by Rob Marchant
It has been said during the last week, and not by Labour-watchers accustomed to hyperbole, that this might have been the week when a party’s split became irrevocable.
While that may or may not be true, it is difficult to remember a time when the parliamentary party was in such disarray, even in the mad 1980s, or the late 1950s’ nadir.
Perhaps this is partly because of Jeremy Corbyn’s true, Eurosceptic colours on Europe finally becoming clear, to all but the most avid Kool-Aid drinkers in the strange party that is now Labour.
The Labour leadership’s Janus-faced position on Brexit is both embarrassing and terrible for the country, particularly if it leads, as seems quite possible, to a hard Brexit, which will undoubtedly hurt the country for years, perhaps decades. But that is a situation which can, in some sense, be rectified. It is a function of the leadership, not local parties.
The current situation with anti-Semitism, however is not so easy. A stain on the party’s previous good name for anti-racism is a deep wound, one from which it is perfectly possible it will never recover. And it has by now infested many local parties, which are much more difficult to fix, as any witness to the party’s slow purge of Militant will tell you.
There have been many, many CLPs have been suspended over the years, mostly for subverting the party’s internal democracy, via fiddling votes or entryism. But never can one recall a local party having been suspended for rampant racism, as the party’s Deputy Leader and others have called for Liverpool Wavertree to be.
Luciana Berger, its decent and competent MP, has been targeted by her own local party in a vicious campaign of racial harassment. It is hard to overstate the freakishness and sickness of some of the comments to be found on Facebook and Twitter, many by people who are clearly party members, local and not. One Twitter account I reported on Monday was wishing her unborn baby dead. And there are many, many more.
Now, some say that Berger has not worked her local base hard enough and is now paying the price. There may even be some truth in it. But it’s hardly the point.
No, even so, there is no way that the attack on her which led to the calling of a Saturday Extraordinary General Meeting – to which she was summoned, in the manner of a Salem witch, to prove her innocence by metaphorically drowning – was not racially-motivated.
It’s not rocket science: the mover of the motion was a 9/11 “Truther” and conspiracist, who shared awful material on social media explaining how Israel was behind 9/11 attacks and referred to his MP as a troublemaking Jew, er, “Zionist”.
But it is normal, in the time-honoured traditions of the local party meeting, for nutty motions to be put forward, and ignored. What is extraordinary is that it should be backed by the local party officers, to the extent that it should be allowed to proceed to a show trial.
Or not. Step forward local CLP chair, Dr Alex Scott-Samuel, a man who has appeared on the Richie Allen show, broadcast by super-conspiracist (and racist sympathiser) David Icke. Since his appearance on the Lizard King´s show has come to light, he has left the employ of Liverpool University, where he was a lecturer (and who rushed clarify that he was no longer one, after the Jewish Chronicle’s original story).
Just think: the normal world rejects someone, the party embraces them. How is that? Because, right now, this is not a normal party.
I am sure there are some decent people among the party’s local officers, horrified by the bullying attacks on Berger, infused as they are with the rank odour of anti-Semitism. But they are clearly not in the majority.
The attack on Berger was then effectively supported on national TV by none other than John McDonnell MP, who opined, in true, Stalinist show-trial manner, that she simply had to deny that she was thinking about joining another party and it would all go away.
Except, even then, it surely wouldn’t. A better metaphor might be, let the witch recant so we can burn her anyway.
But the behaviour of a normally-functioning, mainstream political party aspiring to govern in the coming months, it was not.
The Shadow Chancellor needn’t have bothered squandering his scant political capital, however, because a few short hours later the motion was withdrawn by the CLP, perhaps in part thanks to an online campaign by the Jewish Labour Movement, rightly calling him out.
The following day at a meeting of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) – home to many superannuated far-lefties and backers of the dreadful Pete Willsman – an unrepentant McDonnell defended – again – suspended Jackie Walker*, she of the Jews-financing-the-slave-trade meme.
If anyone had thought that McDonnell was “Corbyn-lite” on anti-Semitism, they really hadn’t been listening hard enough.
Later, General Secretary Jennie Formby declared on Twitter that there is “no constitutional basis” on which to suspend Wavertree CLP. As if.
As Ian Austin MP rightly put it:
“No constitutional basis”?
What garbage.
As if the bullies running the Labour Party now could care less about that!
Look at the ludicrous cases they mounted against me and Margaret Hodge, both of which they were forced to drop.#BootTheRacistsOut#EnoughIsEnough https://t.co/AaRLRGEBFl— Ian Austin (@IanAustinMP) February 9, 2019
And finally, a week after Formby herself had firstly told the PLP that it was “impossible” to eradicate anti-Semitism in the party and only after much uproar, she finally published figures last Monday on the cases that the party had processed.
Out of an oddly small number of 673 actual complaints taken on – other estimates put those submitted as in the several thousands – only a pitiful twelve cases had resulted in expulsions since April 2018. With a further 49 logged as the member having resigned before being pushed.
In this utter shambles of a week, it seems there is no escaping the mire of anti-Semitism into which this party has waded.
Its Leader, Shadow Chancellor and General Secretary are only some of the leading lights that have led it there; further, their subtler tolerance and complicity has emboldened other, nastier outriders.
As a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger Times leader put it this week (£), what all this shows about “the current state of a historic party of the centre left is a scandal that its founding figures could scarcely have imagined.”
A split may not be inevitable. But, devastatingly for many members, it is really getting difficult to shrug off the “institutional racism” tag from this once-great party.
Rob Marchant is an activist and former Labour party manager who blogs at The Centre Left
*Walker is conveniently, according to Wikipedia, the partner of Graham Bash, a friend of Corbyn’s for over thirty years. In the cosy world of Corbynism, it is therefore unsurprising that she still remains without expulsion, despite having been suspended under investigation for over two years now. The most likely outcomes at her 26th March hearing are likely to be either wrist-slap punishment; or conceivably, if even the normally-docile NEC really cannot stomach keeping her in, a Livingstone-style, jump-before-pushed resignation might ensue. But that seems an outside chance unless there is a serious mobilisation on the part of members and MPs against her.
Tags: anti-semitism, Jennie Formby, Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell MP, Liverpool Wavertree, Luciana Berger, Rob Marchant
The only problem with Luciana Berger is that, since the demise of New Labour, she is in the wrong party. I think she would be more at home politically in the Tory party. So it would probably be better for everybody if she simply came clean and did the right thing.
This is indeed a sad state which is spilling over into the national press. It appears that Jennie Formby is not getting a grip of this situation at all – if she is unable to do so then she should be replaced by someone who can – this behaviour is unacceptable. I am not a fan of John McDonald either and if he is found to be condoning this appalling behaviour then it is also time he stood down – no one is irreplaceable.
I don’t want to see good MPs breaking away to form a ‘centrist’ party – I don’t feel this is the answer either. We are at a real crossroads regarding Brexit and we need to stay together – I am a big fan of Keir Starmer regarding Brexit. I also feel Tom Watson is taking the right approach regarding Wavertree – I would also like to see Tom take a more active part in the direction of our party.
There’s lots of people who joined labour in the 80’s because they didn’t like the Tories, not the stories of arms thatcher had a mandate to democratize th unions, rate caps councils spending our of control, not the one nation Tories who tolerated her doing that,
but the conservative’s of the monday club, apartheid and section 28, plus the student politics of labour are good the acinservatives are the baddies , bof cause labour lives the anHS more than them,
After the defeat of 1992′ with a wil Kinnock she hard work, taking on militant
The election in 1997 and the things we achieved were great, the old school who thought defeating the Tories would be done by civil unrest, and didn’t want power as it was better to sneer from the side line and be a protest group, while ignoring labour lost 5.6million votes beteeen 1951-1983
Blaming the electorate for not voting for us
And trying to save fqce saying losing was a moral victory, or we lost in 79,83 and 1987 as it wasn’t left wing enough.
Then when the 2010 leadership election happened ( I voted Andy first Ed second, I still stand by that) as David miliband didn’t understand how un popular we were over the Westminster bubble, Ed miliband at first was prepared to listen,
Then by 2013 his strategy was this, say he didn’t like the the coalition, her a few ex libdem voters to now vote labour, hope the rise of Ukip would split the right wing vote of the stories and win by default
And it didn’t work, so when he lost, it was argued at first by labour, Ed miliband came in spent 5 years saying, unlike in the past( New labour) now my policies are moral, that meant he implied New labour was immoral
,he said we’ve got our party back, I’m not tony Blair and new labour is over, fair enough
But having had Ed spend 5 years denounce the work labour did when we were in power, only for then to lose
Both ayvette, Liz and Andy thought the way to get the party Toby vote for them was t denounce ed mi,bands trsahing of our time inpower, I ro ic had Andy said whet he really meant, which in his first attempt to be leader in 2010 was close to what acorbyn was saying he may have won the leadership
But then no, the party decided, the idea of kendall cooper and Burnham denouncing and miliband was wrong, it was the electorate who were wrong for not voting for us in 2015.
The way to win was to tell the electorate they were wrong, and Corbyn could say we lost in 2015 because it wasn’t left wing enough, we thr electorate had just voted for parties to the right of us , and won.
I heard Stella Creasy on this week last night, talking some bollocks about a people council to decide if we have Brexit, they’ll be unbiased and hand picked,and then they can decide if we have another referendum to stay in the aeU
Creasy be that bit younger ,privately educated in the posh part of Essex, I recall he turning her nose up at Essex man and Women saying when she canvassed age 16 in 1992 with her parents they were the only 3 people on Essex who voted labour,im trying to imagine her going To a council estate 8 miles from her private school t tell us on the council estates about voting labour, then she got parachuted into a inner London deprived area she knew nothing about,after her university education in law,and work as a special advisor
My point was the Blairites in the CLP don’t want to quit the party, for the money, they knoe their wing is never gonna get power again, those who joined labour 33 years ago ,spent years helping akinnock ,then Blair fight militant Tory make labour electorabel, t undothe damage the Tories were doing, to selling off council homes with out replacing them( can’t think why we did it now) to say the Tories were wrong in the Monday Club and section 28′ to say t the hard left, the public think labour are anti the police and if labour win ,the police feel they won’t be able t Keep law and order, so we ended up with Home Secretaries far to the right. Of the Tories with David blunkett
It’s hard or those who fought for years t get labour elected, to want t Peale away,
At the same time, the acprbynistas either sat at the back of the room for thr last 30 years ,or spent decades opposing labour to not just join, or are too young to remember the 80’s
Are in total denial
There’s very few corbynistas who think corbyn is a remainer, the middle class guardian part of momentum excluded, many of th novara media tropes ( ash sarkar, Max Shanly excluded) are saying the same things as blue labour on labour trying to get back Working Class votes, all be it, while grace blakely was accurate on question time, in calling out Rees Mott defending achurchill, they way she sniped a true him to gain points son to win back Working Class votes)
Fact is the Tories are ahead in the polls, not b cause co byns a brexiter, not because if Yvette Cooper was there as leader, as we wouldn’t be ahead if she was in charge,
Not even because a few people remember the nastiness of acorbyn and McDonnell’s views when they were younger
Up north a lot of people can look beyond corbyns past, and want Brexit and are clinging on to beck img labour, not liking the islamifacation of their towns, wanting controls in immigration, not wanting woke positive dicrimiantion on being told what it is ok, to say as the working class are the ones to suffer, not because of austerity, But because it was the working class who hardly got anything ,bar a few pay rises out of new labour
Blair’s plan was get the private sector non unionised workers, we’ve already got the public sector white collar unionised wrokers( until the switched to the libdems for noe term in 2010) and don’t care about appealing to the working class they have no where else t go ignore their concerns about class clleqndung and working class flight,and Syrians who have different moral values being moved int sink estates, where the social housing means pensioners are shipped off to the Coast. Blair thought he could lose Working Class votes and still win
Until Brexit
Labour is completely divided, the few blue labour types will either stay out of politics or hold their nose vote Tory
The liberal elite can just feel that it’s call t strut and be in permanent opposition,and the Corbynites can be happy that their Brexit view for noe isn’t seeing a mass exiodus of working class votes up north, to keep them in charge of the party, while, the momentum types can plot totake over local parties pr get fo er er modearate to suddenly start saying things that appeal to their local area, like being anti immigration or anti the police
Of course this may keep labour level pegging in the polls, but it’s not about winning, it’s gesture politics ,for the new hard left to feel,asking as they can tell themselves they’re right,it’s virtue signaling to say the electorate are wrong and the student revelutionary politics are righteous, as it’s the electorate who are wrong
The ironic thing is some of thr blue labour policies ,novara media and Corbynites are saying in co-ops workers on boards, metro banks, renationalisation , state collectives, are great ideas, the public will never buy it,while co bun is in charge still posturing on the 1980’s or surrounded by toy town revelutionaires who if they weren’t so obsessed with defending pro operation transgender in women’s changing rooms, saying stop free speech if they decide a speaker at a student event has views on immigration as that’s racist , that Nazi Shah was right to tell white raped girls by Muslim abusers to keep quiet as rheir revelations cause racism, and we can’t have criticism of minorities with power because that causes hate crimes(whatever they are) ,or saying Diane abbott was right to say the jury were wrong,when the jury who sat through evidence, decided Mark Dugan was lawfully killed when shot dead by police
And actually Blairites, mom nrum novara and John McDonnell,when they actually go knock on doors of the public doen south, don’t want to hear about sending their kids to univeratities as they way to better one self,is get an academic education, become middle clsss read the guardian,vote reamain,as that way the public will stop being racist leave voting sun readers , and in novara case they actually want power and think the public were talking about more law and order, there maybe something to this, actually wanting ehat the wo king class want, if we want their votes to get power,
At the end of the day, a CLP has the right to deselect a candidate, not the best time if Berger is 8 and a half months pregnant, if their are anti Semites in her cLP they must go, and it is fair to criticize the Israels governments, policy it goes way past self defence and defenders of Israels rught to exist should knoe thatlwhen the SDP went they were full of people who worked hard for years to represent areas and had worked their way up in politics having other professions before hand
I hope Luicianna enjoys her maternity leave wuth her child in the next 6 months, but another university educated parachuted in,with friends in the right places who knew nothing about Liverpool, hasn’t exactly got thr connection to the communities the way the MPs who left labour, after being deselected for the SDP , have
I’ve got 5 people expelled form the party, one I recommended after retweeting and liking lee Jasper’s disgraceful attack on Berger, I was told, it wasn’t enough to like and retweet Jasper’s comments to see his suspended too
Joe Macveigh labour member talking just after Paul Embery at 56 minutes in https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sds3KtLVlpU about how labour up north has ignored the working class
Event a group of ex lib Dem Women, who’s parties view is ,that to say self identifying Trans , aren’t women, makes the person saying it , not a femenist, they say they’re quit the party over it,
I’m sure they’d be welcome in the SDP ,or if blue labour formed a party, https://www.facebook.com/We-used-to-be-Lib-Dem-Women-624259004655583/
Usual embittered bile from Merchant yet again.
Berger , Gapes, Austin and all the rest should just leave and let the membership get on with building a democratic socialist party.
Berger was parachuted in by NL and treats the clp in wavertree with contempt .
Sooner they all go the better.
Alt this saying go off join the Tories is ao king well, the Tories are now averaging 6% lead in the polls, with no way labour can grab votes from greens of libdems like we did just before the 2017 election
By the way as Luicianna is so pro the EU she’s hardly gonna join the Tories, the libdems are too pro trans going in female safe spaces and anti Israel,they even have their open anti Semite problem, so why would she leave
But here Caroline flint nails, labours EU problem,
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/149-a-shore-thing-with-caroline-flint-mp_uk_5c6595c0e4b0bcddd40f9950?utm_hp_ref=uk-homepage&fbclid=IwAR3E4pGJj3jLYUdjmZOtJOTyRuHbrj316BNyjT3J3fsdgwYmD1hh_ujA1Fs
Ps .sorry for the bad spelling earlier
Greggs, gapes won the seat off the Tories in 92 demographics excluded he’s turned it into a save seat, next to him is Wes streetings Ilford north Full of blairites, Redbridge momentum is non existent and anti semitic, the labour leave campaign there. Struggled, Austin will probably lose his seat to the Tories anyway
If vapes was deselected labour could lose that seat
Resubmitting this as edited as, realized bar the last 3 paragraphs there were to many spelling mistakes
There’s lots of people who joined labour in the 80’s because they didn’t like the Tories, not the tories of mrs thatcher had a mandate to democratize the unions, rate cap councils spending ,out of control, not the one nation Tories who tolerated her doing that,
but the conservative’s of the monday club, apartheid and section 28, plus the student politics of labour are good the conservative’s are the baddies , because labour loved the NHS more than them,
After the defeat of 1992′ with all Kinnocks hard work, taking on militant
The election in 1997 and the things we achieved were great, the old school who thought defeating the Tories would be done by civil unrest, and didn’t want power as it was better to sneer from the side line and be a protest group, while ignoring labour lost 5.6million votes beteeen 1951-1983
Blaming the electorate for not voting for us
And trying to save face saying losing was a moral victory, or we lost in 79,83 and 1987 as it wasn’t left wing enough.
Then when the 2010 leadership election happened ( I voted Andy first Ed second, I still stand by that) as David miliband didn’t understand how un popular we were over the Westminster bubble, Ed miliband at first was prepared to listen,
Then by 2013 his strategy was this, say he didn’t like the the coalition, get a few ex libdem voters to now vote labour, hope the rise of Ukip would split the right wing vote of the tories and win by default
And it didn’t work, so when he lost, it was argued at first by labour, Ed miliband came in spent 5 years saying, unlike in the past( New labour) now my policies are moral, that meant he implied New labour was immoral
,he said we’ve got our party back, I’m not tony Blair and new labour is over, fair enough
But having had Ed spend 5 years denounce the work labour did when we were in power, only for then to lose
Both yvette, Liz and Andy thought the way to get the party To vote for them was to denounce ed milibands trsahing of our time inpower, Ironic, had Andy said whet he really meant, which in his first attempt to be leader in 2010 was close to what corbyn was saying he may have won the leadership
But then no, the party decided, the idea of kendall cooper and Burnham denouncing Ed miliband was wrong, it was the electorate who were wrong for not voting for us in 2015.
The way to win was to tell the electorate they were wrong, and Corbyn could say we lost in 2015 because it wasn’t left wing enough, when, the electorate had just voted for parties to the right of us , and won.
I heard Stella Creasy on this week last night, talking some bollocks about a people council to decide if we have Brexit, they’ll be unbiased and hand picked,and then they can decide if we have another referendum to stay in the EU
Creasy being that bit younger ,privately educated in the posh part of Essex, I recall her turning her nose up at Essex man and Women saying when she canvassed age 16 in 1992 with her parents they were the only 3 people on Essex who voted labour,im trying to imagine her going To a council estate 8 miles from her private school to tell us on the council estates about voting labour, then she got parachuted into a inner London deprived area she knew nothing about,after her university education in law,and work as a special advisor
My point was the Blairites in the CLP don’t want to quit the party, for the money, they knoe their wing is never gonna get power again, those who joined labour 33 years ago ,spent years helping akinnock ,then Blair fight militant Tory make labour electorabel, to undo the damage the Tories were doing, to selling off council homes with out replacing them( can’t think why we did it now) to say the Tories were wrong in the Monday Club and section 28′ to say t the hard left, the public think labour are anti the police and if labour win ,the police feel they won’t be able to keep law and order, so we ended up with Home Secretaries far to the right. Of the Tories with David blunkett
It’s hard or those who fought for years to get labour elected, to want to break away, At the same time, the corbynistas either sat at the back of the room for the last 30 years ,or spent decades opposing labour to not just join, or are too young to remember the 80’s Are in total denial There’s very few corbynistas who think corbyn is a remainer, the middle class guardian part of momentum excluded, many of th novara media tropes ( ash sarkar, Max Shanly excluded) are saying the same things as blue labour on labour trying to get back Working Class votes, all be it, while grace blakely was accurate on question time, in calling out Rees mogg defending churchill, they way she sniped a true him to gain points son to win back Working Class votes)
Fact is the Tories are ahead in the polls, not because corbyns a brexiter, not because if Yvette Cooper was there as leader, as we wouldn’t be ahead if she was in charge, Not even because a few people remember the nastiness of Corbyn and McDonnell’s views when they were younger
Up north a lot of people can look beyond corbyns past, and want Brexit and are clinging on to backing labour, not liking the islamifacation of their towns, wanting controls in immigration, not wanting woke positive dicrimiantion on being told what it is ok, to say as the working class are the ones to suffer, not because of austerity, But because it was the working class who hardly got anything ,bar a few pay rises out of new labour
Blair’s plan was get the private sector non unionised workers, we’ve already got the public sector white collar unionised wrokers( until the switched to the libdems for noe term in 2010) and don’t care about appealing to the working class they have no where else t go ignore their concerns about class cleansing and working class flight,and Syrians who have different moral values being moved int sink estates, where the social housing means pensioners are shipped off to the Coast. Blair thought he could lose Working Class votes and still win
Until Brexit
Labour is completely divided, the few blue labour types will either stay out of politics or hold their nose vote Tory
The liberal elite can just feel that it’s cool to strut and be in permanent opposition,and the Corbynites can be happy that their Brexit view for now isn’t seeing a mass exodus of working class votes up north, to keep them in charge of the party, while, the momentum types can plot totake over local parties to deselect moderates and they’re worried about being deselected so they suddenly start saying things that appeal to their local area, like being anti immigration or anti the police
Please learn English. You messed up in your very first sentence. A split can’t have become “irrevocable” because it hasn’t happened yet (if it ever will) so there’s nothing to revoke. The word I expect you were looking for is “inevitable”.
“The current situation with anti-Semitism, however is not so easy.”
erm…what anti-Semitism? There hasn’t been any such problem, it was all invented by the Rightwingers and the media in a deliberate attempt to undermine Corbyn.
Launch day +3 Hours
It was so funny to watch Angela Smith outing herself on Politics Live today.
https://youtu.be/MutgOaY37D0?t=2335
She clearly meant to say “funny colour” but somehow managed to mitigate it, to the equally crass & offensive “funny tinge”.
This from a person, allegedly fleeing racism in the Labour Party.
Here is the disingenuous mea culpa
https://twitter.com/angelasmithmp/status/1097518807357288448
No one can say that the warning signs were not there. Yes, of course Corbyn is unfit to be in the position and most of the front bench too but it’s the rest of the party and its members that have put their fingers in their ears and denied anti-semitism exists and fuelled the hate we see today.
The Labour Party is paralysed with stupidity and the politics of hate.
Corbyn and McDonell have to be replaced and the party needs to disown the Sixth Form pillocks at Momentum.
I assume landles Peasant is a parody of landless peasant? I hope
Angela smith was clearly saying how a racist would speak she didn’t mean she agreed
When diane Abbott said how bad the word P-A-K-I is said it doesn’t then mean she agrees with saying it
She wasn’t being racist the fact that she can’t talk about race without those defending anti semitism drag it up is a disgrace
Anti-Semitism
The criticism of only one of these things is NOT anti-semitic. The rest are
Israel
Israelis
Israeli Jews
Jews
The Israeli Government
’tis I Mr.Reid,
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mc9Bp3pEfZE/Wr4J82DOrMI/AAAAAAAAGiw/A6zmRSHMTiIoJKh9jS2J8f2wfoLTDbDUgCLcBGAs/s1600/Labour%2Banti-Semitism%2BTories%2BMedia.png
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-antisemitism-political-parties
Landle Peasant Oh my god,
there’s two links too some people who’ve put some stuff is CAPTIAL LETTERS!!
wow there’s anti smeitism outside the labour party in society and reported cases in the labour party are 500 some by the same memebers so maybe 400 cases of 400,000 members So it’s only 1% yet in society it’s higher
ok wow is that alright then because it isn’t!
“Gangsterish behaviour”
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/02/22/hatton-suspension-suggests-gangsterish-behaviour-by-labour/
Who is really behind ‘The Independent Group Ltd.’ ?
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/02/23/there-may-be-another-motive-behind-the-resignations-of-all-these-labour-friends-of-israel/
“Watson’s warnings over anti-Semitism would have more weight if he hadn’t taken Israeli money”
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/02/25/watsons-warnings-over-anti-semitism-would-have-more-weight-if-he-hadnt-taken-israeli-money/
thanks landless Peasent .give me the best laugh in ages, take it that’s a parody website like Daily Mash
No, it’s factual, and Left wing, unlike this website.