I got the two copies of my self-published book For A Workers’ Chamber, published with the print on demand service Lulu through the post today. I wrote the book way back in 2018. It argues that as parliament is dominated by millionaire company directors and senior management, working people have been effectively excluded. Blairite Labour is no help, as it has enthusiastically embraced this policy. I therefore argue that what is needed to correct this is a parliamentary chamber composed of working people, elected by working people, following ideas and demands going back as Robert Owen’s Grand Consolidated Trade Union and the Chartist’s assembly of a parliament of trades in the 19th century. The book’s blurb runs
For a Worker’s Chamber argues that a special representative chamber of composed of representatives of the working class, elected by the working class, is necessary to counter the domination of parliament by millionaires and the heads of industries.
It traces the idea of worker’s special legislative assemblies from Robert Owen’s Grand Consolidated Trade Union, anarchism, syndicalism, Guild Socialism, the workers’, soldiers’ and peasants’ councils in Revolutionary Russia, Germany and Austria, the Utopian Socialism of Saint-Simon and the Corporativism of Fascist Italy. It also discusses the liberal forms of corporativism which emerged in Britain during the First and Second World Wars, as well as the system of workers’ control and producer’s chambers in Tito’s Yugoslavia.
It argues that parliamentary democracy should not be abandoned, but needs to be expanded in include a worker’s chamber to make it more representative.
I ordered two copies of my book as I want to send one to the Labour Party. It’s now holding a policy review, and they’ve been asking members to send in suggestions for a policy. I really this idea is quite extreme and Utopian, but I want to send a copy of it to them to remind them just who they were set up to represent and where their priorities should lie. And they definitely do not lie with chasing Tory votes, taking over Thatcher’s policies and dismantling the welfare state, privatising the NHS and enrolling rich businessmen in parliament.
I’d like to send the second copy to any Labour MP or senior figure in the movement, who might be interested in it. Ken Livingstone would be the obvious choice, as he was a strong supporter of workers’ rights and industrial democracy when he was head of the GLC. Unfortunately, he has been forced out of the party due to being smeared as an anti-Semite, simply because he correctly pointed out that Hitler initially supported Zionism and sending Jews to Israel. The German Zionists signed a pact with him, the Ha’avara Agreement, which is documented on the website of the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.
I’m also thinking of sending it Richard Burgon, who is now one of the leading figures in left-wing Labour politics. I realise that it is probably too extreme for him, as he’s traditional centrist Labour, wanting the return of nationalisation for the NHS and utilities and a state managed but mixed economy. You know, the standard post-war social democratic consensus until Thatcher’s election in 1979. But I’m also worried about sending it to him in case his enemies in the party use it to smear him as a Commie or Trotskyite, just as they did with Corbyn.
The book is only one of a number of pamphlets and books I’ve self-published. I tried sending copies of them to the press, but didn’t get any interest. If you have any suggestions for any senior Labour figure, or simply ordinary MP or official, who would enjoy reading a copy, please let me know.
There’s a very interesting section in Andrina Stile’s Religion, Society and Reform 1800-1914 (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1995) discussing the challenge the Sephardic Jewish establishment faced in the 19th century from the influx of Ashkenazi Jews fleeing persecution in eastern Europe. The British Jewish community was assimilated, and shocked by the poverty and lack of education of the new immigrants. They therefore tried to assist them and help them to integrate into British society. However, while this assistance was well-intentioned, they were also afraid of the immigrants’ political radicalism. Many of them were Socialists, and they challenged the Jewish religious establishment by setting up independent charities and prayer groups, the chevroth, that acted as alternatives to the established synagogues and centres of Jewish culture and learning. As a result, the Chief Rabbis began a campaign to centralise their power and authority, leading to the establishment of the United Synagogue.
Stiles’ writes
This great influx of immigrants completely destabilised Anglo-Jewry for a while, socially, economically and religiously. The majority of the newcomers were poor and uneducated, used to a life of violence and prone to riot. A campaign of education and training was begun by the Jewish elite, not in an attempt to keep down a potentially dangerous proletariat and maintain the social status quo, but to turn the newcomers into respectable citizens, wean them away from socialist politics and integrate them into existing society. Schools, hospitals and charitable institutions of all kinds were established and adult education was vigorously pursued in the hope of instilling bourgeois values; but the immigrant populations in London, Leeds and Manchester remained stubbornly unwilling to co-operate. Not only was the Hebrew Socialist Union formed in 1875 with the aim of organising workers in the East End of London, but there was also a sudden and spontaneous growth of religious confraternities, chevra. These chevra provided spiritual, social and material comfort for those in need. Groups of ‘poor foreigners’ who could not afford to attend the synagogues, where they were not made welcome, would combine to form the necessary quorum of ten men for worship. In any room they could borrow or rent cheaply they held their own services. However unsalubrious, crowded and uncomfortable, a chevroth ‘supplied them not only with their religion, but with their art and letters, their politics and their public amusements. It was their home as well as the Almighty’s’. The failure of the synagogues to provide for the poor probably explains why, according to the 1851 Religious Census, only 16 per5 cent of Jews attended the official Sabbath service.
The Jewish elite disliked these independent organisations for their religious extremism, their encouragement of class divisions and their radical politics and looked for a way to counter the influence of the chevra. They found it in the development of a strong, hierarchical and centralised religious government under the leadership of the Adler family. Father and son, the Adlers filled the office of Chief Rabbi for 66 years (1844-1911), during which time they gather into their hands complete control of all religious matters. Social affairs were co-ordinate in 1858 by the formation of the Jewish Board of Guardians and the process of centralisation was completed when hitherto autonomous religious congregations were brought together by the creation of the United Synagogue in 1870. (p. 143-44).
This seems to parallel some of the conflict with British, American and western Judaism today over the support for Israel. And it strongly appears to me that right-wing Zionist Jewish establishment in Britain isn’t just frightened about falling support for Israel and its vile colonialist programme of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. They also seem to be very much afraid that the great-grandchildren of the Jewish radicals of the 19th century are rediscovering their Socialist heritage.
David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialist Group has described on his blog how the Board of Deputies of British Jews in the 1980s accused the GLC of anti-Semitism because Ken Livingstone dared to give them a small grant. The Board were infuriated because the JSG wasn’t affiliated to them. Rosenberg himself celebrates the tradition of the Bund, the 19th century eastern European Jewish party, which wished to create a socialist order while remaining in their traditional European homelands. Their motto, in Hebrew, translated as ‘Wherever we are, that’s our homeland’. They wished to be equal, fellow citizens with the gentile peoples with whom they lived. This was completely unacceptable to the Zionists, who were a minority among the eastern European Jewish masses.
Jeremy Corbyn has been bitterly denounced as an anti-Semite for his support of equality and dignity for the Palestinians by the Conservative establishment, including the Blairite ‘moderates’ in Labour itself. And they’ve also accused him and his supporters of being Communists, Trotskyites and Stalinists because they stand for a return to the post-War social democratic consensus. A strong welfare state, a nationalised National Health Service that carries out its commitment to provide universal healthcare free at the point of delivery, and workers’ rights and effective trade unions, are too much for the right-wing establishment, Jewish, gentile or whatever, to tolerate. Among those on the receiving end of this campaign of smears and vilification have been left-wing, Corbyn-supporting Jews, like Jackie Walker. Corbyn has a proud tradition of supporting the Jewish community, as bloggers like Mike over at Vox Political, the Skwawkbox and very many others have shown. And he enjoys the respect and support of part of the Jewish community. This includes the ultra-Orthodox Haridi, whose campaign to preserve their burial ground he and Dianne Abbott supported when the local synagogue wanted to redevelop it. Within the Labour party Corbyn is supported by Jewish Voice for Labour, and he spent Passover with the radical Jewish group, Jewdas. Which sent the Board and the witch-hunters berserk once again. They howled ‘anti-Semitism!’, because he dared to celebrate a Jewish holiday with ‘the wrong sort of Jews’. You know, people who may have seen themselves as in the tradition of the Hebrew Socialist Union, rather than respectable business types.
The Conservative Jewish establishment seems to feel that its power is being challenged, both in terms of foreign policy – support for Israel – and domestically in that there are independent Jewish organisations following left-wing politics. And so these decent people are also smeared as ‘self-hating’, anti-Semitic and ‘the wrong kind of Jews’, just as the Israel lobby as a whole smears anybody, who decries Israeli ethnic cleansing.
Leafing through an old copy of Private Eye, for 1st – 14th April 2011, I found an article in their ‘Street of Shame’ column about Spectator columnist Toby Young and his friend and ally, Harry Phibbs. Young was then trying to set up his free school in Hammersmith and Fulham, where Phibbs was a councilor. To show the strong relationship between them and just how extreme and noxious their right-wing views were, the magazine published and commented on a letter written by Young to Phibbs when he was a sixth form student nearly 30 years previously. The article, ‘Tory Boys’, ran
Spectator columnist Toby Young has no doughtier ally in his campaign to set up a west London Free School than the booming-voiced freelance hack Harry Phibbs, Hammersmith and Fulham’s council’s “cabinet member for community engagement”.
Phibbs represents the ward in which the school will be sited, and threw his considerable weight behind the council’s decision to sell off a building occupied by voluntary groups so Toby could have it. Phibbs’s current partner, Caroline Ffiske, sits on the school’s steering committee.
But the relationship between these two likely lads goes back much further. The Eye has somehow obtained a fan-letter sent to Harry Phibbs 29 years ago, when as a noisy Tory schoolboy he was attracting media attention. The author, a sixth-former at William Ellis School in north London, professed himself “very amused” by an Eye report of Phibbs’s antics.
“Here is a brief history of my political career [sic],” wrote Toby Young (for it was he). “having been a victim of a bohemian upbringing, and living in a small, socialist community in Devon surrounded by feminists and hippies of every (unspeakable) description. I decided to set up a provocative organization which I suitably named ‘Combat Communism’.”
After several paragraphs recounting how he’d tried to disrupt a protest by CND (“this band of idiots”), Toby made his pitch. “Recently I started up a political group called ‘the Young Apostles’, and we hold regular meetings where topics such as disarmament, feminism, culture, education, the media, the constitution and international finance are discussed. I originally banned females from taking part, partly because I don’t believe them equipped with the ability to discuss things and partly because I don’t know any bright females. Much to my horror some local saggy-titted feminists (Greenham Gremlins) found out about this discussion group and its high membership standards, and picketed the first meeting. Naturally they weren’t prepared to listen to my arguments about the genetic character traits of women and just ranted and raved… so I was forced to enlist the services of the local constabulary in order to dispose of them.
“Anyway, to get to the point, I was wondering whether you (and perhaps one or two of your brighter friends) would be interested in attending any of these meetings. I can promise that no members of the (un)fair sex will halt you on your way in Currently we have the sons of several ’eminent’ men among our ranks… Our next meeting is on Sunday 6 March at 2pm (whisky and cigars provided).” Using the courtesy title deriving from his dad’s peerage, he signed himself: “Yours sincerely, Honourable Toby D.M. Young.” Who’d have guessed that three decades later this comical duo would be collaborating to set up a co-ed school? (p. 5).
Okay, a lot of children and young people have obnoxious views, which they later grow out of. And Young wrote the letter back in the early 1980s, when attitudes towards gender and feminism were rather different. The women protesting against American nuclear weapons at Greenham Common were vilified in the right-wing press, and by Auberon Waugh, one of the columnists in Private Eye. I can remember Waugh appearing on the late Terry Wogan’s chat show one evening to sneer at them. It was at that time there was a comedy on BBC 2, Comrade Dad, starring George Cole, set in a future Communist Britain. This not only satirized the Soviet Union, but also the supposed far-left politics of Labour politicians like Ken Livingstone and the GLC in London. Just as women performed traditionally masculine jobs, like engineers and construction workers in the USSR, so they were shown doing such jobs in the Britain of the time. The lead character, played by Cole, was a firm believer in this system, and in line with avoiding sexist speech used to refer to everyone as ‘persons’. Women were ‘female persons’. Even so, Young’s view were horrendously reactionary at the time. As for Waugh, his humour largely consisted of writing outrageously opinionated right-wing pieces against groups like the Greenham women, teachers, and everyone else who offended his Thatcherite sensibilities in order to upset the left. Looking back at him, he could probably be described as a kind of privileged literary troll.
Regarding Young’s claim that he didn’t know any intelligent females, that can probably be explained by him being too opinionated and stupid to recognize the intelligence of the young women around him. On the other hand, he probably attended a boys’ school, in which case he may not have known many girls. It’s also possible that the girls and women with brains recognized immediately how stupid Young was, and took care to avoid him.
Young has, however, continued to have extreme right-wing views, and indeed has made a career out of it. I think he was the author of the book, How To Lose Friends And Alienate People was based. He last notable appearance in the news was a few years ago, when the Tories made him the official responsible for looking after the interests of students at university. Private Eye, amongst others, revealed that Young had been one of those attending a eugenics conference at University College London along with others on the far right. These included people, who believed that Blacks were intellectually inferior to Whites, and out and out Nazis. In this company, his remark in the letter that his youthful study group also discussed international finance could sound sinister, like a coded reference to the stupid and murderous conspiracy theory about the world being run by Jewish bankers. I doubt that is how he meant it at the time, but undoubtedly that is how it would be presented if Young was a member of the Labour left rather than extreme right-wing Tory.
I don’t know how Young got on with his plans to found the free school, and he probably has changed his views on women. But otherwise he seems to have remained extremely right-wing and bigoted. He definitely doesn’t support or defend the interests of people from lower income backgrounds, regardless of their gender. And indeed he, like the other hacks on the Spectator and in the right-wing press genuinely, are fiercely opposed to them.
One of the central tenets of Marxism is that the period of socialism ushered in by the seizure of power by the workers will eventually lead to the withering away the state and begin the transition to the period of true Communism. This will be the ideal, final phase of society when the government of people will be replaced by the administration of things.
Lenin seems to have believed that the transition to this ideal society would begin after everything had been nationalized and placed in the hands of the workers. The workers would then be able to manage the economy and society through the way capitalism had simplified the management of industry so that it could be performed by the workers themselves. This is explained in a passage from his The State and Revolution, reproduced in Lane W. Lancaster, Masters of Political Thought, Vol. 3: Hegel to Dewey (London: George Harrap & Co. Ltd 1959), pp.193-4.
Accounting and control – these are the chief things necessary for the organizing and correct functioning of the first phase of Communist society. All citizens are here transformed into hired employees of the State, which is made up of the armed workers. All citizens become employees and workers of one national state ‘syndicate’. All that is required is that they should work equally, should regularly doe their share of work, and should received equal pay. The accounting and control necessary for this have been simplified by capitalism to the utmost, till they have become the extraordinarily simple operations of watching, recording and issuing receipts, within the reach of anyone who can read and write and knows the first four rules of arithmetic.
When the majority of the people begin everywhere to keep such accounts and maintain such control over the capitalists (now converted into employees) and over the intellectual gentry, who still retain capitalist habits, this control will really become universal, general, national; and there will be no way of getting away from it, there will be ‘nowhere to go’.
The whole of society will have become one office and one factory, with equal and equal pay.
But this ‘factory’ discipline, which the proletariat will extend to the whole of society after the defeat of the capitalists and the overthrow of the exploiters, is by no means our ideal, or our final aim. It is but a foothold necessary for the radical cleansing of society of all the hideousness and foulness of capitalist exploitation, in order to advance further.
From the moment when all members of society, ore even the overwhelming majority, have learned how to govern the State themselves, have taken this business into their own hands, have established control over the insignificant minority of capitalists, over the gentry with capitalist leanings, and the workers thoroughly demoralized by capitalism-from this moment the need for any government begins to disappear. The more complete the democracy, the nearer the moment when it begins to be unnecessary. The more democratic the ‘State’ consisting of armed workers, which is no longer a State in the proper sense of the term, the more rapidly does every State begin to wither away.
for when all have learned to manage, and independently are actually managing by themselves social production, keeping accounts, controlling the idlers, the gentlefolk, the swindlers and similar ‘guardians of capitalist traditions’, then the escape from this national accounting and control will inevitable become so increasingly difficult, such a rare exception, and will probably be accompanied by such swift and severe punishment (for the armed workers are men of practical life, not sentimental intellectuals, and they will scarcely allow anyone to trifle with them), that very soon the necessity of observing the simple fundamental rules of every day social life in common will have become a habit.
The door will then be open for the transition from the first phase of Communist society to its highest phase, and along with it to the complete withering away of the state.
Lenin’s ideas here about industrial management and the withering away of the state are utopian, despite his denials elsewhere in his book. Lancaster in his comments on the passage points out that industrial management required to feed, clothe and house a society is far more complex than simply ‘watching, recording and issuing receipts’. Lenin in fact did try to put workers’ control into practice, with the result that industry and the economy almost collapsed completely. The capitalists and managers, who had been thrown out of the factories and industries in wheelbarrows by the workers, were invited back in afterwards, and restored to their former power. At the same, Alexandra Kollontai and the Left Communists, who wanted the workers to run the factories through trade unions, were gradually but ruthlessly suppressed as Lenin centralized political decision making.
Lancaster also points out that the administration of things nevertheless means government, and that it is very hard to convince a man, who has just been refused permission to open a new bus route or produce as many shoes as he can, that he is not being governed. Lancaster also argues that practice in both the democratic west and the USSR shows that a truly ‘stateless’ society impossible. He also states that the reduction of society to one enormous factory or office will repulse the normal mind, as it resembles a colony of insects, and that the similar routinization of the fundamental rules of normal social life into a habit destroys the autonomous individual and reduces them to a machine. He could also have mentioned, but doesn’t, the very sinister implications of ‘armed workers’ and the use of military force. The USSR was created by violent revolution, and maintained itself through force. Those attempting to set up their own businesses were arrested for ‘economic sabotage’ and sent to the gulags, where they were treated worse than ordinary criminals.
However, workers are capable of participating in government. One of the points Anthony Crossland made in one of his books was that the American unions had a large measure of industrial democracy, all though it was never called that. He was arguing against worker’s control, considering it unnecessary where there were strong unions, a progressive income tax and the possibility of social advancement. The unions have since been all but smashed and social mobility has vanished. And under Thatcherite tax reforms, income tax has become less progressive as the rich are given massive tax cuts, while the tax burden has been shifted on to working people. But the point remains: workers are capable of becoming managers. It was demonstrated by the anarcho-syndicalists in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. And Red Ken, when he was once asked by a journo why he supported worker’s management, said that it came from his experience as had of the GLC. Livingstone was now the head of a vast local government system, but there was nothing special about him. So, he believed, could ordinary people run a business. I think Leninspart was probably too modest, and he possessed managerial talents others don’t have, but the point’s a good one.
If the ability to make managerial and governmental decisions were broadened, so that they included employees and members of the public, this would empower both groups. It would make the domination of the rich 1% more difficult, and lead to a more equal, less class-ridden society. A truly classless, stateless society is probably impossible, as the example of the USSR shows. But introducing a measure of workers’ control is surely worthwhile in order to make things just that bit better.
Of course, to do so properly might mean giving working people management training. Well, Thatcher tried to turn British schoolchildren into a new generation of capitalists by making business studies part of the curriculum. She stressed competition and private enterprise. But it would turn her ideas on its head if such education instead turned workers not into aspiring businesspeople, but gave them the ability to manage industry as well as the elite above them.
That really would be capitalist contradiction Marx would have enjoyed.
On Monday, Ken Livingstone resigned from the Labour party. He had been suspended from the party following the smears that he was an anti-Semite and had claimed that Hitler was a Zionist. This was completely untrue. As Red Ken goes on to say in the interview with RT, he never claimed that Hitler was a Zionist, only that he briefly supported Zionism. It is abundantly clear if you read Livingstone’s 1987 book, Livingstone’s Labour, that a racist of any stripe is the very last thing the former head of the GLC is. He makes it very clear that he is firmly opposed to anti-Semitism as well as anti-Black and anti-Irish racism, and details with the disgust and outrage the way the British state recruited Nazis, including those responsible for pogroms against the Jews and the Holocaust, as agents in the Cold War struggle against Communism. The claim that Livingstone said Hitler was a Zionist is an invention of John Mann, the Blairites and the Israel lobby, and repeated ad nauseam, ad infinitum, by the Conservative press and media in order to smear and discredit him. And they are still doing it. Deborah Orr, one of the wretched columnists in the I newspaper, claimed that he had said the Hitler was a Zionist, which shows how much she, and her editor, care about factual reporting. Mike has also covered on his blog how the Israel lobby continue to point to an interview Red Ken gave on Sky as showing that he was anti-Semitic. Which also shows they haven’t bothered to watch it, as in the interview Ken thoroughly refutes the allegations and shoots down those making them.
In this interview, Livingstone answers the question why it has taken him so long to resign. He replies that his instinct has always been to fight on to the end, whether it was against Thatcher or Tony Blair. But he chose to resign now because the controversy and lies surrounding him were becoming too much of a distraction. He was suspended two years ago in 2016. After a year, there was another three day hearing, which couldn’t refute the charges against him, and so extended the suspension for another year. He wanted to take his accusers to court, but was told by his lawyer that it would take at least two years to get there. He considered that it was too much of a distraction from Labour’s real programme under Corbyn, which he makes very clear has a real chance of winning.
When asked about whether the allegations have damaged Labour’s chances, for example, in Barnet, which has a high Jewish population, Red Ken said that of course people would be shocked when they hear that he said that Hitler was a Zionist, that it’s not anti-Semitic to hate Jews in Israel, or that Jews are Nazis, but he was struck by the number of Jews, who came up to him on the street to tell him that they knew what he said was true. This was that in 1933 Hitler and the Zionists made a deal to send some Jews to Israel. They didn’t like each other, but as a result, 60,000 Jews emigrated to Palestine. If they had stayed in Germany, they would have been murdered in the Holocaust. So it’s the lesser of two evils, according to Livingstone.
When the interviewer asks him if these allegations haven’t put a dent in Labour’s electoral chances, such as in Barnet, Livingstone tells him that half a dozen Jews have asked him on the street why he claimed that Hitler was a Zionist. And he’s told them that he never said that. Unfortunately, Livingstone never completes that reply due to a technical fault.
The interviewer then moves on to ask him if he really believes that Labour has a chance under Corbyn. Livingstone says clearly that everyone said that Labour would be wiped out during the next election. But in fact, Corbyn delivered the greatest increase in the Labour vote since the 1945 election, and they came within two per cent of the Tories. They could have gotten more, if the party had been united and MPs hadn’t been trying to unseat their leader. He states that Corbyn has excellent plans for massive public investment, improved service, creating new jobs and investing in high tech industries. That connected with people, and will connect with people at the next election.
The interview ends with the question of what Livingstone will do now that he’s retired from politics and whether he will return. Livingstone states that he retired from politics after he lost the election to Boris Johnson in 2012. Now he’s an old age pensioner and a house-husband, walking the kids and feeding the dog.
It’s a very, very good interview with Livingstone making it very clear that he definitely did not say what the liars in the Blairites, the Israel lobby and the press have accused him of. As for Jews telling Livingstone that they know he didn’t say those things, I can well believe this. Mike has put up innumerable pieces on his blog showing the support of many Jews and Jewish groups for Corbyn and the victims of the anti-Semitism smears, pointing out that there is absolutely no truth in them. Especially as so many of those libelled as anti-Semites are self-respecting Jews. The alliance between the Nazis and the Zionists is solid historical fact, and included in respected historical studies of the Holocaust, such as that of the Zionist historian, David Cesarani. It was called the Ha’avara agreement, and there’s a page on it on the site of the International Holocaust Museum in Israel. All you have to do is google it to find out that what Livingstone said was the truth.
Mike is disappointed with Ken’s decision to resign, as this also affects the legal chances of those, like him, who have been smeared trying to defend Livingstone. He writes
The shame of it is that certain people will take Mr Livingstone’s decision as an admission of guilt – and that he will not have the opportunity to put the record straight.
That means he is letting down others who have been put in the same situation (like This Writer).
I’m not backing down – and if Labour’s disciplinary panel find against me, I’ll happily sue the party because my good name is not a negotiable commodity.
It goes without saying that I’m backing Mike, and everybody else who has been foully smeared by these contemptible knaves, 100 per cent. While I understand why Livingstone has raised, I am afraid this will just serve to encourage the Blairites and the Israel lobby in their campaign against Corbyn and the true Labour moderates. They will not be placated by just taking down a few, sacrificial supporters, like Livingstone. Now that they’ve seen their campaign is effective, they will keep on and on. The best defence is attack, and the only way to tackle them is to meet them head on, and refute every one of their dam’ lies. They are not as secure as they think they are. The Blairites live in holy terror of the constituency parties deselecting them. The Israel lobby itself is becoming painfully aware that smears of anti-Semitism aren’t having the affect they used to have. And Jonathan Arkush’s own position as president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews is looking very rocky after his disgusting comments trying to cast the blame on the victims of the Gaza massacre, rather than the Israelis.
The Blairites and the Israel lobby are bullies. They are in a far weaker position than they wish to appear, and are responding by smears, lies and throwing their weight around. But you can stand up to bullies, and bring them down.
This morning, Mike put up a piece taking a part the letter written by Jonathans Arkush and Goldstein attacking Jeremy Corbyn for being too soft on the supposed rampant anti-Semitism in the Labour party. The story’s also covered in the I newspaper, which doesn’t name the two. It just describes the letter as written by ‘Jewish community leaders’. In fact, one of them is from the Jewish Leadership Council and the other is from the Board of Deputies of British Jews. They accuse Corbyn of ignoring the issues that are important to mainstream British Jews. Their real concern, however, is revealed in their comments about how Cobyn and the Labour party under him are motivated by the Far Left’s hatred of Zionism, Israel, and the Israel lobby. As Mike has shown, Corbyn is not far left. He’s centre-left. He only appears far left compared to the Blairites and the Tories, who want everything privatised, including the NHS, following the ideological dictates of Margaret Thatcher. But then, factual accuracy is not these guys’ concern. Smearing the left and the opponents of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians is.
Mike’s put up a couple of videos showing that Corbyn has always been an opponent of racism and anti-Semitism, so Arkush and Goldstein’s smear of him and his followers as anti-Semites is the purest nonsense. Nor is he an opponent of the state Israel. I was told this by a commenter on one of my posts about Israel and the Israel lobby, who objected to my using the term ‘Zionism’. He felt it played into the hands of those smearing the Labour leader. I am happy to be corrected. But what Corbyn does oppose is Israeli apartheid, its oppression of the indigenous Palestinians, and its seven decades long campaign to purge them from Israel. It is this, which Arkush and Goldstein are defending when the smear the Labour leader, and the other critics of Israel. They cannot defend Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, as it’s indefensible. So indefensible that they object to anyone even mentioning it or describing Israel as an apartheid state, or comparing it to Nazi Germany, even though the comparison is apt in so far as Nazi policy went as far as 1942 and the launch of the Final Solution. And unable to describe the brutal maltreatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis, all the Israel lobby can do is try to silence its critics by accusing them of anti-Semitism. Any mention of Israeli atrocities in the press will get the journalists responsible for the article smeared as anti-Semites. I put up a documentary from Channel 4’s Despatches, broadcast in 2009 and present by Peter Oborne, which described just how nasty, bullying and mendacious the Israel lobby is. Among those they threatened and accused of anti-Semitism were Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, and respected BBC journos Jeremy Bowen. When one of the Dimblebores attacked them for their smears, they also had the BBC investigate him for anti-Semitism.
Mike states that this letter has been written to stop Labour winning the coming council elections. He’s undoubtedly right. This would terrify the Blairites and the Israel lobby, quite apart from the Tories. But the right of both of these organisations to speak on behalf of the wider Jewish community is questionable. The Jewish Leadership Council is very closely connected to explicitly Zionist groups. But it’s under something of a cloud, as its former chief, Jeremy ‘No Morals’ Newmark was embezzling money from Jewish charities. They sacked him, but decided not to call in the rozzers in order to avoid a scandal. As for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, its members are nominated by their synagogues, so it doesn’t speak for secular Jews. Nor are they democratically elected. They are also true-blue Tory establishment. They are determined to maintain themselves as the top Jewish organisation in the UK by exerting a monopoly of control over all other Jewish organisations. One of the reasons the Board hated Ken Livingstone was because Leninspart gave a small grant when he was head of the GLC to a Jewish Socialist group that wasn’t affiliated to them, and which was beyond their control. Temper tantrums and accusations of anti-Semitism followed.
Their letter is also rather desperate. An increasing number of Jewish Americans are turning against Israel because of its maltreatment of the Palestinians. This includes many, who have suffered anti-Semitic abuse and assault themselves. Over here there are Jewish, pro-Palestinian organisations, that very definitely do not accept anti-Semites. But you won’t hear about them from liars and smearers like Arkush and Goldstein. Very many of the people in the Labour party, who have been smeared as anti-Semites, are decent, self-respecting Jews. And many of them have suffered real anti-Semitic abuse and attack by Fascists and racists. But because they have criticised Israel, the Israel lobby has smeared them as anti-Semitic and ‘self-hating’. A grotesque, monstrous libel. As for speaking for the wider Jewish community on the issue of Israel, at the moment something like 77 per cent of British Jews say that Israel is very important to their sense of identity. But how long this will last, if Jewish young people over here follow the lead of Jewish Americans, is a very good point. It looks like the Israel lobby is well aware of this possibility, and are starting to panic.
This is simply another instance of the arch-Tory Jewish establishment smearing anyone, who stands up for the Palestinians, as an anti-Semite. Especially those on the Left. As others have shown, the Tories have a very long history of anti-Semitism and connections to real Fascist organisations. But there’s hardly a mention of this from the Israel lobby and the likes of Goldstein and Arkush.
The Israel lobby’s promiscuous use of accusations of anti-Semitism reminds me of Pemberton Billing and his ‘little black book’. Pemberton Billing was an extreme right-wing Tory MP around the time of the First World War with a particular paranoid hatred of gays. He maintained he had a book with the names of 50,000 ‘devotees of Sodom and Lesbia’, who were aiding the Germans. Of course, British society back then was very homophobic. Homosexuality was illegal, and homosexuals generally bitterly hated. But Billing went far beyond the usual levels of hate and prejudice. He went off and smeared a number of people as supposed gays. And when one sued for libel, the case collapsed because Billing then accused the judge of being one of those in his book.
I am not accusing Arkush and Goldstein of being homophobic. I am accusing them of trying to start another witch hunt against the Labour party using fake accusations of anti-Semitism in the same way that Pemberton Billing libelled many good people with his accusations of homosexuality and treason.
This latest letter is a grotesque, politically motivated attempt to smear Jeremy Corbyn and prevent the Labour party getting into power. It shames the people the two, who wrote it, and the mendacious, biased press, who uncritically repeat its lies.
Okay, this is a clip of RT getting one of their fans to blow their trumpet for them, but ‘Red Ken’ Livingstone is right. He praises RT’s coverage of the war in Yemen, and its news reporting, as it reveals the stories that the Americans would rather not be covered. He states that during the evening he flicks between the news on the BBC, RT and Sky, and all of them inevitably have a bias that reflects their national interests. But when he looks back at the American coverage of the Vietnam War in the 1960s and ’70s, the bias was horrendous. RT is much better, as it shows the British public what the Saudis are really doing in Yemen.
And not just the Saudis. The Americans and we Brits have been very keen to sell them all that ‘marvellous kit’ David Cameron enthused about when he went to see a BAe System plant in Lanchashire. Yemen is a human rights atrocity, with seven million people starving in famine, and the Saudis deliberately butchering civilians, including women and children, in schools, factories and mosques. But we’re allied to the Saudis through big oil, and are desperately keen to sell them arms they don’t need and can’t maintain, simply to keep our own bloated military-industrial complex awash with money. All while ordinary Brits starve.
You can expect the Tories and their Zionist bedfellows to go berserk at this one. ‘Red Ken’ was regularly slandered in the 1980s as a ‘Communist’. Those, who knew him, were very frank in denying this. He wasn’t. He was not averse to using bits of Marxist ideology or phraseology when it suited him, and he certainly used them when it was convenient, but he wasn’t one himself. But he was a real danger to entrenched capitalist interests, not least because he believed in workers’ control. And that really loosened the bowels of the newspaper proprietors.
And the appartchiks at New Labour and their friends in the Israel lobby have been trying to smear him as an anti-Semite since. Just like they’ve been smearing thousands of others. It’s because he dared to point out that Hitler briefly made an agreement with the Zionist pioneers to smuggle a few Jews out of Germany to the nascent White European Jewish colony in Palestine. This was entirely factually correct. It was the Ha’avara agreement. But you’re not allowed to mention historical fact. It’s anti-Semitic if you do. Never mind that ‘Red Ken’s’ administration in the GLC was regularly mocked for being anti-racist, anti-homophobic and pro-feminist. Never mind that he gave money to real Jewish Socialist groups, which upset the Tory Jewish establishment at the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and condemned anti-Semitism along with other forms of racism – against the Blacks and Irish, for example, in his book, Livingstone’s Labour. He’s an anti-Semite. Because he dares to criticise Israel, when few others will dare to do so, and he frightens the Blairites by actually standing up for workers’ rights when they just want to kow-tow to big business.
Back in April, Tony Greenstein wrote a series of articles about Zionist collaboration with the Nazis in support of Ken Livingstone. Livingstone, along with too many others, including Mike, has been smeared as an anti-Semite because of his criticisms of Israel and Zionism. Livingstone when he was leader of the GLC was notoriously anti-racist, and his 1987 book, Livingstone’s Labour, not only shows his very firm support for ethnic minorities, it also heartily condemns the British state’s recruitment of former Nazis and Nazi collaborators as part of their strategy to undermine and contain Communism during the Cold War. Those given sanctuary in Britain, often in the mining industry, were men, who had actively participated in the Holocaust and the pogroms against the Jews in eastern Europe. They had committed some of the most heinous and sickening crimes against humanity.
But no matter. Livingstone was smeared as an anti-Semite, because he had dared to say that Hitler had briefly supported sending Jews to Israel.
He had. This was the Ha’avara agreement. It was an early pact with the Zionist leaders in Palestine to smuggle Jews there as part of their efforts to build the future Jewish state. Hitler only supported it from expediency. He was never a Zionist, but he did want to expel the Jews from Germany using any means he could.
Nevertheless, the Ha’avara agreement is a documented historical fact. And Greenstein in the article below shows that it was a hardly a secret. The Nazis had a medal struck to commemorate Baron von Mildenstein’s diplomatic visit to the Zionist authorities in Palestine. Von Mildenstein was head of the Jewish desk of the Gestapo, the infamous Nazi intelligence agency. The medal bore the legend
‘Ein Nazi Faehrt Nach Palastina Und Erzaehlt Davon in Angriff’.
This roughly translates as ‘A Nazi Travels to Palestine and Tells the Story about it in the Angriff. Angriff, which means ‘Attack’ in German, was one of the Nazi newspapers, along with the vile Der Sturmer.
On their side, the Zionist press ran a cartoon of a depressed Adolf slumped at his desk, drunk, and with a gun in front of him. One of his brown shirts is seen bursting into the room, waving a piece of paper. The caption, in Hebrew, reads ‘Don’t worry Hitler, the Jews of Palestine are helping you’.
Greenstein’s article also shows the cover and discusses the contents of a book on the Ha’avara agreement, The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Nazis and Jewish Palestine, by the right-wing Zionist historian, Edwin Black.
He also shows up the hypocrisy of the Daily Express attack on Livingstone as an anti-Semite, when that paper, along with the Daily Mail, was venomously pro-Hitler. There’s a photograph of the front page from 1933 with the vile headline ‘Judea Declares War on Germany – Jews of all the world unite in action’. This laid the blame for the Nazi persecution of the Jews firmly on the victims themselves, and was repeatedly used by the Nazis in their propaganda, citing it as proof that they were attacking the Jews for reasons of self-defence.
Much of the article is devoted to refuting the claims of Professor Rainer Schulze, a German historian, who had weighed in against Livingstone a year earlier on this issue. Schulze claimed that Zionism and Nazism did not share the same goals. But as Greenstein shows, they certainly shared some.
For example, the Zionist newspaper, Judisches Rundschau carried an article on its front page supporting the infamous Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jews of German citizenship. He also notes how prominent Zionist organisations, including Mapai in Palestine, and Jewish organisations that had been dominated by them, such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews, actively campaigned against the trade boycott of Nazi Germany. Greenstein also quotes other historians of the Third Reich, and even Reinhard Heydrich, writing in the SS newspapers, Die Schwarze Korps, that the Nazis were keen to promote Zionism amongst German Jews.
Moreover, in June 1933 the German Zionist Federation sent this memo to Hitler claiming that that they and he had similar interests. This said
On the foundation of the new state, which has established the principle of race… fruitful activity for the fatherland is possible. Our acknowledgement of Jewish nationality provides for a clear and sincere relationship to the German people and its national and racial realities. Precisely because we don’t wish to falsify these fundamentals, because we too are against mixed marriages and are for maintaining the purity of the Jewish group…. Boycott propaganda… is in essence fundamentally unZionist, because Zionism wants not to do battle but to convince and to build.
He also quotes other Zionist leaders, like David Ben-Gurion, who stated very clearly that they only supported the emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany if they came to Palestine. As for the transfer agreement, by which Jews were allowed to send their finances to Israel, the Zionists made it very clear that this was about securing investment for the future Jewish state. The survival of the people, who sent it, was much less of a priority.
Greenstein also refutes the Zionist claim that describing Israel as a colonialist settler state is somehow horribly anti-Semitic, simply by showing how the Zionist leaders described it as such themselves. Herzl described it as such in a letter to that most notorious of British colonialists, Cecil Rhodes. And Vladimir Jabotinsky also described the Jewish settlement of Palestine, and the consequent forcible expulsion of the indigenous Palestinians, as ‘colonial’.
Greenstein concludes
There isn’t even one instance of any reference to a ‘national liberation movement’ in the writings of the founders of Zionism. Zionism only became a national liberation movement when colonialism got a bad name! Today’s Zionists have decided to disguise what even the Zionists themselves used to admit was a colonialist movement in the apparel of the oppressed in order to deceive the innocent. Rainer Schulze’s history lessons are in reality an act of deception.
Rainer Schulze finished his article by indulging in a piece of straw man rhetoric:
‘Any claim that Nazis and Zionists ever shared a common goal is not only cynical and disingenuous, but a distortion of clearly established historical fact.’
That is, of course, true. But no one has claimed that they shared common goals. Clearly the Zionists didn’t support the mass genocide of European Jewry. Marshall Petain collaborated with the Nazis but that doesn’t mean he supported the aims of the Nazis. He collaborated because he didn’t want a Nazi occupation of France. When a weaker party collaborates with a stronger party they rarely if ever share the same goals. Unfortunately Professor Schulze, having very little knowledge or understanding of the topic he wrote about decided to engage in an old debating tactic. Attack something your opponent hasn’t said!
This effectively refutes the main charge of anti-Semitism against Ken Livingstone, though the terror of Maggie Thatcher and the Jewish Labour Movement has said other things since, which are not supported by historical fact.
It also helps to clear Mike of the libel against him, as Mike also did not say that Hitler was a Zionist. In fact, the woefully misnamed Campaign Against Anti-Semitism itself tacitly recognised that fact in its article against Mike, as it deliberately misquotes him and accuses him of saying things he never said.
Mike, and those he defended, are not anti-Semites. They were decent men and women. Some of them were Jews, and the gentile friends of Jews, who had dedicated their careers to fighting racism in all its forms, including anti-Semitism. Many of them had suffered real, anti-Semitic attacks themselves, or had close family who had.
It is a disgrace and complete travesty that these people should be so smeared. It is not Mike and people like Livingstone, Jackie Walker, and many, many others, who have lied and misused history. It is the Zionists of the Jewish Labour Movement and their allies in the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. They are the real hate-mongers in this.
Oh, the irony! Jess Phillips, who regularly accuses her critics of misogyny and claimed she was building a Safe Room because of the abuse levelled against her, has now herself been accused of racism and misogyny. One of her victims was Mike, over at Vox Political, because he dared to suggest that misogynistic abuse perhaps wasn’t the real reason she was having it built. Now Mike has put up a piece from EvolvePolitics about Phillips herself being accused of misogyny and racism, after it was revealed that she played a leading role in having Dawn Butler replaced as chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party. Phillips disliked her holding the post, because she wasn’t an opponent of Corbyn. But Phillips has form in trying to get the few women of colour to hold posts in the Labour party removed from their positions. Last year she also had a row with Diane Abbott, in which she told the Shadow Health Secretary to ‘F*ck off’.
I can’t say I’m surprised at her attitude. This seems to follow the sociological origins of many of the New Labour female MPs. Most of these seem to come from the upper and upper middle classes. They’re public school girls, who like the idea of expanding democracy, greater representation and rights for women and ethnic minorities, while at the same time supporting all the policies that keep the working and lower middle classes down: cuts to welfare benefits, job precarity, and the privatisation of essential services. This all follows Tony Blair’s copying of Bill Clinton’s ‘New Democrats’, who also talked about doing more for women and minorities, while at the same time supporting Reagan’s economic and welfare policies. The sociological origins of the journalism staff in the Groaniad, who have also been pushing the New Labour line against Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum in recent weeks. After they published various pieces lamenting that so few people from working class backgrounds were rising up to higher positions in society, in management and so forth, Private Eye published a little piece about the backgrounds of the paper’s own managers and journos. They were all, or nearly all, very middle class, and privately educated. This isn’t really surprising. Gladstone way back in the 19th century was very relaxed about the press not stirring up revolution in Britain, because most journalists back then were from propertied backgrounds. The book, Confronting the New Conservatism, attacking the Neocons and their pernicious influence on politics, noted that part of the problem was a broad consensus across the American ‘Left’ and ‘Right’, in support of deregulation, welfare cuts and privatisation, along with admiration for Britain, and a support by the middle class elites for affirmative action programmes as long as they didn’t affect their own children.
In short, they like the idea of equality, except when it challenges their own privileged position. As for Phillips’ racism, real or perceived, that’s also similar to the attitude adopted by one of the architects of the ‘New Democrats’, Hillary Clinton. Clinton for some reason is extraordinary popular amongst Black Americans. As part of her presidential campaign, she met a group of Black celebs, in which she tried to impress them by mentioning how much she liked hot sauce. Apparently, this condiment is a stereotypical favourite of Black folks. A lot of people weren’t impressed, and found her attitude distinctly patronising. There were sarcastic comments asking why she didn’t also say she liked fried chicken and watermelons. More serious, however, is the fact that Clinton was the architect of the punitive anti-drugs legislation, that has resulted in a much higher incarceration rate for Blacks, despite drugs being used by the same proportion of Blacks and Whites. She also made a speech about the threat of urban ‘superpredators’, when that term was almost exclusively used for Black gangs.
The sociological origin of New Labour female MPs also explains the accusations of misogyny aimed at Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters. The basic line seems to be that ‘Old’ Labour, based in the male-dominated heavy industries, was nasty, patriarchal and therefore sexist. There’s an element of truth in it, in that traditional gender roles were much stronger generally, and women very definitely had an inferior position. However, this was changing in the 1980s. John Kelly, in his book Trade Unions and Socialist Politics (London: Verso 1988), has a section, ‘Still a Men’s Movement?’ discussing the growing presence of women in the trade unions and the way these were adopting an increasing number of feminist policies as a result. For example, in 1985 32 per cent of TUC members were women. In some unions, the majority of members were female, such as COHSE, 78 per cent; NUPE, 67 per cent; and NALGO, 52 per cent. He notes how a number of unions ran women-only courses, and were adopting policies on sexual harassment, low pay, shorter working time, equal opportunities and equal work for equal pay. He notes that sex bias in job evaluation and sexual discrimination were still not receiving the attention they should, but nevertheless the unions were moving in the right direction. (pp. 134-6). Of course, the occupations in which women are strongest are most likely to be white collar, administrative and clerical jobs, rather than manufacturing. But nevertheless, these stats show how the trade unions, and therefore the organised working class, were responding positively to the rise of women in the work force. If you want a further example of that, think of Ken Livingstone and the GLC. Livingstone’s administration was known for its ‘politically correct’ stance against racism, sexism and discrimination against gays. Red Ken devotes an entire chapter in his book, Livingstone’s Labour, to feminist issues, including his proposal to set up a nationwide network of bureaux to deal with them, ‘Sons of the Footbinder’, pp. 90-111. Among the pro-women policies he recommends the Labour party should adopt were
* A universal scheme of pre-school childcare for all parents who would wish to use it.
* Equal pay for work of equal value.
* A properly funded national network of women’s centres.
* A properly funded national scheme for the remuneration of carers.
*Full equality before the law.
Livingstone was one of the most left-wing of Labour politicians. So much so that he was accused of being a Communist. Hence Private Eye’s nickname for him, ‘Ken Leninspart’. Now the Blairites are trying to twist this image, so that they stand for women’s equality and dignity, against the return of Old Labour in the face of Jeremy Corbyn and his misogynist followers. This could be seen the in a bizarre letter published in either the Graun or the Independent, in which Bernie Saunders, the left-wing Democratic contender for the presidential nomination, and Jeremy Corbyn were both accused of being sexists, because they wore baggy, more masculine clothes, suggesting their ideological roots in the masculine blue-collar milieu of the 1950s, before women and gay men started affecting fashion. Private Eye put it in their ‘Pseud’s Corner’ column, but it reflects the attitude of the middle class feminists given space in those newspapers to attack Jeremy Corbyn and genuine traditional Labour.
The fear, of course, is not that Corbyn or his supporters are misogynists. That’s a convenient lie that was copied from Hillary Clinton, who made the accusation against Bernie’s supporters after they correctly identified her as a corporate whore. She is. She takes money from the corporations, in return for which she passes policies in their favour. Just like the majority of American politicians, male and female. In fact the fear of Clinton and the rest of the Democratic party machine, and New Labour over here, is that the corporatist system they are partly responsible for creating, and their own privileged position as members of the upper classes, are under threat from a resurgence of working class power and discontent from the Left. And despite the growing presence of women in the unions, Blair and New Labour despised them. It was Blair, remember, who threatened to cut their ties to the party, and was responsible for passing further legislation on top of the Tories to limit strikes, and deprive working people of further employment rights.
When Blairite MPs like Phillips make their accusations of sexism at Corbyn and his followers, they are expressing the fears of the middle classes at losing their privileged position, as members of that class, and its control over the economy and society. It’s made somewhat plausible to many women, because as a rule women were much less unionised than men, and the most prominent union leaders have tended to be men. But it’s a distortion of history to hide their own concerns to hang on to their class power. When Phillips and female Blairites like her talk about feminism and female empowerment, they’re expressing the same point of view as Theresa May. It’s all about greater empowerment for middle and upper class women like themselves, not for the poor, Black, Asian or working class.
I’ve put up several pieces this week from YouTube of George Galloway speaking. As I’ve said, I’m not a fan, but I do believe that he is right about many of the issues he discusses. And he’s absolutely right about the Iraq War. This is a clip of him talking to Nicky Campbell on the Radio about Ken Livingstone, Naz Shah and the anti-Semitism allegations.
In answer to Campbell’s question, Galloway explains the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Anti-Semitism, as he explains, is something of a misnomer, as the Palestinians are also Semites. It is hatred of the Jews as Jews. He points out that it has a long history, going back to the Middle Ages, and has resulted in pogroms, persecution and the Holocaust, which he declares to be the most terrible crime against humanity. Anti-Zionism is simply opposition to the state of Israel.
He answers a question from a Jewish caller from Liverpool, who states that as a Zionist, he has no problem criticising Israel for its crimes, but wonders why Galloway doesn’t criticise the Palestinians, such as Hamas, for the terrorism they commit. Galloway states that he is not just opposed to the state of Israel, but also to all the artificial countries created exactly 100 years ago in the Middle East by the Picot-Sykes agreement. He also makes the point that no system has a right to exist. Communism did not have a right to exist. To oppose Communism did not mean that you hated Russians. Rather, the anti-Communists stated that they wanted to liberate Russians.
He states that everything Ken Livingstone said about the Nazis and the Zionists was correct. There was an agreement between Hitler and the Zionist leaders to have Jews shipped to the emerging state of Israel. This was the Haavara agreement. This was because both the Zionists and Nazis believed that Jews were not Europeans: German Jews were not Germans, French Jews not French, and so on. It was ridiculous that Ken Livingstone should have been suspended for speaking the truth.
When asked about Naz Shah and her comments, he says that it was foolish, but it was a stupid, teenage joke she posted on Facebook months before she became an MP. On the other hand, the 800,000 people ‘displaced’ she mentioned, did not only occur on Facebook. They were real people, forced out of their homes.
Campbell asks about Ken Livingstone’s apparent obsession with the Second World War, the Jews, the Nazis and the Holocaust. Galloway states that he’s also been accused of anti-Semitism, and suspended from the Labour party, although that was under a different leader. He says Livingstone’s older than him, and he would not have mentioned the Nazis. But it’s because the Second World War and its legacy was a larger issue to people of Livingstone’s generation than his.
Galloway here is right, though I don’t think he convincingly answered the Liverpudlian caller’s question about his refusal to condemn Palestinian terrorism. As for Livingstone’s apparent obsession with the Nazis, I think this is part of the background of veteran Socialist of a certain age. Red Ken was head of the GLC in the 1980s, when racism was just becoming a real issue and many of the accepted attitudes towards race were being challenged. It was also a period when the National Front was active and very much carrying out attacks on non-Whites, Jews and Leftists. It was also a period dominated by the Second World War. Many of the films in the ’70s were war films, there were a number of comics and comic strips set in the Second World War, such as Battle, ‘Hellmann of Hammerforce’ in Action, Warlord and so on. It was also in the ’80s that the groundbreaking documentary, The World at War, was broadcast. For the anti-racist Left, the threat of Fascism was very real, and the Holocaust was the most horrific case of genocide, a terrible example of the horrific carnage racism can lead to.
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