In the 15 year history of this blog, I have criticised the Human Rights records of states including Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Burma, Cameroon, China, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Libya, the Maldives, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
The only country of which criticism has resulted in substantial legal and political action against me and attempted censorship is Israel. Criticism of Israel also immediately results in heavy suppression of traffic to my site from the corporate gatekeepers of Twitter, Facebook and Google.
Now a group of witch-hunting UK MPs has written to Amazon to complain that Alexa has quoted my blog on Israel.
It is worth looking at precisely what the MPs are complaining of in my case. Let’s look at the exact passage:
“Question: Is Israel guilty of war crimes?
Answer: Here’s something I found on the web: according to www.craigmurray.org.uk, ethnic cleansing on a massive scale and serial human rights abuse, including war crimes, yes, Israel is guilty of these atrocities.”The website in question includes numerous conspiracy theories.
Now the MP’s of the All Party Group Against Anti-Semitism do not attempt to say what is wrong with this answer. They do not say why it is untrue – in fact, they do not even claim it is untrue. They do not say why it is anti-semitic; presumably, although they do not say as much, they must believe it is anti-semitic for the All Party Parliamentary Group on anti-semitism to be complaining about it. In fact, they ground their objection entirely on an unsubstantiated claim that this website includes conspiracy theories.
I maintain that the answer quoted from my website is self-evidently true and highly capable of proof. It states fact which a large majority of the public would recognise as true. Yet I am told by a journalist from the Times who contacted me, that on the basis of this incoherent letter from self-selecting MP’s, Amazon have blocked Alexa from quoting my website. This is only a tiny example of the removal of access to dissenting opinions – dissenting as in not conforming to the wishes of the political Establishment, although not diverging from objective truth. The trend towards this censorship on the internet is massive.
I am particularly concerned that one of the signatories of the letter is Lisa Cameron, an SNP MP. The statement that “ethnic cleansing on a massive scale and serial human rights abuse, including war crimes, yes, Israel is guilty of these atrocities” is completely in line with longstanding SNP policy on Palestine. Lisa Cameron’s part in having my website blacklisted for an opinion in line with SNP policy is shameful.
But it is not isolated. As I feared, the SNP’s large cohort of MPs at Westminster have become very comfortable there with their life of privilege and large income, and they have been almost entirely captured by Britnat standards and Britnat attitudes. Last week, we had the official party paper on defence policy in which Stewart MacDonald MP and Alyn Smith MP directly jettisoned the party’s long term commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament in favour of “multilateralism” – a long word for no nuclear disarmament ever.
Along exactly the same lines of moving to align with the right wing obsessions of British Nationalism, the SNP’s Stewart Hosie had signed up to the off the wall Russophobic report of Westminster’s Intelligence and Security Committee, a report conditioned by the appalling list of war hawks who were the only ones asked to give evidence.
Land Reform has been reduced to the foundation of a Scottish Land Commission which can put public money towards other funds raised by community groups to buy out great landlords in specific tracts at an assessed “market price”. Yes, the market price. So the great success of the much touted land reform is that it has put £5 million of public money straight into the pocket of the Duke of Buccleuch, for some tiny and insignificant portions of his vast estates, marginal and despoiled moorland he was probably glad to be shot of. The Chair of Buccleuch Estates, Benny Higgins, is also economic adviser to Nicola Sturgeon.
There is much triumphalism at the new “realism” of the Blairite triangulated SNP and its positioning as a “safe” part of the Establishment. How much of the old radicalism of the SNP remains may, in small part, be measured by how many votes I garner in the election for President at the current conference. I fear it may not be a high number.
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https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-11-30/journalists-smear-robert-fisk/
Hopefully one day all of this will be exposed for what it is…
Thanks for this link.
I see the Guardian leads the pack.
Shameful comments. Lowest of the low. CIA/MI6 asset, what can you expect?
If you check the history of Robert Fisk’s Wiki page since his death, you’ll find 7 edits by our old friend Philip Cross. Phil is trying hard to force the inclusion of a link to an article called “Fabrictor and Fraudster” which attacks Fisk’s integrity.
jesus i get sick of this nato propaganda bs.
History is written by the winners. No way will the people behind these vile smears allow themselves not to be winners. They write the rules; they own the outlets; they control the “journalists”. As for those who read or hear the reports: they’ve been prepared to see things only one way too.
If you mean by ‘exposed’ – published and broadcast in the MSM never mind the fake AltSM ? – not going to happen until it’s monopoly and DS narrative control levers are replaced by genuine investigative journalism again.
Not until academia and entertainment arms of the same monopolists and their place men and women are dodos.
Not until the dumbed downton abbey worshipping populace stops the old order and aristo types retaking all the rights our grandparents and their parents fought so hard to gain, like candy from our childlike hands again.
They are fighting a war and attacking us in a long planned and prepared attack – and we think they are cuddly celebs ! From the various glamorous political editors like LauraKoftheCIA down to Rachel ‘the bum’ Riley and it’s shitting AS bs all over Corbyn for the last few years.
We are bombed in this daily Guernica and even love it because they are sirens.
So – no there will not be exposure until they have been defeated first.
The attack on Fisk is ii type coordinated – I wonder if there is some post humour publication he had arranged and there is a major shit throwing taking place. An MO this site knows all about, being a victim of it.
Well, it’s hard to deny that Robert Fisk was far from professional and accurate in some of his output. For a more locally-informed and balanced view from the Left, I recommend the recent piece by As`ad AbuKhalil, the Middle East correspondent for Consortium News, “Robert Fisk & the Decline of Western Reporting on the Middle East” (1 December):
“Just because Fisk was brave against Israel and opposed Western intervention in the Middle East, it should not stop us from pointing out his incompetence, especially on things Lebanese…Fisk was too close to the people he was writing about, especially when those people were corrupt despots, tycoons, or war criminals. I wrote about this in December 2005. He was famously close to the Lebanese sectarian warlord, Walid Jumblat, and avoided writing about him critically, regardless of Jumblat’s political oscillations and opportunistic shifts — not to mention his notorious war crimes and human rights violations during the civil war years (and even after).”
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/12/01/the-angry-arab-robert-fisk-the-decline-of-western-reporting-on-the-middle-east/
All you have to do is look at the journalists piling onto him. Neoliberal establishment war hawks to a man and woman.
Not at all hard to deny James simpson. Fisk was a very good careful journalist who made the effort to check things out. Unusually professional in these soundbite/cut and paste days.
The very worst thing about these vicious and ignorant attempts at vilification & censorship, is that they exemplify the very “ism” that they falsely claim to be challenging.
These false accusations also facilitate the cruellest of ironies, that they are used to target those most able, informed and inclined to fight the worst of the injustices that plague us. It would be naive to imagine that this wasn’t done by design as Murray & Corbyn can no doubt attest.
Most worryingly, it also sets the stage for a reversion to the poisonous “othering” of the very people it promises to protect, promoted by people inhabiting a cosseted and illusory reality of self justified moral supremacy – waging a war of hatred and intolerance dressed up as compassionate sentiment that only promises to facilitate injustice rather than challenge it.
It is the most irrational of arguments and yet has taken such a stranglehold on the main stream narrative that principles of freedom of thought, speech and association are suborned to loyalty oaths, contraventions of “terms & conditions”, cruel character assassination & polemic social exclusion.
A saying that I understand to be from the Caribbean islands, that “you never miss the water ’till your well runs dry” will come back to haunt these pseudo liberals with their lofty rhetoric and insidious paternalism, as we see with the prevalent silencing of dissent across the board by self appointed ministries of truth.
To equate political and social criticism of a nation state with ‘hatred’ of an entire section of the global community according to their religious faith and/or identity, conversely asserts that all those wildly disparate individuals across many continents and cultures must therefore be proponents of that same state’s ideology, policies & actions, regardless of their god given right to an opinion of their own.
There are huge swathes of the “Jewish community” who want nothing to do with supporting the actions of the Israeli state. They can be found on the streets and in campaigns around the world and even in Israel itself, vociferously berating such moral degeneracy as surely as they sat shoulder to shoulder on Freedom buses, in apartheid South Africa, with workers struggling for union rights and in the fights against fascism on the streets and battlefields of Europe & North America. They weren’t merely ‘with’ these unsung social heroes, they were ‘of’ them.
Their faux defenders amongst the mob of self serving political hacks, baying bureautwats and woolly headed, moral supremacist liberals seek to silence them & brand them “unter” as effectively as if they simply pinned a yellow star to their chests – “the wrong sort”, “self hating” or simply non existent.
It is tempting, but a little facetious, to suggest that with friends like Percy, McKinnell & Cameron, who needs Nazis??
While that appeals to my more jingoistic side, it is obviously not constructive in helping those misguided and misinformed people who, in the main, probably cannot see the wood for the trees with their hollow platitudes & McCarthy’ite witch hunts. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to remind them that the road to hell is often paved with good intentions, so think on that!
However, they play such a very dangerous role in perpetuating and advancing the decades long horrors inflicted on the people, of all faiths, who have been native to the lands of Palestine for centuries if not aeons, those people who are literally invisible to most or at best merely shallow labels in these regurgitations of righteous indignation.
Whilst these freedom assassins may not be ‘idiots’, they are certainly proving very useful for more nefarious groups of people who are guided solely by cultural, religious and racial supremacy, whose motivations are aimed at the geo political subordination of ‘others’ for their own selfish ends and who know nothing of human decency, equality or social justice.
p.s. the inclusion of craigmurray.org.uk in the coven’s complaint, over such an obviously factual quote, along with the unsupported & facile “includes numerous conspiracy theories” trope is very intriguing.
Can’t believe it was just by chance. It seems to be a very direct attack on Mr Murray by the established hacks so I’m guessing Craig is quite prominent on their hit list now. Not sure I envy him, but obviously reflects what a good job he’s doing on all our behalves.
“Most worryingly, it also sets the stage for a reversion to the poisonous “othering” of the very people it promises to protect,”
Could I posit the conspiracy theory that this is intentional? Not intended by the signatories but by people who have put them up to it.
Corbyn isn’t the shite on Murray’s shoes.
:-)))) you don’t hear that everyday
Josh R
” It would be naive to imagine that this wasn’t done by design as Murray & Corbyn can no doubt attest.”
This Scottish phenomenon ‘woke’ implies that everybody who is not woke is either stupid or mentally deficient. It most certainly isn’t just people like Corbyn , highly intelligent , highly moral, and extremely patient , who are targeted by political forces as being mad.
Any institution of any size, from education to religious, from political to business, can now no longer function unless it adopts the dysfunctional madness of the PTB. But the PTB invest more than half their resources now in disparaging outsiders to the political coven as being mad. 90% of BBC Radio 4 output is designed to support the PTB. The proportion of un-loaded material in this small part of the msm I still expose myself to is about 30 minutes per week.
Anti-semitism is just one of many labels that are used to infer madness. You are , according to the BBC, certifiable if you don’t subscribe to the Tory party, the C of E, political alliance with the US, the Union of the UK, Michael Gove who is a category unto himself of perpetual veneration with all his works at the BBC.
Apparently, Gove wants farmers to be paid to make the countryside beautiful, which it already is , so that’s easy money, and yet the changes in the Planning Laws will quickly change that. So the Tories facilitate the construction of eyesores, which their Tory friends can be paid not to build. The man is a walking fruit machine.
Very sorry Craig that you didn’t get the slot as President. You would have made a good one and been a real benefit to the party and the cause of independence.
But take comfort that you did much to bring about the slew of changes that have now been made to the complexion of the NEC. Without the contributions from yourself and others the ftruth about 5he cancer within our party would not have been known about.
You Sir have helped bring about the change that is now underway. So whilst you didn’t get the slot you still have much to do. A grateful thanks due.
Member who fails candidate vetting gets 24.5% of votes for party president at first time of asking? Bit of a sensation there, surely.
It’s especially impressive coming as it does starting without a political base i.e. not an MSP , MP or MEP, and without the party’s upper echelon backing him.
Lots of people simply take their lead from the leadership’s preferences.
Equally telling who does pass vetting.
Someone invited onto the State Department’s International Visitors Leadership Program when still a humble, Parliamentary aide.
Someone who worked for a US Government funded, US based NGO, exclusively interested in matters on Russia’s Southern border.
Someone who attended the 2018 annual conference of Mojahedin-e Khalq (see recent assassination of the “father of the Iranian nuclear program”).
Craig writes:
Mea Culpa. It turns out I got 20% of the vote not 24% of the vote in the election for SNP President. I am still chuffed.
That’s how I interpreted the result .Confusing way of presenting the result if that’s correct. M.Russell’s ‘surplus’ precisely matches subtracting Craig’s and Corri Wilson’s from Russell’s total? And 421.00 of 1721 is 24%.
Indeed it is
It certainly is, and will surely have sent a shudder through some establishment heid-yins who must wish CM would just disappear.
And if they get their way he will, into a prison.
Great to see the support the man has here, and elsewhere, in places like Wings. These important links, nay friendships, have developed over years and we’re starting to see the rewards – real solidarity when it’s needed.
More power to Craig, all who voted for him, and all who support him in his work.
Salut!
No luck Craig still you tried, anyway several saner minds did get onto the NEC.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/mr-lenin-awaken-the-boy/comment-page-1/#comment-2584898
I reckon Craig has his wits about him well enough!
Never forgetting the part Dershowitz played in getting Norman Finkelstein’s tenure at dePaul removed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Dershowitz#Israel_and_the_Middle_East
I was surprised to see that he has been involved in Julian Assange’s case. In the Epstein/P Andrew scandal too where he represented Epstein.
Mary
I just tried to find a Youtube video I watched a few years ago.. where Norman Finkelstein Slams Amnesty Intl –
Video unavailable
This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.
Then I tried the Finkelstein v’s Dershowitz –
Video unavailable
This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.
Then I tried Finkelstein vs Dershowitz – Democracy Now –
Video unavailable
This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated…
So then I gave up…For Now… Bastards.
p.s Stay safe
AHH…That might have been a Glitch on my machine ..Not sure ..Her’s the Amnesty denunciation one – Priceless
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_NaU5S_Wnw&t=20s
Mary and Brian, they not only took his job but forced him out of his apartment.
Still no liberal pushback against this crazed anti semitism psyop,. Not by cultural figures let alone political or media elites. Same pattern as the Assange and Salmond showtrials and the Russian collusion conspiracy theory. I lends precarity to any outlet the witchfinders put in their crosshairs. I fear that with the alliance between Biden-Harris and Big Tech the next few years are going to see western governments intensifying efforts to shut down what they deem to be fake news, ie truthtelling and dissent.
The liberals are part of the offensive against the left. They lead it.
Did I find this on your Facebook post? Very illuminating
https://jewishcurrents.org/obama-and-the-israel-lobby
You didn’t do too badly Craig votes wise, there’s a tremendous amount of goodwill in Scotland for you, keep the momentum going if you can, Alex Salmond looks to be dipping his toes back into the political waters possibly with next year in mind, who knows where that could lead and good men are hard to find so hang in there if you can.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18911566.alex-salmond-pllan-scotlands-recovery-post-covid/
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18911582.alex-salmond-backs-call-alternative-local-coronavirus-lockdowns/
Republicofscotland. I am glad Craig didn’t win. He however succeeded in pushing the SNP leadership to pretend they want full Independence. Craig, carry on being a writer and be safe with your family. You have done more than enough to open the eyes of other folk. Now let them take up your lead, not keep standing behind you and letting you take all the fire.
ROS
You really should be getting the £500 bonus as well for all that dangerous social work you are carrying out on WGD.
Ha, ha , nice one Cubby.
ROS
Petra is a perfect example of head in the sand and it ain’t coming up for air. She ignores the Harrassment inquiry for months and then when Somers declares he didn’t tell Sturgeon about his secret meetings with a complainer Petra suddenly claims some sort of victory. Of course Somers did say he told his line Manager Allison who never mentioned any of this before. So are we supposed to believe that Allison never told Evans and Evans never mentioned it to Sturgeon.
Whit you Two like Lol…
RoS Could you re-post to here… that list Re the JPN – U.K Trade deal.
Angry is an Understatement
Independence Right Now
Here you go Brian.
https://twitter.com/Iblogtoglasgow/status/1333504932998221826
When the big vat of KoolAid is wheeled to the front of the stage, they’ll be the first in line eager to partake. Sad really.
Other things being equal, Craig, you did very well. On the other, other hand, ‘other things are not equal’ – as Spartacus said.
The state you may not criticise is an excellent article. Given the states you have criticised you might have been just as equally accused of global xenophobia! But no, highlighting the war crimes of Israel is now a hate crime
It wasn’t clear to me from your post how you came to be aware of the letter to Amazon highlighting the failure of Amazon to excise any reference to your informative website on the eavesdropping information device Alexa. I mention this as I noticed that https://voxpoliticalonline.com have this item regarding the release of notice of Labour party suspensions being made to the press before informing the persons involved, apparently in contravention of the Data Protection Act.
Anyway I continue to be in awe of your stamina and I look forward to hearing the next instalment of the power struggle for control of the SNP. Please let us know when we need to top up your legal fees fund and best of luck with the court case.
Craig, congrats on doing well in the election. I wonder what your vote would have been if your forthcoming trial wasn’t out there as negative factor. Of course, the Justice system is totally independent of the Scotgov.
Regarding the flak you’ve taken over your ‘focus on independence above all else’ comments. You’re absolutely right.
It’s estimated transgender and non-binary people make up 1% of the UK population. The idea the Scottish govt should see this issue as an overriding priority makes them seem like they’re lacking in seriousness and obsessed with woke to the exclusion of more important matters. And it’s such a divisive issue, you’ve got to wonder whether those pushing it and other parts of the woke agenda pre-referendum have ulterior motives.
Goose
In Big Boys politics everything except the MSM output is lies and diversions. They put up a smokescreen of irrelevant issues and the smoke conceals who knows what?
In this way they confuse the electorate. Let me be clear, I totally disagree with the Clydebuilt philosophy of not attacking the existing leadership because of their dirty politics.
If you do that, firstly they will say that you voted for the dirty politics, you condoned it. Secondly they might turn out to actually be bonkers and pass legislation to de-gender all infants at birth, to give every child the right to decide their own sexuality.u must
Imho, you Scots will have to remove this Sturgeon administration completely purely on the grounds of the dirty war against freedom of speech, the dirty war against Scottish Independence in the form of Alex Salmond, the dirty war on Craig because of his reporting on the Assange trial, and the totall fake suggestion by Nicola Sturgeon that she wants Scotland to stay in the EU, followed by her enabling Boris Johnson to have an election when he was pinned down by May’s loss of majority in Parliament
Too many lies and coats of paint over the woodwork and dry rot..Get rid of her and her entire team. She’s nothing more than a tired old ice cream van spouting diesel fumes and loud jingles. What a disgrace!
Most of the people who voted for Russell will have done so on the assumption that he is some sort of Demcratic Socialist like Alex Salmond but they would have been duped. Same with a lot of other neo-liberals who have risen to the top of the SNP. How does that work?
Russell is way beyond just a common or garden neoliberal like a Ken Clark or David Lammy. More in the category of an ultra or berserker neoliberal, in the US Republican party mould. It was no secret either judging by all the attention his book received. His occupancy of this role should raise fundamental questions about the SNP. But it doesn’t seem to be raising a sod.
The leadership’s pick was bound to prevail. Had Craig won it would’ve been portrayed in the press as a huge blow to the leadership.
Sturgeon obviously still has a loyal following within the SNP, irrespective of whether Craig or we here think that justified in light of Salmond’s appalling treatment. Sturgeon along with others in leadership positions will have all made clear their preferred option. The thing to do now is not to try to fight unwinnable, self defeating war to remove her, but instead politely keep up the inde demands. Look at Alex Salmond’s behaviour, not seeking to cause a ruckus by rocking the boat pre-election; there’s little doubt he could cause trouble for Sturgeon if he so wished. But he’s a sensible man and he sees the bigger prize – bigger than any one person. He realises independence is genuinely within Scotland’s grasp.
My point is why the leadership selected someone well known to have extreme rightwing views. Sturgeon’s loyal following and Salmond’s behaviour is no justification for shutting down your brain.
But Russell’s political ideology and where he and others in the SNP are on the political spectrum : economic (left–right) and social (authoritarian–libertarian), is unimportant compared to winning independence. Independence opens up the whole political gamut of what’s possible. The fatalism about the possibility of change stems from being locked into a UK mindset, people need to de-condition themselves.
Famous broadcaster Robin Day called Thatcher’s Secretary of State for Defence John Nott “a transient here-today-and- gone-tomorrow-politician” in an interview (Nott walked out). Day’s approach holds a lesson for those urging major changes in the SNP at this point.
Goose
“But Russell’s political ideology and where he and others in the SNP are on the political spectrum is unimportant compared to winning independence. “
But is winning independence is true intention? Someone who pretends not to be a neo-liberal could intend anything.
Even if you take the view that there are unionist wreckers hidden in the SNP, the political impetus behind the referendum is bigger than any one person or even group’s ability to prevent it.
The fact Sturgeon has publicly, on camera, committed to an “early in the next term” referendum is important too. Conference won’t be postponed forever.
Quite aside from Zionist pressure (and money) I would have thought there’s easily enough slush money from Amazon, one of the world’s largest companies, to throw into the eager greasy hands of a few MPs who show their willingness by appealing to the company as if it were some kind of, cough cough, public servant just like them. So once you’ve got a little group of MPs together…I mean it’d be stupid not to!
This is kind of a textbook lesson in what parliamentary politics is all about – get in there where the big boys interact with each other (here, Zionism and Amazon), find somewhere to plant your feet, some kind of “issue”; and then never mind about influencing anybody, just concentrate on making “friends” and taking bribes. I mean what else is the cultural capital of “being a member of parliament” for?
All-Party Groups can be a nice window on how big business gets the laws it wants.
Prepare Yourselves –
From my source in Syria –
” Drone strike has killed a top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards at the Iraq-Syria border, “
Brian. Looks like the Iranians are damned if they do or damned if they don’t. Israel and US going all out to to provoke response. Israel would never do anything without US approval. Does China and Russia feel strong enough to save Syria and Iran ? Diplomatic overtures on part of Putin, Lavrov and Zarif however charming, logical and reasonable is continually being replied with strikes and assassinations.
Indeed Wikikettle…
I have been thinking much the same thing Re Syria, They are being left to perish now – Evil western Sanctions Ect.
Where are the Russians.`.
Russians waisting their time trying to appeas Turkey, in a vain hope it will leave NATO. Thats after warning the Sultan of the coup.
The Great Journalist Robert Fisk refered to Erdoğan as the Sultan.
Wikikettle
In the context of the Ottomans, the word Sultan is not necessarily a compliment. Only Erdogan thinks the embezzlement and tyranny is a good thing. The entire Muslim world thought it was unacceptable enough to side with Britain against Turkey and Britain as kingmaker abolished the caliphate altogether.
For Erdogan to try to rebuild the job of Sultan in the mould of Turkish sultans with rape , spying and headchopping is about as futile as the Tories getting slobber Johnson to drawl about Brexit freedom from the EU.
Sounds good, but under the foot of the EU very little wriggle room.
Iran has denied it.
Seems to be the case Kemp… Thee will be some truth in it Methinks.. I’ll find out more.
CM has had a brush with these (https://youtu.be/K5Xrq1huwsA) devils too.
Thanks for the link to Chris Williamson legal fighting fund. Its the very least we can do to support legal challenges to this weaponisation of anti semitism as a tool to destroy free speech and criticism of Israel.
Fund raiser: thanks from me too for the link to Chris’s statement. However it’s not clear to me how one would subscribe to his fighting fund. Any suggestions? .
Coldish. If you go to http://www.campaignforchris.org
I saw an article at CNN (https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/02/politics/iran-scientist-israel-assassination-us/index.html) which reports that a “US OFFICIAL” has confirmed that Israel were responsible for murdering Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Assassination makes it sound semi-legal, which it isn’t. Further, the official has stated that usually Israel tells the US of its’ operations in advance and that Fakhrizadeh had been in their sights for some time.
It’s not that I doubt this it’s just that I wonder why the official has admitted this when most countries are, not condemning it, but at least stating this goes against international law (ie it’s murder) This, of course, comes hot on the heels of Pompeo’s visit to Israel, Trump’s near miss with bombing Iran and his encouragement to Pompeo to continue to leverage ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran while still in office.
So, I’m left with the thought that either the official is saying this to ensure it’s known that it wasn’t down to the US because the US wants to normalise relations after Biden takes office OR he is saying quite the opposite in a kind of ‘so what’ kind of way (nothing about Trump’s team would surprise me) It rather depends on who the official is and what position they hold ie political or civil service/military.
I’m sure that the world hasn’t gone made, I think it’s always been mad and I’m only noticing it now.
Very much back to on topic. This account of a one day, on-line conference of the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel held on 29th November (apologies if accounts of this have already been posted).
Conference was attended by Deputy Leader Angela Rayner who threatened to expel “thousands and thousands” of members for the thought crime of “denialism” (specifically refusing to accept that Labour has a fundamental issue with widespread anti-Semitism).
And they’re serious, the Chairs of Nottingham East and Hampstead & Kilburn CLPs have already been suspended for daring to debate and pass motions calling for the reinstatement of Jeremy Corbyn to the PLP.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/03/corb-d03.html
Labour is truly lost. C’mon Neil Findlay, if you can’t stomach it any longer, switch to the Scottish Socialist Party.
Couple of revealing articles by The Canary about their experience with the anti semitism witch hunt,
https://www.thecanary.co/investigation/2020/12/01/exclusive-labour-right-linked-to-campaign-to-shut-down-the-canary/
https://www.thecanary.co/opinion/2020/11/30/how-to-fight-the-witch-hunt-and-win/
Interesting to see the mechanics behind the hit job & the politicians directing it.
Tempted to think these wee functionaries are more culpable than the greedy gazillionaires and their tech behemoths who seem to get more flack.
Handy reminder, from 2002 I think, of how there’s nothing new about these particular cries of “anti semitism” & how they are often cynically contrived:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA69bOf0Ee0
Former Knesset member on Democracy Now
Anyone calling themself a ‘moderate’ or ‘centrist’ in a UK context is invariably on the political right.
The New Labour people who’ve hijacked the Labour party are worse than the Tories imho. The Tories are a known quantity, you can disagree with them but their positions on any given issue are fairly predictable. Labour’s moderates don’t really believe in anything, thus are constantly surprising, and not in a good way. They’re also the most ruthless and reactionary, vicious and controlling.
These liberals are passionately anti racist, pro EU, pro human rights, pro free speech, pro due process. No group more committed to its principles.
Really? They’re flexible, basically unprincipled weather vanes imho.
Their political motivations are often opaque. Some are motivated by personal enrichment ,some simply careerism/place holders. New Labour right wing types are typically always authoritarian – i.e., the reason they find it easy to oppose racism, sexism etc because it involves imposing rules on others. Many don’t give a shit about the actual victims of those , they just want to ‘control what people can say and do’.
Look at Starmer’s trenchant opposition to Brexit. He along with Tom Watson opposed May’s deal ferociously and forced Corbyn into offering another referendum. Now Starmer says he wants Labour MPs to vote through Johnson’s much harder Brexit deal.
Look at Starmer’s commitment to human rights – if his record as DPP (assange handling etc) wasn’t dodgy enough, he’s recently whipped his party to abstain on deeply questionable, in terms of its ECHR compatibility, legislation.
I was agreeing with you Goose. Liberals are frauds in every particular of their claimed values and are permitted to be because they serve entrenched wealth. Tories are more honest than these perpetual shapeshifters.
Sorry I misunderstood – hard to distinguish ‘serious or sarcasm’ online.
The neoliberals have embraced cultural and woke issues though because it costs nothing and is a distraction from talking about poverty and economic and social inequality. Many will proudly display the LGBT rainbow flag or take the knee to virtue signal for BLM.
Then they’ll cynically trot off to vote to bomb(or sanction) women and children – brown skinned people in some faraway dirt poor land; typically a country that poses no strategic threat to us whatsoever, for motives unknown.
Goose
Starmer’s political compass has found Johnson’s No Deal a more magnetic force to swing to than the north pole. Where will he swing to when we do get a deal with the human rightsy EU? Swing behind Biden’s Daesh?
Goose you say: “Then they’ll cynically trot off to vote to bomb(or sanction) women and children – brown skinned people in some faraway dirt poor land; typically a country that poses no strategic threat to us whatsoever, for motives unknown.”
But motives are very well known: to dominate global supplies of energy. In particular fossil fuels, which supply 87% and rising. Especially in light of the fact fossil fuels and (all most other mined resources) are getting less and less efficient to extract:
https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2020/12/03/as-we-exhaust-our-oil-it-will-get-cheaper-but-less-affordable/
Thus, the US military, as the worlds single largest institutional consumer of the fuel of the global economy, is highly motivated to dominate dwindling supplies, to maintain the US ‘petrol’ $ as global reserve currency : “The Pentagon would be the world’s 55th largest CO2 emitter if it was a country.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/13/report-the-u-s-military-emits-more-co2- than-many-industrialized-nations-infographic/#4be666d74372
And they loved being in coalition with the Tories, but, rather than making a referendum their red coalition line, the cowards could not foresee the jingoism and sloganising to follow and abstained.
shame on them.
Josh R
When you talk about the ” mechanics behind the hit job ” I’m sure you must be right , that modern political parties have mechanisms, maybe taught and learned at colleges and universities which enable politicians to block all communication channels between the electorate and the party machine.
Not being a student of politics, I can see that in my own job as an electrician as soon as the accountants tell the Energy suppliers to sub-contract out maintenance work for financial { foaming Tory } reasons, all communication between sub-contractor, white van man and customer , the housewife, is broken.
If you complain, you will be offerred a financial compensation by the foaming Tories who design and run the system. Nothing on earth will ever persuade the financial managers to concede a millmetre of their priveledge to assist hairy workmen in overalls or housewives in curlers.
Matt Hancock gobsmacked the world the other day by saying that Britain is unique in the world in allowing managers to stick to their schedules for work in spite of workers falling ill and being unable to work properly. ‘In the light of covid and viruses spreading, says Hancock, that is going to have to change’.
So in regard to politics, I would expect there to be some institutional dictat , unknown and misunderstood by outsiders, which has created a concrete barrier of communications between natural communicators.
Maybe somebody who has studied politics could tell us what the gremlin is, because it’s doing a lot of people’s heads in.
Getting a 20% vote in a first SNP electoral process, when all odds are stacked against you and the party aparat chicks are out to destroy you, is an excellent result in my view.
Well done Craig, looks like you are getting to their soft parts now, lets hope they will take notice in future.
many thanks to all who provided excellent links here of late.
Hang in there, baby! – Cat in tree meme
Wonder what Scotland makes of Gavin Williamson claiming we’ve approved the vaccine first because the country has “much better” scientists than France, Belgium or the US?
“we’re a much better country than every single one of them”.
Talk about hubris. Anyone else find this and the juvenile jingoism of the UK press today – using lazy war metaphors – absolutely demoralising?
For starters, it’s not a race, but more importantly, if something goes wrong we’ll look like a bunch of imbeciles. Covid has revealed the Tories ; Hancock awarding multi-million pound contracts to his mates and neighbours without a tendering process, makes us like corrupt Italy in the 1970s and ’80s without the accountability and trials.
It’s a similar story with Brexit negotiations. Notice how in negotiations at every stage the EU wanted things conducted in the open with total transparency, and the UK always insisted on secrecy. The UK is a country where the elites are used to operating in complete secrecy and with absolute impunity. That’s why they hate Freedom of Information – Blair calls FOI Act his biggest mistake.
Gavin is a fireplace salesman who knows jack sh.t. Pfizer has bought into German research of Bio N Tech, they started last January and at full speed, because their approach was new and targeted. The RNA vaccine and its efficacy of 90+ % is the best on offer.
That said, the normal flu vaccines never offer more than 50+% and people queue up to get it. The Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine is around 62% and is open to more side effect due to its cheaper, old fashioned make up.
Wonder if people will have the option of which vaccine they’ll get? The differences in efficacy seem large enough to give it careful consideration.
Surely if you’re going to get a jab you want the one with the highest efficacy, especially if you’re under 50 and not in a high-risk group – therefore at lower risk anyway. If it means waiting longer it’s less of an issue.
Knowing the Tories…
Scotland, NI, Wales and the North of England will get the cheap one.
Poll tax guinea pigs redux.
Goose
Seeing we had a run of -4 Novembers before climate change set in, many will opt for the -70 degrees option just to see a bit of seasonal ice. For myself, except when taliking about politics or religion, I do trust Oxford University. Their vaccine has apparently never been anywhere near a real chimpanzee, same way their politics and religion has never been near a real human being.
Don’t be demoralised. It is a positive sign when the Tories and the media start getting openly nasty, as it means they are not getting their way.
The lack of MSM reporting/ investigation into these uncontested Covid contract awards, often to people/companies with no history of handling such projects – but, importantly, with links to the Tory party – and the missing tens of millions involved should be a national scandal. They say being a Tory is politics on easy mode – obvious they’re hugely overrepresented in Whitehall. the MoD , judiciary ; intel agencies and press. I’d wager if the political allegiance of all these were revealed everyone would accept we’re a one party state.
The fact Starmer isn’t even bothered speaks volumes too.
Gavin Williamson – “… because we’re a much better country than every single one of them.”
Neil Oliver – “Britain … remains a bright light in a dark and darkening world, a magnet for humanity.”
The entire Yes movement – “Listen mate, we just want to be a small, unremarkable country on the NW fringes of Europe that other countries look at and say “yeh, they’re ok”.”
If it comes Scottish independence isn’t half going to dent some Tory egos.
Much of the English resistance to Scottish independence (mainly on the right) is bound up with national pride, and the fear of what the ‘shock to the system’ of independence would say about the precious UK. Tory England likes to believe it’s the best at everything; dismissing alternative ways of doings and democratic reform, in favour of a status quo that’s demonstrably outdated.
Guardian reports : Draft EU legislation seeks to counter ‘dirty methods’ in Europe’s elections
Sites such as Facebook will have to publicly disclose identity of people and entities funding such advertising.
—
Twitter bots are the worst – hundreds/thousands of clearly fake accounts, attacking those on the left 24/7. The Tories stated after the 2017 election, an election which Labour are widely accepted to have dominated online. They were going to throw lots of money at social media. to overcome, with multiple fake accounts and paid posters, what Labour achieved through enthusiastic supporters posting for free.
Wonder if they had help from the tech giants in 2019 ‘s GE campaign in terms of them tweaking their algorithms? The Tories had a much bigger visible online presence in 2019’s election, Labour’s campaign was overshadowed by it.
Considering the Tory voting demographic is generally much older and less likely to be producing memes etc, whereas Labour’s is younger(online), it suggests something happened.
Craig I see you’re involved in this it looks an exciting new group, I’m sure it will flourish.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18919272.yes-alba-top-indy-activists-snp-mp-elected-lead-new-organisation/
Not normally a news rag that I’d link to, however the below comment is a wee gem, of British exceptionalism at work.
“Gavin Williamson mocked Europe and the United States this morning as he insisted that Britain beat them to rolling out a coronavirus vaccine because it was simply ‘a much better country”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9013629/Were-better-country-Gavin-Williamson-wades-Brexit-vaccine-row-blast-EU.html
Curiously, he’s not yet left his playground – let him have his day… “Simply the best, better than all the rest”
Westminster seems full of the dumb and the downright venal – basically a House full of such rogues. Machiavellianism is hugely rewarded. Relatable, good honest everyday people stand no chance. How many MPs can you honestly say you admire?
Ultimately, the mess is fault of the UK’s stratified class system, dating back to serfdom and feudal order, that’s clung on long past its due reform date.
there’s a good video Slapping down Britain’s boasts on getting first Covid vaccine approved
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd1M5YIQRoQ&t=6s
Thanks for the link Yesterday RoS – list of Our produce to lose Scottish Identity
“Cares of the past are behind,
Nowhere to go, but I’ll find,
Just where the trail will wind,
Drifting along with the tumblin’ tumbleweeds”
Well, in the end, we all die.
No matter the losses and the gains,
the pleasures and the pains.
Oh, the pains. Phillip Green, is he in pain?
He’ll die for sure though. Put that in your cap. Imagine that.
The desire for compounding control.
All for nothing. The immaterial fame,
while the new game is played out. Now, we have a government,
haha, a kleptocratic slush fund,
a suck it and see and fuck democracy.
An abuse of power that ‘somehow mirrors’ the misadventures of capital crime,
its as if the die hard dullards are catching up
Jonnies hedge fund needs a boost
…the ego explosion of demonic mind.
No diplomacy, just be unkind.
A shower of shit born from a pit
of wealth and class cunzism.
We all die, we all get by
without plenty but
The papers need to know
When will the toilets
be finished
and ready
for uncle Terry
Queuing painfully
for a desperate shit
on The Kentish M20.
Goose
No. The old money like Dominic Grieves and David Cameron has been sacked. Thatcher arrived like Botticelli’s Venus in the palm of old Torydom. But Third generation Thatcher spawn ( a week is a long time in politics ) are rescuscitating Victorian callous cruelty with no respect at all for traditional Tory values.
Whatever resources are at their disposal they will steal. Look at the Stratford MP Iraqi oil criminal who has just got his mitts on the vaccine distribution contract. This nothing to do with British serfdom but everything to do with Ottoman kleptocracy. The globalist new order is international feudalism.
Langland who wrote Piers Plowman, ” on a May morning when soft was the sun, ” would have recognised the unreachable, unaccountable nature of globalist authority from the feudal order of his time.
This is imported from the relics of other failed empires, failed Mughal, failed Persian, failed Ottoman failed European empires that all share Gavin Williamson’s Empire 2 scrotal lust for lost power. Yuk!
At least the last five years have revealed the UK really isn’t a truly a democracy at all.
It revealed the narrow window of allowed political discourse before the unelected parts of the UK state seek to destroy you: Church (Justin Welby’s front page interventions on Corbyn) Intel agencies (Jeremy Corbyn a danger to national security and said he is unfit to lead the country – Sir Richard Dearlove) MoD (Soldiers 2019 (paratroopers) filmed using a Jeremy Corbyn poster for target practice who were disciplined, but not sacked) Finance(City + interests) and finally reporting it all the media collectively seek to destroy your chances.
Whether you agree with Corbyn’s politics or not, the treatment he endured doesn’t represent that of a healthy democratic state.
seems the blairites are doubling down in protecting us from foul racists like yourself, jeremy corbyn,, and jews who care about palestinians. a valiant anti racist campaign cheered on by the sun, express and guardian.
The stench of the Zionist lobby is very apparent with the current attempts to denigrate the memory of Robert Fisk.
The article by As’ad abu khalil is worth reading
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/12/01/the-angry-arab-robert-fisk-the-decline-of-western-reporting-on-the-middle-east/
as is this piece at the same place by James North
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/12/02/robert-fisk-courage-in-covering-israel/
With the title The State You May Not Criticise , was Craig taking a sideways swipe at Holyrood? Sturgeon seems impervious to criticism . Substantial legal and political action , threatening with imprisonment during a pandemic. She has the making of a right little tyrant.
Sturgeon is rather like the German railway system in 1914 – geared up for war and with no reverse gear. Look how she is taking state money and buying votes with it for her party by saying she will dole out £500 to every nurse in Scotland. Apparently the wicked “Westminsters” (i.e. the English) want to thieve it out of the poor needy Scottish nurses’ hands because they hate Scotland so much. She wants the May election to be the third time that the NHS brand has been used in a big way by the far right in an election campaign, after the EU referendum and the December 2019 British general election. The numerology has already been decided: not 350 but 500. She’ll win or she’ll go to jail. There’s an awful lot of dirt that could come out on this woman who should be viewed by anyone who’s sane as the utterly ridiculous, corrupt, bullsh*tting, racist, criminal figure that she is. Lock her up before she locks the author of this blog up!
Imagine pretending to think the state of Israel isn’t racist! It’s a Jewish settler state. Perhaps if a White State is established in Britain (Britain is made “white on the map”, as some of the far right used to demand), or a German state is constructed in part of Chile, or there’s another US civil war and the white-supremacist Confederacy is re-established, the esteemed parliamentarians would stand there with eyes wide open and eyebrows raised saying “Of course it’s not racist. You’re the racist for saying so, and you shouldn’t be allowed to speak in public, and we’re going to gag you.” The situation is rather as it is with white Nazis who claim the “white race” is under threat. Israel is Nazi and for most Zionists it’s a kind of in-joke to deny it. The collective volkisch spirit and permanent military and paramilitary mobilisation – hasbara etc. – whips itself up into a permanent frenzy. There is a retired Yisrael Beitanu politician called Yosef Shagal who has openly said that whereas the German holocaust against the Jews was bad, the Turkish one against the Armenians was justified because the Armenians “provoked” the Turks! His exact words were “Jews were killed because they were Jews, but Armenians provoked Turkey and should blame themselves”. (Shagal is a Jew from Azerbaijan, where recognition of the holocaust against the Armenians is unlawful, and where holocaust denial is encouraged – so long as it’s just the denial of the holocaust against the Armenians.)
Pay an MP a few grand and he’ll not only do anything, he’ll believe anything too – or, more exactly, he’ll believe a set of things that are obviously mutually self-contradictory. For these scumbags, racism is just a word, to be deployed in their own interests. They have no care to understand what real racism is. Racism is growing too. The next time there’s an Anders Breivik attack, I could easily envisage far more explicit after-the-event supporters than the few far-right elected politicians and commentators (including an Italian MP and a Daily Telegraph blogger) there were last time. Racism is lurking in a lot of people’s whipped-up attitude towards the pandemic too, with their gutter press-stoked horror at “street parties in Brixton” and so on.
Politicians in Britain who are actually honourable, people like Ken Livingstone and Jenny Tonge, are very few and far between.
The State You May Not Criticise
Not even if you’re Jewish.
Starmer has now suspended Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi an excellent, articulate and outstanding member of the Labour Party and Jewish Voice For Labour.
https://twitter.com/s__cook/status/1334478681352380424
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjhHhL_15Nw
The Blairites have ruined the party with this witch purge.
while the party’s public self-flagellation over virtually non-existent antisemitism within the membership’s ranks continues. Why would anyone want to be a part of this false narrative nonsense? Do members realise the ‘believe in nothing’ careerist Blairite MPs likely hate their guts? And Starmer, he continues to behave more like a right wing intel officer, sent in with the aim of either remaking the party in Blair’s image, or destroying the party.
Agreed Goose, its seems like they want to do Likuds bidding in Angeland.
Maybe Starmer likes to choose a new name. Labkud sounds perfect.
@Peter
Chris Williamson retweeted :
The Labour Party imposes strict confidentiality requirements (let’s call them ‘gagging orders’) on people who’ve been suspended, which are so stringent as to probably be unlawful, whilst simultaneously briefing Lee Harpin—in real time—about who is being suspended. It’s sickening.
—
Who’d want to belong to a party like this? Isn’t politics meant to be about discourse, the free exchange of ideas and debate? These are people paying subs and door knocking, without whom many Labour MPs would have a much harder time being elected.
Chris Williamson has put his fighting legal fund for others who use as well. I hope a sort of group action can be taken against Starmer ?
A new party is desperately needed.
The frequently repeated argument online, that it will just split the vote and keep the Tories in is moot at this point, as it’s pretty clear already a Starmer-led govt would be little different, maybe even worse, than the Tories.
This is a return of New Labour levels of control freakery and authoritarianism.
On the subject of terrible political leadership:
The strange Liz Truss tops poll of Tory members at Conservative ‘Is there anyone’ Home? with a positive rating of +75.4% ?!?
If that doesn’t give a boost to support for Scottish independence, don’t know what will.
@ Goose
Whilst I take all your points, I profoundly disagree that a new party is the answer at this stage. It would split the vote and have very little chance of success. Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi is not leaving the party and I’m sure she would fight fiercely to be readmitted if she was expelled. We are not at our Syriza moment yet.
The new party we need is the Labour Party with Starmer removed. It’s not that he is a clear and present threat to democracy and free speech. He is actively trashing democracy and free speech right now. Who’d have thought that the UK’s very own Stalin would come from the right-wing?
It’s clear that this is a full-frontal assault on the left of the Labour Party with Corbyn as the prize target. As such, now would be a good time for Jeremy to find his leader’s voice and to step up and provide a focal point for resistance to these deeply disturbing developments. Like Chris Williamson, he too has a healthy fighting fund to resist what is happening and I understand has already begun legal action against the party.
Peter
” Who’d have thought that the UK’s very own Stalin would come from the right-wing?”
Me. Why is this an unlikely thing for someone to think?
I agree with the rest.
Goose
Political people are interested in power, so the free market West has pulled all types of politics in a very right wing direction. I don’t actually believe in socialism, I believe in the rules of Islam. But not the rules of Islam as set out by the enemies of Islam such as Israel which the Islamists are attracted to by the lure of personal power and with their noses clothespegged and their ears bolcked against the catastrophe they have inflicted on Libya , Afghanistan and Syria in particular.
Even if Corbyn was leader, I don’t agree with him about British foreign policy because it is socialist, and he isn’t remotely socialist anyway. I agre with him because he is against the evil of the zionism of Israel. That’s exactly why he is being labelled as anti-semitic. The plan of the devil is very weak indeed, because a any child could tell the difference between anti-semitism and anti- illegal violence of Israel. The MSM are not children, they are criminal shite owned by criminal shite.
It may be naive of me to only be a signed up member of what I actually do believe in, but in effect Blair’s zionism proved that Labour stands against what I believe in. Nobody can spend their whole life poppping in and out of a political party every time a faction of that party gains the upper hand.
If Corbyn were to deliver a speech using his prerogative as an MP, stating that he was extremely against zionist all violence in the Middle East and round the world, in the same way that Trump describes Iran, and that Israel is a thorn in the flesh of democracy because of the influence they have over politiciains worldwide, I would join his party.
But he could never say that as a member of the Labour Party because all politicians have been got at by zionism. But if he did it as a non-aligned MP the BBC would hiss like Royal swan and he’d be served up for Xmas dinner, with Chris Williamson for roasted parsnips on the side.
@Peter
I really think hope is lost while Starmer is leader. And not as in hope for some ultra radical programme either, I mean as in anything changing at all, even mild reform, because I think he’s a basically a Tory imposter.
Reported today : Sir Keir Starmer has gone into self-isolation.
Which .. potentially allows him to dodge having to argue the case in the commons on Monday against the legislation that will allow the govt to override parts of the country’s EU divorce treaty. Or is that being too cynical?
If suppose his leadership were revealed as some Operation codename : Chameleon, would it surprise anyone?
Btw, just to add…I’ve no idea whether Starmer is an establishment plant?
But his cynical ‘bait and switch’ exercise to win the leadership – posing as left in the campaign, then veering Blairite right having won – is worthy of a espionage plot. And Operation : Chameleon would be a great name for any such plot.
@ Peter
I think you’re right to say a ‘split’ couldn’t work, but you forget that Labour is its members or it is nothing, currently nothing precisely because there is zero representation of members.
The Labour ship, its members, the unions, organisers and volunteers, they should all know that they are the ship. The time has arrived for the ship to desert the sinking rats.
Nearly five years ago I said that Corbyn should purge all the Labour shit right at the beginning, get the unpleasant business over with fast and efficiently then begin building the party we all need. His strength and resolve would have been respected, but then again, he would have been a different sort of leader. The leaked Labour report has demonstrated clearly just how right I was.
In any case, we have no time to lose, Labour must abandon those who continue to harm it and continue to harm all of us by denying any vestige of democracy. You’re either a democrat or you’re part of the onrushing feudalism. Pick a lane.
@ Goose
Personally, though I have no hard evidence for it, I do think Starmer is an Establishment plant and regarded him as such before he became leader. Just look at his background and social connections and his devious manipulation of the case of Julian Assange. His 10 pledges to gain the leadership now look like a tissue of lies, that in itself is enough to remove him as leader in my view. He was the prime instigator of the Brexit policy that arguably lost Labour the election and his current dishonest, anti-democratic, authoritarian assault on the left should have no place in the Labour Party. It his he who should go, not ordinary, decent party members.
@ J
Let me assure you I do not forget that Labour is its members or it is nothing – that is central to my view.
Whilst I understand your view, I think you may underestimate, as perhaps Starmer has done too, the strength of the resistance to the current purge.
These internal conflicts are far from over and, I would argue, it is far too soon for good people to be leaving.
It remains all to play for and those who want a party of decency that they can vote for should stay and fight for it.