Anna Rothery: her socialism is probably the reason she has been dropped as a Liverpool mayoral candidate. But the decision is also sexist and racist – and that is how Keir Starmer’s Labour party should now be described.
How is this an improvement?
Let’s go through the information we have, and please correct any errors.
There will be an election to fill the role of executive Mayor of Liverpool after Joe Anderson retired under a cloud.
The Labour Party held a selection process using an all-female shortlist which produced three candidates, including current Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Anna Rothery.
However, examination of Ms Rothery by party leaders revealed that she is:
female
black, and
socialist.
It seems that these are considered undesirable elements in Labour candidates under Keir Starmer’s leadership.
This may come as a surprise to many, especially as he should have expected a selection process that demanded that all candidates are female to produce candidates who aren’t men.
The selection process has reopened. It seems clear that the aim is to parachute in a candidate who is as neoliberal-blue as Starmer himself – in denial of Liverpool Labour members’ right to a free and democratic selection.
But the fact is that he will have eliminated a black woman to do it.
Therefore it is possible to claim that Starmer’s Labour is prejudiced against women and against people of colour: he and his party are sexist and racist.
I am reminded that his forerunner as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, suffered years of attacks, both in the media and by backstabbing right-wingers within the Parliamentary Labour Party, based on fabricated accusation of anti-Semitism.
So I ask:
How is genuine racism and sexism better than fake anti-Semitism?
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Mad McVey: she looks like a pop-eyed loon in this image, and she’s been behaving like one in her attack on a beloved children’s charity.
Remember Esther McVile McVey? She was the poster girl for Tory bigotry before Priti Patel and she is still carrying out her vile work.
McVey has returned to headline news with an attack on Barnardo’s – one that could harm the organisation’s position as a charity.
She has said that a blog post by Barnardo’s, which aims to offer a guide to parents on how to talk to their children about racial inequality and white privilege in the UK, is “political”.
Charities are forbidden to campaign on political issues and could lose their status if found to be doing so.
But is it political campaigning when an organisation raises awareness of racism and the fact – fact – that in the UK white people have advantages that other ethnic groups don’t have?
Or is McVile distorting the facts in order to perpetuate the very racism the charity is highlighting?
In an opinion piece unwisely published by the Telegraph, she claimed that Barnardo’s could be “hijacked by people who want to use it as a platform for their political views”.
She said it would jeopardise Barnardo’s fundraising efforts it if it becomes “yet another charity more obsessed with political correctness and virtue signalling than actually helping people in need”.
That is a threat.
And what did Barnardos say, to provoke it?
The blog post states: “For the one in five Barnardo’s service users who are black, Asian or minority ethnic, the colour of their skin is an additional factor that negatively affects them and their families in a multitude of well documented ways.”
The article referenced well evidenced examples of white privilege, including higher employment rates, lower rates of prosecution and sentencing and a longer life expectancy for white people, with black African women having a mortality rate four times higher than white women in the UK.
The blog post states that being white doesn’t mean life is not hard, but it means it is not made harder because of your race.
“Helping children and those who nurture them, to understand what white privilege really means will not only prevent future generations from growing up to ignore race as an issue – but to be actively anti-racist through their actions.”
That all seems perfectly reasonable to This Writer.
But McVile went off the deep end:
McVey said while she will always be “grateful” to Barnardo’s, she was “deeply troubled” by its decision to “divert its attention to political activism”.
She continued: “This is such a misguided and misjudged move away from what the charity is about and what it ought to be doing.
“Barnardo’s is too important a charity to be hijacked by people who want to use it as a platform for their political views.”
On Friday, a group of 12 Conservative MPs reportedly wrote a letter to Barnardo’s chief executive, Javed Khan, to express their “concern and disappointment” over the post.
According to The Guardian, the MPs described the post as “ideological dogma” and “divisive militancy”. They also asked for it to be investigated by the Charity Commission.
So there it is – a threat against Barnardo’s charity status, simply because the charity spoke up about racial inequality.
Perhaps the 12 Tory MPs should be reported to the Equality and Human Rights Commission? Ah, but the EHRC has already refused to investigate Tory racism, hasn’t it? Isn’t that an example of white privilege, right there?
It seems the UK’s governing party is employing that classic DARVO gaslighting technique – deny, attack, reverse victim and oppressor. By claiming Barnardo’s has become political, the Tories are hiding their own racism.
The Empire Windrush brought many people to the UK to help rebuild the country after World War II. If it had still been in service a couple of years ago, the Tories would have been trying to use it to deport them all again.
It is ironic that the Conservative government’s own review of its behaviour in the Windrush Scandal was called Lessons Learned, considering its plan for a mass deportation to Jamaica tomorrow (December 2) shows that the Tories have learned nothing.
The Home Office failed to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) under the Equality Act 2010 when implementing Theresa May’s “hostile environment” strategy, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Why is this not headlined "Conservatives in unlawful breach of racial discrimination laws, says EHRC"? https://t.co/mv4qxysvqq
— CrémantCommunarde#ActivistLawyer ⚖️ 🌻 ✋ (@0Calamity) November 25, 2020
May’s plan, which commenced in 2012, was originally intended to make staying in the UK as difficult as possible for illegal immigrants – people who do not have leave to remain, in the hope that they would leave of their own accord.
But the policy’s severe harm to members of the so-called Windrush generation – whose documents showing that they were allowed to stay in the UK were destroyed by May’s Home Office shortly after she took over responsibility for it in 2010 – was ignored, dismissed and disregarded, despite the fact that the Home Office was warned about it repeatedly.
Perhaps part of the responsibility for this lies in the fact that the Tory government, obsessed with outsourcing work to private, profit-making firms, told landlords, banks, doctors and employers to carry out ID checks and report people who lacked adequate documentation.
As a result, thousands of people – yes, thousands – were denied access to health care, benefits and housing, before being deported illegally.
Engagement with representatives of the Windrush generation – people who came to the UK, mostly from Jamaica, to help rebuild the country after World War Two, after the government of the day promised to allow them to settle here (see the 1948 Nationality Act) – was limited.
The EHRC report said the consequences – which have included several deaths – were “foreseeable and avoidable” and the organisation’s interim chair, Caroline Waters, said the treatment of the Windrush Generation was “a shameful stain on British history”.
Windrush Scandal A 'Shameful Stain On British History', Says Equality Commission | HuffPost UKhttps://t.co/FLxKBUHgjp
ThisCounterfire article is damning in its condemnation of the policy:
Dehumanisation and discrimination are built into the very concept of the ‘hostile environment’. For the Tories, the purpose of the policy was twofold: to divert growing anger at their austerity policies and to undercut the rise of far-right rivals like Ukip by appropriating their unabashedly dehumanising and racist ideology.
That’s right – the Tories under Theresa May adopted a deliberately racist ideology. And the policy of dehumanising victims was taken directly from the Nazi playbook, as Jews know very well from bitter experience.
Counterfire continues:
The lives of migrants and ethnic minorities are routinely exploited and endangered for the political gain of those in power in this way. This is not recognised in the EHRC report, which is only able to recommend a set of vague rectifications that rely heavily on the government’s good will, such as the recommendation for the Home Office to ‘prioritise and act early’ on its Equality Act duties.
The Home Office under current Home Secretary Priti Patel has made a public commitment to avoid any similar events occurring.
So it is strange that Ms Patel is determined to force as many as 50 more people out of the UK – including another member of the Windrush generation – in a specially-chartered flight tomorrow:
NEWS: And it's officially confirmed. The @ukhomeoffice are planning a pre-Christmas mass deportation of Black British residents to Jamaica on 2nd December. Despite #COVID19 risks they think that they have capacity to deport 50 people on the flight. #Jamaica50@DetentionActionpic.twitter.com/lC7AcxDzig
Immediately after it was revealed that the flight was taking place, no fewer than 82 BAME celebrities wrote to six airlines known to have carried out such flights, begging them to reject contracts to carry out any more. It is not known which airline has been engaged to carry out tomorrow’s flight.
Signatories included the author Bernardine Evaristo, model Naomi Campbell, historian David Olusoga and actors Naomie Harris and Thandie Newton, as well as lawyers, broadcasters and NGO chiefs. Leading Windrush campaigners including Michael Braithwaite and Elwaldo Romeo also signed.
Black public figures urge airlines not to carry out Home Office deportation | Home Office | The Guardianhttps://t.co/6xjYnWZTwN
And now – better late than never – 70 MPs and peers have also written to Patel, demanding that the flight must be cancelled:
The Government is doing little more than pay lip service to righting wrongs and correcting injustices. I’ve coordinated a letter asking @pritipatel@ukhomeoffice to #StopThePlane and stand alongside nearly 70 MPs and peers calling for Wednesday's flight to be cancelled #Jamaica50pic.twitter.com/eV2DPtMo4l
The letter, co-ordinated by Labour’s Clive Lewis, states:
You have previously committed to ‘righting the wrongs’ concerning the Windrush scandal. But eight months after the Windrush Lessons Learned Review was published, the recommendations have still not been fully implemented, it adds.
“Planning a pre-Christmas deportation flight demonstrates that the Home Office has so far failed to learn any lessons.”
The letter also highlights the threat posed by Covid-19 to anybody being forcibly deported:
“The conditions of deportation, such as shackling detainees to ushers for long journeys in potentially cramped conditions, risk exposing people to the virus,” the letter reads, adding that Black people are already at an increased risk of contracting coronavirus.
And there is the more tangible threat of deportees suffering harm or death at the hands of the authorities when they arrive at their destination:
“We know that five UK deportees were killed between 2018 and 2019. Some people in detention have scars from past abuse in Jamaica, or siblings who have been murdered.”
Strangely, Labour leader Keir Starmer has not signed the letter – nor have 12 of his front benchers. They are: Angela Rayner, Anneliese Dodds, Nick Thomas-Symonds, Lisa Nandy, Ed Miliband, Jon Ashworth, Rosena Allin-Khan, David Lammy, Jess Phillips, Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting and Yvette Cooper. Are we to conclude that these MPs approve of the Tories’ racism?
On the other hand, one of the signatories is former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn:
Let us not forget, as you get outraged:@JeremyCorbyn was one of the few who voted against the act that led to the Windrush Scandal – a ‘shameful stain on British history’.
Such a bastard, eh? Or, maybe, not the man the MSM & anti-Corbyn mob have led you to believe him to be. pic.twitter.com/7tqZVYRCb6
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush (@WarmongerHodges) November 25, 2020
There is absolutely no doubt that the Conservative government’s racist deportations of people who have every right to remain in the UK should stop. This Writer also has absolutely no doubt that they won’t.
Priti Patel’s record marks her out as a vicious racist who delights in dehumanising and tormenting others.
It is sad to see that she faces no opposition from the so-called Opposition front bench.
But we should remember that the people who have opposed this obscenity are those who have been vilified by the Tory Establishment and their lackeys in the mainstream media. They have lied to us; they are not to be trusted.
And we need to find better ways to oppose them.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Marcus Rashford: Here’s a man who stands up for people who would otherwise suffer at the hands of a cruel government. What he does in his spare time, with his own cash, is his own business. What does the Daily Mail stand for?
This is classism and possibly racism from the Daily Mail.
The newspaper- if you really want to dignify it with that description – ran a story that footballer Marcus Rashford has bought five houses worth £2 million.
What business is it of ours? It’s his money and what he does with it is his concern.
Here’s the tell, in the headline: “Campaigning football star Marcus Rashford has bought five luxury homes…”
Oh, now we get it! He’s under attack because he dared to campaign for the Conservative government to actually face up to its responsibilities and look after people its policies are harming.
Rashford responded:
Ok, so let’s address this. I’m 23. I came from little. I need to protect not just my future but my family’s too. To do that I made a decision at the beg of 2020 to start investing more in property. Please don’t run stories like this alongside refs to ‘campaigning’. pic.twitter.com/coqla2i19d
He realised there was a dog whistle in this – and he wasn’t the only one.
A fine example of the toxic nature of the Daily Mail. A young man makes a lot of money, legally, and through his own labour. Apparently he’s not allowed to invest that money for the future whilst paying a lot of tax and having an opinion on how some of that tax should be spent. pic.twitter.com/biqcZJg5Fe
The Daily Mail ran that story because it is a racist enterprise. I do hope it will not run a full list of all the property portfolios owned by members of the Cabinet, rich, predominantly white men who are doing nothing to help children in poverty. https://t.co/PhKN0YpHbR
NHS Million’s decision is perfectly understandable and This Writer hopes others will follow it.
I wish I could do the same but This Site (and others) has to debunk the nonsense these mass-media extremists use to pollute our political consciousness.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
She thinks it’s all great fun: but whoever put the horns on this image of Priti Patel knew the truth of the matter.
We know the Home Secretary is a full-on, flat-out racist – she deports foreigners, she would deport UK citizens if the Windrush scandal had not happened, and now she has been caught stirring up racial hatred against travellers.
It’s very odd behaviour for a person whose own parents were immigrants into the UK
But here it is: she has been caught fabricating details of a police officer’s death in order to make travellers seem inherently criminal, as an ethnic group.
And she did it in a Zoom meeting with Jewish leaders – hosted by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is itself notorious for its zealousness in defending their own ethnic group from claims that it has any inherently unsavoury traits.
Good morning John. I wonder if you’ve been following the comments around @pritipatel ‘s words about Travellers. She spoke on Sept 15 at an online meeting hosted by the @BoardofDeputies Will you be commenting on this? @LordJohnMann
determined to stamp out the “criminality that takes place and that has happened through Traveller communities and unauthorised encampments”.
More than 80 leading academics, race equality organisations, and politicians have signed a letter to Patel, urging her to retract her “hate speech”.
One has to ask how she would describe herself – the daughter of refugees who came to the UK after facing persecution in Uganda.
Ah, but that would probably be too close to home.
She seems a perfect candidate for “unconscious bias” training.
Except, of course, she’s probably one of the 40 Conservative MPs who have refused it out of hand. It seems she – and they – have some kind of bias against it…
She is the secretary of state for the Home Department.
She is a racist, to our certain knowledge.
She may also be prejudiced against any number of other traits.
So the question you have to ask yourself, in a country where the Home Secretary is lining people up to be her targets, is:
When will she send people for me?
POSTSCRIPT: Mrs Mike was disgusted to hear about Patel’s behaviour, and asked a very reasonable question: why do we put up with this unacceptable behaviour, these unacceptable viewpoints, from people who are supposed to be our political leaders?
Mrs Mike thinks Priti Patel should be pulled out of Parliament by the ear and slung onto the street.
She cannot understand why nobody has actually used legally-enforcible means to do this.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Struck dumb: faced with clear racism against a Labour MP by the police he so staunchly supports, what does Keir Starmer do? He HESITATES.
Public support for Labour MP Dawn Butler is growing, along with a campaign for the removal of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick – but her own party leader, Keir Starmer, is silent. Why?
Starmer – a former Director of Public Prosecutions and a staunch supporter of the police – has been on the social media since the car in which Ms Butler was travelling was stopped under false pretences by police yesterday (August 9). So have many of his right-wing – sorry, centrist – lieutenants. But they haven’t had a word to say about it.
The new New Labour leader has been struggling with his attitude to racism after his many attempts to end the anti-Semitism controversy in the Labour Party came unstuck when confronted by the facts, and after his comments about Black Lives Matter showed him up as a hypocrite.
Now, faced with a clear example of police racism and the racial profiling of his MP, Starmer is hesitating. Would he really rather side with the racists?
Perhaps he would feel more comfortable siding with the liars who have crawled out from the virtual woodwork of the social media to attack Ms Butler with false claims that she “flipped” the video she took of the incident and that her passenger was white (and not black). But these have been shown to be nonsense:
You're an idiot. She never did that. You people even said the driver was white and he wasn't. Just accept the police got it wrong and are institutionally racist. Then we can start making things better.
Perhaps Mr Starmer would feel more comfortable siding with Tory London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey, who doesn’t seem to understand institutional racism…
Twitter I'm tired and need to get some sleep. Can someone please explain institutional racism to Shaun. I think it's important he understands what it is.
… and whose attitude to racial profiling changes according to whatever he thinks is politically expedient:
Fascinating that Tory London mayor candidate Shaun Bailey is now saying the police don't racially profile people, when 2.5 years ago he was complaining about racial profiling by the police. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/QySPZKOtFI
— Matt Thomas #GrassrootsVoice (@Trickyjabs) August 10, 2020
Starmer’s silence is deafening – and the commentariat is flagging it up:
It’s nearly 22:30. @Keir_Starmer’s team have been online & tweeted.
Yet NOTHING in solidarity with Dawn Butler.
One can only conclude that he doesn’t care at all. Let the “moment” pass.
Could you imagine Labour’s last leader not tweeting his solidarity with a Labour MP who was the victim of racial profiling by the police today? I can’t. What is the reason Keir Starmer hasn’t?
This is far from the first incident involving the police targeting cars with black drivers and passengers – in fact, black people are far more likely to be stopped and searched for flimsy reasons than white people. One of the excuses offered to Ms Butler was that tinted rear windows may be illegal (the law says they’re not) and this is an old favourite among the Met stop-and-search gang.
Ms Butler herself has pointed out that it is 20 years since the Macpherson Report labelled the Met Police as “institutionally racist” but nothing has been done to change the situation.
So now a campaign has sprung up online to remove current Met Commissioner, Cressida Dick – under whose control the current situation has worsened:
Dawn Butler is right to call for the resignation of the £230,000 a year Metropolitan Police Commissioner.
Oh, and are we interested in the difference between the way the police treated Ms Butler – an MP – and the way they treated Dominic Cummings, who is only an MP’s advisor?
Police stopped Dawn Butler for a ‘Yorkshire number plate’ but Dominic Cummings took his kids on a potentially blind joyride and a 260 mile trip during lockdown and he held a press conference about why that’s okay
UPDATE 5.45pm, August 10: Starmer has finally broken his silence on Twitter – although it really wasn’t worth the wait. You can see his comment here, along with some responses to it.
I’m particularly drawn to the reply that states: “You were too sh*t scared to make a public comment because you hadn’t focus grouped it. Jesus. Spineless.” It sums up Starmer in a nutshell.
Other comments assert that Labour staffers – for whom Starmer has apparently shown support – have carried out racial profiling on some of the party’s black MPs.
This is a pathetic showing from a weak man who is unfit to lead.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Of course, it would have helped if Boris Johnson wasn’t such an extreme racist himself.
Look at the state of this:
An inquiry into racism in the Conservative Party has yet to begin eight months after it was launched by Boris Johnson, prompting protests that it has been “kicked into the long grass”.
The investigation has still not issued a call for evidence – three months after that was promised – amid criticism of the academic chosen to lead it and doubts over the resources made available.
Johnson persuaded the Equality and Human Rights Commission not to investigate Tory racism because the party was going to carry out its own inquiry, if you remember.
That in itself was hypocritical of the EHRC, which was then investigating Labour anti-Semitism even though that party had carried out multiple inquiries of its own – and shows the level to which that organisation has become just another arm of the Conservative Party.
Now we see that the Tories have done nothing. Perhaps they are worried about the public relations disaster that such an inquiry would create.
Meanwhile, Johnson is throwing his weight around, claiming the rest of us have a “moral duty” to do as he tells us.
But we live in a “leadership by example” world now; if our leaders and their friends don’t meet their own standards, then there’s no reason we should pay any attention to them.
Dominic Cummings’s trip to Barnard Castle and the wholesale discarding of adherence to lockdown rules is a prime example of that.
Boris Johnson has no moral authority. And without it, he has no authority as a leader.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
I haven’t contributed to the so-called Forde Inquiry into the allegations in the (also so-called) #LabourLeaks report because I think it’ll be a stitch-up.
My own court case against Labour will go to trial on October 2 and I’m happy to let Mr Forde QC come to his own conclusions, which I may then find easy to use against the party if my own legal action is successful.
You will understand why I see no point in contributing when I make this point: if Mr Forde’s inquiry was above-board, why did a small left-wing blog have to suggest that disputed WhatsApp messages be published in full?
The demand is an obvious one, but it has been made on the Skwawkbox blog, not in the mainstream media or by anybody directly concerned with the inquiry. The article states:
Former staff accused in a leaked Labour Party report of abusive comments toward other staff, racism, obstructing disciplinary processes to facilitate media attacks – among other things – and even of sabotaging Labour’s electoral campaigns are trying to sue the party for breach of confidentiality.
They also claim that their WhatsApp conversations were used out of context to incriminate them – a defence remarkably similar to the one that Keir Starmer just abandoned in order to pay ‘whistleblowers’ a huge amount of money in a case Labour’s lawyers said the party was likely to win.
If those attempting to sue the party believe the context of:
comments such as ‘pube head’, discussions of bra-less female employees and women’s weight and glee at Labour’s first black woman MP allegedly crying in a toilet
the diversion of party campaign funds to an ‘Ergon House’ account to use for their own priorities
comments expressing horror at Labour’s strong performance in the 2017 general election
actions to block and derail investigations into antisemitism and other racism
would show that those comments and actions were innocent and entirely in keeping with the positions they held and the substantial salaries they received for filling them, then the solution is simple:
Publish their conversations in full, so everyone can see for themselves.
How suspicious that none of the individuals concerned seem keen to take up that offer!
Perhaps they fear the evidence will serve merely to corroborate that of others who have gone public with their own submissions to Forde – assertions which support the leaked report’s claim that senior officials of the Labour Party spent years sabotaging Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and succeeded in preventing him from winning a general election in 2017 (and possibly in 2019 as well).
Here‘s a piece on Open Democracy that provides ample information on the subject. I am grateful to a Facebook friend who summed up its claims as follows:
The Offices of the Leader of the Opposition are less than half a mile away from Labour party headquarters on Victoria Street. Labour party HQ is responsible for setting up the party leader’s offices. They should have been up and running when Jeremy Corbyn took over from Ed Miliband. Joe Royle has submitted evidence to the internal Labour inquiry, chaired by Martin Forde QC into sabotage by party employees before the 2017 general election.
1) There were no ‘handover notes’ left for the new leader’s team.
2) Many of the office computers had gone missing.
3) The computers that remained were old and kept crashing.
4) There were not enough monitor screens for computers.
5) John McDonnell’s offices had been completely gutted.
6) The walls were bare, with staples and blu-tak left behind.
7) There were desks without chairs or computers.
8) Attempts to hire new staff were delayed, frustrated or blocked.
9) Jeremy Corbyn had only 16 staff. Ed Milliband had twice that.
10) The party refused to hire a former treasury economist (James Meadway), so he had to be seconded from a trade union which did hire him.
11) Discussions from meetings were leaked to journalists instantly.
12) The leader’s office could not trust Labour HQ not to leak every policy announcement in advance.
13) A rally for John McDonnell was held in the middle of nowhere to deter members from turning up and prevent press coverage.
14) This tactic had been used before.
15) Press releases were blocked.
16) Staff members briefed against Jeremy Corbyn’s office.
17) The party’s message was deliberately kept off social media.
18) Coordinated staff resignations
19) The 2017 manifesto was leaked (never happened before).
20) Facebook adverts designed to be seen by Corbyn’s team only but prevented from being seen by the public (£5,000 cost per one).
21) Staff disappointed that the party did so well in 2017.
22) Corbyn’s staff’s access to Labour HQ was revoked in anticipation of losing the election.
23) Resources, including campaign organizers, were diverted away from winnable marginal seats to safe Labour right-wing seats.
24) Labour lost the seats necessary to win the 2017 election by 2,227 swing votes.
And what are the so-called victims in this case – the ones whose WhatsApp chats were quoted and who say they were misused – doing?
Are they backing calls for the chats to be published in full?
No. They are trying to hide the evidence and have the Forde Inquiry closed down.
Here‘s The Guardian (and shame on that rag for giving this demand column space):
lawyers for the accused officials say the WhatsApp messages were used selectively and edited to give a false impression. They also say the inquiry should be abandoned given the damage already caused by the leaked report.
It’s interesting that these staffers would suggest that a tactic regularly employed by Labour’s disciplinary system to falsify accusations of anti-Semitism against party members (I have personal experience of this) has been used unfairly against them.
Some might call it “sauce for the goose” (suggesting that such treatment is poetic justice for the likes of these people) but I would not be one of them. For one thing, I expect the accusation to be proved false when (if?) the facts come into the open.
And Claudia Webbe, who headed the disputes panel that used those tactics at the time, seems to agree. Although I am uncomfortable with having to side with someone who was part of the system that attacked me, I think she makes points that are worth reading in this matter:
“It’s disgraceful that anyone would attempt to justify racism towards black Labour MPs and misogyny towards women employees, which has driven many of our members, particularly BAME members, to leave our party in disgust.
“If former officials thought quotes in the report – which are clearly copied and pasted from WhatsApp – were misleading, they would welcome the Forde inquiry having the chance to see the full texts. Instead, they seem to want to stop the inquiry from looking at the evidence because they fear it will confirm the accuracy of the WhatsApp messages.”
Ultimately, the Labour staffers whose WhatsApp chats were used (and we all know who they are, even if we can’t mention the names yet) are unsafe whatever happens.
If the Forde Inquiry publishes the messages in context, so we can all judge them for ourselves, then it seems likely they will be exposed as racists and misogynists (and possibly anti-Semites as well).
If they succeed in blocking it, then we will all draw the obvious conclusion that the inquiry would have revealed them to be racists, misogynists etc and their names will automatically poison anything with which they try to associate themselves.
If I were in their position, I’d let the information be published and allow the public to make an informed choice, rather than try to hide it like a coward.
Chris Williamson: He was subjected to death threats because of the false accusations against him, but the EHRC appears to have attacked him in its report.
A common tactic among right-wingers, when a document is about to be published or a claim made that attacks them, is to undermine the validity of the issuer of that document in some way beforehand.
We’ve seen that happen many times over the last few years, haven’t we?
Often the critical claims have been proved untrue later. Consider all the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn.
Now, with the Equality and Human Rights Commission soon to release its report on alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, that organisation is being buried under a flood of bad publicity.
But it seems unlikely that these claims will be quite as easy to dismiss.
Here’s Chris Williamson: he was the victim of a huge vilification campaign by many of his colleagues on the Labour benches after he made perfectly reasonable comments about the party’s attitude to anti-Semitism complaints in a speech.
The EHRC report comments on his case, and this means he has been allowed to see it in advance. From his response, it seems clear that the organisation has drawn a false conclusion:
I've been named in the EHRC's Draft Report into antisemitism in @UKLabour. The EHRC wants to smear our movement.
I've assembled a legal team to fight this, but I need your support to help meet the £10,000 costs.
He is right to start crowdfunding now. By the time the report comes out – hopefully – he will have raised the funds he needs and will be able to launch his proceedings immediately.
Clearly, he’s not making a wild accusation; people don’t take others to court frivolously unless they want to be penalised for vexatious litigation (Rachel Riley take note).
It seems the EHRC has already lost any credibility in claims of racism against other people and organisations, though; it has just been revealed that it removed its only black and Muslim commissioners in what the two people involved consider a clear act of racism:
Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece, who at the time was the only Muslim commissioner and Lord Simon Woolley who was the only black commissioner, both lost their positions in November 2012.
At present, it has no black or Muslim members among its board of ten commissioners, which also includes the chair.
“We were too loud for what the new coalition government wanted,” Lord Woolley told Newsweek.
“Our job as commissioners was to do exactly what they were supposed to do, to raise the fundamental issues of tackling race inequality in education, in health, in employment, within the criminal justice system and I saw that as my central role, but it was made very quickly aware to me that that strong voice was not wanted.
“They [the government] didn’t want the voices that challenge the big structural inequalities, which of course is the raison d’être of the commission, and then to work out plans to use its powers to demand change.”
Baroness Hussein-Ece said that she too feared that being vocal about issues of race worked against her.
She said: “We were the ones who spoke more about race. Race equality generally was put on the back burner during that period.”
She described the decision not to reappoint herself and Lord Woolley at the time as an “appalling” thing to do.
“We were told to apply for the next term because it’s a four-year term, our performance was deemed good, and that we should reapply,” she said.
“When we did reapply, we were told we weren’t even shortlisted.”
She also said that she was told by the Equalities Office at the time that more commissioners from business backgrounds were desirable.
The revelation – take note that it came out into the open this week, not in 2012 – has sparked a wave of outrage on the social media (and silence in the Tory-supporting, racist mainstream media). Judge for yourself if the comments are valid:
The much vaunted “race card” can’t even get you a job in the “diversity industry” at the EHRC I have to LAUGH
The EHRC is a conservative racket, and an actively racist organisation. The idea it’s some neutral arbiter of racism is beyond a joke. It’s an insult to us all. https://t.co/Uc2NQlVFJi
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza 🏳️🌈🏴 (@TheMendozaWoman) July 28, 2020
Those same commissioners did nothing about the avoidable deaths of disabled people due to Tory policies. 130K deaths, avoidable deaths due to Tory policies after a FOI request submitted in November 2015 by @MidWalesMike those numbers have more than tripled now and with Covid 1/ https://t.co/qaqdUnkv3P
Always the way, those who shout the most can never walk the walk when needed.
— Alex Braithwaite#BlackLivesMatter#CorbynWasRight🌹 (@labourblackrose) July 28, 2020
Remember this when the usual screamers start baying about Labour being guilty of anti-Semitism, simply because the EHRC is investigating; when the organisation itself is racist, its pronunciations on discrimination mean nothing.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
The Conservative government said its plan to demand ID from voters at elections did not discriminate against black people and those minority ethnic groups, when the only available facts showed that it did.
As far as This Writer is concerned, that is an example of blatant racism – an attempt to deny people who aren’t white their basic democratic right.
Cabinet Office minister Chloe Smith said in June that “the evidence shows there is no impact on any particular demographic group … the evidence of our pilots shows that there is no impact on any particular demographic group from this policy.”
But the Electoral Commission showed information that suggests the exact opposite.
A 2019 report found in Derby, one of the pilot areas, that there was a strong correlation between the proportion of each ward’s population from an Asian background and the number of people not issued with a ballot paper – similar to a 2018 finding in Watford.
But the Commission said, “Polling station staff were not asked to collect demographic data about the people who did not come back, owing to the practical challenges involved in carrying out that data collection exercise.”
It cautioned against drawing any conclusions from the data and said there was not yet sufficient evidence in either direction.
But we can draw conclusions.
If the Tories had wanted to know who would be deprived of the vote, and how badly it affected particular groups, they would have carried out the research. They didn’t.
They then went on to tell falsehoods that the research had been carried out when it hadn’tand that it showed no impact on any demographic group.
You don’t lie about something like this unless you are deliberately trying to harm people from ethnic minorities.
We can only conclude that the Tory voter ID plan is intended to stop black people and those from other ethnic minorities from voting:
The Government claim plans to require ID to vote doesn’t discriminate, but there’s no data to back this up.
Voter ID requirements come straight from the US-style voter suppression play book, and must be opposed by all who value inclusive democracy. https://t.co/dC5xmFrCBY
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. This includes scrolling or continued navigation. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
