I have now read my way through all 851 pages of the suppressed and leaked Labour Party report on its handling of anti-semitism complaints. It is an important document, that is fundamental to understanding a major turning point in UK history, where Northern European social democracy failed to re-establish itself in the UK.
If whoever leaked the document still has access to the vast amount of original source material on which it is based, this is documentation of immense historical value. I would strongly urge them to send the original thousands of emails, texts and messages to Wikileaks to ensure that this is preserved for the public record.
More mundanely, the report is of obvious value as evidence to the Equality and Human Rights Commission as part of its investigation into anti-semitism in the Labour Party. The fact that it has not been officially adopted by the Labour Party does not make any difference to its value as evidence; nor does its status as regards copyright or data protection law.
If, for example, I were to discover evidence of blatant racism, and send that to the EHRC, the EHRC would not refuse to look at that evidence on the grounds it breached the racists’ copyright or rights under the Data Protection Act. These excuses for suppression of the report are just that. I am accordingly myself sending a copy on to the EHRC making just that point. I find it rather troubling that Keir Starmer seems more interested in suppressing this report than acting on its alarming findings – and I say that as someone who is not initially hostile to Starmer.
What are the key points we learn from the report? Well, firstly that there did exist among Labour Party members examples of genuinely shocking and indisputable anti-semitism. It is also true that in many cases the processes of dealing with these individuals did drag on for months or even years. Much of the report is concerned with precisely whose fault that was within the Labour Party.
The report does conclusively refute the accusation that delays were occasioned by Jeremy Corbyn or his office, or that his office displayed any sympathy for anti-semitism. In fact, the opposite is the case. Corbyn’s office showed a proper hatred of anti-semitism, but also an alarming willingness to throw good people under the bus on very flimsy allegations of anti-semitism. pp306-7 The report shows a serious inability to distinguish between real, nasty anti-semitism and opposition to the policies of Israel. Furthermore, this is the attitude of the authors of the report themselves who in many scores of examples take for granted that the accusations of anti-semitism are sufficient to consider the case proven, and accept a number of specified opinions as proof of anti-semitism which are anything but.
The headlines of course have been grabbed by the report’s stunning exposure of the fact that Labour HQ was staffed by right wingers so vehemently anti-Corbyn that they actively wanted the Conservatives to win elections. I think it is important to understand just how right wing they really are. Senior members of staff were messaging each other opposing any increase in corporation tax and opposing re-nationalisation of the railways as “Trot” policies.
The case of the horrible and very right wing John McTernan is instructive. McTernan had taken to writing articles in the Daily Telegraph praising the Tories and attacking Labour, but the Governance and Legal Unit of Party HQ refused to take action against him. They finally took action when he wrote an article urging the Tories to “crush the rail unions” for hampering the operations of private railway companies; but the action taken was to suspend a member who called McTernan out on his Tory support. p.140
John McTernan, meanwhile, formerly involved in New Labour and a delegate to 2016 party conference, was repeatedly reported from 25 July onwards for abusive language on Twitter and elsewhere, including describing Labour MPs who nominated Corbyn as “morons”; tweeting twice that Corbyn was a “traitor”; describing “Corbynistas” as racist; telling an SNP MP that he should “Come down to Peckham and try saying that, mate”; calling Corbyn a “Putin-hugging, terrorist-loving, Trident-hater”; and writing in the Daily Telegraph that all of Corbyn’s supporters were “online trolls”.368
No action was taken, and McTernan received the staff decision “No action – removed at referral”. On 18 August, however, Dan Hogan did report a member of McTernan’s CLP, Omar Baggili, who – in response to an article by McTernan in “The Telegraph” urging the Conservative government to “crush the rail unions once and for all” – tweeted at him “seriously John why haven’t you got yourself a Tory membership card. They’re anti unions & pro privatisation like you.”369 Baggili was suspended for “abuse”.
This is by no means an isolated example. One of my favourites is the case of Andy Bigham (pp538-45), who initially came to the attention of the Governance and Legal Unit for suggesting Corbyn was a traitor and Diane Abbot should be “locked in a box”. This was considered insufficient for action to be taken against him, and incredibly this stance was still maintained even when he subsequently posted that he had voted Conservative, urged others to vote Conservative and became the administrator of a Conservative Party Facebook Group.
Meanwhile left wingers were being thrown out of the party for having advocated a Green vote years before they joined, or for calling MPs who supported the Iraq war “warmonger”. The report makes an overwhelming case that the Governance and Legal Unit of the Labour Party failed to take action on accusations of anti-semitism because it was devoting all of its energies to a factional effort to remove Corbyn supporters from the party.
These right wing staff were hoping for Labour electoral defeats in order to get rid of Corbyn. Senior Labour staff were actually hoping Labour would lose its seat in the Manchester Gorton by-election.
27/02/2017, 16:53 – Patrick Heneghan: Just had discussion at strategy meeting We will meet Steve and Andy next Monday – we are looking at all 3 in May but select in Gorton within 4 weeks Katy will speak to you/Iain
27/02/2017, 16:53 – Patrick Heneghan: From karie
27/02/2017, 16:54 – Patrick Heneghan: They didn’t include us in the discussion.
27/02/2017, 16:54 – Patrick Heneghan: Well let’s hope the lib dems can do it….113
It has long been known that there was tension between Corbyn and Labour HQ staff over allocation of resources to key marginals in the 2017 general election. What I had not known prior to this report is that HQ staff set up another organisation (p.92), based in another building, to divert party funds and secretly channel them to the campaigns of their favoured right wing MPs. On p.103 is detailed the horror expressed by Labour Party HQ staff at the Labour Party’s good performance in the 2017 election. People were “sickened” by the exit poll showing the Tories losing their majority.
The emails and messages quoted throughout the report are a tiny percentage of those available and are, of course, the selection of the authors of the report. That is why I call on them to dump the whole cache, which they say is many tens of thousands, to Wikileaks. One theme which continually crops up in the selected passages for quotation, but a theme on which the authors of the report scarcely comment, is that support for British military attacks abroad appeared to be the touchstone issue for who was “in” and who was “out” with Labour Party HQ staff.
The Manchester terror attack occurred in the middle of the 2017 General Election campaign. Corbyn bravely, and correctly, stated something that had been unsayable in mainstream UK political discourse – that British invasions abroad provoke terrorism at home. Labour Party HQ staff hoped and believed this would sink Corbyn and were actively wishing Labour to fall in the polls. pp 96-7
Jo Greening 09:12: and I shall tell you why it is a peak and the polling was done after the Manchester attack so with a bit of luck this speech will show a clear polling decline and we shall all be able to point to how disgusting they truly are
(now obviously we know it was never real – but that isnt the point in politics!)
Francis Grove-White 09:13: Yeah I’m sure that’s right
Francis Grove-White 09:16: My fears are that: a) the speech won’t go down as badly as it deserves to thanks to the large groundswell of ill-informed opposition to all western interventions. And b) they will use that poll to claim they were on course to win and then Manchester happened. And whether or not JC goes, lots of the membership will buy that argument. Like after the referendum when they distorted the polling and claimed we had overtaken the Tories before the “coup” happpened
Jo Greening 09:17: if this speech gets cut through – as I think it may – it will harden normal people against us definitely in the face of a terror attack normal people do not blame foreign intervention they blame immigration whats more – all they will hear is we dont want to respond strongly we want peace with ISIS it all plays into a bigger picture of how they see corbyn so I have a feeling this will cut through you are right on the second point it has to be up to the MPs though to demonstrate how toxic he is on the doorstep throughout but that this speech particularly was toxic and Manchester had happened when that poll was in the field on the supporters I personally think we are going to do very badly in deed and I think it will shock a lot of them how badly we do including JC so everyone has to be ready when he is in shock it has to be clean and brutal and not involve the party at all in my opinion those crazy people who now make up our membership never want us to win in anycase they are communists and green supporters even if Manchester hadnt happened and we got smashed they would have never changed their minds
Francis Grove-White 09:23: Yeah that’s true
My emphasis added to show just how right wing thinking is at Labour Party HQ.
To return to the failure to deal with cases of anti-semitism, a great deal of the problem appears to have arisen from sheer incompetence of staff. The Labour HQ staff had been inherited from the Blair years, and factional loyalty and a history of right wing political activity related to the Progress agenda were much more important in employment decisions than qualifications or competence. The Governance and Legal Unit, which handled the complaints of anti-semitism, was staffed by vehemently anti-Corbyn right wingers and was a bad actor; but it was also just useless.
The most basic systems were not in place, like a log of complaints/allegations – there was no log at all, let alone by category – and there was therefore no system for tracking the progress of individual cases. Emails went unanswered or even unread for many months, sometimes in email boxes which nobody attended. The epicentre of this incompetence was Sam Matthews, who was to be the star of the BBC’s Panorama programme “Is Labour Anti-Semitic” and the primary source of the allegations that Corbyn’s office was preventing action and protecting anti-semites.
It is impossible to read this report – and I have ploughed through all 851 pages – without coming to the conclusion that Matthews himself was responsible for a great deal of inertia. The report hints throughout that the failure to deal with anti-semitic Labour Party members was a deliberate act by party HQ staff in order to make Corbyn look bad. This evidence does not make that case conclusively, though it certainly does nothing to undermine it. The report expresses the suspicion most clearly in a passage on a period where Sam Matthews started inundating Corbyn’s office with requests for input on anti-semitism cases only later to produce the replies to him as evidence of unhelpful interference. This is a key passage of the Report (LOTO = Corbyn’s office):
However, Matthews’ emails reveal that he was the person who initiated a process of asking LOTO for their views on cases, on the basis that he was asking for their “help”, explicitly saying “it’s really helpful to have your input”. Matthews has also asserted:
“I had been privy to emails where Jeremy Corbyn’s Chief of Staff, Karie Murphy, was responding on a case by case basis on antisemitism in order to not suspend someone who they all knew damn well should be suspended.
I thought I just can’t countenance this.”1290
Matthews’ assertions about Murphy are also untrue. Murphy responded to GLU-GSO on just one case, Craig Allaker, agreeing with Emilie Oldknow’s suggestion of a membership rejection. Murphy’s other emails indicate that she did not want GLU involving LOTO in disciplinary cases and she questioned why Matthews had suddenly started involving them.
The conclusion of the Labour Party is that Matthews and possibly others in GLU-GSO instigated this process of consultation with LOTO, and proposed suspensions in some cases for conduct which GLU had previously not considered to merit any form of disciplinary action. This was later used by the same staff to accuse LOTO of involvement in antisemitism cases or of letting off antisemites, blaming LOTO and Jeremy Corbyn for GLU’s inaction on antisemitism complaints.. It may have been GLU and GSO’s intention to make this accusation when they initiated this process of consulting LOTO.
The report proves conclusively that Matthews’ allegations of unwarranted interference from Corbyn’s office to block anti-semitism action are malicious lies. It does not however conclusively show that his motive for asking for input from Corbyn’s office was to generate material to appear to substantiate his lies, not does it show conclusively that his incompetence and that of the Governance and Legal Unit in general was a deliberate ploy to make Corbyn look bad. These are not, however, unreasonable inferences.
What this report proves beyond any doubt is that the entire thrust of John Ware’s infamous Panorama episode, Is Labour Anti-Semitic, was simply wrong. Corbyn’s office was not responsible for lack of action over anti-semitism. The people responsible were the very people whom Ware chummed up with to make the allegations.
All involved were bad actors, including John Ware. He made no attempt to fairly assess or present the facts, or to hear the counter-arguments of those close to Jeremy Corbyn, and appears at the very best to have accepted an extremely selective presentation of written material from Matthews without proper question. But it is of course worse than that.
John Ware, a freelance journalist, was hired by the BBC to make that documentary despite a long history of anti-Muslim, and specifically anti-Palestinian, propaganda that had previously brought the BBC into disrepute and cost the license fee payer money.
In 2006 a John Ware produced Panorama programme Faith, Hate and Charity made deeply damaging false accusations about involvement with terrorism by Palestinian relief charity Interpal and caused the BBC to have to pay substantial damages to the director of another charity, Islamic Relief. Both Interpal and Islamic Relief have continually been targeted by the Israeli government.
John Ware has frequently been labeled an Islamophobe, including repeatedly by the Muslim Council of Britain. There is a double standard at play here. I suggest to you that it is simply the case that the BBC would never commission somebody denounced as “anti-semitic” by the Board of Deputies, more than once, to film a Panorama.
John Ware is proud of his activism for zionism. In 2016 Ware had a paid propaganda tour of Israel as part of a “Commitment Award” from the World Women’s International Zionist Organisation. Ware is perfectly entitled to write articles for the Jewish Chronicle attacking the BDS movement, and he is entitled to his views. But in the BBC Panorama Is Labour anti-Semitic? programme, Ware posed not as a strong pro-Israel propagandist, but as an independent journalist conducting unbiased investigation. In so doing, he allowed Sam Matthews and numerous other Labour staff members to put forward lie after lie after lie, which Ware appeared to validate, as is conclusively proven by this 851 page report.
I am not in a position to know whether John Ware knowingly connived in the lies, or whether he was so blinded by his deeply felt zionist ideology that he allowed himself to be taken in. I do know that today John Ware is engaged in fronting an attempt to takeover the Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News, which has drawn criticism from within the Jewish community because the source of its finance is secret. It was plainly wrong for the BBC to hire somebody with the obvious axe to grind of John Ware to make a Panorama documentary on this subject.
Like the rest of the mainstream media, and like Keir Starmer, the BBC has taken the excuse of this Labour report “breaching the data protection act” to avoid reporting the contradiction of the lies the BBC spewed out for years. You wont find Nick Robinson, Laura Keunssberg or Andrew Neil tweeting enthusiastically about this story. Never have journalists been so united in refusing hard news information because of the dubious legal basis – though unquestioned first rate source and access – of the leak. The Guardian for four years ran up to twenty “Corbyn anti-semitism” stories and columns a week. Their only action on this report has been to denigrate it by reporting gleefully that the Labour Party may be sued for large sums under the Data Protection Act.
To turn to the report itself, it contains so many examples of Corbyn’s office pressing the Governance and Legal Unit to shove alleged anti-semites out of the party quickly, that I am not going to detail them here, but it includes all the high profile cases including Ken Livingstone, Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker etc. It is plain from reading the report that the Governance and Legal Unit were both lackadaisical and incompetent – complaints against anti-semitism were a minority of complaints they received, and complaints of sexual harrassment were receiving even less action (p.264). But sporadically the party machinery appears more concerned to give a fair hearing than Corbyn’s office, who would just shoot anyone the Guardian requested.
There are horrific examples of anti-semitism within the report, but also instances where I would query the categorisation as anti-semitism not only of Labour HQ at the time, but of this report.
At p.214 a case is given of somebody deemed an anti-semite for quoting the Rothschild involvement in Genie Energy fracking in the Golan Heights. Now I claim to be the person who first broke this story to a wider audience, (after finding it in the trade press), and it is completely true. Here is Genie Energy’s own press release.
Mineral exploitation of the occupied Syrian Global Heights by the occupying power is illegal in international law. Shale gas drilling is highly problematic environmentally. It is Genie Energy’s own company press release which led with the involvement of Jacob Rothschild (and Rupert Murdoch).
Claude Pupkin, CEO of Genie Oil and Gas, commented, “Genie’s success will ultimately depend, in part, on access to the expertise of the oil and gas industry and to the financial markets. Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch are extremely well regarded by and connected to leaders in these sectors. Their guidance and participation will prove invaluable.”
“I am grateful to Howard Jonas and IDT for the opportunity to invest in this important initiative,” Lord Rothschild said. “Rupert Murdoch’s extraordinary achievements speak for themselves and we are very pleased he has agreed to be our partner. Genie Energy is making good technological progress to tap the world’s substantial oil shale deposits which could transform the future prospects of Israel, the Middle East and our allies around the world.”
I perfectly accept that there is a fundamental strain of anti-semitism that accuses the Rothschilds and other “Jewish bankers” of controlling world capitalism, and that this is dangerous and harmful nonsense beloved of the Nazis. The Labour report actually gives some examples of precisely that. But you cannot move from there to the position that any criticism of any specific action of the Rothschild family is therefore anti-semitism. To criticise their involvement in illegally fracking on the occupied Golan Heights is perfectly legitimate journalism. It is not an anti-semitic trope.
Similarly it is cited repeatedly (eg p.461) as “anti-semitism” to claim Israeli involvement with ISIS. Why is that? Nobody seriously disputes that the most important diplomatic change in the Middle East of the last decade has been the de facto alliance of Israel and Saudi Arabia (together with most of the GCC), aimed squarely at Iran. Nobody seriously disputes that ISIS, Daesh and Al Nusra have all been enabled at a fundamental level by Saudi and GCC funding and supplies. Some, but very few, analysts genuinely deny western assistance to those jihadi factions when operating against Syria. Nobody disputes the hostility between Isis/Daesh/Al Nusra and not only Hezbollah but also Hamas.
ISIS/Daesh/Al Nusra are the allies of Israel’s allies and the enemies of Israel’s enemies. It is not in the least irrational, nor anti-semitic, to posit possible cooperation. Personally I doubt there has been much – the Israelis are not as foolhardy as the Americans. The odd supportive air strike at Saudi urging, or targeted aid, or intelligence feed perhaps. There may be more. But the idea that it is anti-semitic to suggest Israeli aid to ISIS is wrong, and brings inyo play the question of the use of accusations of anti-semitism to chill legitimate analysis and criticism of Israel.
On Ken Livingstone, I do not think in the least that Ken is an anti-semite. I do however think he is wrong. I have always found the discourse around Nazi/Zionist links disturbing and generally anti-semitic in motivation. Of course there may have been contact at some early stage between Nazis who wished to eradicate Jews from Europe, and Zionists who wished Jews to move to Israel. But what purpose is there in pointing that out? The Jew-hatred of the Nazis is indisputable, and any misguided Zionist who tried to deal with them was not therefore a Nazi supporter. It is a pointless discussion with highly unpleasant undertones. How Ken was entrapped into it I struggle to understand.
The report is desperate to be seen as approving Labour’s now toughness on anti-semitism, and therefore endorses the characterisation of people as anti-semites whom I know not to be. Several instances are given of quoting or linking to Gilad Atzmon as evidence of anti-semitism, seemingly with no need felt to analyse the particular Atzmon article being quoted. Atzmon is of course an Israeli Jew of controversial views particularly on Jewish identity, but it ought not to be axiomatic that to refer to Atzmon is anti-semitic.
Some of this is troubling. We are all more aware nowadays of historic involvement in the slave trade. The BBC recently did some excellent programmes on Scotland and the slave trade. Yet the report contains an analysis by the Community Security Trust p.363 that states that to discuss Jewish involvement in the slave trade (in the instance in question, it was a Jewish person discussing) is an anti-semitic trope. The dangers of this approach are obvious. I have not studied it, and I doubt that Jewish involvement in the slave trade was as bad as Scottish. But I do not doubt it existed, and it ought to be equally as open as Scottish involvement to investigation and comment. You cannot dismiss just everything that may show any group of Jewish people in a bad light as “an anti-semitic trope”.
In short, in my view the report correctly identifies the existence of genuine antisemitism from a small minority of Labour Party members. It correctly identifies that the Labour Party machinery was highly incompetent in dealing with the vast majority of complaints of anti-semitism. It identifies that almost all input from Corbyn’s office was demanding tougher and firmer action. But it makes the error, in its desire to clear the Labour Party of any taint of anti-semitism, of enthusiastically endorsing definitions of anti-semitic behaviour which are so wide as to chill legitimate free speech.
So what conclusions can we form? Well, the first is that Corbyn failed to be sufficiently ruthless in clearing out the quite extraordinarily right wing Blairites that he had inherited as Labour Party HQ staff. The Labour Party is a horribly complex institution, with elected committees, and powerful unions to appease who control the purse strings. But Blair and Brown had managed to create a machine in their own right wing image, and it is hard to read this report without concluding that Corbyn lacked the ruthlessness required in a leader to spot enemies and be rid of them.
But then, his not being a ruthless bastard is why so many people flocked to support Corbyn in the first place.
The second point is that Corbyn’s tactic of constantly attempting to appease the media on anti-semitism was never going to work. The right wing press and TV had no genuine interest in anti-racism, other than as a tool to prevent the possible election of a European style social democratic government. Neither the media nor the Blairites were ever going to reconcile to Corbyn. We will never know what would have happened if he had come out and denounced the witch-hunt as an attempt to stifle supporters of the Palestinians, and spoken openly of Israel’s move to apartheid. He had the nerve to take on the establishment narrative when he stated that British military invasions cause terrorist blowback at home, and won public support. Whether a firm line on Palestine and calling out the witch-hunt would have had a better result than giving way before ten thousand unfair attacks, we can never know.
There are more general points therefore to consider about the nature of power and of political parties. I intend to address these in a further article – including some very worrying similarities with the staff and orientation of SNP HQ.
With grateful thanks to those who donated or subscribed to make this reporting possible.
This article is entirely free to reproduce and publish, including in translation, and I very much hope people will do so actively. Truth shall set us free.
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Reading the article and the many comments I continue to be disgusted by the political stupidity and the gratuitous nastiness of attacking “Israel” and “zionists”, because Israel is a country, not a political movement or an ideology, and it has many people in it who dislike the policies of Likud and other far-right parties, and while “zionism” is political opinion, it is one that is unexceptional and common in its many variants, and many zionists also dislike the policies of Likud and other far-right parties.
Corbyn itself is a great supporter of Israel and of zionism, and has been for decades, as the usual quote from the JC itself proves:
«“The Jewish community is a vibrant and much valued part of our diverse UK society, and I will continue to defend the right to religious freedom and practice, including specifically shechitah and the brit milah, Jewish faith schools, and culturally sensitive youth and social care services. I have a long interest in campaigning for peace and justice in the Middle East, and reiterated my commitment to a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Israelis and Palestinians both have the right to a state, and to live in peace and security.”»
The policies that many people, many jews, or zionists, or israelis included, criticize are not those of Israel and zionism, but those of Likud and other far-right parties like the UK Conservatives; identifying Likud with Israel and zionism is a catastrophic political error, as well as deeply offensive to the many israelis or zionists who despise Likud and its far-right policies, and only benefits Likud and the other far-right parties.
Blissex, I understand what you are talking about, because I’m russian and for some people russian = communism and Stalin 🙂 I agree that generalization is wrong and bad.
I would be grateful for the clarification if the Likud is responsible for shooting Palestinians and for the illegal capture of the Golan Heights and the transfer of rights to the Rothschild? If so, then I will use specifically “Likud”
It is sincere question. Thanks in advance.
A. Likud is led and chaired by Benjamin Netanyahu.
Benjamin Netanyahu is the Israel PM.
Enough said.
Blissex
Your interjection would be valid if you ignore the very basis of Zionism and the declarations of how the state of Israel has started and how it has progressed. Maybe Likud is the current phase but from the very beginning Ben Gurion was very clear that for the state of Israel to succeed they will have to expel the Palestinian. Likud has only taken this a step further and further and now enshrined it in law so that Palestinians have no rights, or diminished rights. If you do not accept that then you do not understand the basic problem which is that only one side here has rights, whereas the Palestinians are just a nuisance to be dealt with.
Likud is the logical conclusion of Zionism, as you say, reflected in the earliest expressions and writings.
Blissex
Your Corbyn quote doesn’t say he supports zionism, it says he supports Judaism. The only reason zionism has changed its meaning from the advancement of The Jewish Faith to the tyranny of Israel is because the tyrants tried to conflate criticism of their tyranny with antisemitism. Israel changed the meaning from its Victorian, purely religious meaning to it’s current opposition to apartheid meaning by trying to be too clever for their own good.
Intellectual dishonesty is like all other types of dishonesty.
The tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
Or as God puts it, ” We did not wrong them. They wronged their own selves. Israel has created a rod for it’s own back by conflating two different things into a single meaning.
It’s absolutely obvious why the Zionist I.e. violently racist Community hates Corbyn. It is because he is right, he is rational, he is polite, he is knowledgeable and he respects the Jewish people and their religion. One person speaking the truth not responsible for the crimes of a political movement. That one person has the courage to not condone criminal behaviour of a very influential group. If police arrest a Mafia boss, do we all go round lamenting the corruption or in efficacy of the police?
I hope we say, from today the world is a safer place.
«Your Corbyn quote doesn’t say he supports zionism, it says he supports Judaism.»
He actually said “reiterated my commitment to a two-state solution” and “Israelis and Palestinians both have the right to a state”, that’s pure and simple zionism (of the two state variety): he supports without any qualification the right to a national state for jews and other israelis separate from a palestinian one. He is not for dissolving Israel and expelling the israelis or jewish israelis from Palestine, and he is not for turning Israel into one state of a secular nature welcoming both jews and palestinians. Zionism in general is the about the establishment of a jewish-character state somewhere, and since a very long time it goes without saying that such a state would be in Palestine.
His difference with Likud and the other far-right parties is that those want a one-state solution of a jewish nature only (and therefore in effect the expulsion of palestinians from west of the Jordan(, which is a commitment in Likud’s charter.
For starters, like Communism, Zionism is not a static entity, it quickly divided into two major trends and then evolved. For few decades after 1945, the dominant trend was “leftists”, and the main opposition “rightists”, ideological descendants of Jabotinsky. However, by now, so-called left totally collapsed, numerically and intellectually. What remains is total domination of maximalist and extreme nationalism, murderous at that. Moreover, followers of that trend dominate all “organized Jewish community”, “anti-anti-Semitism” organization that prepared all those anti-anti-Semitism program, and they are most instrumental in identifying Zionism (by now, completely right wing) with Jewishness, and anti-Zionism (i.e. any questioning of the policies and practices of Israel) with what they term “Jew hatred”.
That leads to some characteristic zigzags, like it is OK to hate Soros in Israel (he seems to be a fossil from the era when “left Zionism” existed) but not in England (where it is “Jew Hatred”).
I was on a receiving end of (traditional) anti-Semitism when I was young, so I would not go so-far as to claim that it is not something to be concern about. However, as Zionism evolved from partially to completely corrupted ideology, so did organized anti-anti-Semitism, and the affair we discuss is an excellent exhibit. The principles of “fighting anti-Semitism” should be abolished (at least, all references to Israel should be deleted), any signing up for those principles should be discouraged, any review of party membership should be focuses solely on denigration of race/religion/culture defined groups, and be very cautions handling critique of right wing ideologists who happen to be members of those groups — like Labour staffers whose hateful messaging and plotting was uncovered. That bunch seems completely Anglo-Saxon, but they have plenty of allies like Labour Friends of Israel who harangued Corbyn on every occasion.
“…should be focuses solely on denigration of race/religion/culture defined groups…”
These are the words with which I agree. Thank you, Piotr, for writing this.
I believe that any discrimination is bad, whether it is aimed at the Jews, or at someone else. In short, there is no bad, worse or the worst discrimination. It cannot be that discrimination of one ethnicity is perceived as a particularly unforgivable crime.
Those who try to show the super-sensitivity and the over-importance of even a faint hint of alleged anti-Semitism, those do a disservice to the Jewish people. Because it is a demonstration of preference for Jews. Emotionally, such preferences give rise to negative emotions in society, because it violates the principle of a normal society where justice and equality are for everyone.
That was put so well. I struggle to explain. Didn’t know the word Likud, but will use it from now. I usually say Israel apartheid Regime/ Netanyahu (uses a lot of letters in twitter!)
Board of Deputies include Rabbi Mirvis? I am concerned false accusations of being an Anti-Semite are being thrown around to control people/smear or disparage people who believe in Palestinian human rights. Or, criticize the regime. The Rabbi Mirvis claimed he spoke for all Jews in UK & most are afraid for their lives, because of Labour/Jeremy Corbyn. I don’t think they do speak for all Jews at all, however, cover that as you must not listen to any fringe groups, even calling Jews anti-Semitic if they disagree with BoD/Likud.
Mirvis was first religious figure ever to intervene/meddle with an election here.
He is a personal friend of Boris Johnson, so was he helping BJ? Or just discrediting JC so he’d not be trusted/listened to, as he was a ‘threat’ to Netanyahu. In terms of ending provision of arms to kill Palestinians, & actively seeking peace.
Quite a while ago, Israeli Lobby were saying they had ‘infiltrated’ Labour. I thought so many in Labour bringing up AS at election time was suspect. Why not before? Now I see I may not have been paranoid at all!
I’d not heard about Labour being infested with anti-Semites, until Mirvis. Many would/do believe him. In any party there will be some who are anti-Semites, racist, etc. JC tried to weed it out, but now this report…
Conservatives lean toward racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, homophobia, & believe they have a right to, for freedom of expression/speech. Cons have much more prejudice, but they don’t get called out on it.
Starmer has done some damage by endorsing claims that anti-Semitism is scourge of Labour and he will rip the poison out. Apologising to BoD/Mirvis/Netanyahu and making it appear their claims were true and he stands with them/signed their rules (not seen the ones for other people prejudiced against).
Jeremy has some things they cannot hope to have: Integrity, honour, stand up for the poor/poorly treated, often a lone voice but speaking for those that cannot speak/defend themselves. Courage to stay true to his principles – mainly protesting for people/rights ie: South Africa & Likud apartheid is the same. He never betrays his beliefs, or lies for self gain.
This is an excellent article apart from just one paragraph:
On Ken Livingstone, I do not think in the least that Ken is an anti-semite. I do however think he is wrong. I have always found the discourse around Nazi/Zionist links disturbing and generally anti-semitic in motivation. Of course there may have been contact at some early stage between Nazis who wished to eradicate Jews from Europe, and Zionists who wished Jews to move to Israel. But what purpose is there in pointing that out? The Jew-hatred of the Nazis is indisputable, and any misguided Zionist who tried to deal with them was not therefore a Nazi supporter. It is a pointless discussion with highly unpleasant undertones. How Ken was entrapped into it I struggle to understand.
Craig asks ‘How Ken was entrapped into it I struggle to understand.’ Perhaps I can help him.
The Zionist movement was not just another ordinary political movement. It ACCEPTED the terms of debate of European anti-Semitism, not just the Nazis, that Jews were a separate nation from those they lived amongst. In other words they were aliens. Let me quote from one of the leaders of the Board of Deputies Lucien in 1917, Lucien Wolfe:
‘I have spent most of my life in combating these very doctrines, when presented to me in the form of anti-Semitism, and I can only regard them as the more dangerous when they come to me in the guise of Zionism. They constitute a capitulation to our enemies.’
In Germany in 1933 the Zionist formed 2-3% of the German Jewish community. They were the volkish Jews. Alone amongst the Jews, they welcomed the rise of the Nazis. They saw it as a golden opportunity
Of course they didn’t envisage the Holocaust which was 8 years away. Nor did many people. But their attitude to the Nazis was to see it as a great boon to the Zionist movement.
Again let me quote the official biographer of Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, Shabtai Teveth from The Burning Ground – 1886-1948. The Chapter on the Holocaust is titled ‘Disaster Means Strength’ and this was the attitude to the rise of the Nazis:
‘The Nazis victory would become “a fertile force for Zionism.”
This can be found in The Seventh Million, by Tom Segev, an Israeli historian and journalist on Ha’aretz. Ben Gurion’s deputy Berl Katznelson was even more explicit:
the rise of Hitler is “an opportunity to build and flourish like none we have ever had or ever will have”.
This quote can be found in Professor Francis Nicosia’s Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi German, p.91.
Craig’s original premise that ‘Zionists who wished Jews to move to Israel’ is wrong. Not only because the country was Palestine not Israel but because the Zionist movement was primarily interested in saving the wealth of German Jewry not the Jews themselves. The Ha’avara agreement that Livingstone referred to only affected rich German Jews, those who could take £1,000 (over 50 times that amount now) out of the country and gain entry to Palestine as capitalists.
When Hitler came to power world Jewry and also the labour movement reacted instantly by mounting an economic boycott of Nazi Germany. There were real possibilities that the Hitler regime could have been destabilised whilst it was weak. The Zionists had other ideas. Ha’avara meant breaking the boycott and enriching Jewish Palestine. Between 1933 and 1939 60% of all capital investment in Jewish Palestine came from Nazi German.
Why does this matter? Isn’t it obvious Craig? In 1976-83 there was the only post-war neo-Nazi regime in Argentina. Despite being less than 1% of the population up to 12.5% of those tortured to death were Jewish. Did you hear even a peep about the anti-Semitism of this junta from Israel? No. On the contrary members of Israel’s Knesset like Shulamit Aloni were prevented from even raising the matter for debate. Why? Well one reason was that Argentina was one of Israel’s most important customers. The Junta was an important customer and during the Falklands war it was the most important one.
Israel was also an unofficial part of the Condor anti-communist alliance in Latin America. It sympathised with America’s death squad regimes and when Congress cut off aid to Argentina and Guatemala, Israel stepped into the breach.
Israel refused to take Jews classified as subversive by the Junta. Israel calls itself a refuge for Jews but when it came down to it Argentina’s Jews were the wrong sort of Jews.
Why raise this? Because there are strong similarities between the attitude of Nazi Germany to the Jews prior to 1939 and Israel today. For example inter racial relationships in Israel, miscegenation is a taboo. Mixed marriage is forbidden. In Israel Arabs are classified in practice as the untermenschen. Israel is an ethno nationalist state just as the European fascist states were and what Viktor Orban is trying to achieve today in Hungary. He wants to see a Christian state just as Israel is a Jewish racial state. All the most anti-Semitic regimes in Europe in the Nazi era defined themselves as Christian – Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia – and they all murdered their Jews even without the help of the Nazis.
That is why it is important. Israel is the bastard child of Hitler’s Germany.
Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia –
I am surprised that you don’t mention Ukraine among these countries.
Every 4th Holocaust victim lived in Ukraine. And modern Ukraine is now quite openly, with the approval of its masters, honoring its heroes of the so-called “liberation army”.
Not to forget Poland, which exterminated 85% of its Jewish population.
Ermm… the Nazis killed the jews of Poland. You know that, don’t you?
Poles continued ethnic cleansing after the defeat of the Nazis. Not only Jews, but also Ukrainians.
Poland for the Poles, do you know this slogan?
I’m horrified by this general carelessness, this tolerance for national discrimination in the modern world. As if the WW2 taught us nothing.
Nationalist movements are everywhere, it seems inevitable in any country in the world.
But look at how this is dealt with: if someone declares “Russia for Russians” those will be convicted, the court will recognize such a movement as extremist and ban it in the country.
But “Ukraine for Ukrainians” receives state support and approval and funding from its Western masters. The same story happens with “Israel for the Jews” – what about condemning their nationalist politics? Quite on the contrary, the British Parliament is full of “friends of Israel” groups, and the United States use every chance to say “we support Israel” and recognises Jerusalem to be the capital city of Israel.
I think you put that rather well except that you still think that people can be Jewish in a zionist colony.
Squeeth
” except that you still think people can beJewish in zionist state “
It will obviously be possible still to be Labour in a right wing dogs breakfast led by red Tories.
It is perfectly possible for those who want to belong to a party to do so. It is impossible for extremists to belong to a party UNLESS that party is held together by an outside force, because by definition extremists cannot unite.
The current Labour Party leadership is a branch of the Tory Party, nothing less.
Tony Geenstein
Thank you for clearing that up. Please bear in mind that , like everybody else, Craig is under intense pressure, threat even, that exposing the inner workings of zionism on his blog will cause either him to be put down , or the blog to be closed down.
The inner workings which are unmentionable are that from Kosovo in the ’80s to Syria now , Britain and Germany have created a fault line schism inside Islam between political Islam , the new over class, consisting of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaida and Daesh on one side, and ordinary traditional Islam as the underclass.
Sometimes comments like this one mysteriously self delete during composition. Sometimes after a few hours. It’s a massive can of worms, the creation of religious I.e. sectarian divisions in the strategy of Divide and Rule. This the absolute cornerstone of 40 years of War in our lifetimes, the parallels between Protestant Supremacy,, Ziionist Supremacy and Islamist Supremacy. .
In a Venn diagram these exactly similar caste divisions exist both independently from each other and also in unison.
The Golan is a place where under the tender supervision of British Jewess Pritti Patel when Overseas Development Minister, she tried to get British State Aid for injured Al Qaida victims who were fighting for Israel in Southern Syria..
She was shunted by May for getting discovered and she has been shunted back by a rigged election in 2019, which is basically the last election ever to be held, at least in Britain.
Giyane – “….which is basically the last election ever to be held, at least in Britain.” I do not dispute that extremely high probability, but we have two stark choices here; either we accept what you say and the dystopian nightmare consequences that are unfolding on a daily basis or we fight to overturn the Covert 2019 Rigged Election and remove this Tory Government from power ASAP. We cannot afford to be complacent and that starts with not assuming that a Progressive Socialist Government will sweep into power in five years time – once you remove “Election” from the equation this pipe dream evaporates and people realize the urgency of the struggle.
The information uncovered by this leaked investigative report is not popular with Starmer as it calls into question the legitimacy of removing Jeremy Corby from his position as Labour Leader. The documents vindicate Corbyn and destroy the credibility of the relentless smear campaign used to vilify him. Overturning the injustice of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election must include correction of the wrongful demonization of Corbyn and his return to the leadership with the team of his choosing. It is a disaster for the country if the Labour Party is forced back to the right of centre so that there is no real progressive choice in the future, even if there were an election, just as there was no choice for so many years before the progressive left came to prominence.
People have told me that the Election is over, there is no going back and we should focus on surviving the Covid 19 crisis. But the Covid 19 crisis and the Covert 2019 Rigged Election are inextricably linked because we cannot prevent the ongoing life threatening consequences of Tory misdirection of Covid 19 without removing the Tory Party from office and that must proceed at pace. This is still possible if we fully investigate the election, expose the truth and appeal to the EU Court while we are still can before the end of the transition period. Please, read, sign, share and Link to this Petition:
https://tinyurl.com/w4u9dwm
2019 TORY LANDSLIDE VICTORY DEMANDS URGENT NATIONWIDE INVESTIGATION.
People rarely understand how dangerous dictatorships can so easily evolve from an initial vote in a democracy to many decades of tyranny, exploitation and slaughter. We have already witnessed the capacity of this hard Right Government to accept the deaths of those they deem expendable, the Tory “Final Solution” for Social Care is the current “Holocaust in Care!“ The culling of our elderly was a political choice, but who will be next? The decade of ideologically driven Austerity has already claimed thousands of lives. Under this current Government who do you think will be punished and forced to pay for the costly Tory blunders and excesses that have exacerbated this Pandemic crisis?
I know you have contributed to our Forum Elections Aftermath: Was our 2019 Vote & the EU Referendum Rigged? Do visit again. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/elections-aftermath-was-our-2019-vote-the-eu-referendum-rigged-toryrig2019/
Hard data. Without it you’ve got nothing. How do you plan to get the data? If you’re for real, what is your plan?
Thanks Tony. A very insightful commentary.
Totally agree with Tony on this. I have added a further comment below which provides a very illuminating account of Nazi engagement with Zionism provided by Asa Winstanley. Tony’s account is equally interesting and has referred to some of the sources Winstanley uses only more extensively. Murray is WRONG on the Livingstone saga and he needs to reflect on why his normally very rational approach went completely out the window!
Wow. Thanks, Tony for an illuminating answer to Craig’s piece. I remember the Ken Livingstone argument well, and also that he said Hitler had espoused Zionism. That is why he was accused of AS. But I didn’t know all the history behind it. Thanks again for a brilliant history lesson. I will be reading more. Julia.
A really good piece of actual researched reporting, it makes me sick to the stomach that a decent man was crucified just because the right wing media didn’t like the idea of paying taxes, didn’t want people to be socially mobile. What has Labour done by throwing two elections, I’ll tell you Craig, the deaths of 43000 people from coronavirus, the very people that a Jeremy Corbyn government would have saved, or at least a good portion of them anyway, I understand that even Jeremy could not save everyone, but he would have locked us down after the first deaths were announced and I doubt he would’ve let 280000 people swan around parts of the country just so they could have a bloody bet. Good work Craig and if you find any of this material, please pass it on.
The “Centrists” were just as complicit. Without their connections in the BBC and The Guardian, the Red Tories would not have achieved so much authority for their lame and malicious smears and lies. But they could guarantee that every word they whispered to their contacts would be blown up and trumpeted in the media. And the game continues. Yesterday Jess Phillips was allowed to promote herself on the BBC. The Guardian is full of fulsome praise for Starmer as “at last” an effective leader etc. The shocking report of the Red Tories’ plotting has been buried. Mockery of and scorn for Mr Corbyn continues. The hacks know their side has won and they are revelling in it.
Bramble, for me Starmer is a complete waste of space as Leader of the Opposition, he is openly a zionist and the creeping grovelly letter he wrote to the President of the Board of Deputies, apologising for something that was completely fabricated. Starmer is a media stooge and a BoD stooge no more no less. Jeremy Corbyn was the most effective Labour Leader of the Opposition this country has ever had in the past 40 years. Starmer is a Tory and has dismissed this very serious report I presume, because he is well in with the right wing HQ mandarins. Corbyn asked intelligent, insightful, relevant questions Starmer – hasn’t got a clue has he. It strikes me that the MSM are still on an anti-Corbyn witch-hunt even though he is no longer Leader of the Opposition. I’m not sure whether the hacks have won really because if they had, they wouldn’t continually push the anti-Corbyn message. So, for me, Corbyn must still pose a serious risk to the establishment and their narrative otherwise this witch-hunt wouldn’t need to continue. Starmer is underwhelming, deceitful, funded by some pro-Israeli lobby groups and quite truthfully, I don’t think understands the nature of politics or opposition. Parliament’s job is to hold the executive to account. Corbyn did that beautifully, professionally, truthfully and decently. Well the MSM can congratulate themselves because we now have an extremely right wing Fascist Government head by a narcissist and a pathological liar, a champagne charlie who has never had to assume any responsibility in life and who, the recent Sunday Times article showed to be not the least bit interested in taking responsibility for the current mismanagement of CV-19. He caused a lot of problems as Foreign Secretary due to his ignorance about foreign policy. So, we have a Fascist government with a moderately less right wing opposition party. I don’t know the actual figure but I would say around 50% of MPs in the HoC are Friends of Israel so our Government is being effectively run by a foreign, apartheid State. What a sorry state of affairs British politics is in.
The politicians and journos know their ideology is offering nothing to the vast majority and that the Tories only clung on because of Brexit.
That’s why they’re continuing to monster Corbyn while gushing about his successor. They know that if government for the rich is to be sustained the Left has to be toxified for another generation.
Keir Starmer was the man who wrote “don’t you dare get cold feet” to the Swedish prosecutors.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/07/star-a07.html
Has the sorry state of British politics been engineered?
Johny, A timely reminder of who the Leader of the Opposition is – or is not – whichever.
@Victor King
You make JC sound like the Messiah when in fact he’s just a very naughty boy! (With thanks to Terry Jones).
I joined a Facebook page, “Heart of British Politics”, because I felt it was both more informative and more constructive to debate with intelligent right wingers, than hang around in friendly echo-chambers of like minded lefties.
I was pleasantly surprised, because many of them were either very instructive if facts or arguments the left often overlook and even when I disagreed, I could appreciate how their opinions were at least an honest expression of characters very different to my own.
Some of them were much less so. They looked with fondness on Pinochet and Franco, or approved the use of torture and murder for political ends. Some of them were rather fixed in their prejudices and immune to argument. And some were just uneducated. But on the whole, I came to respect the virtues of the right, or at least the sincerity of their error, because it was clear that they erred in good faith.
One member made me quit. ANDY BIGHAM made daily posts of every outrageous tabloid accusation against Corbyn. One day he was antisemitic, the next he was a Russian spy, then a communist, then a terrorist. (Quite the Renaissance man apparently. Who knows how he found the time for it all…)
In each case, I challenged Mr. Bigham to debate the point. He never once defended his posts. It was clear he didn’t care if they were true or not. This was so singular, I came to notice it more and more. Day after day, one outrageous accusation after another. But he didn’t care what was true or false. I’m guessing he’s some kind of sociopath. Honor, honesty respect, veracity, accountability, responsibility, all the virtues I had come to respect in many of these right wing members, he had none of that. Such notions were beyond him.
One day I saw another outrageous lie, dreamed up by a Fleet Street hack over two whiskies, faithfully forwarded. Indefensible, a naked lie, and Andy Bigham clearly wasn’t going to respond to any of the comments ripping it apart. He knew it was a lie and he didn’t give a fuck. I sensed someone consumed by hatred and malice. Disgust got the better of me and I blocked the page.
Dominic Berry
“One member made me quit. ANDY BIGHAM made daily posts of every outrageous tabloid accusation against Corbyn. One day he was antisemitic, the next he was a Russian spy, then a communist, then a terrorist.”
Surely the clue is in the name, with echoes of Bigot, quite obviously a professional provocateur/e employed by British Intelligence. You might have blocked them, but you can be sure they are still following you.
Andy Bigham may have been a sociopath, but he was also at one point a member of the labour party. He posted abusive messages about Dianne Abbott, was reported to the Labour Party, but wasn’t expelled. He does appear in the anti-semitism report at page 537.
https://skwawkbox.org/2018/06/09/abbotts-labour-right-abuser-runs-tory-facebook-group/
@ FranzB April 23, 2020 at 19:44
So it was Andy ‘Agent Provocateur’ Bigham? I suspect if the truth were known, many of the ‘really’ anti-Semitic cases were by deliberate saboteurs.
You train them – we buy them still applies.
Ex lefties are numerous in the MSM and in the better a sinner saved ( from Socialism )Labour Party PLP by those who are in really charge.
They have been Chancellors – Home Secretary’s and have held many Cabinet posts.
The genuinely crass ones – the newer intake have never dabbled with left politics – the older one’s have and that is why most of them drink a lot.
Journalists and publishers like Assange and Pilger remind them of all that they once were – when they were alive and had an inquiring mind.
I’ve no doubt though that Robert Peston probably thought joining the Tufty Club as a ten year old could be deemed as ‘ subversive’ and could damage his plotted career.
Hewas pretty good initially on the Financial Crash and folded tamely later – as did Jeremy Bowen in Iraq.
I always thought of Bowen as a decent reporter but he ended up doing a stint on the naff BBC sofa in the early hours of the morning.
He’s back at it now though – he’s learnt his lesson as many others do and are doing now in a Covid world.
May said it out loud three times at PMQs ” You ( Jeremy corbyn ) will never be Prime Minister!”
Did she know something we didn’t know?
I believe she did.
There is also the strange case of Movianto and Oliver Morley.
Revealed: Private firm running UK PPE stockpile was sold in middle of pandemic
Movianto was also involved in legal disputes with firm that built warehouse to store equipment
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/revealed-private-firm-running-uk-ppe-stockpile-was-sold-in-middle-of-pandemic
Morley was at on time head of the DVLA.
YCNMIU
Mary you have prompted me to think with this comment about private UK firms. There can be no doubt at all, and there appears to be good evidence to support the view that the postal votes were seriously tampered with in the General election. The major company who got the contract was owned by Peter Lilley a former cabinet minister under Thatcher. Strangely, a week after the election when questions started to be asked, the company went into liquidation. Scrutiny closed by the Government. You might well remember Peter Lilley’s speech to the Tory Party Conference one year in which he had a ‘roll call’ of people who would ‘not be missed’ from the Benefits system. They were, Single Parents, the elderly, the disabled, the vulnerable and the poor. So, the information you provide about a private firm running UK PPE stockpile was sold in middle of pandemic should be the starting point of the Select Committee responsible to ask serious questions. It seems to me that, in the UK at the present time and for the past 15 years – there is no such thing as truth, investigative journalism to find the truth instead of which there is a mountain of fake news and propaganda put out by the tabloid press posing as facts. We are so far removed from the truth now in the UK I don’t think people know what it is anymore. Sites like these are so welcome because at least they dig for the truth. Thank you for this link – I found it fascinating which is why it got me thinking.
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The lockdown makes no medical sense but is a deliberate ploy by deep state to wreck the economy to stop Brexit and sink Trump under guise of fighting a virus!
Whether it will succeed is another matter due to the indomitable Trump and Boris will emerge from hiding when the curfew is lifted in America.
Hence why New Labour are so quiet, when they should be calling for a lifting of the curfew to help the poor and vulnerable people (who they profess to care for) who are suffering most from the lockdown.
Satire, I assume.
DoctorK
Dave is an ardent Trumpist and believes covid-19 is just like the flu and that we should not panic. He writes extensively in the discussion forum on 911. I know it is difficult to think it is not satire.
Did you see the NZ nurse from St Thomas’s. Jenny McGee, on TV this morning emphasizing that Johnson ‘absolutely needed to be in ITU’? Just because some might have thought otherwise.
Sorry it’s Murdoch’s Sun – https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11460628/boris-johnsons-coronavirus-nurse-intensive-care-battle/
Of course its impossible to know, but initially Boris wanted a partial lockdown like Sweden, and at the first news briefing, the Chief Medical Officer said corona was a mild virus, but potentially serious for the elderly. Hence a partial lockdown with a focus on the vulnerable made medical sense.
But immediately afterwards Boris changed his mind and used a made up report (forecasting 500,000 victims) from ICL to ‘justify’ a national curfew (wrecking the economy and costing lives) and then fell ill, (with corona symptoms) but reportedly never went on a ventilator and curiously according to CNN (deep state propaganda) never had Covid-19 and the Sun report never said what treatment he was given to recover!
Mary, it’s funny it’s trotted out now isn’t it. I wonder how much she was paid for it? We all know Bojo did not have CV-19 he went into hospital to avoid having to take any responsibility for anything to do with CV-19 he did the same thing in the General Election, hiding in fridges, refusing numerous television interviews and debates (including the one for the Tory Party Leadership) and general avoidance because he new the MSM and the Broadcasters would cover his back. They covered his back again. He wasn’t ill he was avoiding. One minute he was in ICU on oxygen (a lot of nurses have said you are never in ICU for oxygen you would be on a Ward), next, half a day later he was allegedly on the Ward sitting up in bed, then he was allegedly back in ICU on a ventilator then he is discharged from hospital and is hiding in his country home free from scrutiny and accountability. It’s just another pack of Bojo’s and Tory lies. This Government are making it up as they go along. Of course it had to be The Sun to run this story didn’t it? Because people are seriously questioning whether he was ill at all so cue in the propaganda machine, Murdoch’s press.
We are witnessing a power grab on a scale never before seen, the biggest transfer of assets from the many to the few in human history. Independent enterprise will be wiped out, its property and markets mopped up by banks and corporations (same thing). Within a couple of years time, we will live under a new world order – constant surveillance, military policing, a cashless economy that controls an individual’s access to money, compulsory ‘medicines’, nations taking orders from the WHO (or some other front organisation).
And the majority of people will still think it is all for their own good.
And comments like this will be punishable.
It’s not Jeremy these people hate, why would they? It’s his ideas – anti austerity, pro affordable housing, antiwar, pro Palestinian rights..
Conversely, it’s why they love Sir Keir.
Matt Kennard
@DCKennard
Corbyn is hated by the British establishment for 1 reason: he’s the opposite of everything they are. Not concerned w/ power or money, he spent his life caring for others + fighting for a better world.
He held a mirror up to the British elite and they saw their rotting reflection
Sarge
I think they hate him and not only sought to destroy him but also to tarnish his reputation into a historical false narrative. This is why this leaked document is so important, it rectified this injustice.
Adam Boulton on Sky News has just had Melanie Phillips and Ian Dunt on discussing PMQs yesterday and in particular, Keir Starmer’s performance.
Phillips was online from Jerusalem in her library and Dunt was online from N London. Phillips was wearing some nasty green/gold velvet outfit. I will look for a clip of the interview.
Dunt v Phillips, polar ends of acceptable political debate – liberal v conservative.
A repeat performance with the same fascist cast but from November. Subject? Anti-semitism of course. This is from Phillips’ blog.
NOVEMBER 7, 2019 MELANIE ADAM BOULTON, IAN DUNT, NEWSPAPER REVIEW, SKY
I took part today with Ian Dunt in our regular newspaper review discussion on Adam Boulton’s Sky show All Out Politics. We ended up talking about just one topic: the issue in the UK’s general election of the antisemitism in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.
Our narrow focus was caused by this week’s dramatic Jewish Chronicle front page. Under a huge headline reading to “To all our fellow British citizens”, it declares: “This front page is addressed not to our usual readers – but to those who would not normally read the Jewish Chronicle. In other words, to non-Jews. This is why”.
The rest of the front page is filled by a JC editorial pointing out the vast majority of British Jews believe Corbyn to be an antisemite, that he has allied with antisemites throughout his career and has actively impeded attempts to deal with the antisemitism in the Labour party. “If this man is chosen as our next prime minister”, it says, “the message will be stark: that our dismay that he could ever be elevated to a prominent role in British politics, and our fears of where that will lead, are irrelevant”.
You can watch the discussion below. Ian and I subsequently did a podcast with Adam Boulton about the election campaign so far, which you can listen to here.’
https://www.melaniephillips.com/sky-papers-review-podcast/
I could not bear to see it.
PS A money spider has just crawled across the laptop screen. Will I be ‘in the money’? LOL
At least from now on we know there are literally no depths to which they will not sink.
Re that particular subject, here’s one to stick in the memory bank.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israel-lobbyist-funded-labours-new-leader
The sheeple will forget though Sarge.
@ Mary April 23, 2020 at 10:19
‘…PS A money spider has just crawled across the laptop screen…’
Did you check it’s back for an antenna?
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@ DoctorK
“Satire, I assume”.
No, a lockdown doesn’t halt a seasonal flu/corona virus. Shielding the vulnerable (preferably in a positive way), can slow it, but targeting the healthy population and economy makes no medical sense, as it makes the cure worse than the disease, which is why it has been denounced by the experts, and those with elementary common sense, and why the decision made Boris sick, after being forced to do make it by deep state, under cover of a sick report by Imperial College London.
The tell tale signs are shown by those in favour and against the criminal lockdown!
Dave, this is a new virus, humanity has not yet encountered it. Several strains spread at once, some of which are hundreds of times more infectious than others. It is known that the virus seriously affects the lungs, but no one knows what the delayed effects may be. Perhaps a lifelong disability.
The governments of all countries are doing the only possible thing – they give time for doctors to provide the best assistance to the greatest number of people, and also give time for researchers to find medicines and vaccines.
You can’t treat this as seasonal flu. Please stay home.
There are billions of microscopic viruses all around us in the air, most not examined by scientists, and most lumped together as “flu”. A strong immune system zaps the viruses, and following an infection we recover with immunity, to that particular strain, but no lasting immunity because the viruses are forever mutating. However the elderly and those with underlying health (respiratory) problems are particularly vulnerable.
Its as futile to try and stop these viruses, as trying to stop the rain, and so the way to manage them is by strengthening the immune system by eating well and exercising in the sunshine, not by “self-isolating”. And if we care about the vulnerable that is where new resources need to be focused, not underwriting an entire economy.
And the nonsense promoted otherwise is part of the scam to promote mandatory vaccines, to make the Big Drug Pushers rich, but which (even if they are of any benefit) are not needed by people who are healthy and risk making many people ill due to side effects.
I.e. Get out and about.
Dave, just fragments of rumors for your consideration: with a shortage of lung ventilation devices, doctors will have to make a choice. Smth like ‘people over 80 don’t get lung ventilation. People from 70 to 80 years old – if they have a systemic disease of one organ system – don’t get lung ventilation. People from 60 to 70 years old – if they have diseases of two or more organ systems – do not get lung ventilation.’
The shortage of hospital beds and equipment can be smoothed out by restraining the spread of the virus. So far, there is no test programm to know who is sick and who is healthy. Therefore, they isolate everyone.
The lockdown hasn’t stopped people dying and never could, but the fear-mongering has resulted in a rush to provide ventilators without a proper diagnosis of the corona virus. It transpires corona patients are sufferings from a form of high altitude sickness, shortage of oxygen, needing high amounts of oxygen to be provided, but not via invasive ventilators which are more likely to damage the lungs and kill the patient.
Not even the Tory government bothered denying CV19 is a super-infectious, deadly virus. They always accepted it was, but recognised therein a huge opportunity. Namely….to dispatch a good portion of the elderly (or in the Bozo-Cummings frame economically unproductive spongers) without adversely impacting “the economy” (or specifically, quarterly dividends and bonuses.) Unfortunately the public and other governments didn’t share that instinctive for eugenic culling so the Tories were forced to institute this lockdown. But you know – as every true blue guy and gal does – it’s your duty to get out and about to try and reduce the exchequer’s pensions bill and forestall any further drop in corporate profits.
Well I do deny that the virus is all that deadly or infectious. I am based in China close to Hubei about 300 km from Wuhan, my town is in a rural area with a high number of migratory workers, many of whom came back from Wuhan for CNY. This made our area quite a hotspot and a lot of my colleagues and neighbors caught it – none of them were hospitalised none of them died. A lot of them didn’t even pass it on to their wives or kids.
I caught it and because I had had a very exhausting couple of weeks travelling it hit me harder than most, I was not hospitalised I just had to rest up for about a week.
I would say its exactly as bad as a nasty dose of Flu, not a cold or manflu. Pretty serious if you are very weak but just inconvenient if you are in fair health.
I have to say I am surprised at how credulous people on this site (and the left generally) are with regard to this epidemic and the general overreaction/ police state. Just because you find Boris /Cummings/Trump distasteful does not mean that lockdown is the correct course.
Well they’re obviously perpetuating the hoax too because the countries they govern are also in lockdown. Is there anyone we can trust?
Certain “isms” have been deployed by the powerful to defend their privilege. That is the powerful de facto outlaw an “ism”, making everyone guilty, but its enforced in a partisan way. So the powerful decide who is or isn’t guilty of an “ism”, and if you accuse the powerful of an “ism”, (as surely an “ism” cuts both ways) the powerful deem it more evidence of your guilt.
In other words deploying the “ism” is the way the powerful defend their privilege under the guise of an impartial, well-meaning, law, similar as practiced in the old Soviet Union. Its clever legalese and thoroughly dishonest, but it amounts to, we the powerful decide whether you are guilty or not and then it becomes a loyalty test.
I.e. Its not really about whether Corbyn is “anti-Semitic” or not, its whether you are for or against the Israel lobby, and alas for most careerists, its not a difficult choice. And this double-standard is enshrined in law, such as “Hate Crime” legislation, which protects the powerful under guise of defending the weak.
Dave
As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted:
Giyane April 21, 2020 at 01:31
John Manning
” The Jewish people that moved to Israel were not people who had recently departed the Middle East.”
Two points, firstly Mythology is timeless
And secondly an example of somebody who had recently moved from the Middle East was Rabin who was from Kurdistan, the country of the Captivity more tha 500 years before Christ. Pbuh.
If you go to Pembrokeshire they talk about St David as if he was around recently. Antisemitism has many prongs, one of which is being opposed to the mythology of Jews having once been a chosen race, custodians of islamic monotheism.
It was a chosen race but it forfeited that position after they tried to kill Christ pbuh.
Another prong is the strange fact that the British Empire acquired Palestine from the Ottoman Caliphate in a war against Germany before the holocaust had happened.
That was strange because the same Zionists who supported Israel were apparently unaware of Germany’s Protestant mythology of antisemitism.
The holocaust created a new mythology that Jewish settlers in Palestine were free to be terrorists because of the holocaust, and that Zionist mythology we know today creates another prong of antisemitism, antiterrorism, which Corbyn conceded to the Zionist community’s definition. We must all now shut up about Israel apartheid terrorism.
Well into the realms of mythology is the unspeakable hint that 40 years of continuous war by the proxy Al Qaida, and direct bombing of the Middle East, could be for the benefit of Israel, and not for the benefit of the terrorised or bombed inhabitants of the Middle East.
And after that , in air so thin and rareified in mythology as to require oxygen masks, so unthinkable is the mythology to liberal democracy, is the worse than sheep shagging or homosexuality concept that the West hates Islam.
Which of course is the awful truth that Muslims have known since Islam was born.
That’s why Britain’s colonial conquests and defeats are all wrapped up in the opaque smog of mythology, to stop people seeing what this shitty little country is doing. Yes, Jeremy Corbyn appeared for a long time to be wheezing and stumbling in this pea soup of colonial camouflage, but his heart was in the right place.
My favourite cartoon by Steve Bell is when Corbyn is invited by Mrs May to Downing Street, supposedly to discuss Brexit, and like Marley’s Ghost , the bike stand in the pavement appears to be BoJo’s bum. The british establishment is as creative as the Author of Beowulf at depicting raw politics as existential fears from the mythological imagination.
“If you go to Pembrokeshire they talk about St David as if he was around recently.”
No we don’t.
Missourri Sues China
When China was locking down, they called it a dictatorship.
Now that Covid 19 is killing them those over-exaggerating dictators were lying about the dangerous ness of the virus.
Can these people actually see themselves?
New type of psychosis to be called Tugendhat Syndrome.
The Guardian reports the JC’s gratitude to private donors who “allowed the JC to survive long enough to _help_ to see off Jeremy Corbyn and friends”.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/23/jewish-chronicle-saved-by-consortium-after-messy-takeover-battle
Robbie Gibb seems to have the usual C.V. Worked for the Tories, then worked for the BBC (where he was in charge of the Andrew Neill and Andrew Marr show and political output in general), then back to the Tories in 2017 (after the election) to work for May. I wonder if he was sacked from the BBC because the Labour party did better than expected in 2017?
The independent neutral journalist John Ware (not) has got himself a new possession.
The Jewish Chronicle has been sold to a consortium fronted by Theresa May’s former director of communications, saving the historic newspaper following a brief but messy takeover battle.
The winning bid was led by Sir Robbie Gibb, a former BBC executive who worked in Downing Street throughout the Brexit negotiation process. It is also backed by a group including former charity commission chairman William Shawcross, ex-Labour MP John Woodcock, and journalist John Ware who made a recent Panorama investigation into allegations of antisemitism in the Labour party.
A report in the The Guardian talks about how the consortium has won a bid to save the JC from receivership.
Sorry the link is here
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/23/jewish-chronicle-saved-by-consortium-after-messy-takeover-battle
‘S’ had just said the same SA.
Ref Robbie Gibb. Craig was on to him in August 2017.
‘The British media is obsessed with Scaramucci doing the fandango, but there has been little or no adverse comment on his UK opposite number, Robbie Gibb, appointed by Theresa May as Director of Communications in No. 10. And where had Gibb previously been picking up a very large salary? The BBC, as the editor of the programmes of arch Tory, Andrew Neil. Now Gibb is on the right of the Tory Party with close personal contacts to UKIP. He had picked up his plumb job in the BBC straight from working for – the Tory Party. He was a very junior journalist very early in his career, but it was his Tory Party connections that got him the executive BBC job. His brother is a Tory minister. And now he has gone back again through the Tory/BBC revolving door to continue his career as a Tory propagandist – the entire career entirely paid for by you and me, as taxpayers and license payers.
The other candidate for the No. 10 job was another highly paid BBC Tory, Diplomatic Editor James Landale.’
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/08/real-problem-bbc/
So was Red Pepper – https://www.redpepper.org.uk/going-from-a-top-bbc-job-to-tory-spin-chief-should-be-banned-its-that-simple/
Robbie Gibb’s older brother is Nick Gibb. An education Minister under Cameron and a spad to various ministers previously. Before he joined KPMG as a trainee accountant, he visited the Kibbutz Meron on the Golan Heights considered illegally occupied after the 6 Day War. We can see where he was coming from.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Gibb
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/relative-values-nick-gibb-michael-simmonds-lgbt-schools-minister-interview-nl2pfnzvr
Their mother must have been very proud of her two sons. Robbie Gibb is currently Senior Adviser with the global strategic communications firm Kekst CNC & Newspaper columnist. Former Director of Comms, No.10 & Former Head of BBC Westminster. https://twitter.com/robbiegibb?l
“The winning bid [for the Jewish Chronicle] was led by Sir Robbie Gibb, a former BBC executive who worked in Downing Street throughout the Brexit negotiation process. It is also backed by a group including former charity commission chairman William Shawcross, ex-Labour MP John Woodcock […]”
“Woodcock is in a relationship with the journalist Isabel Hardman, assistant editor of the The Spectator magazine”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Woodcock_(politician)#Personal_life
One of the most popular Spectator columnists (amongst its readers at least) is the antisemiticTaki Theodoracopulos:
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/conservative-antisemitism-the-strange-case-of-boris-johnson-richard-spencer-and-gavin-mcinnes/
THE HYPOCRISY MAKES ME SICK.
Wasn’t Isabel Hardman behind the leak about the UK Ambassador’s opinion of Trump. Was this part of a deeper plot to get rid of Kim Darroch, who had a negative opinion of Netanyahu?
Re John Woodcock, I wonder if Starmer will try and get all of these renegades -Woodcock, Austin, Mann, Berger, Smeeth – back into the Labour party?
FranzB – please, don’t even mention it because he probably will. But they left the Labour Party to form another one and it failed so they defected to the Lib Dems. Smeeth? Glad to see the back of her, really. I sincerely hope this doesn’t happen.
I think you will find that the subject of a possible world famine has been raised by contributors to this blog. Are you virtue signalling Loony?
My comment was actually inspired by a comment of your own in which you discussed the vitally important topic of the clothing worn by someone called Melanie Phillips.
Not virtue signalling but an attempt to obliquely reference the inanity that is manifest.
Craig is right not to be overly hostile to Starmer, not every non-Corbynite is certain to be another Blair. Blair is in a special category of RW awfulness that is unlikely to be repeated. Both at HQ level ,the form of Blairite true believers have gone and the shadow cabinet seems balanced.
Have you read(googled) ‘Starmer’s 10 pledges’? Titled ‘My pledges to you’. Pledges that certainly aided his ascendancy. No vague wishy-washy Edstone type pledges these. Some are very specific; like the pledge 8 ….Abolish the House of Lords – replace it with an elected chamber of regions and nations. Of course, he’d have to follow through on them. But Labour isn’t completely lost to the right again as Galloway suggests.
If he bins all those pledges it will get as much coverage as this report. (Btw, Galloway called Blsir straight out of the gate.)
Maybe, but The Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs is fairly large when you see all the names and they’ll hold him to the pledges. Plus he’s going to try to keep that balanced cabinet. Simply assuming he’s certain to backslide on them is to be a bit too negative. He’s put his reputation behind them and asked people to share/retweet them. Collectively they represent a radical, discernibly left agenda, if implemented.
1. Economic justice
Increase income tax for the top 5% of earners, reverse the Tories’ cuts in corporation tax and clamp down on tax avoidance, particularly of large corporations. No stepping back from our core principles.
2. Social justice
Abolish Universal Credit and end the Tories’ cruel sanctions regime. Set a national goal for wellbeing to make health as important as GDP; Invest in services that help shift to a preventative approach. Stand up for universal services and defend our NHS. Support the abolition of tuition fees and invest in lifelong learning.
3. Climate justice
Put the Green New Deal at the heart of everything we do. There is no issue more important to our future than the climate emergency. A Clean Air Act to tackle pollution locally. Demand international action on climate rights.
4. Promote peace and human rights
No more illegal wars. Introduce a Prevention of Military Intervention Act and put human rights at the heart of foreign policy. Review all UK arms sales and make us a force for international peace and justice.
5. Common ownership
Public services should be in public hands, not making profits for shareholders. Support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water; end outsourcing in our NHS, local government and justice system.
6. Defend migrants’ rights
Full voting rights for EU nationals. Defend free movement as we leave the EU. An immigration system based on compassion and dignity. End indefinite detention and call for the closure of centres such as Yarl’s Wood.
7. Strengthen workers’ rights and trade unions
Work shoulder to shoulder with trade unions to stand up for working people, tackle insecure work and low pay. Repeal the Trade Union Act. Oppose Tory attacks on the right to take industrial action and the weakening of workplace rights.
8. Radical devolution of power, wealth and opportunity
Push power, wealth and opportunity away from Whitehall. A federal system to devolve powers – including through regional investment banks and control over regional industrial strategy. Abolish the House of Lords – replace it with an elected chamber of regions and nations.
9. Equality
Pull down obstacles that limit opportunities and talent. We are the party of the Equal Pay Act, Sure Start, BAME representation and the abolition of Section 28 – we must build on that for a new decade.
10. Effective opposition to the Tories
Forensic, effective opposition to the Tories in Parliament – linked up to our mass membership and a professional election operation. Never lose sight of the votes ‘lent’ to the Tories in 2019. Unite our party, promote pluralism and improve our culture. Robust action to eradicate the scourge of antisemitism. Maintain our collective links with the unions.
———————–
I’d imagine Pledge 4 is particularly important. We’ve heard ‘ethical foreign policy’ before of course, obviously easier said than done.
But without voting reform, there’s a big hole in the bucket!
I agree, PR for Westminster would create a more representative parliament – one that in all probability would no longer dominated by the reactionary right. A more balanced European, social democratic flavoured parliament.
But Corbyn never really spoke up in favour of PR for Westminster, and let’s be honest, if he couldn’t get a grip of the vicious Blairites who dominated the party’s HQ, what chance of him persuading a reluctant PLP to jeopardise their ‘safe seats’ by supporting PR?
Goose, Stoogie Starmer will do what the MSM and the BoD tell him to do. If they don’t agree with these ten pledges he’ll ditch them faster than you can say MSM Stooge.
I doubt the left will learn anything signifcant from Corbyn’s brief time as leader of the Labour Party. It was a nostalgic and rather sentimental attept to breathe new life into social democracy in the UK and it failed, because, arguably the time has passed for ‘social democracy’, which is why it’s dying or dead as a political ideology.
What stuns me is Corbyn’s lack of strong ideas and the ability to articulate them properly, and the same goes for those around him, his few allies within the Labour Party. They all seemed to lack boldness and confidence and were too willing to accept the role of ‘noble losers’ assigned to them by the political game or culture.
Trump showed that it was at least possible to confront the bias of the liberal media and win despite their smears and despite being labelled a heretic and a Russian stooge in the pay of Moscow. He had a strong media strategy that turned the attacks on him to his advantage, that showed how biased the media were against a controversial outsider willing to fight for the ordinary people against the elites. Corbyn seemed to desire the approval of the BBC/Guardian to an extraordinary degree.
Even now, he and Labour accept that they were thrashed by the Conservatives, which is the media line on the last election; but what about the combined votes of Labour and the Liberals, the anti-Tory majority, who in a truly democratic electoral system whould have more seats together than the Tories have now! The structure of UK democracy is designed specifically to create such an ‘undemocratic’ outcome, over and over again; a split in the anti-Tory majority allowing a party with minority support to rule with a thumping majority in parliament against the real will of the people. Yet, Corbyn doesn’t seem particularly angry about yet another ‘stolen’ election by a system designed to produce Tory governments regardless of how the people acutally vote.
What’s certain is that the Labour Party will never let someone like Corbyn become leader again or with his mildly reformist social democratic policies. No candidate will ever be allowed to stand that looks like Corbyn. It’s too risky. He might win? So, all in all, the brief Corbyn experiment has been close to a disaster and I don’t believe the left will learn anything of value from the experience.
I think that the left has learnt plenty from the Corbyn years.
For instance,
there is no depth to which the media and the right won’t go, populists like Trump and Johnson are lying airbags who think of nothing but their own gain and that the next time Israel’s stooges play the antisemitism card call them out and expose them to the ridicule they deserve.
Write on
Trump is an integral part of the elite billionaire cult that rules the US. His petulance and nastiness was not because he is antiestablishment and wanting to drain the swamp it was just mud wrestling amongst filth lovers to gain control of the swamp.
Corbyn was too gentle for the type of dirty politics. I guess the only lesson the left can learn is that modern politics with a biased media cannot be a clean fight. The media that have facilitated the election of this incompetent right wing tory government has a lot to answer for their lack of scrutiny of these Tories who ran such a negative campaign purely relying on smears. That is why it is difficult for the honest left to win elections.
I think Corbyn and those around him were staggeringly incompetent, out of their depth and ill-suited to the roles that were thrust opon them, almost by chance. I never rated Corbyn. What really interested me was the huge popular wave that lifted him up way beyond his pay grade. The wave that he ‘betrayed’ and demobilised bascially because he put the ‘unity’ of his precious Labour Party before everything else. What happened to that wave, all those people who… believed in the (faint) possibility of radical change within a system specifically designed to block radical change? What’s depressing is that Corbyn didn’t even use the power he had properly, when he still had it and allowed it to drain through his fingers like sand. That’s unforgiveable. He was even quoted as saying, in reply to a question about why he never landed a punch on his enemies, even when given the chance… I’m not a boxer! Yet he was standing in the fucking ring facing an opponent who was a boxer and it was a boxing match whether he liked it, or approved of it, or not! It takes a special kind of ‘gentle’ conceit and quiet arrogance to believe one is ‘above’ all of that nastiness.
Thanks For that Detailed Summary Craig
That must have taken great patience and Time .. You have Done in 5 /6 days what the Entire uk media would take a Month to produce. Great reporting.
A lot of very good comments too..As usual for hereabouts
One of the more salient facts in this appalling story is that almost all of the personnel involved came from and went back to the Trade Union movement. It was there that they learned to treat the membership-and ‘civilians’ generally- with the lofty contempt of a Sahib in Bengal two centuries ago. It was there that they learned that the most dangerous people on the planet were those spouting socialist and syndicalist ideas. And that the threat of all threats-the enemy to be fought off at any cost- was democracy.
And this, like the minor key accompaniment of Labour Youth and Student movements where similar habits are inculcated into the brains of careerists, is not accidental. The great source of corruption in the Labour Party has always been the anti-democratic Union leaders. For the most part the Unions, historically, have played the role of damping down the militancy of their members, preventing ‘wildcat’ strikes and making compromises to win contracts without causing too much offense to the powerful and vengeful employers.
As the Unions have been pushed back, reduced to shadows of the powerful forces that they once were, the need to control the membership, to neutralise and silence communists and radical socialists has been the main task of full time Union employees.
It takes a lot of dirty work to produce an Iain McNichol or an Emily Oldknow, just as it once did to produce an Arthur Deakin, or a Morgan Phillips and the Unions, not all of them, and not always in most of them, but on the whole are the source of the sort of operators, foul mouthed, idle, snobbish, racist, nepotistic, greedy and utterly devoted to finding a place in The Establishment we hear in this report.
It is an indication of the political idiocy of Starmer and his fellow Blairites that they seem to believe that they can suppress the report and twist it into a weapon against the left. In this they are quite wrong- it is of no importance at all that the BBC, The Guardian and the rest of the media are ignoring the report or misrepresenting it. That matters not at all- for anyone thinking of joining, remaining in, contributing to the Labour Party this report is going to be very important. And the way that Starmer et al deal with it will determine their fate.
My own view is that what comes next for the Labour Party will make PASOK’s fate seem enviable.
Well said, Bevin!
The trade union movement in its current form is part of the capitalist system. GBS wrote about this. They are a form of gatekeepers to give a semblance of representation of the workers rights through elected representatives, who by their nature of being elevated into management roles become part of the oppressor class.
Mods please delete if this is unwanted, but I don’t know where else to put it and soimething needs to be done.
Nothing from Craig on the report in The Times, carried on Rev Stu’s Twitter feed, that Craig is being charged with Contempt of Court. I assume in some way Craig has been silenced, although I’m not sure on what grounds he could be prevented from disclosing that he has been charged. There needs to be a mass response to this, as the MSM will be marching in lockstep.
My suggestion would be a mass naming of the complainant(s) who can be identified from the MSM coverage of the trial and subsequent articles (e.g Gravelli). They can’t prosecute us all. But it needs to be carefully managed to avoid a small number of individuals finding themselves in the same boat as Craig.
“We are many, they are few…”
Stonky Aye – https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ex-diplomat-craig-murray-charged-over-alex-salmond-trial-pdltrzlch
So ..because I shouted ..Anyhoo here it Be –
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ex-diplomat-craig-murray-charged-over-alex-salmond-trial-pdltrzlch?
I Have Already Assured Some souls that this is Lie..It Fucking better Be.+
Strange Brian that there is no date or attribution to the journalist. Some sort of trickery?
Craig has moved on to another post on Sacoolas.
The Disgusting Lies on Harry Dunn’s Death Must Stop
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/04/the-disgusting-lies-on-harry-dunns-death-must-stop/
Oh man. Good luck Craig, you must be doing something very right to deserve such special treatment.
An outrage if true. A Tyrannical abuse of the law to suppress journalism and free speech.
brilliant summary I knew as a person whose mother was Jewish that reporting in the Guardian Observer opinion writers were on some sort of agenda. The G has not as yet come up with a response. LBC James O’Brian I did write to asking why he did not have interview those with different views understandings. No response a continuation of his anti Corbyn diatribes . I would just switch off. These so members of Labour party should be removed ASP.
dear Craig, just republished your fine article. https://undebtedworld.wixsite.com/undebtedworld/post/craig-murray-that-leaked-labour-party-report
Do you know who authored the report Craig?
I find the analysis here of the Ken Livingstone saga problematic in that it contradicts Craig’s own valid assertion that it is not anti-semitic to merely engage in political or historical debate about Zionism but finds Livingstone’s attempts at doing this distasteful.
Here is the full ‘transcript’ of a twitter thread from Asa Winstanley (15 Apr 2020) that I would like Craig to respond to in the light of his conclusion that Livingstone engaged in “a pointless discussion with highly unpleasant undertones”:
STARTS: “Ken Livingstone did nothing wrong: The bottom line is this: Livingstone was pushed out by Labour, and betrayed by his own comrade Jeremy Corbyn, for the supposed crime of stating historical facts.
(He made a small error in that there was no such thing as Israel in 1932 — it was Palestine.)
But in essence, Livingstone was persecuted for stating a perfectly valid interpretation of history that is supported by well established historical facts.
What he said is well attested by many historians, including the pro-Zionist scholar Francis Nicosia in “The Third Reich and the Palestine Question” and by anti-Zionist Marxist writer Lenni Brenner in “Zionism in the Age of the Dictators”.
Between 1933 all the way up until the early years of WW2, the Nazis financially, logistically and politically supported the German Zionist movement. The Haavara agreement is only the most well-known aspect of this collaboration.
Of course, stating these facts is going to be “offensive” to Zionists. They tend not to like it when you point out the inconvenient historical fact that the German Zionist movement collaborated with Hitler’s Nazi regime — but that doesn’t make it any less of a historical fact.
Hitler was a vicious anti-Semite who — like previous anti-Semites, including Winston Churchill — promoted a fantasy that there was a world conspiracy for Jewish control. He saw Zionism as one component part of that fantasy.
However, as an anti-Jewish racist, Hitler also saw Jews as “racially” incapable of building their own (settler-colonial) state in Palestine. (Unlike the white European empires — especially the British one, which he particularly admired.)
The Hitler regime therefore saw no danger in promoting the German Zionist movement — and did so for years.
The motive for this collaboration was stated openly by Alfred Rosenberg (a key antisemitic ideologue later hanged as a Nazi war criminal) as early as 1919:
“Zionism must be vigorously supported in order to encourage a significant number of German Jews to leave for Palestine or other destinations” (Nicosia, p 25).
In June 1933, only months after Hitler had come to power, the German Zionist Federation wrote to the Fuhrer promoting Zionism and its plan to create a Jewish state in Palestine, in terms that would appeal to the explicit racism of Nazi ideology:
“Zionism believes that the rebirth of the national life of a people, which is now occurring in Germany through the emphasis on its Christian and national character, must also come about among the Jewish people” (Nicosia, 42).
There is evidence of Nazi contacts with an agent for the “labour Zionist” militia, the Haganah: Feivel Polkes.
In 1937 Polkes met in Berlin with SS and Gestapo officials. His main contact was Adolf Eichmann himself (hanged in Israel decades later as a key perpetrator of the Holocaust) (Nicosia, 62-64).
There were even some limited military ties. 300 German pistols were sent to the Haganah in Jaffa between 1933-35. Polkes told Eichmann with appreciation they had been used against Palestinians during the 1936 Arab uprising (Nicosia, 63-64).
All this happened because both Nazis and Zionists agreed on the same antisemitic idea: “Jews in Germany” were not actually real Germans and should leave the country — preferably for Palestine.
It goes even deeper: there’s lots more evidence in the books I cited, but in summary: Ken Livingstone was right.
It’s a historical fact there was material support by Hitler and the Nazis for the German Zionist movement.
Ken should not have been suspended in the first place.” FINISHES
IF, repeat IF, this is a fair analysis, then the question I would like Craig to answer is : why does he object to Livingstone engaging in a debate about historical facts relating to the history of Zionism but has no problem with other people doing the same thing?
IF, repeat IF, Craig is wrong in his assessment of Livingstone’s comments, then I very much hope he will have the courage to do what his adversaries in MSM and elsewhere would never dream of doing – issue a correction and apology to Livingstone.
Reading the above just leaves me so sad. We had a chance to represent the country as government and do real good, and all this awful Machiavellian wickedness robbed us all. Those involved should hang their heads in shame. I hope Jeremy Corbyn one day heads a clean party that people like me can join.
Are you aware that Jeremy has risen from the ashes with a new campaign group, the Project for Peace & Justice?
Read about it and join up: https://thecorbynproject.com
It’s highly inclusive and has garnered enthusiastic support from the many corbynites who are jaded and disillusioned with Starmerism.
Craig – I feel most of your article is very good. I agreed especially with your comments that staff inadequacy didn’t necessarily indicate a deliberate ploy to make Corbyn look bad. My feeling when I read the report was that huge incompetence trumped conspiracy! I also liked your pointing out that criticising a Rothschild for actual wrongdoing is not antisemitism!
However, I do have several reservations.
a) I agree that Corbyn clearly lacked the necessary ruthlessness to deal with staffing issues within Labour’s HQ. He certainly couldn’t impress his personality and politics on the party machine so as to remake it in his political image. But I doubt even Blair or Brown, had they been elected in the same way as Corbyn was, could have achieved very much either. He not only had minimal support among MPs. For most of his time in office, he worked alongside a right-wing dominated NEC, and it was the NEC who hired and fired the staff including the Gen Sec, NOT Corbyn. And when the NEC finally swung just over the left line, Corbyn immediately got his own GEn Sec in and staff started leaving of their own accord.
b) Livingstone may not be antisemitic, but he suffers from the equally serious deficiencies of being too fond of the sound of his own voice and of being unable to apologise. He wasn’t ‘entrapped’ into the Nazi/Zionist discussion. He initiated it! And then stuck determinedly to his guns, when Jewish socialists who supported Corbyn, but had a better historical knowledge of Nazism and Zionism, were busy saying he had got it wrong. His behaviour was incredibly damaging to the work of those Jewish socialists who supported Corbyn and the Palestinians.
c) Most serious, and I have written to you about this before, is your commentary about Gilad Atzmon. You say: ‘Several instances are given of quoting or linking to Gilad Atzmon as evidence of anti-semitism, seemingly with no need felt to analyse the particular Atzmon article being quoted. Atzmon is of course an Israeli Jew of controversial views particularly on Jewish identity, but it ought not to be axiomatic that to refer to Atzmon is anti-semitic.’ Among Jewish and Palestinian socialists and supporters of Palestinian rights, Atzmon has NO credibility whatsoever – because of his antisemitism. It doesn’t matter which article is quoted – if the author is generally discredited and disgraced. The world is full of people (including many Jews and Palestinians) with enormous expertise on Israel, Jewish identity, Palestinian rights etc etc who aren’t a shred antisemitic – quoting Atzmon rather than one of them shows either huge insensitivity or ignorance. I seem to recall last time I wrote to you about this, it was in connection with Chris Williamson referencing Atzmon. I am willing to accept that Williamson knew nothing about Atzmon’s general reputation – and again, I think I recall that when Williamson was brought up to speed, he was very shocked and didn’t reference Atzmon again. If someone else were today to reference Atzmon as an authority without knowing his reputation amongst Jewish and Palestinian socialist supporters of Palestinian rights, again, I would accept ignorance as a defence. But that doesn’t mean your describing Atzmon as ‘an Israeli Jew of controversial views’ is defensible. If you haven’t already read it, I suggest you check out this link: https://jfjfp.com/gilad-atzmon-and-jewishness/. It’s an old post, but a pretty comprehensive one – I don’t think anything has happened to change any of the evaluations it contains. And they are evaluations from people across an enormous spectrum of Palestinian and Jewish opinion.
Atzmon is now so marginal as to be irrelevant – thank goodness. Please don’t give him the oxygen of publicity and even implied legitimacy again. I didn’t understand why you did it last time, and I certainly don’t understand your repetition this time.