Further respect to Zelo Street for adding a few more details about Robin Simcox and his membership of some very nasty right-wing organisations. Simcox is professional smirking slime-bucket Priti Patel’s choice for head of the Commission for Countering Extremism. I put up a piece about him yesterday, based on a piece about him in the latest issue of Private Eye noting that Simcox has some views himself that many might consider extreme. Like he’s a Neocon member of the Heritage Foundation, who backs sending terrorist suspect to countries where they can be tortured and further infringement on the rule of law. But that’s not all. According to Wikipedia, the Heritage Foundation denies the reality of climate change and is funded by the American oil giant, Exxon Mobil. It also promoted the false claims of voter fraud. This was done through Hans von Spakovsky, the head of the Heritage Foundation’s Electoral Law Reform Initiative, who made such fears mainstream in the Republican Party. Von Spakovsky’s work, you won’t be surprised to hear, has been completely discredited according to Wikipedia.
The Heritage Foundation, according to the Byline Times, have on their board Rebekah Mercer and her father, Robert Mercer, who funded Breitbart News, which in turn supported Cambridge Analytica. And it was Cambridge Analytica that introduced Donald Trump to Steve Bannon, who founded Parler. But it was Simcox’s links to the racist extreme right that was more worrying to that authors of the Byline Times’ article. In 2019 Simcox spoke at a meeting of the Centre for Immigration Studies. The CIS has been identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centre. The CIS has for ten years circulated anti-Semitic and White nationalist materials, included articles written by supporters of eugenics and Holocaust deniers. According to Wikipedia, the CIS’ reports have been criticised as false or misleading and with poor methodology by experts on immigration. The Byline Times stated that in his work for the Heritage Foundation, Simcox promoted the work of several racist and anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists, including a supporter of the ‘Great Replacement’ theory, which has inspired many of the extreme right-wing terror attacks in recent years. He’s also been criticised for falsely equating British Islamic organisations with the Muslim brotherhood.
Simcox therefore has links to people, whose views could be described as genuinely Nazi. But as the Street notes, the self-appointed opponents of anti-Semitism are curiously silent about all this.
So who’s making their feelings known about this appointment? “Lord” Ian Austin? “Lord” John Mann? Wes Streeting? Stephen Pollard? John Woodcock? Margaret Hodge? Daniel Finkelstein? Crickets. If only Simcox had been pals with Jeremy Corbyn.
Quite. But the above weren’t opponents of anti-Semitism per se. They were simply determined to destroy the Labour left and protect Israel and its persecution of the Palestinians. And as Tony Greenstein has shown ad nauseam, Israel has no problem collaborating with real Nazis if it will serve its interests.
Yesterday Zelo Street put up a piece about the various right-wing Blairite politicos, who deliberately campaigned against Jeremy Corbyn and Labour, who have now been rewarded with nominations for peerages from BoJob. They were Gisela Stuart, Ian Austin, John Woodcock, and Frank Field. Field, according to the Street, resigned the Labour whip last year and stood as an Independent candidate in Birkenhead. He was obviously expecting to beat his former colleagues, but was given a rude awakening when it was shown to him and the metropolitan elites who backed him how little he was regarded there personally.
But that wasn’t the only time he stuck the knife into the backs of people in his own party. Private Eye in its ‘HP Sauce’ column in its edition for Friday, 21st August 1998 describes how he actively campaigned against the Labour Party during the European elections in north Wales in 1984. The snippet reads
Frank Field’s apparent desire to speak the unspeakable on welfare reform is not the first time he has kicked against the pricks in his party.
Back in 1980 the Eye welcomed him into parliament (New Boys, 483) recalling his nickname of “Judas”. This was earned in Labour circles for his outspoken attacks on the Wilson government when he was director of the Child Poverty Action Group. This was nothing compared to the bizarre events associated with him during the Euro elections in north Wales in 1984, however.
Labour candidate Ian Campbell found himself discredited in a series of quarter-page advertisements in the local papers, which claimed that Frank Field MP urged Labour party supporters to support Tom Ellis, the candidate for the SDP/Liberal Alliance, who was then standing on a straightforward Liberal ticket.
Pleas from Campbell to Field to retract these reported views, and to canvas with him to disprove such presumably false claims, found no response. Neither did the demands of the Labour party’s general secretary for a retraction: he was forced in a conversation with Campbell to admit that Field was simply a “maverick” over whom the party had no control.
Labour lost the seat by a small margin and Field never denied the views attributed to him – views which, according to the rules, should have led to his expulsion from the party.
When a politician says they’re going to ‘speak the unspeakable’ on welfare reform, or ‘slay the sacred cows’, they always but always mean they’re going to cut it. And there’s absolutely nothing unspeakable about it. It’s been Thatcherite orthodoxy for forty years. Field was one of the Tories’ favourite Labour MPs because of his anti-welfare stance. the British religious Right ‘Cranmer’ blog praised him in a post nearly a decade ago, and said that if he crossed the floor to the Tories he’d be most welcome. He didn’t quite do that, but he certainly campaigned for them.
And his squalid attacks on his colleagues in north Wales shows he had all the qualities of a New Labour politico then: the willingness to brief against others in his party, the intriguing and desire to see a competing party win at the expense of his own.
And it also shows how the Labour Party was willing even then to tolerate and reward behaviour from the Right that it never did from the Left.
As Asa Winstanley, another anti-racism activist falsely expelled from the Labour Party for anti-Semitism remarks, this is beyond thoughtcrime. It’s pre-crime. Mike in his article about Keir Starmer reprimanding the respected Black women MPs Diane Abbott and Bell Ribeiro-Addy also mentions that the witch-hunters are demanding he censure their next target, Salma Yaqoob. Yaqoob is a prospective Labour candidate for mayor of the West Midlands, and a patron of the Stop the War Coalition. She is also due to appear in an online discussion from the Coalition about the new Labour leadership’s position on anti-war issues and Palestine on the 8th of this month, May 2020, alongside Paul Kelemen, the author of The British Left and Zionism: A History of a Divorce, and Tony Greenstein, ‘Jewish socialist and anti-war campaigner’. And it is his appearance on the panel that has sent the witch-hunters into a fearful bate, as Molesworth would sa.
Greenstein is very definitely a Jewish socialist and anti-war campaigner. He a fierce, bitter opponent of Fascism and racism. This means that he also criticises Zionism for Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, and the movement’s own crimes against Jews. He has pointed out again and again that throughout their history Zionists and the Israeli state have supported Fascists against Jews and other ethnic minorities when it has served their purpose. Israel sought out an alliance with another White Supremacist state, apartheid South Africa. In the 1970s and ’80 they also allied with Fascist regimes in South and Central America, including Guatemala during its dictatorship’s genocidal civil war with the Mayan Indians, and the neo-Nazi regime in Argentina, which targeted Jews for torture, massacre and murder. At the same time, the Board of Deputies of British Jews attacked the Anti-Nazi League in this country, forbidding Jews from joining it or allowing it to hold meetings in synagogues, because the founder was an anti-Zionist. Some left-wing Jews, who defied the ban and joined it nonetheless, like David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialist Group, say that there were rumours that the Board opposed it for different, racist reasons: they didn’t want Jews joining the Black and Asian fight against racism.
Yaqoob’s appearance was picked up by Ian Austin, the former Labour MP complaining of anti-Semitism while the real reason was that Jeremy Corbyn had returned it to its socialist ideals. He has complained to Starmer and demanded Yaqoob’s suspension. Hence Asa Winstanley tweeted
This racist fanatic wants a prominent Muslim woman expelled from Labour for a future event with the “wrong” kind of Jewish person.
This is beyond Thought Crime, it’s Pre-Crime.
Jackie Walker, another Jewish anti-racism activist smeared as an anti-Semite and expelled from the Party, also commented: It’s open season on black women.
Kerry-Ann Mendoza, the mighty head of The Canary said
During the smear campaign a few years ago, the Board, Campaign for Anti-Semitism, Jewish Leadership Council and the other pro-Israel groups and their supporters waved placards at their protests bearing the slogan ‘Labour Party – For the many, not the Jew’. It was a play on Corbyn’s slogan ‘Labour – for the many, not the few’. According to Tony Greenstein, it was made up by British literary author, Howard Jacobson, when he was living in New York. It was supposed to show how anti-Semitic the Labour Party is. But the witch-hunters themselves have particularly targeted Jewish critics of Israel and pro-Palestinian activists. These entirely decent, self-respecting men and women have been viciously smeared as ‘self-hating’. The Board and the other pro-Israel organisations have also misrepresented themselves as standing for Britain’s Jewish community as a whole. They don’t. Board doesn’t represent Orthodox, Haredi nor secular Jews. It really only represents the United Synagogue. I find it very significant that when the I ran an article from a Jewish journalist denouncing Labour as anti-Semitic apart from their own columnist, Simon Kelner, that journo was always described as a member of the United Synagogue. As a Zionist organisation, the Board also doesn’t represent anti-Zionist Jews. The Board and the other organisations attacking Labour and Corbyn were also incensed when the Labour leader attended a Passover Seder with Jewdas, a left-wing Jewish group. This was another anti-Semitic affront to the Jewish community. They were the wrong kind of Jew! Which is itself a noxious, anti-Semitic gesture.
In fact the Board and the other witch-hunters targeting of Jews means that you could reasonably invert their slogan so it reads ‘Board of Deputies – For Israel, not the Jew’.
It was Tony Blair’s administration that launched the invasion of Iraq, against which the Stop the War Coalition protested, and the Blairites shared the same goals as the Neocons. After George Dubya left office, and was replaced as President by Barack Obama, it was Blair and Sarkozy in France who really wanted an attack on Libya and the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafy. The result has been the destruction of one of Africa’s most prosperous states, which had a strong welfare system and was relatively secular. It has now been replaced in some areas by a hard-line Islamist theocracy, which has returned to slavery with Black migrants now being openly sold in markets. Before the appearance of Coronavirus plunged the world into lockdown, the American right seemed also to be preparing and agitating for a war with Iran. The Neocons also want that country’s regime overthrown because of its militant opposition to Israel, accompanied by frankly genocidal rhetoric, and its defiance of American hegemony in the Middle East. They and their Saudi allies also covet its oil reserves, which they also wish to seize, just like they did Iraq’s.
And there’s also a streak of islamophobia in the witch-hunters a mile wide. People have turned up at pro-Israel and anti-Palestine protests wearing Kach T-shirts. This is a far-right organisation banned in Israel for terrorism. They also wear T-shirts and wave placards for its successor, the Jewish Defence League, which is also banned. One of the witch-hunters turned up next to one anti-Palestinian demo two years or so ago next to Paul Besser, the intelligence officer of the infamous islamophobic group, Britain First. These pro-Israel demonstrators also include open supporters of Tommy Robinson, the founder of the English Defence League and Pegida UK. One of the Board’s members even appeared with him in a video for Rebel Media, a far-right Canadian internet broadcaster.
It therefore very much seems to me that Austin and the other witch-hunters, by making this complaint against Yaqoob, are desperately trying to keep debate and criticism in the Labour party of Israel and its genocide of the Palestinians very firmly closed. They are also seeking to keep Blair’s Neocon agenda alive in Labour. And they are terrified of Muslims and Muslim influence in the Labour Party. There have been polls showing that 85 per cent of British Muslims support Labour. Muslims are one of the largest ethnic minorities in contemporary Britain. The Radio Times a few years ago covered a radio programme about Jewish comedy and literary festivals that were being held up and down the country. These festivals were open to the wider British population. According to the Radio Times, they were partly being held in order to encourage the broader population to support the Jewish community at a time when that community felt its respect was slipping away and being replaced by concern for other ethnic groups.
Now I’ve got absolutely no objection to such festivals, whether by Jews or any other religious or ethnic group. And with the Far Right on the rise in Europe, Jews do need the support and solidarity of non-Jewish anti-racism activists. But Austin’s complaint about Yaqoob, a Muslim patron of the Stop the War Coalition, suggests that the general insecurity felt by part of the Jewish population is shared by the Israel lobby. And they’re scared of competition from Britain’s Muslims for our sympathies.
The witch-hunter’s targeting of Salma Yaqoob is therefore about preserving the Neocon project and protecting Israel from criticism by silencing genuine anti-racism activists, particularly Jews and Muslims. It’s yet another example of the racism of the Blairite Right.
How stupid and malign is Countdown numbers person Rachel Riley? This isn’t an academic question. As a fervent supporter of Israel, she has joined the rest of that lobby in Britain in libeling and smearing entirely innocent and decent people as anti-Semites, simply because they have made the mildest criticisms of Israel and its brutal and murderous policies towards the indigenous Palestinians. Now it seems she has surpassed herself. She has libeled the children’s Poet Laureate and Holocaust educator Michael Rosen as an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier just two months after he published a book about the relatives he lost in the Shoah.
Riley was following other stalwart defenders of Israel’s to impose apartheid and ethnic cleansing, who were angered at Mr Rosen and the left-wing film-maker, Ken Loach, joining the anti-racism movement, Show Racism the Red Card, as judges for a schools competition this year. The two are due to select the most inspiring and creative designs created by young people on the subject of anti-racism. SRTRC’s chief executive, Ged Gebby, said they were both valued supporters of the organisation, and they were delighted to have them. They couldn’t think of two better people to have choosing the winners.
This was too much for the Zionist fanatics and smear merchants. One supposedly genuine hack, Sarah Ebner, responded on Twitter with
“Wow. Interesting choices to say the least.I can’t understand why you would pick people who have had such problematic relationships with many in the Jewish community. There must be other possible judges out there. Racism AND Antisemitism both need to be ‘shown the red card’”
Rosen responded with a series of sharp tweets putting Ebner right:
“Can you tell me why I’m not suitable to judge a poetry competition about racism in football? Are you aware of what this looks like? Dubbing me as someone who has ‘a problematic relationship with many in the Jewish community’? What is ‘problematic’? Who are the ‘many’? What ‘relationship’? Who decides? Do you think your innuendo has any legal implications?”
“Along with HistoryWorks Cambridge I worked with 5000 school students and teachers on Holocaust Education last month. ‘Problematic’? Does it make me not suitable to judge a children’s poetry competition on racism and football?”
Another Tweeter, Roger Jarman, queried Ebner’s division of Britain’s Jewish community into ‘good’ and ‘bad’:
“And what is the ‘Jewish community’? Do all those who self identify as Jewish or are of Jewish heritage share common interests, views and ambitions? Or perhaps there is a smaller group of ‘good Jews’ with whom the ‘not so good Jews’ relate? And who decides who is ‘good’?”
Other Tweeters joined in, but unfortunately Ebner carried on sneering despite some of them telling her to stop digging.
Meanwhile, the head of policy at the Community Security Trust, Dave Rich, attacked Ken Loach. Loach, he claimed, had said
antisemitism is an “understandable” reaction to Israel’s actions; whether the Holocaust happened “is there for us all to discuss”; antisemitism in Labour is “exaggerated or false”; & complained about “the generalised sense of guilt that everyone has about the Jews”.
Um, no. This was more of what the Israel lobby does. They take quotes out of context and twist them in order to misrepresent staunch anti-racists and opponents of anti-Semitism. Magpie Ranger on Twitter by linking to a piece in the Graoniad by Loach responding to attacks on him by Jonathan Freedland and other Zionist hacks in that paper. This was titled ‘Ken Loach: I give no legitimacy to Holocaust denial’ and began
‘The Holocaust is as real a historical event as the second world war itself, and it is contemptible to imply that I have anything in common with people like David Irving, writes Ken Loach.’
And then Rachel Riley decided to put her oar in, and tweeted.
‘The supposed anti-racism football charity #ShowRacismTheRedCard yet again unashamedly promotes deniers/proponents of anti-Jewish racism.
I hope schools don’t touch this.’
This got a very swift response from the left-wing Jewish group, Jewdas and other Tweeters. One of the Jewish group’s Tweets was
‘Personally its not something we’d do but if you were planning on accusing a beloved childrens’ poet of Holocaust Denial, best not to do it DAYS after he releases a book about losing family in the Shoah.’
Quite. Because on 12th December, Mr Rosen published a book, The Missing, about his relatives who murdered in the Holocaust. He was particularly moved to write it by the fate of his grand-uncles, Oscar and Martin, who existed before the Second World War, but vanished during it. Rosen was interviewed by the Torygraph about his book, and said that he ‘was face to face with one of the most virulent forms of anti-Semitism’. Mr Rosen has also appeared before parliament to give information on the Holocaust as well not so long ago. It was while doing so that he managed to upset former Labour MP, Ian Austin, by putting him right about British involvement during the War. Austin thought that Britain stood alone. Rosen corrected him, stating quite rightly that we had the support of the Empire – Canada, India, the Caribbean, our African colonies, Australia and New Zealand. This was too much for Austin, who got shirty with him. But Rosen was quite right, and if we hadn’t had these nations’ support, we would have fallen to the Nazis in very short order like the other European nations.
Riley has since deleted her tweet, possibly realising, as Mike pointed out, that she had gone too far and that Mr Rosen, unlike most of her victims, actually has the money to spend on taking Riley to court. But the damage has been done. Unfortunately some people have been taken in by Riley, and really do believe that Mr Rosen is an anti-Semite, who denies the Holocaust.
Mike, however, has pointed out that there is a court case that could stop her making this false and libelous claims. These are the case he is fighting against her. She is suing him for libel because Mike dared on his blog to stand up for a girl Riley was bullying and had accused of anti-Semitism. Mike is fighting this false and malign accusation, but that requires money, and so Mike is once again asking for his supporters to dig into their pockets.
He writes
So allow me to repeat my appeal: if you want to see an end to this nonsense from a so-called TV celebrity who should know better, please support the CrowdJustice appeal for the funds I need to bring the case against me to court and to defeat her claims.
Such a loss would be a serious financial – and personal – setback for her. It is unlikely that Ms Riley would be able to present such questionable views to the public afterwards and expect a sympathetic reception.
And concludes
This is a witch-hunt. It will continue as long as privileged people like Ms Riley are allowed to go unchallenged when they attack people, simply for having views that she doesn’t like.
Riley and the rest of the Israel lobby despise Rosen and Loach because they are determined anti-racists, who have supported Jeremy Corbyn and criticised the witch hunt against him and his supporters. Loach also directed a play or a film some time again, which attacked Israel’s murderous oppression of the Palestinians.
As for the Community Security Trust, this is a volunteer police force that was set up to protect Jewish sites, like synagogues and cemeteries. They are supposed to be trained by Mossad members, and act as stewards for Zionist rallies. They have acted violently towards peaceful demonstrators, breaking apart and separating Jewish and Muslim demonstrators and assaulting them. In one instance, one of their thugs punched an elderly rabbi. But for some reason the government still thinks this bunch of paramilitary squadristi are an acceptable partner for the police force in defending the Jewish community.
Even when they are the people attacking Jews and their friends and supporters.
John Mann is the former Blairite MP John Mann, who has spent most of the past few years of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership spreading the smears that his party was awash with anti-Semites and that it was all the fault of its leaders. This, he claimed, was the reason he finally left the party. He was then given the post of ‘Anti-Semitism Czar’ by the Tories, presumably in return for services rendered. It’s not exactly the best of titles, considering that the czars were notorious for anti-Semitism and the last years of the Russian Empire were marked by horrific pogroms. And how seriously the Tories and Mann take accusations of anti-Semitism in their ranks is shown by their massive lack of response to the concerns of the writer, lecturer, former children’s poet laureate and Holocaust educator Michael Rosen.
On Monday Mike published an article reporting that a very distinguished group of Jewish academics, journos, politicos, lawyers and other activists, including the actor Miriam Margolyes, had published an article in the Groaniad accusing Boris Johnson of anti-Semitism. This was partly based on a Jewish character, or perhaps caricature, in his wretched 2004 novel, 72 Virgins. This is a wish-fulfillment fantasy in which a bicycling Prime Minister, who bears an uncannily resemblance to Johnson himself, foils an Islamist plot to bomb parliament. The book talks about ‘Jewish oligarchs’ running the media and fiddling elections. There is a Jewish character, Sammy Katz, who is described as having a ‘proud nose and curly hair’. Katz is malevolent, stingy, and snake-like, exploiting immigrant workers for profit. The letter-writers comment, ‘There is nothing subtle about this. We know what antisemitism looks like.’
Further evidence of Johnson’s vile attitude to Jews comes from his editorship of the Spectator. He used to publish articles by Taki Theodorocopoulos, who really is an anti-Semite, claimed that Blacks have lower IQs than Whites and hailed Enoch Powell as ‘a great man’. They could also have added that he has also described the Greek neo-Nazi group, Golden Dawn, as just a group of patriotic Greek boys. The writers also note that even now Johnson is cosying up to Trump, despite the Orange Buffoon’s own support for neo-Nazis and comments about Greek disloyalty.
The writer’s state that they aren’t surprised by Johnson’s hatred of Jews, considering his general hatred for the poor and marginalised – minorities, women and LGBTQ+. But they reject Johnson’s cynical attempts to exploit the Jewish community’s fears about anti-Semitism in the Labour party to distract attention from his own bigotry.
The writers concluded their letter
A vote for the Conservatives is a vote for a far-right government that poses an existential threat to all minorities. As Jews, we understand that our fate is bound up with that of other minorities. We will only find safety through solidarity. We call on allies of the Jewish community to reject hate and vote the Tories out.
Now Mike and Zelo Street have reported that Mann and his fellow Blairite, the odious Ian Austin, have blocked Michael Rosen and called him a ‘troll’ after Rosen tried to pass on a few more instance of Tory anti-Semitism. Rosen had complained about anti-Semitism in the Tory party and provided examples. He got a reply from Mann simply stating that he wasn’t responding to incidents as they came up. Which Rosen flatly contradicted, saying he did. Rosen then annoyed the gruesome twosome of Mann and Austin by investigating the claim that Paul Golding, the fuhrer of the islamophobic Fascist group, Britain First, had joined the Tories. Rosen found that he hadn’t, and said so. But this refutation of what is a damaging rumour to the Tories infuriated them. Austin tweeted
“Looking forward to [Michael Rosen] a) apologising for trying to belittle and undermine [John Mann]’s work on Antisemitism, and b) resolving not to stupidly give horrible racists like Paul Golding and Britain First the publicity they crave”.
Rosen corrected him,
“I don’t undermine [John Mann]’s work on antisemitism: I provide him with examples he hasn’t retweeted so that he can slot them alongside the ones that he does”.
At which point Mann himself waded in, tweeting
“All trolls are blocked. Another trolled added. Thank you”.
Tim Fenton, telling this tale, is astonished that Mann, supposedly an anti-Semitism campaigner, called Michael Rosen a ‘troll’ and blocked him. And so were other people. He quotes a couple of observers who also weren’t impressed. ‘Funny Tinge; Twitter Dinosaur’ commented
“Lord John just blocked [Michael Rosen] for raising concerns about Anti Semitism. How do you think this looks John, that you, the AS tsar has just blocked a prominent Jewish figure from highlighting areas of concern he has? Cause to me it looks really really bad. Be better”.
Malcolm Finch also tweeted
“Just take this in for a minute! The AntiSemitism Tsar John Mann has blocked Jewish Holocaust author & educator Michael Rosen for asking for feedback on alleged AntiSemitism in the Conservative Party”.
The Zelo Street article concludes
‘John Mann gives every indication of not being impartial. I’ll just leave that one there.’
In fact, as the article also points out, Mann has form in overlooking anti-Semitism in the Tory party. He ignored Suella Braverman’s comments about ‘cultural Marxism’, Priti Patel on the ‘north London metropolitan elite’, Gove conflating Jews with Israel, and Rees-Mogg calling two leading Jewish MPs, one of which, I believe, was John Bercow, ‘Illuminati’ and claiming the Remain campaign was funded by George Soros.
Rosen commented on his treatment by Mann thus:
‘Interesting: a public figure, so used to having the right to talk at us, comes on to twitter expecting to do the same. Then, when he finds that people offer him a view of the universe different from his, he does a bit of name-calling and stomps off.’
and concluded
‘I’ll have to report the Antisemitism Tsar to the Antisemitism Tsar.’
The anti-Semitism smears were never about protecting Jews. They were all about stopping Corbyn getting into government. The Israel lobby were afraid that he would do something to help the Palestinians and the Blairites and Tories afraid that he would return Britain to the social democratic consensus that had actually empowered working people.
The cynicism with which these accusations are wielded by the Israel lobby was demonstrated a few days ago in a Counterpunch article about Labour’s election defeat. They attributed this among other causes to the massive disinformation campaign by the British press, including flagrant breach of electoral law by Laura Kuenssberg, and the anti-Semitism accusations. The article quoted Jacob Baime, the leader of the anti-BDS campaign, the Israel on Campus Coalition, about how these accusations are psychological warfare intended to throw those accused into confusion. And the article makes the point that this is what happened with the Labour party:
Labour’s pathetic acquiescence to Zionist bullies inside (e.g., Tom Watson, John Mann) and outside the party (e.g., the Board of Deputies of British Jews) allowed “anti-Semitism” (of which few claims were genuine, as Justin Schlosberg and others have documented) to act as a blanket to hide Labour’s actual policies. Labour internalized the problem and apologized for things its staff never did. This opened the floodgates to more Zionist abuse and the lowering of party morale, as was the Zionists’ intentions. For example, Jacob Baime, the Executive Director of the anti-boycott organization, the Israel on Campus Coalition, explained how “anti-Semitism” accusations work: “It’s psychological warfare. It drives them crazy. They either shut down, or they spend time investigating [the accusations against them] instead of attacking Israel.”
Mann is not going to pay any attention to anti-Semitism in the Tory party, no matter how many supporters of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg are outed by people like Jacobsmates claiming that the Jews are behind non-White immigration because they want to destroy the White race.
Mann simply isn’t interested in anti-Semitism per se.
He’s only interested in anti-Semitism as a weapon against the socialist in his former party.
Here’s another piece of news from today’s I, for 26th November 2019, which may have some bearing on Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis’ latest smear against Jeremy Corbyn. According to the paper, Labour plan to introduce a raft of legislation to tackle racism, including monitoring the wage gap in ethnic minorities. But what seems to have alarmed the Tories and their supporters, John Woodcock and Ian Austin, is that they have raised questions about the political independence of the Equalities of Human Rights Commission, and plan to make it truly independent of government appointment. The article by Jane Merrick, runs
Labour has provoked controversy by questioning the independence of the equality and race relations organisation which is investigating the party over anti-Semitism.
Jeremy Corbyn will launch Labour’s Race and Faith Manifesto alongside Diane Abbott and Dawn Butler today with policies to tackle discrimination and under-representation of black and ethnic minorities in government, the workplace and schools. But the manifesto contains a move to make the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the body conducting an inquiry into Labour, “truly independent”. This reform would “ensure it can support people to effectively challenge any discrimination they may face”, the party said.
A Labour government would also change the national curriculum so that colonialism, slavery and the role of the British empire were taught in schools.
Pay gap reporting,currently limited to gender, would be extended to black and ethnic minority workers in businesses of 250 employees or more, while a race equality unit would be set up in the Treasury to review spending announcements for their impact on these communities.
But the measure to reform the EHRC proved controversial last night. The body started an investigation into allegations of anti-Semitism in Labour earlier this year. The organisation’s commissioners are all experts in equality and the law and are appointed by the government.
The former Labour MP John Woodcock said: “The decent people in Labour need to disown this appalling attempt to smear the EHRC or accept that they are complicit in it.”
The former MP Ian Austin, who left the Labour party over anti-Semitism, said: “No one is going to listen to a lecture about racism from Jeremy Corbyn when Labour is the only part in history to be subjected to a full inquiry by the EHRC.”
Ms Butler, shadow Equalities Secretary, said: “Labour’s Race and Faith Manifesto takes us beyond what we’ve previously committed in hos we’ll radically shift policies to ensure the economic, social or structural barriers faced are addressed. It’s time for real change.”
Labour would also end what it calls “rip-off” charges for passports, visas and other tests from the Home Office.
Both Woodcock and Austin are Blairites, and the real reason for their departure from the party probably has less to do with anti-Semitism and more from their determination to unseat Corbyn and carry on with Blair’s Thatcherite campaign of privatision, including that of the NHS, and the destruction of the welfare state for corporate profit.
As for the independence of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, we’ve seen how the allegations of anti-Semitism against Corbyn and his supporters personally, and the Labour party generally are very much politically motivated. Especially as Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who spewed more smears in the Times today, is a friend of Benjamin Netanyahu and Boris Johnson. Which, like the rest of the Tory press, has had nothing to say about the islamophobe Tommy Robinson urging everyone to vote Tory. Strange that.
Frankly, I don’t believe the EHRC can be trusted in the hands of a Tory government. They will abuse it to smear their enemies. Considering how serious the issue of racism is, it is quite right that it should be independent.
This is another great video from left-wing YouTuber Gordon Dimmack expertly taking apart the new, Independent group of MPs, the Tory splitters who have joined them, and how they signal a possible return to politics of Tony Blair.
Yeah. Him. That monster. The man who killed Iraq.
He begins his video by talking about how he’s already done several other pieces on the Independents already. He points out that they aren’t a party, but a private company, and that this means that they don’t have to reveal their donors. They have, however, suggested that they might, just might, reveal the identities of people giving them over £7,500. He also says again that Krishnan Guru-Murthy’s remark that it might be racist or anti-Semitic to suggest, as Ruth George did, that the party’s funded by Israel is itself anti-Semitic. And he goes on to state that it’s obvious what the Independents are doing, considering who has just joined them: Joan Ryan.
He discusses how Ryan was accused of fabricating an accusation of anti-Semitism at a Labour party member in 2016, despite herself criticizing Jeremy Corbyn for anti-Semitism. He points his viewers to the Al-Jazeera documentary, ‘The Lobby’ and an accompanying article about it on the Electronic Intifada. Ryan was filmed by an undercover reporter fabricating her accusation against a pro-Palestinian activist, Jean Fitzpatrick, at the 2016 Labour party conference. The documentary also revealed Ryan discussing a million pounds of funding the Labour Friends of Israel were getting from Israel for junkets there with Israeli embassy official, Shai Masot. And six of the eight, who have split off from Labour were members of the LFI. The report also said that Ryan had said to him that she talked to Masot ‘most days’. This who Joan Ryan represents – not her constituency, but Israel. And by extension that’s who the Independent group also is. He’s sees no reason why anyone should have apologise for that.
Dimmack also angrily points out that Fitzpatrick, the woman smeared, had her membership suspended. She was later readmitted, but no apology was given. Ryan herself was totally unrepentant. Dimmack then angrily points out to the Labour party that if they allow this to happen – which it has, repeatedly – then people like him won’t join. He also asks the BBC if they don’t think that they should also discuss how Ryan falsely accused another Labour member of anti-Semitism in the two articles that they wrote about Ryan the day Dimmack posted his video, articles in which she continued making her claims about anti-Semitism. He states that not doing so is clear bias, and it’s not towards a party, but to another country.
He then moves on to talk about the three Tory splitters – Sarah Wollaston, Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen. Wollaston is fairly quiet, and generally toed the Tory party line. But she astonished people in January by tabling an amendment which, if it had gone through, would have resulted in a second referendum. So she’s pro-People’s Vote and a Remainer. Like Chuka Umunna. Heidi Allen is also a Remainer, as is Anna Soubry, who can’t open her mouth without saying ‘People’s Vote’. He plays a clip of a reporter asking the Tory splitter if the honourable thing wouldn’t be for them to call a bye-election. They respond by telling him that, no, they don’t think it would, because they think the British people are sick of elections. He points out how colossally hypocritical this is, when they want a second referendum after another the first, in 2016, which hasn’t been implemented yet.
He then posts up Anna Soubry’s ‘Bloody horrible’ voting record as published on a Tweet by Dave Ward. She was
For the Bedroom Tax
For reducing corporation tax
For £9,000 tuition fees.
For phasing out secure life tenancies
Against investigating the Gulf War
Against a banker’s bonus tax
Against increasing a tax on earnings over £150,000.
Ward says in his tweet: Any former Labour MP prepared to welcome someone with this record into their new party was never a Labour MP to begin with.
Dimmack says this comment applies to all seven of the Labour defectors. And their ‘centre’ party isn’t centre, it’s centre-right. He then puts up a picture of this voting bloc from Red Resistance, another tweeter, and comments that if this is the starting 11, how crappy must the subs bench be like? They’re also trying to get two other MPs to join them. One is Ian Austin, whom Dimmack wrongly identifies as a Tory, an MP who is currently suspended on a charge of sexual harassment. They’re already a laughing stock, now they want a creepy pervert to join them. And they also want Stephen Kinnock to join them, but this guy’s holding back, because his wife will probably say ‘No’. Dimmack then plays a video of Kinnock looking absolutely dismayed when the Labour party under Corbyn got 266 seats with Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The Sound of Silence’ playing.
He then criticizes Lucian Borgia, I mean, Berger for her accusations of anti-Semitism. He admits that she has suffered genuine anti-Semitic abuse, for which two people have been to prison. But she points it in the wrong direction, towards Jeremy Corbyn, the most anti-racist MP in parliament. And the most pathetic thing about her is that she was parachuted into the safest of safe seats in Liverpool in 2005. When she was going out with Euan Blair. He thanks Craig Murray for highlighting that little fact.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it can. Because there are rumours that Tony Blair will return to politics to lead it. And here he shows a photograph of Blair, with black irises in his eyes, looking absolutely evil in front of pile of human skulls. As an aside, he also mentions that when Chuka Umunna was asked which of Labour’s policies he disagreed with, he couldn’t name one. Dimmack declares that the Independents are a joke, and the only way he can see them getting through it is if Tony Blair comes back in a year or two’s time and stands to lead them.
Dimmack briefly returns to the point that the Independents are a company, not a party, so we don’t know who their donors are, but thanks to Krishnan Guru-Murthy, it’s anti-Semitic to say it could be Israel. And then he returns to the possibility of Blair returning to politics. He says that someone left it in a comment to one of his videos the previous day, and when he looked into it, he found others were taking it very seriously. And the possibility of this occurring gave him nightmares. Blair is a ‘fr***ing war criminal’, he says, but considering how awful the rest of them are, ‘a war criminal might fit right in’.
It’s a nice summation of how ridiculous, evil and pernicious the Independents are. But I think he missed the point about people not joining the Labour party because of the lack of consequences for those making false accusations of anti-Semitism. I think it is being done precisely to stop people like Dimmack joining, by a Blairite clique that is still in control of the party bureaucracy. Just as I follow Mike’s post today about Derek Hatton’s suspension from the Labour party for anti-Semitism being no accident. It’s another attempt to discourage genuine leftists, concerned with Israel’s brutality, from joining.
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