Diane Abbott: she has suffered more racist abuse than anybody you can name – and new Labour leader Keir Starmer has had the front to tell her off over a trumped-up accusation around a video discussion attended by expelled former party members.
Labour’s new leader, Keir Starmer, is working his fingers to the bone – turning Labour into the kind of racist cess-pit that no right-thinking person would want to join.
Consider the hypocrisy in the fact that he has “disciplined” Diane Abbott for taking part in a Zoom discussion attended by expelled former party members – but has done nothing to suspend members of the so-called right-wing “faction” who were accused of subjecting her to appalling racist bullying in the leaked Labour report on the party’s response to anti-Semitism accusations.
Keir Starmer taking action against Dianne Abbott while refusing to suspend the party racists who bullied her is utterly disgraceful. I'm finding my party membership more and more difficult to justify.
That alone marks out his leadership as hypocritical and racist.
Starmer’s decision also betrays a failure to understand how Zoom works. It’s an online discussion that anybody can join, simply by dialling in.
Furthermore – as This Site has mentioned before – neither Jackie Walker nor Tony Greenstein, the former Labour members whose attendance triggered the complaint against Ms Abbott and Bell Ribeiro-Addy by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, were expelled for anti-Semitism as claimed.
In any case, Labour’s investigations of anti-Semitism accusations – especially high-profile claims like those against Ms Walker and Mr Greenstein (yes, they were accused of it but they weren’t expelled for it) – are known to have been fatally flawed. Saying these people are anti-Semites because Labour said so carries less factual weight than gossip.
Finally: although Starmer had signed the controversial “10 Commandments” issued by the BoD, those pledges have no weight in the Labour Party. Any individual member can agree to sign and be bound by any document they like – but they can’t force it on the rest of the party undemocratically and Starmer has done nothing to seek its approval by the party as a whole.
So any disciplinary action against Diane Abbott and Bell Ribeiro-Addy is unwarranted, unfair and unconstitutional – as those of us who’ve suffered similar treatment are well aware:
But the Labour leader is likely to be unconcerned. He’ll be moving on to his next designated victim – who is, apparently, Salma Yaqoob.
She is being attacked for something she hasn’t even done yet: another Zoom discussion in which she is set to appear as a speaker on May 12 – this time with Tony Greenstein billed as a speaker alongside her. So she would be sharing a platform with him.
Once again, for clarity: Mr Greenstein has been expelled from Labour – but not for anti-Semitism or any other kind of racism.
He does, however, provoke a certain response from excitable people – who may be considered to have a problem of their own, where it comes to hate:
This is the real face of Jeremy Corbyn's beloved "Stop the War Coalition"- promoting Tony Greenstein. He is one of the most execrable figures of all in the Labour antisemitism crisis and was expelled from Labour two years ago. No wonder the stoppers are keen on him. pic.twitter.com/cAQwcW1Jae
The issue was picked up by former Labour MP Ian Austin, who left the party because the Jeremy Corbyn leadership had returned it to socialist ideals.
He betrayed his own leanings by demanding that Ms Yaqoob should be suspended – before she had even done anything. One finds Asa Winstanley’s comment persuasive:
This racist fanatic wants a prominent Muslim woman expelled from Labour for a future event with the "wrong" kind of Jewish person.
Racism is fine – if it’s done by right-wingers against people on the left.
Sexism is fine – if carried out in the same way.
But if he has a chance to accuse people on the left – male or female – of the same, then he will attack mercilessly.
It is as Kerry-Anne Mendoza states:
Corbyn’s Labour:
For the many, not the few.
Starmer’s Labour:
For us, not you.
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza 🏳️🌈🏴 (@TheMendozaWoman) May 2, 2020
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Jackie Walker: Panorama described her as an anti-racist, then ignored the fact that it went on to stitch her up as an anti-Semite. And where was her response to these falsehoods?
“Jackie Walker was a long-standing anti-racist ally of Mr Corbyn,” stated John Ware in voice-over, around half-way through the now-thoroughly-discredited BBC Panorama documentary (mockumentary would be more accurate) Is Labour Antisemitic?
“She seems to have had a blind spot when it came to anti-Semitism.” Did she? Did she really? Or did her concept of anti-Semitism simply not correspond with the Labour disputes team’s view – which was that any criticism of the Israeli government or the Zionist ideology that informed it must also be anti-Semitism? (That is a view that is not upheld by any accepted definition of anti-Semitism, of course.)
A confused and worried-looking Louise Withers-Green appeared, to explain what happened when she interviewed Ms Walker. She started by saying Ms Walker had said “a number of very offensive things”. The first that she listed was that “the Jews were financiers of the slave trade”.
It is interesting that the BBC allowed this claim to appear on Panorama as the corporation had been forced to admit that Nick Robinson was wrong to say that, when he tweeted the suggestion in February. That correction had come at the end of June – at least 10 days before the transmission of the Panorama programme. Why had the BBC allowed itself to repeat this – call it what it is – libel?
“She suggested that Jews were… unwelcoming to black people.” This is a new one on This Writer and I would like to hear more evidence.
“And [she] repeatedly reiterated tropes about Jews having undue power and influence.” Did she? My recollection is that members of the Israel Advocacy Movement (an organisation with connections to the Campaign Against Antisemitism) hacked into Ms Walker’s private messaging system on Facebook and grabbed whatever they could get, which included a comment in a discussion with a friend that the Caribbean slave trade, at the time her ancestors were slaves, had numbered Jewish people among its chief financiers – and this is why the Caribbean has many very old synagogues. Later, in what was advertised as a “safe space” session during a Labour conference – where attendees were encouraged to air controversial views in order to discuss them, my understanding is that a recording was taken of Ms Walker saying she had not found a definition of anti-Semitism with which she could agree, that she wished Holocaust Memorial Day was open to all peoples who have experienced holocaust (going on to point out that it excludes “the African holocaust” during the slave trade, among others), and when the subject of security at Jewish schools was raised she questioned the trainer’s point – as she understands that all London primary schools have security now.
Who was acting in bad faith during those incidents? Was it really Ms Walker? Or was it the Israel Advocacy Movement members who broke the law by hacking into her private messages and presenting a distorted version of what they found to the Jewish Chronicle, and the Jewish Labour Movement members who claimed to have organised a “safe space” training session and then betrayed the faith attendees placed in them by recording what was said and pretending it was evidence of anti-Semitism?
“She showed absolutely no contrition or remorse for the things that she had said,” claimed Ms Withers-Green. Why should she? Ms Walker had said nothing wrong.
The complaint was sent to Labour’s National Constitutional Committee, which has authority to expel members (I have personal experience of this), and former party general secretary Iain (now Lord – when was he ennobled?) McNicol was wheeled on to say the NCC is completely independent and should make decisions based on the facts of a case.
I have personal experience that this is not true. When my case went before the NCC, its members decided against me – but not on the facts of the case. I had proved those facts wrong and the party representative who had been brought in to make its own case had been unable to deny anything I said. Instead the NCC seemed more perturbed that I had discussed internal Labour Party issues on This Site, even though all the issues I had discussed had been matters of public knowledge and it was my job as a responsible journalist to write about them impartially. In fact, the decisions I had made had been based on the facts of the individual cases and the NCC panellists could have learned from my example. Their final reason for expelling me was the limp excuse that I had made statements which had upset somebody (who was never named and therefore, legally, does not exist). Of course, the Labour Party makes statements every day that somebody will find upsetting – Tories in particular, I suspect. But that double-standard was ignored.
Back in the documentary, Mr Ware stated that Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour leadership discussed how to “control” the NCC in an email chain. It seems there was an attempt to interfere with the selection of the NCC panel set to hear Ms Walker’s case, back in spring 2018 – which is interesting as her case was not actually heard until earlier this year.
He quoted from an email in which Jennie Formby allegedly stated, “The NCC cannot be allowed to continue in the way that they are,” adding “and I will also be challenging… the panel for the Jackie Walker case.” I wonder what came between “challenging” and “the panel” in the original email?
As you can see from my own experiences, there are genuine reasons to doubt that the NCC has acted in good faith over cases of alleged anti-Semitism and the woman who chaired the panel in my case – one Maggie Cousins – has been subject to particular criticism, having contributed to the expulsion from Labour of the son of two Nazi Holocaust survivors. Evidence has shown that her judgement is not to be trusted.
There was more discussion of whether interference with panels should be allowed with Iain McNicol, even though the quote from Ms Formby’s email doesn’t mention any challenge to the composition of an NCC panel.
Labour’s response, flashed on-screen was: “The emails… are simply about ensuring the NCC is held accountable for the length of time they take to hear cases and about protecting the party against any successful legal challenge on the basis of perceived bias if the same panel is used in high profile cases.” Such fears may well be justified, as the length of time between this alleged email discussion and the date of Ms Walker’s NCC hearing, together with my reference to Ms Cousins, show.
Mr Ware had to admit that there is no evidence the email chain he discussed had any effect on the NCC and its deliberations, as Ms Walker was (wrongly) expelled from Labour after her hearing. She had walked out of it after being denied the opportunity to make a statement at the start, so it is unsurprising that the panel had run roughshod over any evidence that she may have submitted.
As for Ms Formby – Mr Ware quoted from another email in which she stated that she had deleted all parts of the chain as “too many eyes” were watching her address. He made no comment on the morality of people – like his own informers – spying on the private correspondence of a senior officer of the Labour Party. Hmm…
Mr Ware moved on to make an unsubstantiated claim that last summer the Leader’s office had ordered the transfer of batches of complaints files from Labour’s Southside HQ to the Leader’s office itself, in a different location. Considering the claim in another leaked letter – the legal correspondence between Labour solicitors Carter-Ruck and Sam Matthews (former head of Governance and Legal) – that documents had been leaked wholesale to the press or shredded, this seems an appropriate precaution to have taken.
Labour’s on-screen statement was that, as with any large organisation, it occasionally seconds staff to do alternative work where there are capacity issues [as with the number of anti-Semitism complaints it was having to handle]. “This in no way contradicts the party’s position that the complaints process operates independently of the Leader’s office.”
Another testimony: “People were posting Nazi and openly anti-Semitic material from conspiracy websites on the constituency party’s Facebook page.” Which CLP page? “We are very frightened of what Corbyn might do because we have seen these behaviours before. We know what happens when people don’t speak up against things that are patently wrong. Zero tolerance just doesn’t apply for hatred towards Jewish people.”
But people are speaking up – against the falsehood of the attacks against Mr Corbyn. People like this speaker are acting in bad faith, it seems – and may in fact be creating the very hatred towards Jewish people – with their lies – that they are pleading against.
Mr Ware was now saying that by last spring there were several hundred anti-Semitism cases waiting to be resolved, but Labour would not provide accurate figures. They were made public a few months ago, in response to a (public) demand by Parliamentary Labour Party members. Perhaps Mr Ware missed it because he was rooting around in stolen email chains?
He said by spring the number of members who had been expelled stood at only 15.
“That was a figure that really shocked me when I read it,” said Martha Robinson. “I think I was actually brought to tears with anger and frustration.” That all her hard work to rid the party of innocent people had come to nothing? “It was just horrifying to hear that all the work I had tried to do had essentially been for nothing.”
Indeed. Never mind justice; she just wanted to purge the party of anyone who criticised her particular – and narrow-minded – view.
Shadow Communities Secretary Andrew Gwynne responded to the numbers. He was asked: “Do you regard 15 expulsions of anti-Semites in a crisis that has been running over three years as evidence of having dealt with this crisis?” A loaded question. Ms Walker wasn’t an anti-Semite, and wasn’t expelled as one. Neither am I, and neither was I. Marc Wadsworth is bringing legal action against Labour; so am I.
Mr Gwynne’s response: “Well 15 fewer racists and people who hold obnoxious views, I think is important.” Oh really? I’m a racist, am I? I hold obnoxious views? Has Mr Gwynne even heard of my case? From this evidence I think not and I will challenge him on this.
“We are serious about getting shot of this problem,” he said. Well, I’m here to say the Labour Party is going about it the wrong way.
Here in the UK we have a fundamental principle of justice, which is that a person is innocent until they are proven guilty. Labour’s disputes team – especially the former members interviewed in this documentary – inverted that principle. They decided that anybody who had been accused of anti-Semitism must be guilty of it – the mere fact of having been accused was enough.
In my dealings with the disputes team over my own case, I was never given the impression that anybody involved considered me to be anything less than guilty of all charges, evidence be damned, and my innocence in respect of some of them has only been demonstrated by contact with other authorities.
Yet Labour has never acknowledged its errors in these instances and I have received no apologies. The claim is that “the decision of the NCC is final” – even when it has been made in error (or, more likely, through prejudice).
Labour is in the wrong – but not in the way Mr Ware claims. The problem is not that the party has wrongly acquitted too many people, but that too many have been wrongly demonised.
Next came a segment about the Chakrabarti report of 2016. Disputes team members were negative about it – but by this point their claims were so clearly prejudiced that there’s no reason to bother with them. “It was so poorly researched,” whined Kat Buckingham. “Pitiful is the right word.” Yes – to describe Ms Buckingham’s own reaction.
Mr Ware used part of the report – that people should not be judged by the company they keep – to link to the next section, which is criticism of the people with whom Mr Corbyn has shared a platform. We’ll discuss that next time.
To be continued…
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Jennie Formby: She acts fast when there’s an opportunity to look tough, but when those decisions turn out to be wrong, she’s nowhere to be found.
When less than 200 MPs, peers and staff wrote to demand Chris Williamson’s re-suspension after his Labour membership was restored following an investigation into false allegations of anti-Semitism, general secretary Jennie Formby acted at once. Now more than 6,000 party members have demanded that this decision be reversed, and she has done nothing at all. Why?
To put this in proportionate terms, more than 30 times the number of Labour members who had Mr Williamson re-suspended have said the decision should be reversed. Labour is supposedly a democratic party and the will of the majority should prevail. But Ms Formby has done nothing.
The figures come from a LabourList weekly survey, which also revealed that an even larger majority of respondents believe that Labour’s disciplinary process – which sends serious cases to the “quasi-judicial” National Constitutional Committee – is subject to political interference and should be scrapped in favour of an independent process. The treatment of many cases – in which mere accusation was taken as an assumption of guilt – led to the NCC being dubbed the “National Kangaroo Court” by many, including This Writer.
And this is not the only development. The Labour Party of Northern Ireland has published a statement on Mr Williamson’s suspension, along with a motion that may be taken as a model for other Labour constituency parties.
The statement quotes in full the words said by the MP which have been selectively quoted by his critics, and also quotes analysis of anti-Semitism in the party that shows it is a negligible issue with only 0.05 per cent of members being said to have engaged in any activity that could even be claimed to have been anti-Semitic. This compares with a national average of around five per cent (which in itself is a shocking figure).
It continues: “All anti-semitism should be considered a scourge and a problem that needs addressing. However, it is a fair comment to say that the Labour Party does not have any form of particular problem with anti-semitism . It is also fair to say that Labour Party members are not to blame for the narrative that suggests that there is a particular problem with anti-semitism in the party.
“It logically follows that members of the Labour Party should not feel that they should be apologetic about something that has been shown to be false.
“It does not diminish the scourge of anti-semitism to state these things. Members are entitled to feel proud of the Labour Party’s history of anti-racism and support for minority communities and for all of those facing discrimination and oppression. They are entitled to encourage others to join the party and to support it on the basis of its anti-racist and wholly inclusive credentials.
“Any member is entitled to say that those who are agreeing and apologising for the Labour Party having a particular problem with anti-semitism, is a concession to falsehoods and distortions. In a climate where such falsehoods and distortions proliferate, members are entitled to challenge the narrative. They are entitled to scrutinise complaints. They are entitled to adopt an inquisitorial approach to allegations. Every member who is accused is entitled to the absolutely fundamental principle of justice; that they are considered innocent until it is established otherwise.
“Most of all, every member is entitled to be subject to the democratically determined rules and procedures governing the Party and to demand that those rules and procedures be upheld and not be subject to the arbitrariness of public opinion and pressure.”
In my own case, I was treated as though I were guilty from the moment I was falsely accused. Chris Williamson has had the same treatment. So have many others.
And those who endorse the falsehoods and distortions are still being given the oxygen of publicity by mass-media news organisations. Only last week, Labour Lord Falconer appeared on the BBC’s #PoliticsLive to deplore Mr Williamson’s perfectly reasonable comments as anti-Semitic and to damn him further by association with (among others) Jackie Walker, who had been accused of saying that Jews were chief financiers of the slave trade – except, of course, we know that she didn’t say that. The other person in the video is Tosh McDonald, a friend and supporter of Mr Williamson.
I reckon Charlie Falconer knew that what he was saying wasn’t true. Ms Walker would have made it perfectly clear in her defence and I made it perfectly clear in mine (two of the charges against me related to my support for her). He referred to notes, so he should have had that information. And now, of course, the BBC has confirmed the falsehood of the claim.
Yet Lord Charlie Falconer has faced no censure whatsoever for his words. When will his party membership be suspended? When will his misbehaviour be investigated? When will questions be asked about his motivations?
I reckon we all know the answer to that: Never.
Labour’s general secretary, Jennie Formby, was bombarded with tweets demanding action to reinstate falsely-purged party members including myself, Ms Walker and Mr Williamson after the BBC’s admission. To my knowledge, she has not responded in any way at all. She is running away from her party’s mistakes prejudice.
Perhaps she’ll respond if a party member – or several of them – makes an official complaint.
Who’ll give it a go?
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The BBC has upheld a complaint against former BBC political editor Nick Robinson after he wrongly tweeted that Jackie Walker had claimed that “the Jews controlled the slave trade”.
This was a principal complaint against Ms Walker and part of the basis on which both she and This Writer have been expelled from the Labour Party. As it is false, Labour’s reasons for expelling us both may also be false – if the party’s accusers were mistaken on one point, it is likely they were wrong about all of them.
So when will Labour apologise and re-instate us?
The BBC‘s apology came in a letter to Twitter user and campaigner against injustice Simon Maginn, who had complained about a tweet by Nick Robinson on February 26.
Left activist Jackie Walker did *not* say 'Jews controlled the slave trade'. BBC have reluctantly confirmed this after 4 months. Anyone still claiming she did is, therefore, a liar. Anyone claiming false accusations are not made is also a liar, since this was exactly that. pic.twitter.com/0SmFfNYo1J
It seems Mr Robinson had claimed that Ms Walker had stated that “the Jews controlled the slave trade” and that this was an example of “anti-Semitism in the Labour Party”.
But in a letter to Mr Maginn that he tweeted yesterday (July 1), a representative of the Corporation’s Executive Complaints Division stated [boldings mine]: ‘What she had said, however (in response to a friend who had raised the question of ‘the debt’ owed to the Jews because of the Holocaust), was “Oh yes – and I hope you feel the same towards the African holocaust? My ancestors were involved in both – on all sides as I’m sure you know, millions more Africans were killed in the African holocaust and their oppression continues today on a global scale in a way it doesn’t for Jews… and many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade which is of course why there were so many early synagogues in the Caribbean. So who are victims and what does it mean? We are victims and perpetrators to some extent through choice. And having been a victim does not give you a right to be a perpetrator.”
‘Even allowing for the element of compression often seen in tweets, I think the paraphrase of Ms Walker gave an insufficiently accurate impression of her actual words, so I am upholding that aspect of your complaint.’
There can be no doubt that Ms Walker was referring specifically to matters in the Caribbean. If the reference to the sugar trade was not sufficiently exact, the comment, “which is of course why there were so many early synagogues in the Caribbean” is self-explanatory.
And I made all this abundantly clear, nearly three years ago!
The former of those pieces was actually used by Labour in its “evidence” (ha ha) against me!
I had written that – as is now well-documented – Ms Walker’s Facebook page had been hacked by members of an organisation called the Israel Advocacy Movement (whose founder, Joseph Cohen, used to be a member of the organisation that originally accused me – the fake charity calling itself the Campaign Against Antisemitism).
They grabbed part of a conversation she was having with a friend and gave it to the Jewish Chronicle as evidence of anti-Semitism – and that is the origin of the accusation against her.
I had written: “She was subjected to racist abuse by people who pose as campaigners against racism (albeit that very specific kind of racism that relates to the Jewish people). The same people claim the Nazi holocaust exclusively for Jews, thereby discriminating against all the other groups who faced genocide at the same time including, most famously, the Roma, the sick and disabled.”
Labour’s claim was “Qualifying racism in this way Mr Sivier has done is dismissive of antisemitism. There are very few, if any campaigners who ‘claim the Nazi holocaust exclusively for Jews’. Stating this discredits and diminishes antisemitism and the work done by campaigners.”
Oh, really?
Apparently the part that’s supposed to be dismissive of anti-Semitism is where I stated that the accusers were posing as campaigners against racism “albeit that very specific kind of racism that relates to the Jewish people”. That is, of course, exactly how anti-Semitism is defined.
As for there being “few, if any campaigners who ‘claim the Nazi holocaust exclusively for Jews'” – here are a few examples, quoted in my defence against Labour’s false accusations:
“If only my accuser had actually read the article they were quoting, they would have found two examples of campaigners who claim the Nazi holocaust exclusively for Jews. From the article quoted in my piece: “The late Elie Wiesel said that to compare the sufferings of others with Jews was a “betrayal of Jewish history”. And Lucy Dawidowicz, a well known holocaust historian and rightwing Zionist, held that “subsuming Jewish losses under a universal or ecumenical classification is to effectively justify anti-Semitism”.”
“More currently, how about Jonathan Freedland’s words, in his recent article – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/27/jewish-anger-labour-listen-antisemitism-opinion – on the Guardian website? He wrote: “The Holocaust, the murder of 6 million Jews, is, for us, a very recent memory: part of our own lived experience, barely one generation away.” Here we see a national opinion-former claiming the Nazi holocaust exclusively for Jews. Who knows how many people have read his words and believed them?
“The following Jews, in a letter supporting Jackie Walker against her suspension after being unethically filmed at a Jewish Labour Movement event on anti-Semitism, stated: “It has always been a principle of the Zionist movement that the Nazi Holocaust was exclusive to the Jews. Yehuda Bauer, professor of Holocaust studies at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, has argued that ‘the Nazis only attempted to annihilate one people, the Jews’. According to Bauer, ‘the Holocaust is very much a unique case’. The signatories were: Tony Greenstein, Professor Haim Bresheeth, Professor Emeritus Jonathan Rosenhead, Leon Rosselson, Ruth Appleton, Rica Bird, Mike Cushman, Dr Merav Devere, Mark Elf, Sylvia Finzi, Ken Fryde, Leah Levane, Claire Glasman, Selma James, Michael Kalmanovitz, Helen Marks, Elizabeth Morley, Diana Neslen, Ilan Pappe, Martin Parnell, Roland Rance, Dr Brian Robinson, Amanda Sebestyen, Glynn Secker, David Selzer, Sam Semoff, Sam Weinstein and Naomi Wimborne-Iddrissi.
“I have found others in the course of my work on my website.
“For example: Beth Rosenberg, who I mention in my article https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/01/24/holocaust-memorial-day-tweet-triggers-hate-filled-denial-of-disability-related-deaths/ as tweeting, “Minimising the Holocaust is antisemitic, which you know and are doing deliberately to cause offence”. The problem is, I did not minimise any Holocaust – and HMD commemorates many holocausts and genocides, not just what happened to the Jewish people. Her tweet very clearly claims the Nazi holocaust exclusively for Jews – and cemented this in with her further comment: “The mythology from the left compared to the systematic murder of 6 million Jews.” So HMD refers only to the Shoah and not to any other such events, according to Ms Rosenberg.
“Here’s Christina Wallis: “I just find it upsetting that you’re using an atrocity that lead to the death of six million people, including members of my family to make a political point.” The Nazi holocaust killed 17 million people in total but she omits everybody who was not Jewish. So her tweet also, very clearly, claims the Nazi holocaust exclusively for Jews.
“Here’s another one, from ‘Plastic Fantastic’ on Twitter: “The Holocaust has a specific meaning – Nazi Germany systematically murdering some six million European Jews.” See: https://twitter.com/omgstater/status/956267890491166721“
I don’t honestly expect Labour to back down and apologise on the basis of a single admission of wrongdoing by the BBC – the prejudice in favour of the witch-hunters is far too strong in that organisation at the moment.
But I do think there is a clear message here – that the Labour Party machine now needs to engage in full and open discussion with those of us it has wronged, about its reasons for attacking perfectly innocent people, for dragging our names and reputations through the dirt, and for protecting those who have lied about us – both inside and outside the organisation.
How about it, Jennie Formby? Let’s have an open debate – or are you afraid?
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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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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.
Jeremy Corbyn: As a lifelong campaigner against racism, how does Labour’s leader feel about being included in support of the racist abuse of another Labour Party member, because he is on the party’s National Executive Committee?
We all learned one thing from my “disciplinary” hearing with the Labour Party: I am not an anti-Semite.
I know the panel from Labour’s National Constitutional Committee ruled otherwise, but the decision ran contrary to all the factual evidence that was heard; it was a kangaroo court in which facts didn’t matter and justice was a joke.
And the evidence clearly showed that Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee had descended to supporting racism in order to throw me out of the party.
I should make it clear, at this point, that I am crowdfunding to take court action against those who have made false accusations of anti-Semitism against me. Please contribute – visit my JustGiving page and pledging to donate as much as you can spare.
Here’s the evidence:
The NEC had prepared the case against me, which included seven “particulars” of the charge. One of these ran as follows:
“On 12th October 2016 Mr Sivier posted [about accusations of anti-Semitism against Jackie Walker]: ‘She was subjected to racist abuse by people who pose as campaigners against racism (albeit that very specific kind of racism that relates to the Jewish people). The same people claim the Nazi holocaust exclusively for Jews, thereby discriminating against all the other groups who faced genocide at the same time.’
“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.
“Qualifying racism in this way Mr Sivier has done is dismissive of antisemitism. There are very few, if any campaigners who ‘claim the Nazi holocaust exclusively for Jews‘. Stating this discredits and diminishes antisemitism and the work done by campaigners. To do so is a completely unacceptable way to engage in political debate and falls significantly below the standards expected of party members. This is clearly prejudicial and/or grossly detrimental to the party.”
I think what’s “grossly offensive to those the Party seeks to represent” is the support for racism in this charge.
I stated that Ms Walker was subjected to racist abuse. In attacking me for raising that fact, the NEC clearly supports the racists who abused Ms Walker.
But the NCC panel, chaired by Maggie Cousins, who I understand to be a hard-right supporter of the Zionist lobby within the Labour Party, did its utmost to stifle evidence to this effect.
In my questions, I asked: “This refers to the racist abuse suffered by Jackie Walker, who has also been accused of anti-Semitism by the Labour Party. Does the NEC agree, on the evidence available, that her abusers are racists?”
Ms Cousins interrupted before the Presenter could answer, claiming that it was “not appropriate” to discuss another case as members of the panel may be due to hear it as well as this. But when I asked the obvious question – “are they?” – the answer was no. So I carried on.
“Does the NEC believe it is appropriate for the Labour Party to support the behaviour of racists in the manner we see here?”
The Presenter was not a member of the NEC and was therefore unqualified to comment on the NEC’s beliefs. Then she was not qualified to present the case, surely?
And so it went.
“Does the NEC accept that in saying this comment is “grossly offensive to those the party seeks to represent”, it is suggesting that the Party seeks to represent racists?”
She couldn’t answer for the NEC.
“Does the NEC accept that in supporting the racist abuse of a person who self-identifies as Jewish, it is undermining its own claim that the Labour Party “seeks to represent the Jewish community”?
She couldn’t answer for the NEC.
These are questions that should be answered, though.
The racism – and the support of racism – implied in the accusation against me is clear.
In making such an accusation against me, Labour’s ruling organisation was declaring its support for racists.
In declaring support for racists, Labour’s ruling organisation was admitting racism itself.
And, as the case was presented by the NEC, all members of that committee must take responsibility for the racism seen here.
That includes Jeremy Corbyn.
Given his own long-standing opposition to racism in all its forms, I wonder how he feels about being included in support of racism and racist abusers, against his will?
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Jackie Walker: She has a right to have her story heard. Who is trying to deny her that right? And why?
Remember Jackie Walker, the former vice-chair of Momentum who was ousted from her position and suspended from the Labour Party on the basis of spurious claims of anti-Semitism concocted by the Jewish Labour Movement, Israel Advocacy Movement and complicit “news”papers?
It seems Ms Walker turned her experience of being smeared as an anti-Semite into a stage play, The Lynching – and now film-maker Jon Pullman has created a full-length movie about it, entitled The Political Lynching of Jackie Walker.
Shot in the UK and Europe, with commentary from friends and foes, the movie follows Ms Walker’s activities for more than a year, filming her at work, in performance, and across the kitchen table to interrogate the issues that lay behind the headlines, and the woman behind the activist. The film was due to have its premiere screening at the Labour Party Conference on the evening of September 25.
But the screening had to be cancelled – and the auditorium evacuated – after organisers received a bomb threat.
Obviously, at the time of writing it is far too early to make any suggestions about who may be responsible – but we may definitely suggest that whoever it was disapproves of free speech, especially if it presents a coherent, logical and possibly persuasive narrative that is different from their own personal bias.
And what encouraged them to commit this prank (I would be very surprised if there really was a bomb at the Liverpool auditorium in which the film was due to be screened)? Well…
May I draw your attention to this article, which I regret to inform you was published by a periodical known as The Sun which describes itself as a newspaper (although opinion on this is divided).
Headlined Fury as far-left activist who said Jews were behind the slave trade tells Labour members she’s been ‘lynched’, the piece states: “A far-left activist who was kicked out of Labour for making anti-Semitic slurs is putting events at the party conference – in which she claims she was “lynched”.
“Jackie Walker has sparked fury by hosting a film and a play at the annual get-together aimed at clearing her name.
“Ms Walker was formerly vice-chair of Momentum but was fired after she claimed Jews were responsible for the slave trade.
“Labour MP Louise Ellman blasted the attempts to promote her worldview, saying it was “disgraceful” for banned activists to be tolerated by other party members.”
This smear piece was accompanied by an image of a flier advertising the film screening, which clearly showed its date and location: Blackburne House, Georgian Quarter, Falkner Street, Liverpool at 7pm on September 25.
I call it a smear piece because it presents a lie as truth – that Ms Walker “claimed Jews were responsible for the slave trade”.
This is based on a fragment of a conversation between Ms Walker and a friend on Facebook’s private Messenger service, that was hacked by members of the Israel Advocacy Movement and given to the Jewish Chronicle as proof of anti-Semitism.
But Ms Walker, speaking afterwards, explained that she was referring to the Caribbean slave trade, of which her own ancestors had unique experience. This is from an article written nearly two years ago: “Yes, I wrote “many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade”. These words, taken out of context in the way the media did, of course do not reflect my position. I was writing to someone who knew the context of my comments. Had he felt the need to pick me up on what I had written I would have rephrased – perhaps to “Jews (my ancestors too) were among those who financed the sugar and slave trade and at the particular time/in the particular area I’m talking about they played an important part.”
“For the record, my claim, as opposed to those made for me by the Jewish Chronicle, has never been that Jews played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic Slave Trade, merely that, as historians such as Arnold Wiznitzer noted, at a certain economic point, in specific regions where my ancestors lived, Jews played a dominant role “as financiers of the sugar industry, as brokers and exporters of sugar, and as suppliers of Negro slaves on credit, accepting payment of capital and interest in sugar.””
It’s a bit different when you see the full picture rather than just a fragment, isn’t it?
Hugo Gye, who wrote the Sun piece, would have had no excuse for ignorance of the facts of the matter – including the fact that Ms Walker has not been found guilty of any anti-Semitism at all by the Labour Party’s own disciplinary mechanism, so what motivated him – and the newspaper – to promote the lie?
Was it mischief?
Remember, Ms Walker is a former vice-chair of Momentum, and Momentum has bannedThe Sun from its fringe events at this year’s Labour conference.
By publishing its story about Ms Walker, along with details of the film screening, this publication might as well have been giving instructions to anyone with an agenda to push the false accusations of anti-Semitism and suppress the facts.
The bomb threat could easily have been triggered by this bitchy story.
We may never know for sure.
But, like so many of the accusers’ recent efforts, it seems likely that this attempt at repression will backfire.
People are going to ask why.
Why seek to silence an accused person who was only trying to put forward her side of this case?
What does this film show, that the accusers have to fear?
The threat – to kill by explosion people attending the premiere – is so extreme that people will want to know the answers to these questions. Is the accusers’ case really so fragile that they have to resort to such extremes in a bid to maintain the illusion of Ms Walker’s guilt?
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Julie Hull (above) is the kind of person who wants the author of This Site condemned as an anti-Semite.
My word.
This Writer’s experience after Prime Minister’s Questions today demonstrates the danger of publishing unwise words – and I don’t mean my own.
At the very start of the session, Theresa May said: “I am sure that Members throughout the House will wish to join me in marking Holocaust Memorial Day this Saturday and in remembering all those who endured such appalling suffering in the holocaust.”
In fact, she seems to have made a common mistake, that HMD commemorates only the genocides perpetrated by the Nazis between 1939 and 1945. This is a falsehood. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn went some way towards correcting this as he stood to ask his first question: “I join the Prime Minister in commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day. Many Members will be signing the book of remembrance and attending the event tomorrow. We have to teach all generations that the descent into Nazism and the holocaust must never, ever be repeated anywhere on this planet.”
But of course it has been repeated – again and again. It is hard to describe the horror of the Shoah (as Jewish people describe the Nazi holocaust), but we have witnessed many occasions in which the same has been attempted against other ethnic groups.
The Cambodian genocide in the 1970s took anything up to three million lives. In Rwanda, in 1994, the highest estimate of the death toll is one million. In 1971, up to three million people were killed in Bangladesh.
There are smaller genocides, too. But are they to be treated with less horror, less revulsion, just because fewer people died? In East Timor between 1975 and 199, up to 200,000 people lost their lives. Are any of those lives less important than those lost between 1939 and 1945, or in Cambodia, or in Bangladesh? A similar number died in Somalia between 1988 and 1991. Were those lives any less important? What about the 200,000 Kurds said to have died in Iraq between 1986 and 1989? Or the 166,000 in Guatemala between 1962 and 1996?
Or the 30-40,000 deaths in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995? I was in Bosnia with a charity trying to help rebuild, in 1997. The things I saw, and the accounts of the people I met, will stay with me until the day I die.
What about the thousands of people who are understood to have died as a result of Conservative policies to people with long-term illnesses and disabilities since 2010?
They didn’t happen, according to people on Twitter today (January 24).
Perhaps it was unwise, considering the tidal wave of hate against me that has been swelling on Twitter over (false) claims of anti-Semitism that have been made against me – but I have been campaigning for many years against the Tory policy to push sick and disabled people to their deaths, and this was an opportunity I could not pass up.
So I tweeted:
.@jeremycorbyn made important point on Holocaust Memorial Day, that such crimes continue. Like Tory genocide of disabled ppl? #PMQs#bbcdp
First, there are those who deny that people with long-term illnesses and disabilities are being pushed to their deaths by Tory policies.
Here’s one now – Julie Hull:
A vile comment and equally grotesquely insulting to Conservatives, to true victims of genocides, and to the disabled. You and this kind of ‘kinder gentler politics’ bring shame on the party you pretend to love.
I’ll repeat her words, in case she chooses to delete the tweet later. She wrote: “A vile comment and equally grotesquely insulting to Conservatives, to true victims of genocides, and to the disabled. You and this kind of ‘kinder gentler politics’ bring shame on the party you pretend to love.”
Strong words. But it wasn’t clear what they actually meant, so I had to seek clarity. I asked: “Are you denying the deaths of sick and disabled people due to Tory policies?”
So Tory spending cuts in health and social care didn’t lead to the deaths of nearly 120,000 people since 2010 – mostly older people and those whose health issues mean they live in care homes? That will be news to the authors of this study, published by the British Medical Journal.
So Tory benefit cuts didn’t cause a “human catastrophe” for sick and disabled people in the UK? That will be news to the United Nations.
Julie Hull, that’ll be news to the UN. According to UN systematic abuse of disabled by Tories has led 2 thousands of deaths of disabled and sick! Eugenics!
(If you click on the link, you’ll see it refers to fewer than 2,400 deaths. This is because the Conservative government at first tried to withhold some information from me. The remaining facts were provided later, under the cosh of the UK Statistics Authority).
And what of the other deaths? You see, the Department for Work and Pensions only records the deaths of claimants up to around two weeks after a decision is made to cut their benefits. Many, many people have died after that period – due to a number of causes.
Who can forget David Clapson, a former soldier who died of diabetic ketoacidosis caused by severe lack of insulin, three weeks after his benefits were stopped – for missing one meeting at the Job Centre. He had no money to pay for the electricity to keep his fridge working, meaning the insulin he kept there became useless. At the time of his death, he had no food in his stomach at all. A pile of CVs was found next to his body. His death was not recorded by the DWP as it occurred after the Department’s two-week limit.
How about Michael O’Sullivan, who was driven to suicide bids after being found “fit for work” by the Department for Work and Pensions? A coroner, Mary Hassall, made it clear that she considered the DWP – and therefore the Conservative government – to have triggered his suicide.
There are many more incidents. If you have the stamina for it, try going through the list of articles on the subject, published on This Site alone.
And for anyone who still doubts that the Conservative government and its policies had anything to do with the deaths, bear in mind that the benefit assessment interview for both ESA and PIP includes a query about whether the claimant has ever considered suicide.
If they say “yes”, the next question is: “Why haven’t you done it?” Can you honestly tell yourself that a person with mental health problems, who has already considered suicide, won’t take that as a demand that they take their own life?
Oh, but never mind any of the evidence that has been amassed since 2010. Julie Hull says there’s no connection between the deaths of sick and disabled people and the Conservative government, so that’s all right then.
Is it? Really?
The other aspect of this is the following claim, repeated many times over the last few hours:
Minimising of the Holocaust is antisemitic, which you know and are doing deliberately to cause offence.
Beth Rosenberg wrote: “Minimising of the Holocaust is antisemitic, which you know and are doing deliberately to cause offence.”
Two points:
I have not minimised any Holocaust.
Holocaust Memorial Day commemorates many holocausts and genocides, not just what happened to the Jewish people.
The first point should be self-evident from what I have written above. If anything, my critics are minimising the deaths of sick and disabled people currently taking place here in the UK – and that is unforgivable.
It is possible that the people complaining to me misunderstand the terms. For example:
What a vile human being, someone needs to look up the definition of #Genocide
“What a vile human being,” tweeted Jonny Braham. “Someone needs to look up the definition of #Genocide.”
So I did – on the Holocaust Memorial Day website. I responded: “HMD website: “The Convention [The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide] defines genocide as … causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group… deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” among others.”
Ah ok so the tories made all these people disabled & now wants to wipe them out, I reiterate my previous tweet, you’re a vile human being
That reply defies belief: “Ah ok so the tories made all these people disabled & now wants to wipe them out, I reiterate my previous tweet, you’re a vile human being.”
Who said anything about the Tories making anybody disabled?
As for the rest of it – we were discussing genocide and I provided the information requested of me.
Oh, and yes – I referred to holocausts in the plural. Look up the definition – this one is from the Oxford Dictionary:
“holocaust
“noun
1.
“destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war.”
My insistence on this definition will become clear, later in this article.
As for the second: The tweet I’ve quoted makes it very clear that the person attacking me believes Holocaust Memorial Day to refer specifically to the genocide committed against Jewish people by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. So does this one, from the same person:
The mythology from the left compared to the systematic murder of 6 million Jews. You are totally revolting and I’m not going to give a common little man like you any more attention.
She wrote: “The mythology from the left compared to the systematic murder of 6 million Jews.”
So HMD refers only to the Shoah and not to any other such events, according to Ms Rosenberg. Oh, and the deaths of thousands of people with long-term illnesses and disabilities have not happened, in her opinion.
Here’s S. Nicholson:
How dare you compare the systematic murder of millions of people with the fairy tale claim that controlling benefits is damaging? You are completely despicable and so is Corbyn
“How dare you compare the systematic murder of millions of people with the fairy tale claim that controlling benefits is damaging?”
“Fairy tale”?
Christina Wallis tweeted: “That’s probably the most deluded and disgusting comment I’ve ever seen on Twitter. How dare you.”
I responded: “In what way? Are you denying the deaths of sick and disabled people due to Conservative Party policy? If so, on what basis? Have you read the information available on this subject (there’s a lot)? Or are you just trying to attack me?”
“I just find it upsetting that you’re using an atrocity that lead to the death of six million people, including members of my family to make a political point. I wasn’t attacking you, I’ve never attacked anyone in my life.”
Oh, is that right? It seemed like an attack.
So we’ve established that the people quoted above consider the Holocaust to be the atrocity committed by Nazi Germany against Jewish people, and I am an anti-Semite for suggesting anything else.
I draw attention to it because, back in September 2016, former Momentum vice-chair Jackie Walker was suspended by the Labour Party after members of the Jewish Labour Movement complained that she was an anti-Semite, for believing exactly the same thing.
“In terms of Holocaust Day, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Holocaust Day was open to all people who experienced Holocaust?” she said at a training workshop on dealing with antisemitism at Momentum’s conference.
A number of people in the room immediately spoke out against Ms Walker’s comments and told her that Holocaust Memorial Day already included commemoration of other genocides. She responded: “In practice, it’s not actually circulated and advertised as such.”
Look at Theresa May’s words, quoted above. Look at Jeremy Corbyn’s. It is clear that they are referring to the Nazi atrocity. Together with the tweets above, I would say there is evidence that Ms Walker has a point.
Wouldn’t you?
For those who posted your hate messages in the hope that you would condemn me: At least you’ve done your bit to get Ms Walker’s suspension lifted.
For clarity, Holocaust Memorial Day does commemorate other atrocities – in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. That means it leaves out many, many other such horrific events. Ms Walker, if I recall correctly, was unhappy that transatlantic slavery is not mentioned.
Fortunately, there were people who were willing to stand up and be counted on my side too:
120,000 deaths by the #DWP 100,000premature deaths by #NHSCrisis 1000's deaths by #homelessness 100's of deaths by #prisoners suicides All useless feeders on the #Tory agenda#Fascism is stalking the streets of Britain Now.
— David Stirrup #3.5% #Join a Union #BLM (@David4rds) January 24, 2018
Yes because Jews are the only ones who died in the Holocaust. My people died in the Holocaust as well, so its not Antisemitic.
— (Dan) BLM -=El Negro Matapacos=- (@TheAngryLeftie) January 25, 2018
'Control of benefits'? Was that for real? People are being systematically denied benefits as a result of the WCA. They have died shortly afterwards, according to coroners as a DIRECT result. The DWP does not deny this, yet you do? Grow up for Gods sake.
One more thing: The Holocaust Memorial Day website has an image entitled “The ten stages of genocide”, which I’ll reproduce below:
As you can see, the Conservatives are well on their way with their genocide of people with illnesses and disabilities.
Stage One – Classification, Stage Four – Dehumanisation and Stage Six – Polarisation have already been implemented, with government and their tame media encouraging their supporters to ostracise those who have long-term illnesses and/or disabilities, and to refer to them as “scroungers”, “skivers” and worse. The Tories have the Daily Mail, among other rags, to spread their hate.
Attempts have been made at Stage Two – Symbolisation, with the bid to make disabled people wear badges on the London Underground. On the face of it, this was to allow them access to facilities for the disabled, but advocates for disabled people warned that it would make them targets for people who had been indoctrinated with the hatred symbolised by Stage One and Stage Four.
Stage Three – Discrimination is exactly why the United Nations criticised the UK government several years ago. The government was found guilty of “grave or systematic violations of the rights of persons with disabilities”.
Stage Five – Organisation is covered by the Department for Work and Pensions. You see, violence doesn’t have to be carried out with guns these days – it can be done with a keystroke when a benefit claimant is deprived of their allowance. The assessment system for ESA and PIP assumes either that illness and/or disability is all in the mind, or that the claimant is trying to avoid working for a living, and current information has it that the government wants to clear 80 per cent of claimants from the benefit books.
Deprived of their means of survival, sick/disabled people are left to their own devices. They can’t claim Jobseekers’ Allowance – as directed by the DWP – because they would be sanctioned very quickly when their illness made it impossible for them to meet one or more of the conditions required of someone searching for a job. So they starve to death like David Clapson, or commit suicide, like Michael O’Sullivan, and the government can deny any responsibility, in accordance with Stage Ten – Denial.
We have already seen the Conservatives deny any wrong-doing to the United Nations; we know they do not collect information about the well-being of former sickness and disability benefit claimants who have been cut off by their cruel assessment system.
That’s how the Tory genocide of the sick and disabled works. If you denied it before reading this article, please reconsider your position.
The phrase most commonly associated with the Holocaust inflicted by the Nazis is “Never again”.
The fact is, since 1945, such events have happened again and again.
It is outrageous that I should be vilified for pointing it out.
Postscript: Believe it or not, I received the following after publishing this article:
“People die – it’s the way of the world” has to be one of the most sickening attempts to justify the Tory persecution of sick and disabled people that I have yet seen.
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What a shocking display of racism on the BBC’s Daily Politics programme today (January 23)!
George Freeman’s outrageous claim that it isn’t racist to call black people “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” went unchallenged by host Jo Coburn.
He made his comments in defence of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, while attacking the Labour Party, alleging that it tolerates anti-Semites in its ranks.
The outburst was condemned by Jackie Walker, a Labour member and former vice-chair of Momentum who, like This Writer, is facing disciplinary action by party authorities over alleged – and allegedly vexatious – allegations of anti-Semitism.
Here’s the exchange:
“There is anti-Semitic language, there is racist language” @Freeman_George on Labour under Corbyn with "nasty misogynistic intolerant strain"
“That is outrageous coming from a party who has a for'n sec who has made racist statements about ex-president Barack Obama” Jackie Walker pic.twitter.com/TM37gl3Vt6
— BBC Daily Politics and Sunday Politics (@daily_politics) January 23, 2018
As you can see, Mr Freeman hypocritically attacked the Labour Party for abuses while claiming that obviously racist remarks by Mr Johnson were simply “inappropriate language”. And he tried to dismiss counter-claims that right-wingers on the social media had made equally shocking attacks.
If I were to claim that the anti-Semitism alleged against me was merely “inappropriate language”, my accusers would have a field day – and rightly so. My case is much stronger than that.
Interestingly:
I can't help but notice that those screaming about alleged .@UKLabour anti-Semitism have nothing to say about @Freeman_George racism #bbcdp
You let George Freeman smear without once being challenged. Worse, you allowed him to claim that Johnson's "picanninnies with watermelon smiles" wasn't racist. How dare he tell me what is and isn't racist. Would you allow him to spout the same stuff about Jews? No, you wouldn't. https://t.co/X77h9MVj2j
George Freeman Tory MP @BBCDailypolitics (and grandee) claims Boris Johnson's comments on black people "picaninnies" and "melon lips" weren't racist. "It's just the way Boris sometimes talks." Which means we're looking at two racist bastards.
My interpretation of that is, we’re looking at Mr Freeman and Mr Johnson.
A disgusting exhibition from George Freeman . The responsibility for the generating of racial hatred and bigotry in the UK belongs with the Nasty Party and UKIP.
George freeman DPS Boris isn't a racist its Boris really,this idiot with He's mouth has done untold damage around the world, he's an adult and should take accountability for he's action, this it's Boris doesn't wash anymore ppl are not stupid. He IS a RACIST !!
According to George Freeman , Boris Johnson’s comments were not racist . Perhaps he should got to certain areas of America and quote them on a street corner .
@daily_politics George Freeman''s reply when asked if he believes that calling black people 'pickaninnies with watermelon smiles ' is racist….. "it's not racist". surprised and v disappointed he was not challenged about this view
It’s definitely worth a complaint via the BBC website.
@Freeman_George you must be kicking yourself at what you said. It’s menacing how you stand up for Boris Johnson’s clear racism and claim that you are in fact against racism? Or do you only care when it’s antisemitic? Now the public eye sees all
Emma Picken, to whom Janice Barnes was responding, is one of the anti-Semitism trolls on Twitter – they gang up to accuse people of anti-Semitism, posting their version of evidence, which isn’t evidence at all. If you look at the image she included in her tweet above, you’ll see it’s by another person, alleging that the Church of England has capitulated to the pro-Israel/Zionist lobby. Personally, I don’t know anything about the issue in particular, but it is very clear that the matter is political, to do with the nation of Israel and the policy of Zionism – and has nothing to do with anti-Semitism at all. But Ms Picken quotes it in support of her claim that Ms Walker is an anti-Semite.
You see how these people work?
Ms Walker is currently under suspension from the Labour Party after attending a so-called “training” session run by the Jewish Labour Movement in which, discussing Holocaust Memorial Day, she asked why the event did not commemorate all holocausts, including that against Native Americans. The event had been advertised as a “safe space”, in which people could air their concerns without fear of reprisal, so the appropriate response would be to discuss the event, perhaps visit its website and see whether Ms Walker was mistaken and the event that concerned her is commemorated after all, and discuss asking for it to be added if it isn’t.
Instead, the JLM either recorded her comments, or allowed them to be recorded and released to the mainstream media (I think it was the Huffington Post as an example of her vile anti-Semitism.
Can you see any hatred of Jews there? It seems to me that Ms Walker was advocating for another ethnic group, rather than denigrating Jews.
Of course, the definition of anti-Semitism seems to be highly subjective, as the discussion on Daily Politics made clear:
“I like to stick to the nice simple definition of anti-Semitism used by Prof Klug – which is hatred against Jews because they are Jews” says Jackie Walker, who she was suspended by Labour in 2016 #bbcdppic.twitter.com/CXM3fRv7rv
— BBC Daily Politics and Sunday Politics (@daily_politics) January 23, 2018
I agreed with her:
Jackie Walker is right. Hatred against Jews because they are Jews is anti-Semitism. #bbcdp
I also agree that further definition does indeed draw people into very “murky water” – and the definition recognised by Labour, against which Ms Walker will be judged, won’t stand up in a court of law.
Labour’s disputes panel isn’t a court of law, of course, but the smirk Ms Coburn sent towards George Freeman when she suggested Ms Walker take these issues up with Labour may soon be permanently wiped off her face because, like me, Ms Walker’s case is that, like mine, her actions do not conform to any of the definitions of anti-Semitism that have been adopted by the Labour Party.
Most particularly, we do not express hatred towards Jews, simply because they are Jews.
George Freeman, on the other hand, is very clearly a racist.
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