Jake Berry: his BBCQT appearance needs to be seen to be believed.
The BBC’s flagship Question Time programme featured an extraordinary display of backstabbing by a Tory MP against his Cabinet replacement.
Former Tory chairman Jake Berry, asked whether his successor Nadhim Zahawi should stay in post after revelations about his tax affairs, started out with a classic ‘resume statement’, praising his party colleague – but then veered off-topic sharply, saying a mechanism should be in place for Zahawi to step back from government while he was being investigated, and be reinstated if vindicated.
It’s not a bad idea but it has been around for some time – it’s called suspension. He would not lose his job as an MP, and could come back later.
Berry then manufactured an argument with Tracy (“Drain the swamp!”) Brabin over the role of independent ethics advisor Sir Laurie Magnus.
Probably the best comment from an audience member came from a GP who said there had been so many similar scandals in the Tory government that it seemed impossible to trust anybody in the party at all.
The debate ranged across all the information that has come out so far and I have tried to ensure that these are all included in the clip, so we can all refer back to it.
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Not a backhander: in fact, Lord Shrewsbury seems to have been open in his dealings with the government and the firm for which he was lobbying. But the activity was not permitted and he should have known.
Crossbench peer Lord Shrewsbury may be suspended from the House of Lords for nine months after he was paid £57,000 after lobbying for the government to buy a firm’s products during the Covid-19 crisis.
What about the Tory peer who (allegedly) took £29 million under similar circumstances, then?
According to the BBC,
The Earl of Shrewsbury was found by the Lords Conduct Committee to have approached ministers on behalf of a company marketing Covid-19 sanitiser products, which he worked for.
The committee recommended he should be suspended for nine months, which is subject to a vote by the upper house.
He was paid £57,000 by healthcare company SpectrumX for his work as a consultant over a period of 19 months between 2020 and 2022.
In 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic, the firm was seeking regulatory approval for products including hand sanitisers and a walk-in disinfectant tunnel.
The peer approached ministers, including then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock to promote the company’s tunnel in return for a £3,000 monthly retainer, the committee’s report found.
He referred himself to the commissioner following allegations about his conduct in relation to the company in the Sunday Times.
Dare we hope that this recommendation indicates the direction of travel for members of either House of Parliament who are found to have broken lobbying rules in such a way – with an increasingly-severe scale of penalties for those found to have broken the rules, depending on the amount of money they took and the effectiveness (or lack of the same) of the product they were touting?
That would be useful with regard to that other case, mentioned above.
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Philosophical: Jeremy Corbyn may not have regained his place in the Parliamentary Labour Party but he retains the high ground.
Leaders of the political party that falsely claims to provide an alternative to the hard-right Conservative government but welcomes the most right-wing of Tories to its ranks with open arms has voted to extend Jeremy Corbyn’s banishment from its Parliamentary membership.
Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee agreed by 23 votes in favour, 14 against and one abstention not to restore the party’s Parliamentary whip to Mr Corbyn after hearing from Chief Whip Alan Campbell, who said the party’s former leader had not apologised nor addressed any of the issues raised against him when his membership was suspended unilaterally by party leader Keir Starmer in November 2020.
Starmer decided to throw Mr Corbyn out after the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) had found that Labour had not been institutionally anti-Semitic under Mr Corbyn’s leadership, but right-wing factionalists had interfered with the party’s handling of complaints in order to bring the socialist then-leader into disrepute.
The EHRC examined 70 cases, of which 42 (60 per cent) were found not to have been investigated in line with the party’s policies at the time.
Mr Corbyn’s response to the EHRC’s finding was wrongly said to be offensive to Jewish people by Starmer. Let’s just check that…
Jeremy Corbyn said when EHRC Report came out, “One antisemite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside & outside the party, as well as by much of the media”
So, right-wingers – with whom Starmer aligns – had tried to mislead the public into thinking Mr Corbyn was responsible for failures to address complaints of anti-Semitism when in fact they were to blame, having done so in order to falsely create an impression that the amount of anti-Semitism in Labour was far greater than was in fact the case – and Mr Corbyn was suspended as a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party for pointing this out?
If anybody should apologise, it seems that person’s name is “Keir Starmer”.
His resignations as party leader, MP and Labour member should follow (in This Writer’s opinion).
But we know that isn’t going to happen. He has spent far too much of the nearly two years he has been leader perverting the party’s rules and procedures to favour himself and his cronies to ever do that!
There is an alternative, though:
Walk away with your head held high, Jeremy Corbyn.
This Writer would certainly agree that it is time for Mr Corbyn to join the left-wing movement that rising outside the Labour Party, which needs socialists far more than they need tepid Tories.
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Daniel Kawczynski: this was his justification for bullying his staff.
Here’s Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham:
Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski is facing a one-day suspension from the Commons after being found to have broken the rules over an apology he gave for bullying parliamentary staff.
So, not only was he found guilty of bullying his own staff – he has now been found guilty of breaking the rules for apologising about it!
The recommendation has been made by the Commons Standards Committee and follows comments the MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham made before he said sorry last June.
The committee ruled that interviews he gave on local radio and with a newspaper before the required apology in the Commons chamber meant he had failed to comply, as the apology was not “unequivocal”.
In its report, the committee said: “Although he says he was sincere by the time he made the apology to the House, he had that morning effectively undermined the sincerity of that apology by broadcasting the fact that he was making it because he was required to do so and he disagreed with the way the case had been conducted.
I wonder if he expected the government to change the rules for him, as it tried to do for his former North Shropshire colleague, Owen Paterson?
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Jeremy Corbyn: the evidence is mounting up in his favour.
A report by the Labour Party has made it clear beyond doubt that Keir Starmer and his (acting) party secretary, David Evans, had no reason to suspend the party membership of former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The suspension was attributed to words spoken by Corbyn after the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its report on allegations of anti-Semitism in Labour.
He said the claims had been blown up out of proportion by people who had political reasons for doing so.
Even EHRC guidance states that Corbyn had every right to say what he did but Starmer stuck to his pop-guns. Now we know he had no right to do so:
According to a section of the report from Labour’s Governance and Legal Unit, his statement “did not contain any overtly discriminatory language on the face of it”.
A panel of the party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) reinstated Corbyn three weeks after his suspension but Starmer used his position as party leader to continue to exclude him from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).
This means Corbyn cannot stand for election as a Labour MP unless or until the suspension is lifted.
Corbyn’s lawyers say Starmer has acted in bad faith and have launched a High Court challenge.
The damning document, showing Starmer had no grounds on which to suspend Corbyn, is part of this action.
Labour isn’t co-operating (what a surprise). It is refusing to provide minutes of meetings where Corbyn’s suspension was discussed, claiming that there are no notes or minutes – and that no back room deal was struck over Corbyn’s future.
It’s an easy thing to say. They were internal meetings and there’s no way – that I can see – that anybody else can prove minutes were taken.
But it would be a huge dereliction of duty if they weren’t.
I’d like to hear from the attendees – particularly Trickett and McCluskey. Was somebody taking notes? If so, what happened to them?
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Please share the image, or even tweet it to @Keir_Starmer if you like it.
The latest victims of Keir Starmer’s politically-motivated purge of Labour Party members – using anti-Semitism as the excuse – are left-wing Jews.
It is perfectly possible for Jewish people to be anti-Semitic, of course.
This Site took Starmer to task for taking donations from one such anti-Semite only two days ago, at the time of writing.
The fact that he takes cash from an anti-Semite (and has apparently ignored demands for him to hand back the money), while victimising innocent people merely highlights the hypocrisy at the heart of his New Pale Blue Labour.
This is not the first time this acclaimed mathematician and philosopher has had his Labour membership suspended. There was no substance to those accusations either.
The other high-profile Jewish suspension was that of Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi – for being “the wrong kind of Jew”, as this video makes clear:
BREAKING: Jewish Socialist Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi has been suspended from the Labour Party pic.twitter.com/7jxlhPIgTC
It wouldn’t surprise me if the video above is the reason for her suspension, even though there is no offensive material in it (unless you’re one of Labour’s current hard-right leadership).
Commentators have drawn the obvious conclusion – that Starmer’s Labour Party is inherently, institutionally anti-Semitic:
The current iteration of the Labour Party is declaring itself not only overtly hostile to leftists but also any Jews who demand the right to think for themselves. If systemic purges of Jews from the Party isn’t anti-Semitism, I do not know what is: https://t.co/1PkkqNiAEj
Maybe I am getting this wrong but labelling jewish people who back Corbyn as 'self-hating jews' and putting them on a list of 'bad Jews' is pretty offensive.
It really has come to something when people supposedly fighting anti-semitism are cheering the suspension of a Jewish socialist who supports Mr Corbyn. Makes you think, eh?! Some nasty people about imo.
2/2 in the Tory Party! Her honesty has been rewarded with a kick in the teeth! Cannot believe what Labour has become! WHEN WE NEEDED YOU MOST, you were nowhere to be seen! Brexit in less than a month & you're too busy with this????
But then, what can you expect from a party that takes huge amounts of money in donations from an anti-Semite?
Meanwhile – and connected: Twitter’s harassment of left-wing political voices continues. After Kerry-Anne Mendoza’s accounts were restored to her, she found herself forced to say this:
And the latest target of the vexatious campaign to suspend left-wing @Twitter accounts is @Cornish_Damo
Someone needs to take action on this. It’s a clear abuse of the reporting process designed to suppress free speech of anti-racists, by racists. It’s targeted harassment.
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza 🏳️🌈🏴 (@TheMendozaWoman) December 3, 2020
It didn’t last long but by now we’re getting used to the tactic and learning how to fight it:
Complain to Twitter UK CEO @Cornish_Damo it is a breach of s1 Protection from Harassment Act and Twitter are complicit in that harrasment by failing to investigate. Make a SAR to Twitter too. pic.twitter.com/OIORorPCBO
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These days, data is digital – and that makes it all-too-easy for unscrupulous people and organisations to leak personal information to third parties in breach of the Data Protection Act and the General Data Protection Regulations. Labour has been doing it for years.
Look at this:
My statement regarding Friday evening's Nottingham East CLP meeting, and my subsequent suspension from the Labour Party: pic.twitter.com/EdrOw3DiOw
Yes, it’s a much more dignified statement than anything put out by the right-wingers responsible for the suspensions, but for This Writer, the really important part is in the very first paragraph.
Ms Regan stated: “I was deeply disappointed to learnfrom the press last Friday that I had been suspended from the Labour Party.”
It is against the law for an organisation such as the Labour Party to share personal information relating to any member with a third party without the member’s consent.
That’s in the UK’s Data Protection Act(s) and in the General Data Protection Regulations to which the UK subscribes.
However, as we all discovered from the verdict in my court case last week (didn’t we?), the law doesn’t count if the organisation (in this case, Labour) can say with a straight face that the leak was carried out by a party officer without the knowledge of their bosses, and they do not know who was responsible for the leak.
The statement doesn’t have to be true. All Labour has to do is fail to provide any information to the contrary. And as the organisation controlling all the information, you can be sure that it won’t be forthcoming.
So Ms Regan found out from the press.
Jeremy Corbyn found out about his suspension from a photographer.
Nadia Whittome found out she had been sacked as a PPS from the Guido Fawkes blog.
There have been many more, back through the years to the moment when…
I found out about my own suspension from a reporter working at the Western Mail, on May 3, 2017.
Labour has been leaking damaging private information about party members to the press for more than three and a half years.
It isn’t legal. But it is clearly de facto party policy.
Obviously the law has to change to close this loophole. I said the same in my article about my court case.
It’s going to be interesting watching Labour opposing the change (or will it?) in Parliament.
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Nadia Whittome: her behaviour is all the more vexing because she has no reason to be loyal to Keir Starmer – he sacked her as a Parliamentary Private Secretary because she voted against a Bill that would have protected soldiers from prosecution if they participated in acts of torture overseas, and briefed the right-wing Guido Fawkes blog about the sacking BEFORE telling her.
A Labour MP who had been considered to be on the left of the party and who said Jeremy Corbyn should be reinstated when his membership was suspended has become a turncoat, it seems.
Despite her own comments about Corbyn, it seems Nadia Whittome does not believe that her peers in the party should have the same right, as she stated in a Tweet following a meeting of Nottingham East Labour Party (she is MP for that constituency but not a member of the CLP):
Nadia, you’ve publicly stated Corbyn should have whip re-instated. Why can’t you extend that right to members in your own CLP? This would at least make sense if you thought Corbyn shouldn’t have whip.
It seems the agenda of last Friday’s CLP meeting included a motion that called for Corbyn’s reinstatement, the lifting of disciplinary measures from others for discussing the issues as well as for the removal of David Evans, General Secretary of the Labour Party, who imposed Corbyn’s suspension and the ban on discussing it that led to the suspensions of other party members.
Ms Whittome objected to the motion, despite having spoken against Corbyn’s suspension herself, it seems.
What are we to make of that? That she considers herself to be above her party colleagues? That she agrees that, while she may discuss such matters with impunity, it is right that rank-and-file party members be suspended for daring to do so? That she thinks party members should not be allowed to register their opposition when party officers flout rules and regulations?
That’s how it looks to This Writer.
Worse, Ms Whittome passed comment on an incident in which a Jewish CLP member left the meeting, claiming they did not feel safe there.
It appears that all was not as she led people to believe. Here‘s a statement from the CLP itself:
“There was only one interruption during the meeting. This arose when one member stated that in his personal experience he had never witnessed any antisemitism in any of our meetings. As he continued with his personal view, another member shouted out – in a manner that some found to be aggressive – that he himself had suffered personal, antisemitic abuse from the person speaking, who was taken aback and stated that this wasn’t true; the Chair intervened and tried to calm things down. At this point the member who had interrupted declared that he no longer felt safe at the meeting and left.
“The member who left has changed his narrative on social media to stating that the member he accused had ‘witnessed an anti-Semitic attack’ on him rather than had attacked him personally.”
Ms Whittome also mentioned the possibility that disciplinary proceedings had been launched against a member of the CLP. This appears to be CLP chair Louise Regan, a former NUT president and (I really hope this has nothing to do with it) vice-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
It seems Ms Regan’s party membership was, in fact, suspended:
Breaking: I understand the chair of Nottingham East CLP has been suspended tonight. This is prompt and effective action by the @UKLabour leadership.
This can only be for allowing the motion to be heard (it was passed by 23 votes to 10). Ms Regan’s conduct during the meeting was described in the CLP statement as “exemplary” and Ms Whittome is said to have joined in thanking her for the way she chaired it.
If that was everything, it would be bad enough, but it seems even worse than that, as evidence has come to light claiming that Ms Whittome actually participated in a smear campaign against Ms Regan. Read:
Nadia's half-hearted support (if you can even call it that) for Jeremy Corbyn and her appalling statement yesterday don't surprise me. She is heavily associated with the Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL), an Islamophobic pseudo-Trotskyist cult that is committed to Zionism. 2/4
Of course, the AWL utterly detest Louise and ran a vicious smear campaign against her during the selection last year. I'm sure they're rubbing their hands with glee today. I hope this episode finally wakes people up to the sort of 'left-wingers' we have in our midst. 4/4
I've just received screenshots of sickening messages from Nadia Whittome, in which she directly participated in the smear campaign against the now-suspended Nottingham East CLP Chair, Louise Regan. Of course, publicly, she denounced the abuse Louise received. See below ↓
These false allegations have been repeated again and again by Nottingham AWL members, with whom Nadia is good friends. The AWL fiercely supported her campaign. Publicly, Nadia denounced the abuse they sent to Louise but, privately, it looks like she was using it to get support.
Maybe Mr Kazmi has his own axe to grind (although, considering the number of Tweets by other people linking Ms Whittome with this AWL group, this seems doubtful). In any case, This Writer will be happy to hear what the MP has to say about all this.
At the moment, it seems likely she has fatally wounded her reputation among the very people on whom she would have to rely in order to be re-elected in any future Parliamentary poll.
And at the very least, it seems likely that she should expect a flood of complaints to Labour’s Governance and Legal Unit, that her comments have brought the party into disrepute – the very charge which, when used against her colleagues, she supported.
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Angela Rayner (here with her boss Keir Starmer): hypocrites – and very possibly anti-Semites without acknowledging it.
Note to Sienna Rodgers at LabourList: the headline on your report is wrong. It should have read Angela Rayner is a big ol’ hypocrite.
In the article, Rayner states that the findings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party are not open to debate:
There’s no debating what the EHRC said.
LabourList also reported another statement she made to the Jewish Labour Movement’s conference – insultingly held on the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinians – that she and Keir Starmer attended rather than support the Palestine solidarity event:
If I have to suspend thousands and thousands of members, we will do that.
The two comments are mutually exclusive. The report clearly states that
We have concluded that the practice of political interference was unlawful… The Labour Party should… implement clear rules and guidance that prohibit and sanction political interference in the complaints process.
Her threat to suspend thousands – a warning that the leadership is planning to purge the party of anybody who dissents against its dictatorship – is itself political interference in the process, as it is an attempt to suppress complaints by members against the actions of the leadership of which she is a member. Therefore she is not only debating the legitimacy of the EHRC’s finding; she is ignoring it altogether.
Remember that this is all about the attack on Jeremy Corbyn by Keir Starmer, party general secretary David Evans, and others at the very top of the Labour leadership including Rayner herself, despite the fact that she once said this:
She is a hypocrite. She has revealed her true colours. She cannot be trusted. She should be ejected from her position of power.
This will be hard because the Labour Party leadership has a well-known track record of rejecting any complaints against its own members and friends, no matter how well-justified they may be.
But we have all seen this behaviour and we are talking about it:
Big from @AngelaRayner as she seems to back suspending ‘thousands and thousands of members’ for wanting to demonstrate support for Jeremy Corbyn having the whip returned.
This whole thing just shows the duplicity and shiftiness of those at the top of the Labour Party.
David Evans explicitly stated the disciplinary process against Corbyn is now over. What we now have is leaders doing the precise opposite of what the EHRC asks for, interfering. https://t.co/mK5JOtVyxZ
Yes, it's 'totally unacceptable' to say precisely what the EHRC report says you can say, and which you have the freedom of speech to say, and which is obviously and provably true, in case it upsets some right-wing bigots.
If this is what @AngelaRayner has said it is dishonest. CLPs are debating whether the whip should be reinstated to Jeremy Corbyn: that is about democratic procedure not antisemitism
Genuine Q: have any CLPs passed motions against EHRC report or that antisemitism isn't a problem? https://t.co/HryXTRFAWm
Could Rayner clarify what, if any, powers she has to suspend "thousands of members" and how her doing that conforms with the EHRC recommendation of an investigation and disciplinary process free of leadership intervention? https://t.co/0ekPF64aj3
Because they ain't listening to us, that's for sure. 😒
— MerryMichaelW 🎗 😷 #T & T #BlackLivesMatter #BDS (@MerryMichaelW) November 29, 2020
With one side of her mouth she spits vitriol at Corbyn for his comments in which he said the EHRC report should be implemented, & with the other she outright defies the EHRC report criticism of political interference in disciplinary cases, saying she'll personally suspend 1,000s! https://t.co/KTOd6IQtIE
“It is not legitimate for the leadership to influence, make recommendations or make decisions on complaints.. The Labour Party needs to restore confidence in the independence of its complaints process”—EHRC
"If I have to suspend thousands & thousands of members…”—Angela Rayner https://t.co/vYzG1G8urK
A disgraceful way of approaching political debate here from Angela Rayner. She is talking about conducting a purge, let's be clear about that: there is no other way to describe this. https://t.co/ff2BJAxw5c
The Labour leadership are now deliberately shitting all over the recommendations of the EHRC report that they've used as an excuse to attack and vilify Jeremy Corbyn (despite the fact he said the EHRC recommendations should be implemented!).
— CrémantCommunarde#ActivistLawyer ⚖️ 🌻 ✋ (@0Calamity) November 29, 2020
There isn't thousands and thousands of antisemites in the party, @AngelaRayner . Corbyn was allowed to comment on the EHRC. He was allowed back to the party. If you fancy to play "I'm the dictator's best mate" go for it. But you showing who you really are and ppl won't forget it https://t.co/HxdFMpammj
And organisations that formerly wanted Rayner’s support and endorsement are now rejecting her. To be honest, I don’t know if the following tweet was connected with what she said on LabourList, but I anticipate that this is the soft footfall that precedes a stampede:
What a massive let-down and huge sell-out @AngelaRayner turned out to be. Please remove your support from the LGBTQ+ community Angela. The oppressed stand with the oppressed, we don't stand with apartheid committing states, and we don't stand with traitors who ignore that.
Oh, and by the way, Labour is not completely irredeemable. Members across the UK did come out in support of Palestine, unlike their treacherous leader and deputy leader. Here’s a tweet from Wales:
Well done to all across Wales who have taken the time to express solidarity with the Palestinian people, who continue to live in dire, oppressive circumstances under a brutal, right-wing Israeli government. 👇✊#palestineday#EndApartheid#StopAnnexationhttps://t.co/F85HpIQeXE
Let’s remember that Rayner – and her vile boss Starmer – are saying that they are taking all this action against the good members of their own party because of hurt, harm and injury done to Jewish people in the UK.
What about the harm done to Jewish people who agree with the viewpoint Rayner, Starmer and the others are attacking?
Genuine question @AngelaRayner@Keir_Starmer will you meet urgently with representatives of the many Jews who support Corbyn and think you are getting this disastrously wrong? If not, why not?
By the way THESE Jews feel you are injuring THEM. Don’t these Jews count Keir, Angela? https://t.co/HeU48hgIbo
That’s right. These Jews feel that Rayner, Starmer and the others are attacking them. And Rayner, Starmer et al treat them as though they don’t even exist.
Isn’t that attitude a little… you know… anti-Semitic?
Finally, Labour’s deplorable leaders need to acknowledge that this confrontation between them and party members arose because the EHRC found that the leadership had been interfering in investigations of anti-Semitism complaints in order to make it seem that there were more anti-Semites in the party than was the case.
A court found only last week that the process of investigating accusations against This Writer – me, Mike Sivier – was perverted in order to produce a false finding against me.
Labour failed to follow its own investigation procedure. It did not adequately inform me of the nature of the allegations against me (in fact, the party changed those claims as it went on, in order to ‘fix’ the result), and a party officer leaked false claims about me – including a lie that I was a Holocaust denier – to The Sunday Times (which subsequently had to publish a lengthy correction).
And I’m not the only one who has suffered this treatment. The EHRC report found that, of the investigations it examined, no fewer than 60 per cent suffered from bias calculated to discriminate against the respondent – against the person accused of anti-Semitism.
Where are the apologies for lying and smearing us? I still receive abusive messages accusing me of anti-Semitism, even now. It may be that I will continue receiving them for the rest of my life. The Labour Party is to blame for that. Where is the contrition? Where is the apology for that?
Keir Starmer: he’s not looking so smug now (image for illustrative purposes only, before anybody points out it’s old).
Keir Starmer dug a deep hole for himself when he allowed Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour membership to be suspended.
This Site has already discussed the fact that it led other party members to protest and they, in turn, were suspended for talking about it – even though Starmer and other members of his party elite had been doing the same.
It has been said that these suspendees were not allowed to vote in the NEC elections that took place while Corbyn’s suspension was ongoing – or rather their votes weren’t counted – so there is already a smell of corruption about the business.
To this may now be added the possibility that it was unlikely Labour would ever have suspended Corbyn because he may have taken the case to court. Corbyn has hundreds of thousands of pounds in a fund that was raised when it seemed he may be sued over the Panorama documentary Is Labour Antisemitic? – and he has the facts on his side; he was well within his rights to say the words that led to his suspension.
And now Starmer’s own supporters have undermined him by complaining. This Writer has engaged with one of them as follows:
If you want an independent process, free of political interference, then why are you interfering in such a political way?
What a good thing most of your claims against Corbyn are false. The remaining one – that he refuses to apologise, may be excused as he has nothing for which TO apologise.
Hodge’s response is, I’m told, mild in comparison with some of the others.
Understand a group of Labour MPs have warned Sir Keir Starmer they may resign the whip if Jeremy Corbyn has the whip reinstated. They're furious, gutted and feel it undermines work done to rebuild bridges with the Jewish community.
I tend to agree with Skwawkbox‘s interpretation of this:
After weeks of bleating about political interference by party leader Jeremy Corbyn (even though his office only intervened to tell heel-dragging right-wing staff to get on with it), they are now demanding political interference by party leader Keir Starmer – and threatening to flounce out unless he does interfere – even though the reinstatement was decided by a right-dominated NEC panel.
These are the same people who have been loudly demanding that the party implement the full conclusions of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report – which bans political interference. Yet as soon as a disciplinary process ends in a result they don’t like, they come over all ‘To hell with that!’, which makes you wonder what kind of ‘independent’ process they’d accept. Of course, the ‘mainstream’ media is pointing out precisely none of this shameless hypocrisy.
You’d almost think the ‘moderates’ weren’t serious about wanting impartial and just outcomes to disciplinary complaints and had just been cynically exploiting an opportunity in a way that can only be described as, well… political.
Starmer has promised to implement all the recommendations of the EHRC report mentioned above – including the ban on political interference. He may not have done it yet but, by demanding it, they are at least breaking the spirit of the new rules Starmer plans to bring in.
And there are all the complaints that have already been made about those of Starmer’s lieutenants who have passed anti-Semitic comments without fear of suspension.
Put it together and Starmer faces corruption accusations from all sides.
By suspending Corbyn supporters, he may be accused of corrupting the NEC elections.
By not suspending his own supporters, he may also be accused of corruption.
Either way, it seems clear he sits at the head of a corrupted Labour Party machine – with himself as the cause of the corruption.
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.
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