The prominent Black anti-racism activist, Marc Wadsworth, has been expelled from the Labour party for anti-Semitism in a profoundly controversial decision that makes a mockery of justice. Wadsworth was accused of anti-Semitism by the Blairite MP, Ruth Smeeth. He saw her at a meeting passing on information to a Torygraph journo sat next to her. So he made a comment about certain Labour MPs working with the Tory press.
He said absolutely nothing about Jews, but Smeeth did what the Blairites and the Israel lobby tend to do when criticised by their opponents: scream that they are being abused and demand their critics’ expulsion. In this case, Smeeth declared that it was anti-Semitic abuse, because she’s Jewish.
Wadsworth didn’t even know that she was. But this didn’t stop the right-wing media pillorying him as a ‘vile anti-Semite’ who made Smeeth weep.
In fact, Wadsworth had made a fair comment about a long-standing issue. Labour MPs have in the past joined forces against their leaders. I can remember when I was briefly a member of the Fabian Society one of the issues being debated was whether Labour MPs should be allowed to write columns in the Tory press. This was in the 1980s when the press and the rest of the media, including the Beeb, was doing its level best to attack the Labour party under first Michael Foot and then Neil Kinnock.
Under the definition of anti-Semitism the Israel lobby wants the Labour party to adopt, an alleged anti-Semitism remark must be judged according to whether there is hate behind it. Instead, the NCC decided that the remark was anti-Semitic purely because they were advised that it could be perceived as such.
As the Tories themselves hollered when Labour brought in more sweeping legislation against hate speech, perceptions are no ground for condemning a comment as racist because of their subjective nature. You need better, more objective standards of proof, such as showing that there was racial hate behind it.
This is what the judgement did not do. An innocent man has been expelled merely on the say-so of a right-wing MP, who herself admitted that she was trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. And understandably there has been massive outrage amongst Black and other ethnic minority supporters of the Labour party.
Mike has posted a couple of articles on this. In one he describes how the party escorting Smeeth to the ruling were all white, as were all the officials, who decided Wadsworth was guilty. He compared it to a lynching. Black critics of the decision have denounced the court for the racist way it treated Wadsworth. One woman said that they spoke to him as if he was a servant, and did not take into account how difficult many Blacks find it to speak up against powerful Whites. Grassroots Black Labour have also issued condemnations of the judgement and its treatment of Blacks.
Mike today has asked whether the Labour party has just blown its chances of winning London. New Labour lost the support of many Blacks, just as it lost the support of working class Whites, because it took them for granted and ignored them. It expected them to continue voting Labour, because they had nowhere else to go. Instead, many of them, like many White working class folks, simply didn’t vote.
The Conservatives’ position in the metropolis is shaky. So shaky, that a few weeks ago there were rumours that London Tories were going to split and form a separate party. But that seems to have gone by the wayside. Labour did have a very real chance of taking London, but this has been put in jeopardy by this grossly unjust decision.
And I wonder if this wasn’t done deliberately. As the Blairites showed when they threatened to split the Labour party during their Chicken Coup against Corbyn, they have no qualms against making the Labour party unelectable, just as long as they can hold on to power.
And a few weeks ago, the press was full of a new, centrist party, financed to the tune of £50 million, being set up by businessmen and donors. It was going to be pro-European. This had Euan Blair, the son of Tony Blair, as one of its members. As Blair himself has also made comments about the need for a centrist, pro-European party, there has been some speculation, including by myself, that he’s somehow involved in this all.
Then last week, buried in the pages of the I, was a little report about a new, pro-European, centrist party, Renew, which was fielding candidates in London. The article said that they were hoping to win over Tory voters dissatisfied with Brexit. It sounds like the party being touted by the press a few weeks ago. If it isn’t, it’s very similar.
Which raises the question: have the Blairites deliberately passed an unjust decision against Wadsworth to alienate BAME Londoners, in the hope of either boosting support for Renew, or simply handing London to the Tories?
If they have, then it’s supporting an opposing party, which is an expulsion offence. But the Blairites have the attitude that such things only apply to the centre-left, not to free market Thatcherites and supporters of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians like themselves.
Labour needs to win back the support of it Black and ethnic minority members and supporters. Along with everybody else, who is sick of decent, anti-racist activists – which have included very many Jews – of being smeared, suspended and expelled on false charges of anti-Semitism.
The decision against Marc Wadsworth, and other decent people like him, should be overturned. The recommendations contained in the Chakrabarti Report should be implemented to stop further travesties of justice. Allegations of anti-Semitism should, like other allegations, be examined and fairly and impartially. And the party should absolutely not give into those, who make such false allegations purely for political gain.
Tags: 'The Telegraph', anti-racism, anti-semitism, Anti-Semitism Smears, Blacks, Brexit, Businessmen, Chakrabarti Report, Conservatives, Corporate Donors, Ethnic Minorities, Euan Blair, Fabian Society, Free Market Ideology, Grassroots Black Labour, Israel Lobby, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party, London, Marc Wadsworth, Margaret Thatcher, Michael Foot, NCC, Neil Kinnock, New Labour, racism, Renew Party, Ruth Smeeth, Whites, Working Class
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