Expelled Labour Anti-Racist Campaigner Marc Wadsworth Talks to Afshin Rattansi on RT

This is another great video from that notorious Russian propaganda outlet, RT, which shows exactly why we need the channel. It’s the only one allowing those smeared as anti-Semites from the Labour party to come on TV to give their side and their views.

In this clip, RT’s presenter for the ‘Going Underground’ programme, Afshin Rattansi, talks to Marc Wadsworth. Wadsworth is the veteran anti-racist campaigner, who was smeared as an anti-Semite by Blairite Labour MP Ruth Smeeth. He was then subjected to what can only be described as a kangaroo court, before being found guilty and thrown out.

Wadsworth here talks about how he formed the Anti-Racist Alliance in 1991, and how he helped the parents of the murdered Black teenager, Stephen Lawrence, meet Nelson Mandela. He states that this was a time when racism and Fascism were on the increase. Blacks and Asians had been attacked, the BNP had established a bunker, which they claimed was a bookshop, and then there was the murder of Stephen Lawrence. He was able to get Stephen Lawrence’s parents to meet Mandela through contacting expatriate members of the ANC, who were disgusted to find out that Black lives were just as cheap in London as they were in South Africa. The Anti-Racist Alliance itself had the support of MPs, Blacks, Asians and Jews, and was the largest Black led anti-racist organisation in Europe.

Rattansi then asks him about Amber Rudd, the deportations and his expulsion from the Labour party. Wadsworth states that his father was one of the Windrush generation. He was an RAF volunteer from Jamaica, who paid his own passage of here in 1944 to help Britain fight the Nazis. After the War, he then made his way back here, to help this country rebuild. Wadsworth says that his father’s dead now, but if he were alive, he’d be appalled at the way they were treated, and the way his son has been treated.

Rattansi then asks him how long he’s known Jeremy Corbyn. Wadsworth states that he’s known Corbyn since he was first elected as an MP in 1983, when he was a campaigning trade unionist. Wadsworth also discusses how he was one of those involved in the movement for Black sections in the Labour party, which led to the election of the first Black Labour MPs, including Bernie Grant and Diane Abbott. This was a landmark moment, as up till then parliament had been all White, as White as that of South Africa.

He and Rattansi also discuss how Wadsworth was influential in changing and drafting the law on racial harassment in concert with a member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. This was after a series of battles with the BNP on the Isle of Dogs after the election of Derek Beacon, when Jews were being attacked.

As for the kangaroo court that found him guilty of anti-Semitism, he states that his legal team had entirely disproved the charges against him, and that the court couldn’t even give him a definition of anti-Semitism, and had to take legal advice part way through. He found this very disturbing. He says he’s been overwhelmed by the support he’s received from thousands of people, and that polls show most people think he’s innocent. He states that this is the Blairites trying to hold on to power, and that if they get away with throwing him out, they’ll be able to throw out anybody. It could be Jackie Walker next, or Ken Livingstone.

Rattansi tackles him on why no Labour figures have publicly defended him. Wadsworth states that he had received the support of high-ranking Labour MPs, naming them. As for the reason they haven’t publicly come forward, this is because Jeremy Corbyn is under siege by the Blairites. 172 MPs signed a ‘no confidence’ motion against him, which is 95 per cent of parliamentary MPs. They’re afraid to speak out in case the right-wing press jump in and try to use their defence against them and the wider Labour party.

Rattansi mentions that Wadsworth isn’t just concerned with racial justice, but also with class. Wadsworth states that he left the Labour party because of the invasion of Iraq. He rejoined when Corbyn became leader. He states that we need to back Corbyn in this battle for the soul of the Labour party, if we wish to have genuinely socialist, internationalist, anti-war Labour party.

At the end of the programme their subtitles giving dates from a ‘Justice for Wadsworth’ tour, beginning in London. You may wish to stop the video at that and make notes of the dates.

Wadsworth is clearly a man of deep conviction and integrity, and it is an utter travesty that he has been so foully smeared as an anti-Semite when he is clearly very, very far from it. As are so many others.

As for his story about his father serving in the RAF, and then coming back to Britain after the War to help in our reconstruction, Wadsworth’s father was by no means the only one. The book Under the Imperial Carpet, which discusses various incidents in Black British history, has a chapter on the many West Indians, who, like Wadsworth’s father, came to this country during the War to help us. These people were so well received that they came back here after the War expecting the same treatment. Sadly, they weren’t, and found instead bitter racism and resentment. Rudd and Tweezer’s deportation of this generation and their children is another vile chapter in this story of hope, racism and disappointment and maltreatment.

Wadsworth and everyone else falsely accused of anti-Semitism should be cleared and reinstated as members of the Labour party immediately.

The deportations must stop now, and those deported returned to their homes and families in Britain. And Tweezer should resign or be thrown out for her role in drafting the legislation used to persecute them.

And Ruth Smeeth and the other Blairites are utterly despicable, and should be deselected.

Tags: 'Under The Imperial Carpet', Amber Rudd, ANC, anti-racism, Anti-Racist Alliance, anti-semitism, Anti-Semitism Smears, Asians, Attacks, Bernie Grant, Blacks, BNP, Class, Deportations, Diane Abbott, Going Underground, Internationalism, Iraq Invasion, isle of Dogs, Jackie Walker, Jeremy Corbyn, Jews, Ken Livingstone, Labour Party, London, Marc Wadsworth, Murders, Nelson Mandela, Propaganda, racism, RAF, RT, Ruth Smeeth, Stephen Lawrence, Theresa May, tony blair, Windrush Generation, World War II