded).
But in September, as she prepared to vote for Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership election, she received notification that her membership had been terminated – because she is a personal friend of George Galloway.
She wrote: “I am friends with George Galloway; my CLP were aware of this and there was no problem.
“I posted a photo of George on my personal Facebook account. It was George’s mayoral candidate photo but I cropped out the wording and placed it as my cover picture so it just showed his face as I liked the photo.
“My personal Facebook account is non political and all my friends and family are aware George is my friend. I thought nothing of it.
“I received a letter on September 10 to say I was expelled as, in March, I had placed this photo on my Facebook account. This was deemed as campaigning for a rival candidate to Sadiq.”
She told me: “I campaigned all spring for Sadiq as my CLP can vouch – and have in their letters to the NEC. I was even out with Sadiq and am pictured on his Twitter account. I was out campaigning for him with Jeremy when he came to Dagenham in March.”
She was indeed:
“I worked so hard for the party this year. I have written and appealed as have my CLP but I have not even received any form of acknowledgement which I feel is very unfair.
“I feel I have been victimised due to my contact with George Galloway which is pretty bad considering he was Labour for 36 years and is an active campaigner for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.
“I believe Labour hacked into my Facebook account as my privacy settings were on. I have asked where they got their evidence from as they also had my personal photos including those of my deceased parents, but they have failed to respond in any way.
“I feel they have broken data protection rights and I would like someone to highlight my case and the many others that were expelled.”
Ms Koseda’s expulsion letter is copied below.
It states: “It has been brought to our attention with supporting evidence that you have publicly advocated support for George Galloway as a candidate for Respect on social media on 6 March 2016.
“You are therefore ineligible to remain a member of the Labour Party.”
This is why organisations like the Labour Party are supposed to allow accused members a chance to defend themselves against any claims made against them.
How many more innocent members have been thrown out by the former NEC’s (several members were replaced after elections over the summer) kangaroo court?
At a time when a great deal of attention is being focused on members who were suspended but have now been allowed back into the party, these people should not be forgotten.
Ms Koseda stated: “I passed the rigorous selection programme to become a councillor for the London Borough of Havering. I was shortlisted to the final three and was the only woman to get this far. Why did I pass all the selection criteria with them knowing about my friendship with George but then was expelled?”
She’s right; it doesn’t make sense. But then, very little about the Labour ‘purge’ ever did.
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