Book Attacking ‘Wokeness’ from the Left

It seems I’m not the only one on the left concerned about the rise of ‘wokeness’ and the detrimental effects it’s having on politics and culture. Looking for various books on Amazon yesterday I found Cancelled: The Left Way Back from Woke, by Umut Ozkirimli. The blurb for the book runs

‘Right now, someone, somewhere is being cancelled. Off-the-cuff tweets or “harmless” office banter have the potential to wreck lives. The Left condemns the Right and the bigotry of the old elites. The Right complains about brain-dead political correctness. In reality, both sides are colluding in a reactionary politics that is as self-defeating as it is divisive. Can the Left escape this extremism and stay true to the progressive ideals it once professed? 

In this provocative book, Umut Özkırımlı reveals how the Left has been sucked into a spiral of toxic hatred and outrage-mongering, retreating from the democratic ideals of freedom and pluralism that it purports to represent. Exploring the similarities between right-wing populism and radical identity politics, he sets out an alternative vision. It is only by focusing on our common humanity and working across differences that the Left will find a constructive and consensual way back from “woke.” ‘

The potted biography for Ozkirimli states that he ‘is a Senior Research Fellow at IBEI (Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals), a professor at Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University, and a Senior Research Associate at CIDOB (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs). He is the author of the acclaimed Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction, currently in its third edition. His writings appear frequently in The Guardian, openDemocracy, Times Higher Education, Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, among others.’

See: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Left-Way-Back-Woke/dp/1509550925

I remember a piece in Lobster from over a decade ago where editor Robin Ramsay attacked postmodernism and the new identity politics. He felt that it had arisen in the 1990s as a substitute for the traditional class politics of the left as it retreated and rejected traditional socialist policies. He was particularly critical of its use or promotion by Tony Blair. To be fair, I’m not sure Blair was particularly woke. I think there was more noise about multiculturalism than anything really substantial during Blair’s ‘Cool Britannia’. This included, if remember properly, one song which started out as standard pop but then included traditional Indian musicians and dancers along with other musicians and performers from ethnic minorities in one pop contest. But Blair is also quoted as saying that multiculturalism is a failure, and I’m quite prepared to believe that this is the old warmonger’s real view. I note that Ozkirimli doesn’t attack pluralism, just radical identity politics, which seems fair and moderate. With the Conservatives turning to cultural issues and particularly attacking ‘wokeness’ and multicuturalism, this might have some important insights into how the left can free itself from radical identity politics without succumbing to the reactionary nationalism being promoted by the Nat Cons.

Where’s Starmer? Labour Should Be Leading the Fight against Racism, Not Johnson

I just caught on the lunchtime news today the announcement that Boris Johnson is going to set up a commission to examine the knotty question of racism in the UK. He said something about how this had to be done because of the way people up and down the country had gathered in mass meetings to protest against it. While it showed that Johnson had been paying attention to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations here, America and across the world, not everyone was convinced that Johnson was entirely serious about his proposal. The Beeb’s report said that he’d been criticised already, as there were existing recommendations made in previous reports which hadn’t been acted upon. The Labour MP David Lammy also appeared to give his tuppence worth. He began by noting that Johnson had provided any specifics about this proposed commission. To me, it looks very much like another typical Tory dodge. Johnson will set up this commission to make it look like he’s really bothered about the issue and understands public concern, while making sure that it doesn’t actually do anything and hope that the matter will go away. I do know some genuinely anti-racist Tories. But the Tory party itself has consistently opposed non-White immigration and parts of it are viciously racist. Like the members of the Tory youth movements, who used to sing ‘We Don’t Want No Blacks and Asians’ to the tune of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, or ‘Hang Nelson Mandela’. The people that Jacobsmates exposed posting violently racist messages on the internet sites for supporters of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg. The people that formulated and backed the Tories ‘hostile environment’ policy, which saw hundreds of people illegally deported. People, who had been granted citizenship and then suddenly found it stripped from them by a racist, duplicitous government.

And you have to wonder where Starmer and Angela Rayner are in all this. So far their response has been very muted. After the protests at George Floyd’s murder broke out, Starmer and Rayner issued a statement last week declaring that they were shocked and angered at the killing. Rayner tweeted that ‘We stand in complete solidarity with those standing up against police brutality towards Black people and systemic racism and oppression across the United States, here in the United Kingdom and across the world.’ But actions speak louder than words, and no, they don’t. The suppressed report into the conspiracies by members of the Blairite faction within the party to unseat Corbyn and his supporters and actually make the party lose elections also revealed how these same plotters racially abused the Black MPs and activists Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Clive Lewis. It showed that there was a poisonous culture of anti-Black racism, dubbed Afriphobia, in the party that wasn’t being addressed. As a result, according to the Huffington Post, the Labour Party is haemorrhaging Black members, who say they feel politically homeless.

If Black Lives Matter to Keir Starmer, why hasn’t he acted against Labour’s racists?

Starmer’s response to the toppling of the statue of slaver Edward Colston in Bristol has also been muted. When he was asked by caller Barry Gardiner on LBC radio what his views on it were, Starmer simply replied that it shouldn’t have been done that way, and that he didn’t condone lawlessness. This cut no ice with the mighty Kerry-Ann Mendoza of The Canary, who tweeted that they’d been trying to have it removed legally for the past forty years. As for the Labour party’s attitude to ethnic minorities, she tweeted

The Labour Party is not a safe place for Black people
The Labour Party is not a safe place for Muslims
The Labour Party is not a safe place for anti-zionist Jews
The Labour Party is not a safe place for anti-zionists period
The Labour Party is not a safe place for socialists

Starmer on THAT statue: he thinks there’s a heirarchy of racism, with black people very low down it

Mike in the article above argues quite correctly, in my opinion, that Starmer believes in a hierarchy of racism. He was quick to give his full support to the Zionist Jewish establishment, but has done nothing about the racists persecuting Blacks in the party. This is almost certainly because the persecutors were Blairites like himself, and he doesn’t want to alienate his supporters. At the same time, he is also using the fast-track expulsion process that has been set up to deal with alleged anti-Semites to start throwing out members. This is a real kangaroo court, as those accused are not giving a hearing and have no opportunity to defend themselves. And those expelled naturally include socialists and followers of Jeremy Corbyn, and especially anti-Zionist Jews. Tony Greenstein has written a couple of articles about this already. In an article posted yesterday, Tony describes how Starmer was handed a list in March of the people the woefully misnamed Jewish Labour Movement wanted purged. As the Director of Public Prosecutions, Starmer refused to prosecute the coppers who shot Jean Charles de Menezes, whom they mistook for an Islamist terrorist. He was also not in the least interested in the deaths of Blacks in police custody. His expressed support for Black Lives Matter is hypocritical, as the Zionist movement in America has been doing its level best to destroy and discredit it because BLM has declared that Israel is an apartheid state, and supports the Palestinians. It considers that their condition in Israel is comparable to that of Blacks in America.

https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2020/06/you-cant-be-anti-racist-if-you-are-not.html

Tony has also posted this article about the mass expulsion of anti-Zionist Jews from the Labour party, as well as other, self-respecting anti-racist members.

https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2020/06/starmers-war-on-jews-in-labours.html

Starmer’s reticence on anti-Black racism contrasts very strongly with the party’s direction over the previous forty years. After Thatcher’s election victory in 1979 or so, Labour strongly supported the aspirations of Britain’s Blacks and Asians for equality. The party put forward a new generation of ethnic minority MPs, who strongly articulated the desire for real change. This was extremely controversial – the Tory press blamed the 1981/2 race riots on Black racism and viciously attacked the new Black MPs, like Diane Abbott and Bernie Grant. And, in my opinion, some of them didn’t help. Brent council under Grant was particularly zealous in its determination to root out racism, to the point where it pursued a vigorous policy of censorship from its libraries. A policy that appalled others in the party, who were equally left-wing but less inflexible and intolerant. I’ve heard stories from people, who grew up in the area how extreme Grant could be in his accusations of racism. One of those he accused was the head of a local school, whose wife was Black and who was supposedly a member of the Communist party. In Bristol the five members of Labour’s ‘unofficial’ Black section went off on a trip to Ulster to support the Roman Catholics. They believed that Ulster’s Catholics were a colonised minority like Blacks. They had a point, but this allowed the Tories to paint the party as ‘loony Labour’, inhabited by embittered Communists, who hated Britain and supported the IRA. Nevertheless, it was this period that led to the vital implementation of policies, like ‘positive discrimination’ to improve conditions for Blacks and ethnic minorities. And Labour continued to include anti-racism, or at least anti-racist rhetoric, under Blair. Some Black activists did feel excluded and that Blair was less than serious about these issues. But I can remember Blair praising the example of America’s General Colin Powell, and wishing that Britain could also be a place where Blacks could rise to the highest ranks of the military.

But Starmer seems to be turning his back on all this in his determination to return Labour to the Thatcherite, neoliberal centre ground. It’s the inevitable result of Blairite triangulation. Blair studied what the Tories were doing, and then adopted it and tried to go further. He began in the 1990s by taking over scrapped recommendations for the restructuring of the civil service by Anderson Consulting. He continued the Tory policies of privatisation, including that of the NHS, and the destruction of the welfare state. And some Blairite MPs even began to make the same type of racist recommendations as the Tories. It’s also dangerous, as under Cameron the Tories did try to gain ethnic minority support by embracing Black and Asian community leaders.

Black Lives Matter and the anti-racism movement shouldn’t be above criticism. But Labour should be taking the lead in the debate. Instead, Starmer seems determined to alienate some of the party’s staunchest supporters.

All in the hope of appealing to the Thatcherites and neoliberals.

Tory Cuts Destroyed Our Preparedness Against Pandemic Threat

On Friday, Mike put up a piece commenting on and reporting a devastating article from the Huffington Post. This revealed that the Tories’ cuts, imposed in the name of austerity and cheap government, had destroyed or discarded the plans previous governments had drawn up against the threat of a global pandemic.

The Cabinet Office had apparently been drawing up a National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies, listing the possible threats to the United Kingdom. At the top of the list in each document was pandemic flu. Mike states clearly that the British government knew an event like the present global emergency was coming. However, the strategy to cope with it was written in 2011 and not updated. And it gets worse. The government’s plan for getting the right messages across to the public during a pandemic, the UK Pandemic Influenza Communications Strategy, was written in 2012. It is now very out of date in its assumptions about how and where people get their information. The guide to dealing with the pandemic’s fatalities, which names key contacts, was written four years before that, in 2008. And the government abolished the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Team, a section within the department of Health, was abolished in 2011. The Tories thus got rid of the very organisation, which would have had the expertise to deal with the pandemic because they were so keen on inflicting cuts.

As a result, according to the HuffPo, “the government has had to either make policy up as it has gone along or is having to beg, borrow and steal from other countries who have been better prepared”.

This is in stark contrast to one of BoJob’s announcements today. Our glorious leader, or one of his minions, declared that Britain was a world leader in tackling the virus. Now this claim was made in the context of the amount of money the government was going to devote to the international effort to develop a vaccine – £500 million. But the statement could be taken to mean that Britain leads the rest of the world in combating the pandemic. Which we don’t. The Chinese are reporting no new cases, or were, and half of the new cases reported in South Korea are of foreigners. It would appear that these countries, which imposed a lockdown much earlier, have been far more successful than we have in tackling it. And other countries have been far less impressed with Johnson. The Greek newspaper Ethnos declared that BoJob was a worse danger than the Coronavirus and reported that he had publicly and essentially asked Britons to accept death. This is in reference to his speech where he declared that Britons were going to lose their loved ones before their time. As he said this, the government was only issuing guidelines but had not imposed a lockdown. The Irish Times stated that Boris was gambling with the health of his citizens. He was. He and his adviser, Dominic Cummings, had decided that they were going to deal with the threat by allowing the disease to spread. The British people would develop herd immunity and the economy would be allowed to continue unharmed by a lockdown. And it was just going to be too bad if a few old people died. The Irish government is relieved that BoJob has at last seen sense. Boris was apparently forced to impose the lockdown because Macron told him he would close the French borders to us if he didn’t. And the mayor of Bergamo, the Italian town hardest hit by the virus, Giorgio Gori, was so frightened by Boris’ complacency and inaction that he flew his two daughters home, because he believed they’d be safer.

Also states that Boris’ singular lack of action on the virus, and the way he dragged his heels before doing anything, bears out criticisms that the Tories have a eugenicist attitude to the poor, the weak and the disabled. They regard them as useless eaters, biologically unfit, who do not deserve to live.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2020/03/26/the-tories-axed-their-defence-against-coronavirus-years-before-it-arrived-deaths-were-inevitable/

And the Tories long-term attitude towards the poverty and mass death inflicted by austerity really does suggest that attitude. They seem to believe that the state is only wasting resources by supporting them and they should be allowed to die, so that the biologically superior, meaning the rich and especially the corporate elite, should be left free to do as they wish without government interference and the high taxes required by a proper welfare state

Scientists have been worried for decades about the threat of a pandemic. Some of this fear comes from previous viral outbreaks, such as AIDS in the 1980s, and avian flu and swine flu in the 1990s and early part of this century. I guess that the Tories decided that because these diseases did not require the current measures, such precautions weren’t necessary and could be scrapped.

It was a massively short-sighted decision that has undoubtedly cost lives that could otherwise have been saved. 

 

Media Silent as Toxic Tommy Robinson Gives His Vote to the Tories

There are some individuals, who are so noxious, that their endorsement is instant death to organisations and causes. UKIP found that out when fuehrer Gerard Batten recruited Carl ‘Sargon of Akkad’ Benjamin, Mark ‘Count Dankula’ Meechan and Paul Joseph Watson. Oh yes, and Tommy Robinson, formerly of the EDL, formerly of PEGIDA, and frequently in the Nick, as a special adviser on Islam. The result was that, faced with competition from their rivals, the Brexit party, or Farage Political Vehicle Mark II and these horrors from the far right, UKIP’s members voted with their feet and walked out. UKIP collapsed, elected a Dick Braine as leader, and has since imploded in an ugly mass of accusations and litigation. This hasn’t dissuaded Robinson from endorsing other political parties, however. And the latest party he’s decided to give his public support is Boris Johnson and the Tories.

The Huffington Post, Mirror and Independent reported that Robinson had given his vote to Johnson, saying “Everyone should vote for Boris Johnson.If we want Brexit, if we believe in democracy, we have to have Brexit. So yeah. Go Boris”. The Huffington Post also stated that BoJob had been called on to reject the thug’s endorsement. Jo Swinson made an adverse comment about Boris’ new supporter, and Corbyn drily remarked “The Trump – Johnson – Farage alliance has a new member”. He didn’t need to make any further comment on Robinson giving his noxious support to two of this noxious trio.

But the Tory press have been mysteriously silent about it all, in sharp contrast to the glee with which they splashed all over their front pages the fake claims that David Duke, the former head of the Klan, had endorsed Corbyn and that the Labour leader had the support of Nick Griffin of the BNP. The Labour leader didn’t. But the Tories do have the support of Robinson. And while they’re silent about it, BoJob hasn’t repudiated it either.

Zelo Street observes that there’s a synergy about it. Robinson likes to turn up outside his critics’ and opponents’ homes in the middle of the night mob-handed, looking for a ‘polite conversation’ and has been jailed for assault. And BoJob was phoned up years ago by his friend Darius Guppy, who wanted the address of a journalist so he could have the man beaten up. BoJob kindly complied. This incident was discussed a few years ago on Have I Got News For You. This was when it was still satirically sharp and rather funnier.

Zelo Street remarks

‘It’s no surprise that Bozo is not disowning Stephen Lennon’s endorsement. Nor is it any surprise that his pals in the press are keeping schtum about it. A Bozo Government would not be averse to a little gratuitous thuggery and bullying.

Stephen Lennon and Boris Johnson – two peas in a pod. I’ll just leave that one there.’

https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/11/tommy-robinson-says-vote-tory.html

But it also seems that Robinson has problems of his own. He’s facing bankruptcy from libel actions from two of the people he’s smeared.

Robinson is being sued for libel on behalf of Jamal, a Syrian refugee, who was beaten up at school. Robinson decided to go round and interview his attacker, during which the statements at the heart of the case were made. Statements which Robinson is having difficulty defending. The case has reached the High Court, and Robinson claims he is facing a possible bill of £650,000. Robinson has bleated that this is “financial terrorism”. Just as he has claimed that his arrest and conviction for contempt of court have similarly been the government trying to shut him up. The reality was that the judges, who had him arrested and tried were trying to give the defendants a fair trial. And this was placed in severe jeopardy by Robinson’s antics outside the court.

And the historian and teacher Mike Stuchbery is also raising money to sue Robinson. Stuchbery had blogged about Robinson’s activities, so Robinson dealt with him the way he frequently did with his critics. He turned up on his doorstep in the middle of the night with his stormtroopers, started banging on Robinson’s doors and windows and made what Zelo Street has described as, ah, ‘creative accusations’. He also doxxed him twice. Stuchbery has since moved to Germany, saying of the incident that Robinson’s

actions have cost me a lot, in terms of health and professional opportunities. It will take years to get back where I was before he directed his followers at me, with patently untrue allegations”.

A crowdfunding page has been set up to help Stuchbery raise enough money through donations to sue Robinson. And Roanna Carleton Taylor, who helped set up the crowdfunder, has appealed for more of Robinson’s victims will come forward so that legal actions can be brought against Robinson on their behalf.

“We intend to document, pursue and fund legal action to make Lennon and his gang members pay for each and every illegal action they commit … To this end we ask anyone who believes they have a legitimate case to sue Lennon to come forward”.

Zelo Street states that Robinson doorstepped several people before picking on Stuchbery, one of whom was Tim Fenton himself. He predicts that after Stuchbery finishes with Robinson, there will be no shortage of others going to court to sue the thug for what he did to them. And that’s not a threat, it’s a promise.

The prospect does not look good for Robinson, who claims that from the last two days of donations, his fundraising is ‘dead’. If he loses, he just might have to move out of that very expensive house that’s in his wife’s name, because of his conviction for mortgage fraud, and go live in a smaller property. Like Hatey Katie Hopkins had to move out of her £500,000 house because of a libel case she lost.

Zelo Street suggests that the age of Robinson’s intimidation and bullying may soon be over. Let’s hope so. And let’s hope his hero Johnson goes down with him.

If you want to contributed to Mike Stuchbery’s campaign, go to this article at Zelo Street and follow the link:

https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/11/tommy-robinson-faces-defamation.html

 

Terrified Tories Now Brand Press Office as ‘Fact Check Centre’ to Deceive Journalists

Well, boys and girls, and children of all ages, here’s more proof that the Tories are really running scared of Corbyn. Despite all the claims that they’re 20 points ahead of him in the polls, this latest trick seems to show that they’re afraid the opposite is true. Last night after the Labour leader apparently utterly trashed Johnson in the debate on ITV the Tory Press Office took the unusual step of rebranding their Central Office as ‘factcheckUK’. As Mike says, this was presumably so they could tweet false claims that Johnson had won the confrontation. In fact CCHQ announced that Johnson was the clear winner, putting a video about it up on Twitter. Presumably they thought we’d forgotten about how they’ve got form editing videos to present a false impression of their opponents. Like the way they inserted a pause into a video they put out of Keir Starmer’s interview on the Andrew Marr show, to make it look like he hesitated and couldn’t answer a question.

But the folks on Twitter weren’t impressed, and the attacks on Tory Lies Central came thick and fast. Mike’s put up a few of them. Jess Brammar posted this tweet, responding to a post stating that this rebranding was so dystopian, Charlie Brooker had taken a leaf from Orwell’s 1984 and declared war on East Asia.

So, let’s get this straight…in this election campaign, journalists have to engage with a Tory press office that thought it was ok to pretend to be a fact checking service to deceive members of the public on twitter during an election debate. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tory-hq-

@RalfLittle posted a satirical piece calling the Labour Party a bunch of pussies and stating that food banks rock under the heading ‘Conservative Press Orifice’. He also posted this piece under the same heading

The Conservative Press Office would never appear to be something it isn’t in order to spread disinformation. We resent the accusation. Also Boris Johnson has loads of kids but won’t say how many. https://twitter.com/AdamMarkDavis/status/1196897520905048065 …

Technically Ron declared that Corbyn intended to put Thatcher’s ghost into a jar and hurl it into the Sun, and reminded us that David Cameron had had carnal intercourse with a pig, and we were now leaving the EU.

Mike concludes

Way to go, Tories. Not only did your man mess up his big TV appearance…

But you’ve also ensured that nobody will believe another word to come out of your publicity machine.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/11/19/tories-pretend-their-press-office-is-a-fact-check-organisation-public-ridicule-is-hilarious/

The Tories already have a very unenviable reputation for lying. Apparently on the debate last night Johnson started to bang on about ‘transparency’, at which point there was laughter from the audience. I think Cummings and his other advisers might have to wake up soon and realise that their party has a ‘credibility gap’.

As for their party election broadcasts, perhaps they should give them the title of one of the Police Squad movies as they’re so desperate. How about ‘The Smell of Fear’. That would accurately sum up their claims about Labour.

Andrew Neil Goes Gammon As Owen Jones Brings Up Spectator’s Support for Greek Fascists

Oh ho! This is hilarious, so kudos and respect to Owen Jones for reminding everyone just what disgusting opinions some of the Spectator’s contributors have. As well as seriously embarrassing the man Private Eye jocularly refers to as ‘Brillo Pad’. I found this video, posted on YouTube by Evolve Politics, of Jones’ appearance on one of Neil’s politics shows accusing him and his magazine, the Spectator, of supporting the Greek neo-Nazis Golden Dawn.

Jones was a guest on Neil’s show This Week, opposite Michael Portillo and a woman I’m afraid I don’t recognize. They had been discussing the recent chanting and insults hurled at Anna Soubry and Jones himself by James Goddard and his stormtroopers. Jones said that he and Soubry were both called ‘traitors’ by Goddard, just as the man, who murdered Jo Cox had called her. He also mentioned the way the press had also accused other individuals and public figures of being traitors and enemies of the people as well, insults and accusations which are then regurgitated by Far Right fanatics. At this point Neil starts getting uncomfortable and tries changing the subject, but Jones keeps talking, telling him that they’re nearly out of time, so he wants to ask another question. Neil states ‘I am many things, but I’m not naive’. To which Jones simply replies, ‘You are.’ Neil obvious knew what was going to come next, but that still didn’t stop it happening. Jones then continues ‘The Spectator is a classic example.’ At which point Neil replies that he knew this was coming and wasn’t going to let Jones hijack his programme. He said that Jones’ lies and smears about him were not going to be dealt with that evening, and told him to move off it.

But Jones continued, despite Brill Pad changing the subject. Why was it, mused the former editor of the Sunday Times and the Economist, that when the Far Right behaves appallingly, it’s thuggery, but when the Left does it, it’s activism? Undeterred, Jones carries on stating that he would continue with what he was saying, and talked about how the Spectator had defended Greek neo-Nazis. Neil, having tried to talk over him and get him to shut up, then automatically denied that the Speccie had done any such thing. He then starts saying that the editor was responsible, before Jones asked him if he was the chairman of the Spectator. ‘I’m not responsible for content’, said Brillo. Jones then remarked that there was enough islamophobia in the Tory party, just as there was in the Spectator and other newspapers. At which point Brillo cries ‘Enough!’ Jones then begins to answer the question on left-wing activism, saying that he will answer it. ‘No, you won’t!’ declares Neil, ‘You’ve run out of time.’ If this is intended to stop Jones, it fails miserably, as he prompts goes back to talking about the Spectator and its support for the Greek neo-Nazis. The Spectator has incited support for neo-Nazis, and racism against Muslims and immigrants. Brillo tries to regain control of the situation by declaring that it’s an subject for another time, but another forum. ‘Tonight is not the night’, Brillo stated, ‘for your lies and smears against me’. He then ends by thanking Jones for appearing on his show. The clip ends with Brillo staring into the camera with the haunted look of the man staring at the train coming down the tracks at him.

It’s clear from this that there is some kind personal feud between Jones and Brillo. Not that this should be any surprise. Brillo seems to have offended many people wish his various utterances on Twitter. But Neil was himself wrong when he said that the Spectator did not support neo-Nazis. It may not now, but five years ago in 2013 it caused massive outrage when it published a piece by Greek playboy and convicted coke fiend, Taki, defending the Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn are genuine neo-Nazi thugs, responsible for attacks on immigrants, particularly Muslims, and left-wingers. Their flag is one of the angular ancient Greek geometrical designs, which isn’t too far from the swastika. Their ideal of ancient Greek civilization isn’t the sublime culture of Athens, but Sparta, the militarized Greek society in which the soldier citizens ruled over the Helots, the conquered slaves, and where deformed and sickly babies were examined and murdered in a chilling system that prefigured the Nazis and their eugenic murder of the disabled.

Taki had written in his article that the Golden Dawn were not Nazis, but were simply ‘rough boys’ who were good, patriotic Greeks. They were saving their people from the political correctness which had left many Greeks living on less than what was given to illegal African immigrants, and were similarly protecting ordinary Greeks from Albanian criminals, and supporting poorer Greeks who had suffered from disastrous bank withdrawals.

Taki’s comments caused massive outrage. The Huffington Post ran a piece about his article, pointing out that the group uses racist and anti-Semitic language, and that their leader had admitted that they’d adopted the Nazi salute, as well as the fact that one of them had slapped a female Greek politico live on TV. The magazine carried photographs of the squadristi in their black shirts holding a torchlight procession and waving Greek flags.

See: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/07/23/taki-theodoracopulos-golden-dawn-spectator-_n_3640139.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly9yLnNlYXJjaC55YWhvby5jb20vX3lsdD1Bd3JKSWt2TWxUdGNMZ2dBajh0M0J3eC47X3lsdT1YM29ETVRCeU1uRTFNek13QkdOdmJHOERhWEl5QkhCdmN3TXpCSFowYVdRREJITmxZd056Y2ctLS9SVj0yL1JFPTE1NDc0Mzc2NDUvUk89MTAvUlU9aHR0cHMlM2ElMmYlMmZ3d3cuaHVmZmluZ3RvbnBvc3QuY28udWslMmYyMDEzJTJmMDclMmYyMyUyZnRha2ktdGhlb2RvcmFjb3B1bG9zLWdvbGRlbi1kYXduLXNwZWN0YXRvci1fbl8zNjQwMTM5Lmh0bWwvUks9Mi9SUz1SR1dBTmJkYkxwcTI1YTZ0WWRsTFZUUjVaQ3Mt&guce_referrer_cs=rEmNidnfvK3FO95uaiAoOA

The Liberal Conspiracy site in their piece went further, and quoted the convicted felon, who compared the Golden Dawn to other left-wing activists, claiming that their behaviour would have been completely acceptable if it came from the left.

But if they were lefties and railed against capitalism they would be treated like heroes, the way Bono, Bianca Jagger and other such untalented rappers and phonies are. Golden Dawn members might need some lessons in social etiquette, but what the bien pensant need much more is to get off the pot and their double standards. Golden Dawn members are mostly labourers, martial artists, cops, security personnel and good old-fashioned patriotic Greeks.

Which is what Neil was trying to say in his last question to Jones.

What astonished the Liberal Conspiracy author was the fact that the Speccie’s editor, Fraser Nelson, appeared to believe that the piece was absolutely acceptable, saying that it did not have a party line and published well-written pieces that their members enjoyed while disagreeing with.

See: http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/07/23/spectator-mag-neo-nazi-golden-dawn-just-good-patriotic-greeks/

Hardly. The Spectator is a high Tory magazine, and so very definitely has a party line. And Taki has plenty of previous when it comes to anti-Semitism, as reported and commented on many times by Private Eye.

I dare say Neil wasn’t responsible for Taki’s vile piece being published by the magazine. But it is true that he did support the Golden Dawn, and that this has rightly tarnished the magazine’s reputation. And the media must share some responsibility for the rise of Fascism by promoting the fears that Fascists exploit – about immigration, Islam, ethnic minorities and violent crime. And they have vilified perfectly decent people as traitors. When a group judge ruled in favour of moving the Brexit issue to parliament, the Mail put them on the front page and hysterically denounced them as ‘enemies of the people’. Just like the Nazis attacked the opponents of their regime.

The Conservative media have therefore aided the rise of the Far Right, and the Spectator did publish an article supporting Greek Nazis. And despite Neil’s protests, Jones was right to tackle him on it.

Vox Political: Leaked Labour Plan on Anti-Semitism Cases Reveals Corruption of Present System

On Thursday, 31st May 2018 Mike put up a piece about the Labour party’s plans for dealing with alleged anti-Semitism cases, that had been leaked to the Huffington Post. He states that he had planned to write a glowing report of it, but instead the plans revealed just how staggeringly corrupt the existing system. Especially as applied to him.

He goes through the plan point by point, and shows how in each case these were violated when it came to the way he was investigated. Or rather, he wasn’t. The party simply rushed to suspend him, just like they have done to so many other, thoroughly decent people.

Before we deal with Mike’s case, let’s look at the ideal, and the way the document states such cases should be investigated.

It states that each case should be assigned an investigating officer, who looks at the evidence against the accused, and applies a set of tests to determine whether there is a prima facie case against them.

In almost all cases where the evidence is documentary, such as from social media or email, the plan continues, the accused person will be provided with a copy of the evidence and a list a questions within 14 days.

The plan then states that this will usually provide enough evidence to decide the issue, whether it needs further investigation, or if it should go to the next quarterly meeting of the NCC panel.

In rare cases where further information is needed, the accused may, in the words of the document, be called to be interrogated at an interview, or, more likely, simply answer a set of questions.

The NEC Disputes Panel then consider a report at their next meeting, which may be as long as 17 weeks away. If there is a case to answer, it is referred to the National Constitution Committee, who decide the case under their rules, and may judge that a hearing is needed.

The Investigating Officer then formulates the final charges, as well as the NEC’s opening submission to the hearing and the bundle of evidence and other material supplies to the NEC.

Mike states that the Investigating Officer clearly did not review the evidence against him properly. This was the smear piece run by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, published to prevent him standing in the Powys county council elections. The smear piece had links to Mike’s original article, which had they been followed by the Investigating Officer would have shown that the CAA’s piece was a smear that twisted and grossly distorted Mike’s words. But that was not done. Instead the party rushed to suspend him.

Mike makes the point that this was done for political reasons. His opponents knew that he belonged to the left of the party, and concludes on this point

and it seems that right-wingers in the party’s administrative echelons thought they could use the false allegation of anti-Semitism to get rid of me.

The next point, that he should be given a set of questions, was also not followed. Instead, they simply suspended him and kept him in the dark for five months. He goes on to make the point that the disputes panel simply weren’t interested in hearing his side of the story, and as they didn’t have any evidence they couldn’t end the investigation, although there was enough material to stop it there and then. He concludes on this point

What was going on? All I can suggest is that the process was delayed in order to keep me suspended for as long as possible.

Mike also remarks on the strange choice of the word ‘interrogation’ to refer to the interviews to which the accused may be called. He states that he was never given a list of questions to answer, and was simply called to attend a meeting in Cardiff in October last year (2017). He went with a friend, who acted as a silent witness, and spoke for 100 minutes, answering questions that were simply presented to him blind. He states that he was not told how they were related to the allegations against him. He comments further

I was never told exactly how they related to the allegations against me. At one point I asked the IO whether he had read my articles and he replied that he had not; he had merely been told to highlight passages in particular articles of mine and to ask me about them. I noticed also that he was not taking many notes. In hindsight, it seems he had been instructed to listen for particular answers and to note whether he received them or not. My guilt, I think, had been decided in advance of the evidence and he was just there to confirm it.

Mike then states that the NEC then considered his case just ten or eleven weeks late in January 2018. It was not in the main body of matters to be considered, but under any other business. This meant that they didn’t look at any of the material Mike himself had supplied, and simply relied on what they investigating officer told them. And he simply referred to the CAA’s smear piece, and described Mike’s answers as the ‘vague’. Which as, he points out, he is anything but. He comments

In those circumstances, though, it is no wonder that NEC members came to the wrong decision. As I suggested, it seems the intention was to find me guilty, no matter what evidence was put up in my defence.

Mike also states that the formulation of the final charges and the presentation of other material to the NEC also simply did not occur in his case. The NEC simply decided that he was guilty, and decided that they would lift his suspension only if he attended a training day with the Jewish Labour Movement – who Mike describes as ‘highly questionable’. Mike turned them down, and comments here

I wonder whether there was an intention to put me in a situation I could not tolerate, as an incentive for me to leave the Party of my own free will. Not likely! It would have appeared to be an admission of guilt and, as you may have noticed, I’m determined to establish my innocence.

As for the recommendations, these are

That the NCC should make greater use of provisions that allow them to decide a case without going to a hearing and simply using the supplied written information. Mike makes the obvious objection that those accused should be allowed greater opportunities to represent themselves, not less. In Mike’s case, he was given. As he remarks, that’s not justice, that’s a stitch-up.

It goes on to attack respondents for resorting to litigation and solicitors, and blames this for creating delays in judging cases. It therefore recommends that they should be made aware of their right to bring other representation to these hearings, like their trade unions representatives. Again, Mike comments that this is one-sided, as the party is lawyering-up, and it seems to be a device to place the accused at a disadvantage. If one side has lawyers, and the other doesn’t, then it’s an offence against natural justice, comments Mike.

The report also recommends that the accused in these cases should be anonymised, like those in sexual harassment cases, because of the perception that these cases are influence by political forces. Mike states that this recommendation is the best of a bad bunch. He comments on the way the Disputes Panel’s report to the NEC was skewed against him, and he wasn’t allowed to attend. Then afterwards their decision was leaked to a newspaper reporter, who then libelled Mike. He states

This was obviously not an accident. Somebody on the NEC made a conscious decision to use the findings of the NEC’s kangaroo court against me in the press. That doesn’t happen without malicious intent.

The document concludes with a stroppy comment about how some of the accused seek publicity for their cases, which the document then patronisingly claims causes further problems for themselves and Labour party members campaigning on their behalf. It goes on to state that

All parties should be reminded that public conduct may adversely impact progress of an ongoing investigation. Such conduct may appear to be grossly detrimental to the Party.

Mike’s reply to this is suitably curt:

I’ll accept no lectures from anybody in the Labour Party about public conduct.

He then goes to recall how he only found out about his suspension when a newspaper report rang him, because the Labour party had just emailed it to him. They had also just emailed it to Mike, and he had not had time to digest it. Mike rhetorically asks whether this was good public policy.

He then notes that the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism took great glee in reporting Mike’s suspension, despite knowing that their accusation is entirely false. That recommendation appears to suggest that Mike should not do anything to defend himself against a corrupt process which flouts the facts.

The Labour party then passed the defamatory information smearing Mike onto a third party – which is libel – who then passed it on to the Sunday Times and other newspapers, who then libelled Mike as a Holocaust Denier.

He also notes that there is an implicit threat in the recommendation that those, who try to publicise their cases risk causing problems for themselves and their supporters in the party. Mike asks why? Does this mean that the party’s officers will take note and then move on to persecute them. As for the comments about ‘bringing the party into disrepute’, this is a clear threat of expulsion.

Mike then concludes his article with these paragraphs

But giving newspaper reporters prior notice of a member’s suspension is grossly detrimental to the Party. What punishment was given to the officer who did that? Libelling a party member in the press is grossly detrimental to the Party. What punishment was given to the member(s) who did that? In fact, the whole manufactured anti-Semitism row is grossly detrimental to the Party but I see none of those responsible taking any punishment for it at all.

The whole case against me has been a corrupt farce from start to – well, the present day; there’s no end in sight, thanks to the current system.

It seems to me that I will be well within my rights to contact general secretary Jennie Formby, point out the huge injustices that have been done to me, and direct her to end my suspension and publish a full and frank public apology for the harm that the Party has done to me.

After that, I would want to see positive steps taken to identify those responsible and expose them to some proper justice.

That should not be too much to ask. But I’m prepared to bet it is.

See Mike’s article at:

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/05/31/leaked-labour-plan-on-anti-semitism-reveals-the-corruption-in-its-current-system-and-potential-future-pitfalls/

In fact, as I’ve pointed out over and again, it isn’t just Mike that’s suffered these terrible injustices. If you go over to Tony Greenstein’s blog, you can find innumerable cases like Mike’s, including Greenstein himself. He was finally told about his own hearing when he was in hospital recovering from illness, and was given a very limited time to prepare despite having reams of notes dumped on him. Greenstein himself is Jewish, as are very many of the other people, who have been smeared as anti-Semites, Holocaust Deniers and other Nazi filth. These have included the children, of parents who managed to survive the horrors of the Shoah. Quite apart from the fact that I think very many British Jews have lost family and relatives in the Holocaust. It is grossly offensive, as well as a violation against natural justice, to accuse these people of being anti-Semites. And this is quite apart from the gentiles, who have fought all their lives against racism and anti-Semitism, like Marc Wadsworth.

As for ‘political forces’ affecting these decisions – it’s plainly evident that they are. One lad was suspended because – dear me, how shocking! he wrote a poem satirising Tony Blair. As for trade union representation, I’m afraid that can’t be relied on. In another recent case Tony’s discussed, a man cannot use his Unison representative, because this man is the right-wing Labour council candidate, who had him suspended.

The Labour party’s process for tackling anti-Semitism is a gross farce. The procedures are ignored and circumvented at will by highly placed individuals keen to smear and libel their political opponents. These people should be brought to the light and named. This will probably sound vindictive, but this should include the person on the NEC panel, who leaked the libels against Mike to the press, the Investigating Officers, who didn’t do his job in Mike’s case, and who don’t do their jobs in so many others like him. And whoever told the IO that he wasn’t to read all of Mike’s own defence, just the bits that had been highlighted.

Only when false accusations have consequences for the accusers and libellers with there be at last a guarantee of proper justice in these cases.

Secretary of Jewish Voices for Labour Libelled as Anti-Semite

Another day, another smear by the Israel lobby and their collaborators in the Labour party against another decent, anti-racist individual. This time the victim is Glyn Secker, the secretary of Jewish Voices for Labour. He’s been suspended from the Labour party because of allegations that he posted anti-Semitic comments on social media.

Mike posted up a piece about it, including the condemnation of Mr. Secker’s suspension by his colleagues in Jewish Voices for Labour on Wednesday. He pointed out that, whoever Secker’s accusers are, they waited a long time before accusing him because he hasn’t posted on Twitter since mid-2016. Mike believes it has more to do with alleged anti-Semitic comments Secker made at demonstrations and gatherings at which he spoke. One of these was at Grosvenor Square, London, on the 6th January of this year. Euan Philips in the Huffington Post, claimed that his speech was full of ‘anti-Semitic slurs’. But a recording of the speech, cited by Mike, shows instead just criticism of Israel.

Which is probably what this is all about. Mr. Secker is the Director and a member of the Executive Committee of the organisation, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, and captained the Jewish boat to Gaza in 2009. So this looks very much like another smear by the Israel lobby and the Blairites against someone, who is very definitely not an anti-Semite, and whose only crime is supporting the Palestinians.

His fellows in Jewish Voices for Labour point out the unfair nature of the accusation. There is no accuser, the charges are vague, but nevertheless the head of Disputes, Glyn Matthews, is taking it so seriously that Secker has been suspended. Jewish Voices for Labour rightly state that these false allegations are bringing Labour into disrepute.

They state further

This is an absurd, politically-motivated attack on our Secretary and our organisation. We call on our supporters to move motions of censure in their branches and CLPs. To use allegations of antisemitism in this way is an abuse of power, and a degrading of the seriousness of actual antisemitism and other forms of racism. While antisemitism is monstrous – and, like all forms of racism, should be vigorously dealt with – false accusations of antisemitism are monstrous too. We call for the immediate lifting of these charges.

Mike in his article also wonders if the attack is motivated by the problems now facing the Jewish Labour Movement, who have finally called in the cops to investigate their head honcho, Jonathan Newmark. No Morals Newmark has been credibly accused of embezzling money from Jewish charities when he was head of the Jewish Leadership Council, although the Council didn’t call the rozzers in because of a desire to avoid a scandal. No Morals denies the charges, of course, claiming that he left the organisation due to health reasons.

This looks like an attempt by the Israel lobby to close down a rival organisation in the Labour party, and allow the Jewish Labour Movement to monopolise its position, casting itself as the only organisation speaking for Jews in the Labour party. Which means Jews joining such an organisation automatically have to support its policy of supporting Israel, and covering up the Israeli state’s 7 decades long campaign of massacre, ethnic cleansing and apartheid against the Palestinians.

Glyn Secker and Jewish Voices for Labour clearly present a threat to their attempts to establish this monopoly, by providing an alternative political outlet and view of Jewish identity regarding the treatment of the Palestinians. The Israel lobby can’t allow that, and so we have the fake allegations of anti-Semitism and the Kafka-esque perversion of justice. Just like Mike’s case, there’s no accuser, and the charges are vague. It’s another kangaroo court.

Mike’s article is at: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/03/08/jewish-man-suspended-from-membership-of-labour-party-for-anti-semitism/
Please read it.

I am heartily, heartily sick and tired of these smears and libels. To accuse decent people of anti-Semitism, and, in Mike’s case, Holocaust Denial, is to cast them as monsters of the same type as real Nazis like the banned terrorist group, National Action, and their grotesque conspiracy theories about Jews and vociferous demands for their persecution and extermination. And if it’s bad enough for gentiles to be labelled as such, I can only think how much worse it must be for those of Jewish heritage, because of the long history of their people’s persecution.

And I despise the skulking anonymity which protects the accusers’ identities. I dare say that if you challenged these organisations on it, they’d give you some glib twaddle about how it was needed to protect them, considering the work they do infiltrating and exposing anti-Semitism. This just looks like nonsense to me, as they seem not remotely interested in anti-Semitism per se, but just trying to silence criticism of Israel. And dictatorial regimes have always used anonymous spies and accusers to stifle dissent, ever since the Roman Empire.

Now’s the time to end this charade, beginning with the anonymity. If the people making these accusations aren’t prepared to do so openly, revealing their identity, then the accusation should be automatically thrown out as vexatious and mischievous. Also, definite charges should be made. Vague accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ should not be allowed to pass unquestioned. If they cannot produce substantial charges, then the accusation should be thrown out as an another smear.

I also believe this attack on Mr Secker was connected to another accusation of anti-Semitism, this time by the misnamed Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. They claimed that Labour MPs were posting on a pro-Palestinian website that was making anti-Semitic accusations about the Jews, and in particular about the Rothschild’s banking family. I think there was also some accusation that the site also denied the Holocaust. It looks like the Israel lobby was going in for a coordinated attack on pro-Palestinian groups, and that the smears against Mr. Secker were part of this.

I’ve had enough of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. They’ve done nothing but smear decent people for the benefit of the Israeli state and its friends in the British media. They’re a corrupt, sham organisation, who should have their charitable status rescinded.

It’s time to close down this witch-hunt. Anyone making further smears should be booted out of the party as a mischief-maker seeking to undermine party democracy, and a libeller.

Lies, Libels, Criminal and Political Manipulation Catch Up with the Israel Lobby

Oh dear, the various crimes and misdeeds of prominent members of the Israel lobby are starting to come to home to roost. Mike yesterday put up a series of article discussing the various shady figures in the Jewish Labour movement, their criminal activities, and the connections of the organisation’s leading members to the Israeli embassy at the time when Shai Masot, an official at that embassy, was taking it upon himself to decide what Conservative politicians should be in our cabinet.

First of all, Jonathan ‘No Morals’ Newmark, as I have decided to dub him, the former chair of the JLM, is now being investigated by the fuzz at the request of the organisation he once headed. No Morals has been credibly accused of stealing funds from Jewish charities when he was one of the head honchos of the Jewish Leadership Council. They released him, but decided not to start a police investigation in order to avoid a scandal. No Morals denied this, of course, and claims that he resigned instead due to health reasons. Well, we shall see.

The JLM is the morally corrupt organisation, which the Labour party wanted Mike to go to for a ‘training day’. They’re the outfit that smeared Jackie Walker as an anti-Semite for questioning the exclusive concentration on the Jewish Holocaust during the Second World War at their workshop on Holocaust Remembrance Day. She wanted other groups, who had also suffered genocide, like Blacks, to be included. It was meant to be a ‘safe space’ where anyone could speak freely without repercussions, but they taped her comments and then released them. She also committed the unforgivable sin in their eyes of rejecting their tortured attempts to expand the definition of anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israel. As Israel is a racist apartheid state, she was right to do so. The anti-Semites themselves defined anti-Semitism, a word coined by their leader and founder, Wilhelm Marr, as hatred of Jews based on their biology and race. But this is forgotten by the Israel lobby, who are more concerned with defending Israel than really battling genuine anti-Semitism. Mike refused to attend their wretched training day, because he believes that this would be an admission of guilt on his part. And he’s absolutely right.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/03/03/newmark-to-be-focus-of-jewish-labour-movement-police-investigation-the-jewish-chronicle/

Then Mike posted up this 2016 article from the Electronic Intifada, pointing out that the JLM’s new director, Ella Rose, was an official at the Israeli Embassy during Shai Masot’s interference with our politics at the highest level. She did not declare this connection on her CV, stating only that she was head of the Union of Jewish Students. No Morals Newmark has declared her appointment a good career move, which seems to Mike to be highly suspicious.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/03/03/jewish-labour-movement-director-was-israeli-embassy-officer-the-electronic-intifada/

And he’s also put up a piece showing that Labour Against Anti-Semitism have also been libelling Jennie Formby, the new left-wing candidate for the post of General Secretary of the Labour Party. They claim that in 2016 she was forced to leave her post as Political Director of Unite the Union, because she questioned the impartiality of Baroness Royall to head an investigation into allegations of anti-Semitism amongst Labour students at Oxford University. This is supposedly because Baroness Royall had made several trips to Israel. Mike makes clear that this is based on the tortured definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the Zionist organisations, which states

“it is antisemitic to accuse ‘Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations’.”

This isn’t actually part of the definition, but just a guide to deciding what is or isn’t anti-Semitic.

There’s only problem with the LAA’s accusation against Ms. Formby. T’ain’t true. The union has issued a statement refuting the LAA’s accusation, pointing out that her departure had nothing to do with such allegations, and that she was a valued and respected part of their team. They state that rather than opposing Royall’s appointment, she actually supported her and wanted her investigation to be properly resourced. And also, nobody actually knows if Royall herself is anti-Semitic or not. And if she isn’t, this alone blows their accusation away. You cannot be anti-Semitic against someone who isn’t Jewish.

Mike’s article ends with this statement

LAAS is fronted by Euan Philipps, chair of Tonbridge and Malling Constituency Labour Party. He wrote a libellous blog article about This Writer on the Huffington Post website, so it is clear that he enjoys a questionable relationship with factual accuracy. The HuffPost‘s lawyers reckon his comments were “honest opinion” but that has to be based on accurate facts, so they are both in a highly actionable situation.

And a promise that he’ll let his readers know how this strand will develop.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/03/03/another-organisation-that-claims-to-fight-anti-semitism-is-accused-of-lies/

Mike states that he is actually fully in agreement with the IHRC’s guideline that it is anti-Semitic to accuse Jews of being more loyal to the Israel, or the interest of Jews worldwide, than to the nations of their birth. As a generally principle, so do I. But I make an exception to certain members of the Israel lobby, who clearly do make it clear that their priorities are elsewhere.

Like Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate, who is one of the most vocal supporters of Israel in America and a lavish political donor. Adelson states very clearly that he is ‘Israel first’. So by his own admission, he is more loyal to Israel than to the America in which he lives and made his money.

As for Ella Rose and her connections to the Israeli embassy while Shai Masot was trying to manipulate the Tories’ selection of cabinet ministers, if she was involved in this, then she too has dangerously divided loyalties. People who genuinely love their country don’t conspire with officials of a foreign power to manipulate their nation’s politics. They may try to alter the policies or appointment of personnel through negotiation at official levels, which is natural. But they do not do so at private, secret meetings, carefully hidden from scrutiny.

I am not saying that the Israelis are unique in this. America has plenty of form in manipulating the politics of other nations, either trying to stop the election of parties they don’t like, or then overthrowing them when they do get in. And it’s a long list of countries, about 54 or more. The latest was the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, overseen by Obama’s woman Victoria Nuland, and Hillary ‘Queen of Chaos’ Clinton. And Killary herself has gone on recorded saying that she regretted not interfering in the Palestinian elections.

But just because the Americans are doing it, doesn’t make it any better for the Israeli lobby over here to do so too.

There are series questions to be asked of all the pro-Israel organisations in the Labour party because of their smears, libels and political manipulation. And this isn’t anti-Semitic, because amongst the decent people they’ve vilified are decent, self-respecting, anti-racist Jews, many of whom have suffered anti-Semitic abuse and violence.

It’s time to end the charade that the JLM and similar bodies care anything about anti-Semitism. They’re just right-wingers terrified of the Left, and afraid that Israel’s Fascist character is being increasingly exposed.

Clinton’s Defeat Has Potential to Harm Blairites

Mike yesterday posted a piece about the report in the Huffington Post that documents released by WikiLeaks show that Bill Clinton made a number of slighting remarks about Jeremy Corbyn in a speech to wealthy donors to the Democrat Party last October. Clinton claimed that Corbyn was ‘the maddest person in the room’, and that he was only elected because Labour party members were ‘so mad at Tony Blair that ‘they practically went out and got a guy off the street instead’. He compared Corbyn to the leader of the Greek anti-austerity party, Alexis Tsipras, and claimed that Ed Miliband lost the election against Cameron because he was too leftwing.

Mike in his comments states that Clinton’s remarks need to be put in context. He was speaking at a time when Bernie Sanders was competing with Shrillary for the Democrat presidential nomination. Corbyn had supported Bernie Sanders in the past, and the two had been compared to each other. He also notes that Clinton appeared to be a little confused, as he referred to a conversation he had had with a Northern Ireland secretary, who stated that Shrillary had helped him through a bad period in that part of the UK. Clinton thought it was one of Cameron’s minions, but in fact it was a minister in Gordon Brown’s cabinet.
Mike concluded that Corbyn’s office was right not to pay any attention to Clinton’s comments.

See: http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/11/08/us-presidential-has-been-attacks-future-uk-prime-minister-awkward/

I think that Mike’s been a bit too generous to Bill Clinton. Yes, he was speaking at a time when his wife was competing against Bernie Sanders, the most left-wing member of the Democrat party. Sanders is a self-declared democratic Socialist, just as Corbyn is seen as far left in the Labour party. Actually, this isn’t accurate. Corbyn is centre left old Labour. He isn’t a Trotskyite at all, no matter what the Blairites and their media enablers scream at the public.

But even without Sanders, Corbyn would be well to the Left of the Clintons, and I don’t doubt for a single moment that the former president despises both Corbyn and Ed Miliband, along with Sanders, for the threat they posed to the transatlantic electoral strategy he and Tony Blair had formed for their respective parties. Blair modelled his ‘New Labour’ on the ‘New Democrats’ Clinton formed within the American Democrat Party. After losing to Reagan and then to George Bush senior, Clinton took over many of the Republican’s policies in order to win over their voters. He therefore declared that his party was going to end ‘welfare as we know it’, and put forward the same neoliberal policies Reagan had pursued in the Republicans.

And the same strategy was put into practise over here by Blair. Blair ditched Clause 4, the article in the Labour party constitution which committed it to socialism. He carried on the Tories’ policy of privatising whatever remained of the state sector, including the NHS. And like the Tories, the American Republicans and Clinton’s New Democrats, New Labour was also determined to cut down the welfare state. Hence the introduction of the work capability test, taken from the ideas of an American medical insurance firm, and administered by Atos, in order to satisfy the Conservative desire to see more people thrown off benefits and into poverty.

I’ve said that Blair and New Labour are Thatcherite entryists. They’ve been pursuing right-wing, Tory policies, despite the fact that they belong to an historically left-wing party. Blair’s tactic was all about convincing the establishment – business, the banks and the press – that Labour was now thoroughly neoliberal and economically orthodox, and so would form a responsible government. In other words, one that would do everything the upper classes wanted.

Hillary Clinton in her own way was even more ‘establishment’. She made hundreds of thousands of dollars from giving speeches to Wall Street bankers, and was as corrupt and corporatist as the other American politicians, for all her claim that she was somehow an outsider because she was female. In the 1990s she briefly supported free universal healthcare and education, before she then started receiving donations from the medical insurers and other big corporations. She and the head of the Democrat Party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders, just as the Blairites in the Labour party tried everything in their power to stop Corbyn being elected as leader. And that includes purging voters from the rolls. Faced with Trump being nominated as their presidential candidate, many leading Republicans threw in their lot with Shrillary. She tried to make a show of supporting organised labour and American working people with a speech to an audience of trade unionists, in which she pledged to support them. But the damage was done. The left-wing Democrat base knew that she had betrayed them, and that her promises counted for nothing. Especially as American jobs were being harmed by the very free trade deals, the TPP, NAFTA and so on that she and Obama supported.

And now that policy has come crashing down. Hillary’s attempt to be as corporate establishment as the Republicans failed to get her into the White House, and she lost to a racist, misogynist braggart and wannabe Fascist.

Now The Young Turks have posted up a piece arguing that the Democrats will probably try and blame their defeat on Bernie Sanders. I think that’s highly likely. They’re absolutely wrong, of course. They lost for a variety of reasons. Sexism was one – many Americans objected to the idea of a woman holding the presidency. Media bias was another – for all Trump’s claims that the media were biased against him, they gave him hours and millions of dollars worth of free airtime. Pervasive racism is another factor. But Hillary’s own political stance was also a major factor. The Young Turks, Secular Talk and other shows made the point that if Bernie Sanders had been elected instead, then he would have beaten Trump easily.

But that was a step too far for the Democrats, who’d clearly rather have a Fascist buffoon in the White House than someone, who genuinely spoke for working Americans.

This should be the end of the line for the New Democrat, and by extension, the New Labour project. It has shown that copying the pro-privatisation, neoliberal line of the Republicans won’t get you into the White House. The Democrats really can’t go any further to the right, without returning to their original stance as the party of the KKK. And as that strategy has failed across the Pond, it’s going to fail over here. The Blairites in the Labour party should be worried. Clinton’s defeat has shown that they can’t and won’t get into power by copying the Tories. That was, after all, also the message of Ed Miliband’s defeat as well, followed by the victory of Jeremy Corbyn. But I doubt Bomber Benn and the other Thatcherite entryists will take any notice. They’re probably too busy concentrating on saving their careers and all the lucrative seats on private health and utility companies they can get after they leave politics.

So, you can expect further screaming that it’s all somehow Bernie Sanders’ fault from Shrillary and her team across the Pond, and violent denunciation of ‘unelectable’ Jeremy Corbyn from the Blairites and their right-wing colleagues in the media over here. Because with Clinton’s defeat, they know only too well that Corbyn is all too electable, and represents the end of their project.