Tag Archives: Labour

Corbyn joins Forde’s call for action on Labour racism and Islamophobia. Silence from Starmer

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Keir Starmer: after the Equality and Human Rights Commission lifted its special measures against Labour over the way it investigates anti-Semitism, he claimed Labour would “never again be brought to its knees by racism or bigotry”. Those words ring hollow now.

Let’s say it straight: Labour leader Keir Starmer has been accused of lying about processes within the Labour Party to tackle racism, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Both Martin Forde KC, whose report on the subject was commissioned and then ignored by Starmer, and Jeremy Corbyn, who has been widely – and falsely – accused of allowing anti-Semitism to run wild in the party while he was leader, have demanded action to implement the Forde Report’s recommendations.

Mr Forde rounded on Starmer’s claim that Labour had “zero tolerance of anti-Semitism, of racism, of discrimination of any kind”.

Speaking to a virtual event organised by Compass on Monday (March 20), he said:

We’ve heard it from various politicians, but you can’t implement zero tolerance unless you’re policing things fairly rigorously and you’ve got transparent systems in place.

It’s not enough to say, ‘I’ve been on a course’, and that means I’m untouchable.

And he criticised Labour’s decision not to introduce an independent directorate that would oversee the party’s disciplinary process.

This is interesting from This Writer’s point of view, because a Labour NEC member is on the record as having said the Forde Report’s recommendations were being followed:

I think part of the reason that factionalism has arisen around this is because there is a perception that different groups are treated differently,” Forde said.

Jeremy Corbyn’s comments were, if anything, more harshly critical of his successor:

I’ll reproduce his statement below – not just for people who can’t read image files, but also to provide commentary:

The Forde Report called out the horrific sexism and racism expressed toward Diane Abbott and others among senior members of Labour Party staff who were factionally opposed to me leadership. Eight months on from the Report’s publication, it is appalling that anti-Black racism and Islamophobia are not treated seriously enough by the Party.

There should never be a hierarchy of racism.

This is a criticism of Starmer, who has been attacked for making it seem that it is more important to tackle anti-Semitism against Jews who are Zionists and supporters of the current Israeli government than any other form of racism.

We must stand up to all forms of discrimination, which is why I called for the swift implementation of the EHRC recommendations to improve the Party’s disciplinary processes for handling antisemitism complaints. Concerns about anti-Black racism and Islamophobia, detailed by Forde, must be treated with equal significance.

The Forde Report also details instances of factionalism that hindered our objectives and undermined the democratic mandate of Party members. Since April 2020, this culture of factionalism has escalated.

April 2020 was when Keir Starmer became Labour Party leader. Mr Corbyn is saying that Starmer has either ignored or supported such factionalism (my personal opinion is that he has encouraged it; some may claim he is even responsible for it).

Across the country, socialist members with grassroots and trade union support have been blocked from standing as Labour candidates, denying Party members the right to fair and democratic selection processes.

The recommendations of the Forde Report must be implemented. That is the bare minimum. But we must go further in fighting for a politics of anti-racism, democracy and solidarity in wider society. That means opposing the government’s assault on refugees, rather than pandering to divisive rhetoric. It means offering bold solutions to the compounding crises facing us all. And it means building a vision of hope, which inspires people to fight for a more equal, sustainable and peaceful world.

The factionalist attacks against left-wing Labour members should certainly be brought to the attention of the wider public – because their impact has the potential to harm the wider public significantly, if a Labour government is elected into office in 2024 or 2025.

The reason for such concern may be summed up with the words of “a senior left-wing Labour MP” who spoke after the Compass event. That person said:

“If you want to know how [a] party will treat you in government, look at how it treats its members.”

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How can this candidate win where Labour blocked Greg Marshall from standing?

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Juliet Campbell: she was another local choice to be Broxtowe’s candidate in the next general election and her selection appears to be a deliberate snub against the Labour leadership’s attempt to influence the vote.

Broxtowe Constituency Labour Party appears to be considerably smaller than it used to be after people ripped up their membership cards in disgust at being barred from choosing Greg Marshall as their candidate in the next general election.

Mr Marshall has stood as the constituency’s Labour candidate twice before – in 2017 and 2019 – and while he did not win on either occasion, he did manage to increase Labour’s vote share by 10 per cent between the former and the latter.

But it seems a panel of the party’s National Executive Committee blocked him from the party’s long-list for selection this time.

In a statement last month, he said: “It is with huge disappointment that yesterday I was blocked by the Labour Party from standing to represent Broxtowe at the next general election. To add insult to this decision, I wasn’t even informed directly by the party but instead had to wait to be told by the [constituency Labour party] members on the selection committee.”

Despite the Labour leadership’s decision to remove him by remote control – or possibly because of it – this was the reception he received when he arrived at the party’s selection meeting:

Broxtowe Labour subsequently tweeted its regret that many torn-up membership cards were left around the venue, although that tweet has now been deleted.

The winning candidate was Juliet Campbell – another local choice whose victory is considered a backlash against the imposition of puppet candidates by Keir Starmer:

Of course, the fact that there was any interference at all is in contradiction of a promise by Keir Starmer:

On February 4, 2020, he had tweeted: “The selections for Labour candidates needs [sic] to be more democratic and we should end NEC impositions of candidates. Local Party members should select their candidates for every election.”

And what of Mr Marshall?

Well, here’s an idea:

How about it? Or is he, like Jeremy Corbyn, still living in hope that the hollowed-out husk of Labour can still be turned back into the party that Keir Hardie first led into Parliament?

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Forde Report: Pressure on Keir Starmer mounts

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Keir Starmer: why hasn’t he met Martin Forde KC? What Forde Report measures is Labour implementing, and how? And why is he being so tight-lipped about all this?

Labour leader Keir Starmer is facing more pressure to act on the recommendations of the Forde Report after its author, Martin Forde KC, revealed he had not been contacted since it was published in July last year.

People are drawing awkward conclusions, like this:

Labour seems to be saying that it is acting on the report. Here’s the vice-chair of the NEC equalities committee:

This is the same person’s response to calls for a meeting between Mr Forde and Labour:

It’s not a convincing response because the NEC’s decisions seem liable to be overruled by the party leader whenever he feels like it:

Of course the answer is that Mr Forde requested a meeting, in order to ensure that his recommendations were understood and any further action would be appropriate.

Compounding this, though, is the fact that Labour’s Forde working group asked to meet with him and were rebuffed:

Alongside this, there’s the fact that mainstream media journalists who practically camped on Jeremy Corbyn’s doorstep to ask him about anti-Semitism suddenly found that they didn’t have time to knock on Keir Starmer’s front door over this:

Then there’s the question of the BBC’s attempt to gag Mr Forde by demanding that he “amend” a critical section of his report:

And now other organisations are being brought into the debate, like the Muslim Council of Britain:

Who else will get involved?

Personally, This Writer would like to see representations from Black Lives Matter, if only to see what that group has to say about him describing that organisations as a “moment” and cynically taking the knee as a photo opportunity.

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Months after the Forde Report was published, Labour STILL hasn’t contacted its author about future steps

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Keir Starmer: yet another own goal.

Martin Forde KC, the author of a major report on allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, has said there are serious issues of racism but, since it was published in July, nobody in the organisation has contacted him to discuss what should happen next.

Mr Forde told the Express

he has “anxiety” and “genuine underlying concerns” about “racial issues within the party”.

Referring to Sir Keir’s speech last month, in which the Labour leader said the party will “never again be brought to its knees by racism or bigotry”, Mr Forde said: “It is not a sufficient response to say ‘that was then this is now’.”

He added: “These are serious debates that need to be heard in a respectful context. And I just feel this there’s work to be done.”

His words come after he was interviewed by Middle Eastern broadcaster Al-Jazeera for an episode of its Labour Files documentary series, in which he claimed that the BBC Panorama documentary Is Labour Antisemitic had been “objectively entirely misleading”, and that he had been contacted by BBC representatives who wanted him to “amend” his comments on the show.

Here’s how the Al-Jazeera documentary describes what happened:

The documentary also suggests that Labour leader Keir Starmer has reneged on a promise to party members from ethnic minorities, that he would take the findings of the Forde Report seriously:

You can watch the whole documentary via the link below:

I think I would urge you to do so.

Is this to be Labour’s standard reason for refusing to help people in need?

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Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves seems to have shown us how Labour will respond to appeals for policies that would help the many people who have been driven to poverty, mental illness or distraction by the Tory despotism of the last 13 years.

It’s the same line trotted out by David Cameron, back between 2010-16, when he was trying to justify his unnecessary and harmful austerity policies.

Would you like to hear it?

Here it is:

The simple fact is that any UK government can roll out any policy, any expenditure required – if it wanted to.

The problem is that most of them simply don’t want to.

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Something for the weekend? A comment on Labour’s open-door policy for right-wingers

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Is this really a joke?

After Keir Starmer’s party readmitted Angela ‘Funny Tinge’ Smith, Mike ‘Trot Off’ Gapes and Luciana ‘Antisemitism accusations against my own constituency party members’ Berger, it would be easy to believe it has accepted an application from ‘Hatey’ Katie Hopkins.

This Site has, for many years, refused to acknowledge her existence but this was such low-hanging fruit it was impossible to ignore it.

Needless to say, I shall continue ignoring her existence in the future.

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Labour takes on a new ‘funny tinge’ after re-admitting Angela Smith

Keir Starmer kept quiet about this – and who can blame him?

In the midst of renewed concern about the overt racism in the Labour Party under Starmer’s leadership, it has been revealed that Angela Smith, the woman who described people of colour as having a “funny tinge” was quietly re-admitted, some time ago.

Here’s Cornish Damo to give you the details:

Let’s have a quick reminder of what she said, back in 2019:

She did subsequently apologise.

But she is now back in a party that is happy to harbour overt racists.

What conclusion does she think people will draw about her, then? Or about Labour itself?

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Are racists really welcome in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party?

Is this the only flag that Keir Starmer likes? If so, and he’s a “Britain for the British” guy, then that’s a pretty big indicator that he might be a racist, right there.

The trouble with Keir Starmer is that it is easy to see the people railing against the use of Palestinian flags to register support for the people there as potential, if not actual, members of his Labour Party.

In one tweet below, after a person states that getting Jeremy Corbyn as his local MP is more important to him than getting the Conservatives out of office, a respondent draws attention to the flag of Palestine next to his name and states, “The Palestinian flag says it all.”

Well, no. It doesn’t say anything about the Corbyn supporter apart from that he wants an end to the persecution of the people of that country.

In fact it says more about the respondent, who clearly supports the persecution of the people of Palestine and is therefore a racist.

In the other tweet, a Jewish man comments on his wife giving him a kippah (skull cap) in the colours of the Palestinian flag, and the same respondent as before asks, “Why not ask her to get you a swastika one as well?” That’s likening Palestinians with Nazis, which may again be construed as racist, for what I hope are obvious reasons.

The same respondent was then shown to have tweeted a message about what a pleasure it was to meet Labour leader Keir Starmer, at a Jewish Labour Movement Chanukah party, thanking him for providing a reason to rejoin Labour and saying what a pleasure it is to be “back home”.

Starmer has been expelling Jews faster than any other Labour leader. But this individual is safe, it seems.

Is it because he is an anti-Palestinian racist?

And if you think I’m exaggerating, take a look at the tweet below, showing evidence of Israel’s persecution of Palestine.

And who’s it from?

“The wrong kind of Jew”.

This is what makes it hard to support the Labour Party under Keir Starmer and his cronies.

They look like racists, act like racists and attract racists.

What does that make them?

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Take this poll on whether a new Left party is needed to pressure Starmer’s Labour

Keir Starmer: even if he’s found this poll, I don’t think he’ll be able to rig it.

Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK has an interesting question.

He wants to know if left-leaning politicians and powerful figures should begin a new party to pressure Starmer’s Labour in the way UKIP pressured and changed the Tories.

At the time of writing, the answer is very much “yes”. But what do you think?

Source: Should left-leaning politicians and powerful figures begin a new party to pressure Starmer’s Labour in the way UKIP pressured and changed the Tories?

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Margaret Hodge’s horror at Israel doesn’t ring true

Margaret Hodge: do you think she’s sincere?

Apparently a Jewish woman who helped drive many of her fellow Jews out of the Labour Party for anti-Israel sentiment hasn’t been to that country since 1994 and is shocked to discover the apartheid it operates against Palestinians.

Does that ring true to you?

Or is she just professing horror in order to validate her own behaviour over the last few years?

It’s a bit complicated but here’s the journalist Jonathan Cook to explain:

What do you think? Is it more deception?

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