As readers of this blog will know, I have very little respect for Labour MP Jess Phillips. She’s a dyed in the wool Blairite, who was very open and unambiguous about her hatred of Jeremy Corbyn when he was Labour leader. She said she’d like to ‘stab him in the front’, a remark about which she was naturally questioned a few years ago when she appeared on Have I Got News For You. She’s another Thatcherite, who apparently believes that privatisation have been wonderful for the national utilities and that life must be made even harder for all those feckless people out of work because they were laid off, are long term sick or disabled. The only aspect of her that strikes me as being at all left-wing is her feminism, for which she has had more than her fair share of abuse on line. This included Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, now of the Lotus Eaters, sending her a text informing her that he ‘wouldn’t even rape her’. But now I feel I have to defend her, as she’s been targeted by mad right-wing YouTuber Alex Belfield over the amount of money she was apparently paid for appearing on Have I Got New For You.
Belfield has put up a video claiming that she was paid £15,000 at the rate of £5,000 an hour, for three hours work. He seems to have lifted this story from the Heil, which I gather has been the source of so much of his content. Belfield was annoyed that she was receiving this money on top of her MP’s salary. He felt she should have considered this simply as part of her outreach work as an MP, and just been paid expenses only.
This looks to me like a bit of tit for tat because of the way Tory MPs have particularly come under criticism for raking in the money from their second jobs. This is to me a fair criticism, especially as the amounts they are paid are well into the tens of thousands and there is often a very clear conflict of interest between their role as an MP regulating or overseeing a particular industry and their involvement through their commercial interests. This is rather different to appearing on popular television panel shows.
There’s also the issue of Belfield’s and the Heil’s selectiveness in criticising Phililips, because it’s not as if she’s the only politico who’s appeared on the programme. Not by a long chalk. Over the decades the show’s been on their guests have included politicians like Lembit Opik from the Lib Dems, Derek Hatton of the Labour party, Cecil Parkinson, a former member of Maggie’s cabinet and Boris Johnson, amongst others. My guess is that they would all have been paid the same or similar fees for their time on the show according to the pay rates at the time. I don’t see Phillips’ fee of £15,000 as anything extraordinary or remarkable.
But it does two things that please the Tories. It allows them to make it appear that the BBC really is biased towards the left and that its presenters are massively overpaid. This supports Murdoch’s demands for its privatisation. But always be aware that, as Murdoch’s networks are private, the amount he pays his presenters and executives is kept very secret.
Thus, as much as I despise Phillips, I have to say that this time she’s undeserving of the criticism that’s being thrown her way. She’s almost certainly been treated no differently than every other politician that’s been on the show.
One of whom, a former motoring journalist and editor of the Spectator, has shown himself to be far more greedy, not to mention incompetent and malign, than Phillips.
A friend of mine managed to get hold of copy of Private Eye for me. I’ve gone a couple of fortnights without a copy, and so have been very keen to get hold of one. And this fortnight’s issue for 24th April – 7 May 2020 is particularly interesting as it has a piece about the leaked Labour report and its revelations about the deliberate plotting by Blairite apparatchiks to undermine Corbyn and sabotage Labour’s election campaign.
I’ve written a number of pieces highly critical of Private Eye because of the way it has followed the rest of the scumbag British press in pushing the anti-Semitism smears. Most, if not all of these articles have been written by their correspondent ‘Ratbiter’, whom the awesome Tony Greenstein has unmasked as Nick Cohen, a hack with the Graun and Absurder. I was pleasantly surprised with their article about the Labour plotters, as instead of rubbishing it to defend the Blairites, they actually take it seriously and come down against McNicol, Stolliday and co. This may be because it’s anonymous, and so wasn’t written by Cohen/’Ratbiter’. The article, ‘Party Crashers’, runs
The leaked Labour investigation into what went on at HQ under former general secretary Iain McNicol suggests some officials wanted to undermine leader Jeremy Corbyn and see the party crash in the 2017 election. So what were the “hope we lose” crew up to, and where have they been since?
The report, a submission to Labour’s investigation into handling anti-Semitism, examines emails and WhatsApp threads among party managers and concludes that McNicol’s team was not, as they had claimed, undermined while trying to deal with anti-Jewish prejudice among Labour members.
Rather, they allowed anti-Semitism cases to pile up because they were too busy trying to exclude pro-Corbyn members for such crimes as having “liked” a Facebook post by the Green Party. The report also found schemes to remove Corbyn (including an “Operation Cupcake”) and the creation of a fund to divert party money to campaigns in safe seats held by anti-Corbyn MPs.
The report quotes an email in 2017 in which policy officer Francis Grove-White, responding to favourable polls before the election, wrote that “I actually felt quite sick when I saw that YouGov poll last night”. After leaving his job, Grove-White became deputy director of the People’s Vote campaign from 2017-2019. When that collapsed, he became an adviser on MP Jess Phillips doomed leadership campaign.
Patrick Heneghan, Labour’s executive director of elections, is also quoted in the report joining a conversation with executive director Emilie Oldknow in which she describes senior women around Jeremy Corbyn as “pube head” and “smelly cow”; Heneghan remarks that one of the women is “disgusting” and “probably slept” in her clothes. Contemplating a key by-election, Heneghan apparently wanted Labour to lose, emailing “let’s hope the Lib Dems can do it”. Another official, John Stolliday, discussing Labour’s final 2017 election rally with Heneghan, seems to want party members to get in a fight with police – “Truncheons out lads, let’s knock some trots”. Heneghan’s reply: “Water cannons please.”
Like Grove-White, Stolliday later joined the People’s Vote, becoming head of communications in 2018. Last year Heneghan also arrived, as chief executive. With these former faction fighters from Labour HQ in charge, it’s perhaps no surprise the People’s Vote campaign itself broke into warring groups, who then turned on the rank and file, split and finally collapsed before the 2019 election.
PS: Many named in the report, including Oldknow and Stolliday, later landed top jobs at trade union Unison. With a new election looming this year for Unison’s general secretary, organised by Stolliday and Oldknow, what could possibly go wrong?
Much of this will already be familiar to those, who have read the articles by Mike, Martin Odoni, Tony Greenstein, Zelo Street and others. There are other aspects of the plotters’ vile conduct that have been examined, quite apart from their intrigues against Corbyn, which the Eye’s article doesn’t mention. The plotters weren’t just interested in promoting their own faction at the expense of Corbyn, his supporters and indeed the party as a whole, they were actually racist. They actively bullied BAME MPs and activists, including Diane Abbott.
Most significantly, the article still accepts uncritically the leaked report’s assumption that anti-Semitism was rife in the Labour Party, and that those accused were always guilty. But in the vast majority of cases, these accusations were manufactured by the Blairites, Tories and the Israel lobby as another political strategy. They were about toppling Corbyn and preventing Labour from winning the elections. They had zilch to do with real hatred towards Jews. The Eye has always absolutely uncritically supported those accusations, and has been as guilty as the rest of the British press in refusing to allow the victims of the witch-hunt to speak for themselves. The media groupthink and fear of the Israel lobby is presumably far too strong, even for the Eye. I suspect that it’s because the article doesn’t challenge the report’s assumptions of anti-Semitism that it was published.
While it’s good news that the Eye is taking the anti-Corbyn plots seriously at long last, while the rest of the media ignores them as a non-story, it seems that we’re still going to wait a long time before it attacks the anti-Semitism smears themselves. I won’t hold my breath.
Both Mike and Martin have written detailed demolitions of the report’s uncritical acceptance of toxic anti-Semitism in the Labour party. These can be read at:
Both of these are extremely thorough in destroying the underlying assumptions about anti-Semitism, and how it should be rooted out in the Labour party. Martin’s quotes the report itself on what the witch-hunters consider to be evidence of anti-Semitism, and explains exactly why this is grievously flawed and has led to many decent people being smeared as Jew-haters who are no such thing. Like Martin himself, who is Jewish, but like Mike, he was accused of anti-Semitism simply because he supported Corbyn. And because, like many Jews, he was critical of Israel.
Unfortunately, Mike, Martin, and the other victims of the witch-hunt, like Tony Greenstein and Jackie Walker, are still denied proper treatment by the media. Which is why it is important to read what they say, and not blandly accept biased reportage from a corrupt media establishment.
Mike has put up several pieces this week commenting on the decision of all five contenders for the Labour leadership – Lisa Nandy, Keir Starmer, Jess Phillips, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Emily Thornberry – to sign a series of ten pledges devised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews on how they will tackle anti-Semitism in the Labour party. This has outraged Mike and a very large number of other Labour supporters and members, because it is a capitulation to the Board. It effectively cedes to the Board extremely wide-ranging and draconian powers over who can be accused of anti-Semitism, and how they should be tried, judged and punished. Mike and the other commenters, bloggers and activists on this issue have extensively criticised the document and how it represents a very serious breach of natural justice. For example, those accused of anti-Semitism are more or less to be treated as guilty simply through the accusation, and expelled promptly. I’ve made the point as an historian with an interest in the European witch hunts of the Middle Ages and 16th and 17th centuries that accused witches could expect a fairer trial than the kangaroo courts set up by the Labour party, and which are demanded by the Board and their satellite organisations within the party, like the Jewish Labour Movement. Some of the demands made by the Board very much resemble the way cults and totalitarian states exercise total control over their members’ lives. For example, another of the provisions demands that existing members do not have anything to do with those expelled for anti-Semitism. This is exactly like the way cults and less extreme religious sects demand that their members have nothing to do with those outside them, thus cutting ties with family and friends.
The Board is also not a credible judge of what constitutes anti-Semitism. They have been extremely bad on the issue on anti-Semitism in the Labour, acting in bad faith and deliberately falsifying its extent, supporting evidence and maligning and smearing decent women and men.
Their motives throughout their pursuit of this issue has certainly been not to defend Jews against anti-Semitism. Rather, like their counterparts elsewhere in the Jewish establishment – the Chief Rabbinate, the Jewish press and the Jewish Leadership Council – it has been extremely party political. The goal has been to oust Corbyn as leader of the Labour party, purge it of his supporters and prevent it coming to power. Not because Corbyn is an anti-Semite – he isn’t by any objective standard – but because he is a staunch anti-racist and a critic of Israel’s slow-motion ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. And as Tories, like the rest of the Jewish establishment, they were also frightened by a movement within the Labour party that would restore power and dignity to working people, including Jews. David Rosenberg has made the point on his ‘Rebel Notes’ blog that the Board and its ilk do not represent Jews, who are working or lower-middle class – yes, they exist! – they don’t represent the Jewish disabled, the Jews who work in or use the public services. And they don’t give a damn about racism and real anti-Semitism. He has described how, when he was a young activist in ’70s and ’80s, the Board did its level best to stop Jews going on anti-racism demonstrations and gigs like ‘Rock Against Racism’. Ostensibly this was to protect the young and impressionable from anti-Zionist propaganda. But others suspected the real reason was that they had zero interest in joining protests against discrimination and hate against Blacks and Asians. And Tony Greenstein, another staunch Jewish critic of Israel and fierce opponent of racism and Fascism in all its forms, has described how, in the 1930s, when British Jews were in real existential danger from Mosley and other genuine Fascist and Nazi groups, the Board did nothing to encourage them to resist. When Mosley and his storm troopers marched through the East End of London to intimidate and terrorise the Jews and other minorities there, the Board meekly told them to stay indoors. Fortunately there were Jews, who didn’t believe in passively tolerating the BUF, and joined with the Communists, unions and other left-winger to give Mosley’s thugs the hiding they richly deserved.
The Board claims the authority to dictate the Labour party’s policy towards anti-Semitism as the organ representing the Jewish community as a whole. This is a lie.
Mike today put up a statement by Jewish Voice for Labour – a far more representative Jewish organisation than the Board – about this issue. And the simple answer is: they aren’t. The JVL said
The Board’s claim to be democratic is, however, distinctly tenuous. There are no British Jewish elections, no direct way for all British Jews to directly elect the board’s 300 Deputies. To be involved in electing Deputies, one must be a member of one or more of approximately 138 synagogues, or be connected to one of 34 ‘communal organisations’ (such as the UJIA or Reform Judaism) that are affiliated with the Board, all of which elect one to five Deputies—anyone not involved with these institutions does not have a vote, despite the Board still claiming to speak on their behalf. Inevitably, some individuals may be represented multiple times, through being members of more than one organisation.
The biggest problem, however, is with the elections held by affiliate organisations to select their deputies—it is these that justify the Board’s claim to be a representative democracy. Transparency is a fundamental requirement of democracy—there needs to be openness as to who the electorate is and how many of them turn out in order for any election to be considered legitimate. Despite its own constitution obliging it to receive the data (Appendix A, Clause 3: “the election shall not be validated unless the form incorporates… the total number of members of the congregation… and the number who attended the election meeting”), the Board does not release a list of the membership size or the numbers voting in each affiliate organisation, and claims to have no idea what the numbers might be. The Board’s spokesman explained to me that, “While we do need to be more thorough in collecting statistics, these figures wouldn’t add anything—they don’t speak to the democratic legitimacy of the organisation or to anything else.” This seems extraordinarily complacent—can we imagine a British election in which the size of the electorate, the list of candidates standing, and the turnout remained secret? It would be regarded as an affront to democracy.
The anti-democratic nature of the Board is confirmed by other Jewish critics, like Tony. They point out that the Board really only represents the United Synagogue, which is believed to have 40,000 members out of a total Jewish population in the country of 280,000 – 300,000. They don’t represent that third of the Jewish people, who are secular and don’t attend synagogue. Neither do they represent the Orthodox, may represent as much as a quarter of all Jewish Brits and are set to overtake the United Synagogue as the largest section of the Jewish population in a few years. Some synagogues haven’t had elections for years, and so have sitting candidates. Others don’t allow women to vote. And the Board also defines itself as a Zionist organisation, and so excludes Jews, who do not support Israel.
So it seems that the Board represents, at most, 1/3 of British Jews. That’s hardly a majority and gives them no mandate to issue their demands.
As for the Board’s manifest lack of democracy, it all reminds me of Britain before the 1833 Reform Act, with its pocket and rotten boroughs. But these are the people claiming to have the moral authority to speak for the British Jewish community!
I fully understand why the Labour leadership candidates signed the Board’s wretched pledges. They hoped that this would end the Board’s interference in the Labour party and their continued criticism. But it won’t. The Board and other Zionist organisations that use allegations of anti-Semitism as a weapon against their critics will not be satisfied. They see such capitulation as weakness, and will always press for further concessions. This is what Corbyn and his advisers, like Seaumas Milne, failed to understand. Instead of caving in, Corbyn should have fought back.
My own feeling now is that the only way to settle this issue decisively in Labour’s favour is to attack and discredit the Board – to show how biased and unrepresentative it is, to reveal how it lies and libels decent men and women, and particularly self-respecting Jews.
That would be a long, very hard, and perilous struggle, especially as the media and Tory press would be on the side of the Board all the way.
But until it is done, the Board as it stands now will always be a politically partisan threat to British democracy and genuine Jewish security and anti-racist action.
Yesterday’s I (2nd January 2020) also ran this report on the candidates for the Labour leadership by Jane Merrick, ‘Labour ‘foisted Remain on working class’. This runs
One of the architects of Labour’s historic election defeat has claimed that the party’s attempt to “foist Remain” on working class communities was responsible for last month’s result.
Ian Lavery, the party’s chairman and general election campaign coordinator, denied that Jeremy Corbyn’s policies contributed to the losses.
Mr Lavery is among several Labour MPs considering running to succeed Mr Corbyn. Ahead of nominations opening next week, speculation is mounting that Jess Phillips, one of the most widely recognised MPs among the general public, is about to announce her candidacy.
Yesterday she tweeted: “2020 starts with fire in my belly and I promise that won’t change.”
I’m a Remainer, but Lavery’s right: all the northern and midland communities that voted for Boris were Leave areas. Labour’s manifesto promises for the nationalisation of rail, water and electricity, strengthening the welfare state, restoring workers’ rights and union power, were actually well-received and polled well. But they’re a threat to the upper and upper middle classes, including media barons like Murdoch, the weirdo Barclay twins and Lord Rothermere, so the Tory press is doing its absolute best to try and discredit them.
And the I unfortunately is also following this line. It has always backed the ‘Centrists’ in the Labour, for which read ‘Blairites’ and ‘Thatcherite entryists’, who stand for more privatisation and the destruction of the welfare state. But they pretend – mostly – to be more ‘moderate’ than the Tories. The I’s also been promoting female candidates for the party leadership, and loudly denouncing opposition to them as ‘misogyny’. It’s noticeable in all this that the women, who’ve thrown their hats into the ring are all Blairites, and so the election of someone like Phillips would just be a liberal disguise for the right-wing policies underneath. Just like Hillary Clinton over the Pond is right-wing and militaristic, and therefore very establishment. But she was claiming that, as a woman, she was somehow an outsider, and the people, including women, who back Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination for the presidency instead were just misogynists.
At the moment the I’s backing Lisa Nandy, who appears to be another wretched Blairite.
Lavery, however, is working class, and so a far better spokesman for those areas and people that have suffered from the neoliberalism the Tories and their pet press have pushed on us.
This was on the local news for Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire, Points West, this morning. The debating society at the University of the West of England here in Bristol has been warned by the uni and the rozzers not to go ahead with a planned debate about Brexit because of concerns about people’s safety. The debate is due to include Carl Benjamin, aka ‘Sargon of Akkad’, the notorious far right candidate for UKIP in the southwest.
This is the notorious Sargon, who has made numerous videos attacking feminism, supporting the use of offensive epithets against Blacks, Jews, gays, Asians and the mentally challenged. The vlogger, who said that he could be quoted as saying it’s all right to sodomise young boys, because they did it in ancient Greece. Who answered a question about whether sex with underage children was right or wrong by saying ‘it depends on the child’. The guy, who sent a tweet to Labour’s Jess Philips saying ‘I wouldn’t even rape you’. The same Sargon, who seems to believe he’s centre left, when in actual fact he’s a complete libertarian, who would like to see all public enterprises privatised, including the NHS, and the welfare state dismantled. And when asked what his policies were by a reporter for Sky News, couldn’t find an answer except to say that he opposed political correctness and Islam.
As a result of his antics, the head of UKIP in Swindon wants him deselected and the party’s Gloucestershire branch has closed down. When he traveled to Gibraltar on his campaigning tour, the country’s governor, Fabian Picardo, refused to meet him and tweeted that Sargon’s comments were hate speech, which had no place there. He has been refused entry to a restaurant because of his vile views in one of the cities in which he campaign, and a protester threw a milkshake at him in Cornwall.
And then there’s the question of the hatred and threats spewed on social media by some of the Brexit crowd. You can understand why the University and police fear violence at the debate if it goes ahead.
I think the debate is also overshadowed by a disturbance at another university event featuring Sargon a few years ago. As Sargon was speaking, a load of black clad people in balaclavas waving an Antifa flag rushed in, only to be beaten off by Sargon and his supporters. Who captured their flag. There are clips of the incident on the Net, and many commenters have suggested that the incident was fake. It may have been staged to make Sargon look good, as the brave defender of free speech against anti-racist intolerance.
Despite this the debating society has said that they intend to go ahead with debate on Friday. If it does, I hope it all goes well for them, and that Sargon gets a sound intellectual and verbal, but not physical, drubbing.
In the meantime, here’s another video from Kevin Logan briefly showing some of the highlights of Sargon’s campaigning so far to suitable musical accompaniment. This includes Sargon having fish and the milkshake thrown at him. It ends with a statement of where UKIP now lies in the polls – 2% – accompanied by Woody Guthrie’s ‘All You Fascists Bound to Lose’.
More from the continuing implosion of UKIP thanks to Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad. As I’ve blogged about several times previously, Sargon’s one of the extreme right-wing bloggers, vloggers and internet personalities Kipperfuehrer Batten has recruited to boost UKIP’s electoral chances. The others include Mark Meechan, alias Count Dankula, of Nazi pug infamy and Paul Joseph Watson, late of American conspiracy news site, Infowars. As well as the vicious islamophobe and thug, Tommy Robinson. And rather than increase UKIP’s popularity and chances, these personalities are actually torpedoing it massively.
Sargon’s become infamous for a series of comments he made on social media. These include the tweet he sent to Labour MP Jess Phillips, saying ‘I wouldn’t even rape you’. This was bad enough, but then the Sunday before last the Mail on Sunday did a hit piece on him, reporting other comments Sargon had made which suggested he endorsed paedophilia. In one internet conversation, Sargon is supposed to have said that people could quote him as approving of adults have sex with boys. Because they did in ancient Greece, where it was called mentoring. In another chat with the Justicar, another vlogger, who claimed to have had sex before he was 11, Sargon had commented that it depended on the child whether this was right, and had to be considered on a case by case basis. When he was running The Thinkery podcast, Sargon had also made a broadcast with Singaporean vlogger Amos Yee, who genuinely believes that the age of consent should be scrapped.
And this is in addition to Sargon’s own use of racial slurs and his casual antifeminism. Sargon has attacked the media reporting these comments as ‘dirty, dirty smear merchants’, but he hasn’t disavowed them. Or at least, not the tweet directed at Jess Phillips, which he’s tried to defend, as has Batten, who claimed it was satirical. This has just made it all worse.
But, it seems, as Michael Medved used to say when presenting Channel 4’s The Worst of Hollywood back in the 1980s, ‘the worst is yet to come.’ How much worse? Milo Yiannopolis has announced that he’s coming to help Sargon out. That’s how much worse.
Yiannopolis is, you’ll remember, another extreme right-wing pundit. A former technology correspondent for Breitbart, Yiannopolis made his name promoting extreme Conservative views and policies. He was another anti-feminist, who also attacked Blacks, other ethnic minorities and has been accused of homophobia because of his comments about gays. And like Sargon, he tried to excuse it all in the name of ‘free speech’. He also hid behind his own identity as a half-Jewish gay man with a Black husband. A year or so ago he was touring America’s campuses as part of his ‘Dangerous Faggot’ campaign for the Republican party and Donald Trump. He also had a very lucrative book deal ready with the imprint of publishers Simon and Schuster specialising in right-wing politics.
Then it all spectacularly self-destructed. Like Sargon, Yiannopolis opened his mouth to make comments approving of child abuse. This was to Joe Rogan on his internet show, where Yiannopolis revealed that he had been molested when he was 13 by a Roman Catholic priest, called ‘Father Michael’, but claimed that he had been the active seducer. He said that sexual relationships between boys and older men were beneficial in that they helped these young gays with their sexual identity. He also claimed he had been to Hollywood boat parties where very young boys had been employed as prostitutes, but refused to name names. Under Californian law, failure to report sexual abuse is a crime. I don’t think Yiannopolis was formally charged with any offence, but his comments cost him his job with Breitbart, his book contract, and an invitation to the annual American Conservative gathering, CPAC. He has been declared bankrupt to the tune of £4 million. He was also hoping to go to Australia to do a tour there with Tommy Robinson, but the Ozzie authorities refused to let him in. But now Yiannopolis has sent a message telling everyone that he is flying in tomorrow to help Sargon on the campaign trail.
This is someone, who has destroyed their career through comments supporting paedophilia, coming to support someone else, who’s political career is being destroyed because they’ve allegedly made comments supporting child abuse. This brings to mind the old adage, ‘When you’re in a hole, stop digging.’
A few days ago, Kevin Logan, Kristi Winters and Steve Shives did a livestream together, in which they discussed and mocked Sargon’s utterly incompetent management of his electoral campaign. To say it is not going well for Sargon is an understatement. Thanks to Sargon, the Gloucestershire branch of UKIP have shut themselves down rather than endorse him as a candidate, posting this on their website. When Sargon went to Gibraltar to drum up support there, as apparently it’s part of the southwest England European constituency, governor Fabian Picardo refused to meet him. The good politico then issued a tweet stating that as far as he was concerned, Sargon’s views represented hate speech that had no place in his country.
This is nearly two and three quarter hours long, and I haven’t watched all of it, so I can’t comment on the video as a whole. But the reports and screenshots of Gloucestershire UKIP are at the 38 minute mark.
Logan, Winters and Shives also believed that Sargon was also refused entry to a Beefeater restaurant when he went to my home city of Bristol the other day. He wanted to hold a meeting in it, but somebody phoned them up to warn them that a Fascist wanted to hold his meeting there. So they refused.
The trio also joked that Sargon was the reverse Midas. Just as the ancient King in Greek legend turned all he touched into gold, so Sargon turns everything he comes into contact with to ordure. Why, joked Shives, couldn’t he join the Tories? Quite. And while he’s at it, I’d also like him to join the Jewish Labour Movement and get a job with Gabriel Pogrund on the Sunday Times, writing articles about how Corbyn and his supporters are anti-Semites. That should destroy those organisations.
According to Logan and co, UKIP’s polling is about 2.4 per cent, which is just above the 2 per cent level needed to get one of the two listed candidates for south-west England elected. But Sargon is the second, and at this rate definitely won’t be going to Europe any time soon. But after his performance, and support from Yiannopolis, it’s going to be a good question whether there’s still a UKIP party after this election.
After the Mail on Sunday’s hit piece on YouTube rightist Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad at the weekend comes yet another attack from the Jewish News and Jewish Chronicle. Sargon has been adopted by UKIP as their second listed candidate for the southwest. And so the media has spent the last few weeks tearing him apart for his highly controversial views about race and feminism.
Sargon’s Infamous Rape Tweet
Sargon is infamous for his tweet to Labour MP Jess Phillips saying ‘I wouldn’t even rape you’ after she read out in parliament the rape and death threats she’d received over social media. He also made a video against ‘political correctness’ and identity politics, in which he used various racial slurs against Blacks, Hispanics, Jews and Asians, called gays ‘fags’ and the mentally handicapped ‘retards’.
Apparent Support for Sexual Abuse of Boys
The MoS’ article discussed these, but also included new allegations, that Sargon approved of the sexual abuse of underage boys. A dossier of information handed over to the rozzers by an unnamed senior official in UKIP included the recording of a conversation Sargon had on YouTube. In it he said he could be quoted as saying that it was acceptable to f*** young boys, because it was normal in ancient Greece. ‘It’, he said, ‘all depends on the child’.
Jews, Identity Politics and the Holocaust
Yesterday Zelo Street put up an article reporting that Sargon has now been attacked for anti-Semitism for comments he made at an evening in New York with YouTube independent journo and actor and stand-up comedian Carlos Alazraqui. The evening was recorded, and put up on Sargon’s YouTube channel under the title ‘The Manhattan Panel’. Sargon had made the comments in response to a question by a member of the audience about a powerful and influential Jewish political group, and how he could point them out without engaging in identity politics.
Sargon replied by defending Jeremy Corbyn. He stated that though he was loath to defend a socialist, Corbyn didn’t deserve the pasting he had received. He then went on to make the following comments
“Jewish people do very well in our societies. That’s to their credit, they work hard. It’s not that this is illegitimately gained. But then I can see why people are resentful that successful, rich, well-off people, who are well connected, who are socially very advanced, are then playing the game of identity politics as well.
“I can see why it doesn’t seem fair. It seems like an unfair defence, an unfair advantage that they have. If someone were to say, ‘Well that’s anti-semitic thing to say,’ it would sound to me like someone criticising feminism and being called a mysoginist. To me it’s just another brand of identity politics.”
He then went on
“Jewish people are very smart, they work very hard, of course they’re successful, if we want to even have any idea that we’re living in a meritocracy, if Jews weren’t succeeding in our societies they must be being held back. But they’re not, they’re doing great, because they’re not being held back, because they do work hard, because they are smart.
“We need Jewish people, unfortunately for them, have got to drop the identity politics.
“I’m sorry about the Holocaust but I don’t give a shit. I’m sorry.”
It is this comment about the Holocaust that was criticised by the two papers as anti-Semitic, who also mentioned that he had also made other racial and anti-Semitic slurs.
Sargon’s Defence of Racial Slurs against Asians
Zelo Street in their piece about Sargon’s comments linked it to the remark he made in his video defending his right to use abusive terms against those of others, gays and the mentally handicapped. He argued that he had the right to call Asians ‘ch*nks’ because they were generally more prosperous and thus more privileged than Whites. Zelo Street quoted Sargon’s comments, adding their own pertinent remarks thus
“Because Asians are privileged. In almost every walk of life, Asians make more money [what does that remind you of?], they have better results, and they do better in life than me, just a dumb-ass cracker. So when Asians are filling up all of those top spots in better proportion than white people [?] you have to understand you have institutional privilege”.
The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism on the Disparagement of the Holocaust
Sargon’s comments were inevitably going to be considered anti-Semitic. Way back in 2014 the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism published a list of remarks they considered to be anti-Semitic. Two of them were about lack of sympathy for the Holocaust. These were ‘Jews talk too much about the Holocaust’, and ‘Jews talk about the Holocaust to make people feel sorry for them.’ These are more or less the kind of sentiments Sargon was expressing.
Zionist Appropriation of Holocaust
Now Tony Greenstein, who is a Jewish anti-Zionist, has made the point that the Jewish community in Britain is generally comfortably middle class, and that the loud accusations of anti-Semitism leveled at critics of Israel are unjust, because Jews don’t suffer the massive hatred and institutional racism suffered by Blacks, Asians and Muslims. In contemporary Britain, there are no forced deportations of Jews as there have been of Blacks and other non-White minorities, such as those of the Windrush generation and their children.
Greenstein and other Jewish critics of Israel, such as Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe and even Hannah Arendt have described how the Holocaust has been appropriated by Zionism to support and fend off criticism of Israel. This is controversial, obviously, but nevertheless it’s a fair point, which should be able to be discussed without accusations of anti-Semitism.
But Sargon didn’t mention Zionism. He was simply referring to ‘the Jews’.
The Holocaust and Gentile Resentment of Jewish Success
A number of Jewish writers and bloggers have made it clear that they don’t like people praising them for their economic and social success, because this can too easily turn into envy and resentment. Which is absolutely true. The Nazis and other anti-Semites resented Jewish success. They attempted to explain it with stupid, murderous conspiracy theories like the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. These claimed that the Jews were planning to enslave non-Jews and were doing their best to squeeze gentiles out of important positions in politics, business and culture. This happened in Germany, which during the 19th century was one of the least anti-Semitic countries in Europe. I’ve read histories of the Jewish community in 19th century Germany that have argued that there was far less prejudice against them there than in France or Britain. The Holocaust, apart from the Jewish people’s long history of persecution, has left behind a terrible legacy of social insecurity. It continues to be discussed because it occurred in the West, in one of the most civilised and cultured nations in Europe. It fascinates and terrifies because it shows that, despite the West’s ideas of progress and civilisation, they also could commit horrific acts of mass barbarism against innocents, simply because they were the wrong race.
Anti-Semitism and Persecution Easily Generated Under Fascism
And such resentment can be generated very quickly, even in societies where there was little traditional anti-Semitism. In Italy, for example, there was also extremely little anti-Semitism. The Jewish community was small and assimilated. They were proud Italians, so proud, in fact, that many even joined the Fascist party. But this changed after Mussolini passed his infamous racial legislation in 1937. It was a milder imitation of Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws, and similarly banned Jews from positions in the Fascist party, government, education and certain businesses. Initially there was shock and outrage from the Italian public. But after a few years of repression, in which gentiles who commiserated with and supported Jews were harassed and punished, part of the Italian public began to wonder if the Jews had not brought it all on themselves and deserved it for somehow conspiring against Italy and Mussolini. The regime’s spies were thus pleased to observe that anti-Semitism was therefore increasing.
See: Christopher Duggan, Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini’s Italy (London: Vintage Books 2013).
Asians in Similar Social Position to Jews
Asians are in a similar situation. Although certain Asian groups, like the Chinese and Hindus in Britain, have managed to prosper, they have also experienced racial prejudice and discrimination, and are at risk of abuse and violence from racists and Fascists like other, less privileged minorities. Hence the same concern to see them also protected from racism, including abusive language.
Sargon Not Anti-Semite, But Views Normalise Racism
I don’t think it’s fair to call Sargon an anti-Semite. I think he may even have claimed to be Jewish. He clearly admires the Jews for the way they earned their success through hard work and enterprise, although not everyone in the Jewish community is rich or comfortably off by any means. David Rosenberg on his blog has described how there are still Jews, who are poor and depend very much on the welfare state that Sargon, as a Libertarian, sorry, ‘Classical Liberal’ would like to see demolished. And Sargon is right in that there would indeed be something wrong with Britain as a meritocracy, if talented people from minorities like the Jews couldn’t rise in society.
But Sargon’s views on race, identity politics and the Holocaust are ignorant and dangerous, because they legitimize certain forms of racism. And his views on the Holocaust are particularly dangerous because, without its proper remembrance, horrors like it may be all too easily committed again. Sargon has argued with the Far Right on debates on YouTube, but some of his views are so close to theirs that Fascists like Richard Spencer have confessed to using some of his videos as gateways to their own vile ideologies and organisations.
Sargon thus deserves all the media criticism he has received for his extreme right-wing views. He was always a liability to UKIP, and since Batten adopted him and the other YouTube rightists he’s been bringing them down with him. And I don’t doubt the criticism are over yet.
Yesterday, Saturday 27th April 2019, the I carried a piece on page 11 reporting that the Tory MP Philip Davies was planning to attend a men’s rights conference in the US, alongside other far right notables like Mark ‘Nazi pug’ Meechan and Carl ‘Sargon of Akkad’ Benjamin. But he denied it was a misogynist event. The article, entitled ‘MP to attend ‘misogynist’ gathering, by Andrew Woodcock, ran
A Conservative MP has defended his decision to speak at a men’s rights conference in the US on the same platform as controversial figures.
Philip Davies said he intends to raise issues such as male suicides, boys’ performance in school, and the treatment of fathers in family break-ups at the Chicago conference in August. Other speakers listed for the International Conference on Men’s Issues include the Ukip MEP candidates Carl Benjamin and Mark Meechan, as well as Paul Elam, leader of the US group A Voice for Men.
Mr Benjamin has refused to apologise for tweeting “I wouldn’t even rape you” to Labour MP Jess Phillips. Mr Elam’s group, which once announced an “Annual Bash a Violent Bitch Month”, has been branded migosynist and male supremacist.
Confirming his plans to speak at the conference, Mr Davies said it was “nonsense” to suggest that his presence amounted to an endorsement of other participants’ opinions.
“I’m responsible for what I say. I’m not there to defend what anyone else says,” he said. “I’ve never heard of many of these people and I’m not responsible for their views.”
Philip Davies has been accused of misogyny himself. Apart from being a bog-standard, anti-welfare, tax the poor for the benefit of the rich Conservative, I seem to remember that a little while ago he caused controversy himself for his antics in parliament. If memory serves me correctly, he talked out a piece of legislation intended to protect women either from rape or FGM. Or both. As for the Men’s Rights Conference, one of them was held over here a couple of years ago, and was extensively critiqued by Kevin Logan. Logan’s a male feminist with a degree in 20th century history and politics, and puts up a series of videos attacking the denizens of the men’s rights movement, ‘The Descent of the Manosphere’. He states that the people – some of them are women, surprisingly – are attempting to reverse evolution and drag us all back into the sea. And it’s hard to dispute the fact.
These conferences aren’t really about men’s rights. Despite the accusations of activists like Paul Elam that men’s issues aren’t discussed by mainstream politicians, male suicide, boys’ performance in schools and so on have been debated in parliament. Logan even put up on one of his videos excerpts from the parliamentary journal, Hansard, to show that they were. He has also refuted Sargon’s claim that he sent his infamous tweet to Jess Philips because she was laughing at male suicide. She wasn’t. She was laughing at the claim that it wasn’t debated in the House, and replied to him informing him that she is consulting m’learned friends. Moreover, some of these issues could actually be solved by introducing left wing policies, that would benefit working people across the board. One of the issues is the low pay earned by certain types of male worker. But this could, as Logan states, be solved by strengthening trade unions and employees’ rights. But the people attending these conferences and those, who comprise the ‘manosphere’ generally, are on the right, very often the far right. And the mens’ rights movement itself will ignore these issues when it suits them. These conferences really are all about attacking feminism and trying to preserve the traditional male domination of society. Which can very clearly be seen by the hashtags used by Sargon when he sent his infamous tweet to Philips: #feminismiscancer.
Logan has also pointed out that some of the mens’ issues that Davies intends to present have even been discussed by feminists, citing a number of academic articles in feminist and gender-studies journals. I think part of the problem here is that most people have no contact with academic feminism, and depend for what they know about it from the press and public figures, some of whom are unsympathetic. I can remember reading a newspaper article a decade or so ago, where one of the female politicos – I think it may have been Baroness Blackstone or someone like her, but I’m not sure – was asked about boys’ declining performance in school. I can’t remember what her precise words were, but she more or less said that it was all the boys’ own fault. She simply wasn’t interested. Now it was probably unfair to expect the good lady to be concerned about this, as she had been talking about her campaign to improve girls’ performance in school and career prospects. But it and other comments like it leaves the deep impression that avowedly feminist politicians are deeply hostile to men.
Quite apart from changes in gender roles, and the demands for greater equality and opportunities for women in society, jobs and politics, the economic structure of society has changed so that traditionally male jobs in heavy industry and manufacturing have declined. The result has been an increased sense of threat and insecurity among some men, who have burned to the ultra-traditional, misogynist far right. The core support for the Republican party in America is angry White men, who feel under attack from women and ethnic minorities. This is the electoral base that turned to Trump and other politicos like him.
Issues like male suicide, the decline in boys’ performance in schools and greater access to children for fathers in marital break-up do need to be addressed. And there are some extremely violent women out there, as well. But the men’s rights movement and its members and activists behind this and similar gatherings aren’t interested in these issues so much as keeping women firmly in their places as subordinates to men. They are deeply misogynist, and deserve to be attacked and criticised. Just like Davies and the other politicos, who attend them.
Here are a few videos by Kevin Logan attacking the men’s rights conferences and some of the individuals mentioned above.
Carl Benjamin, alias Sargon of Akkad.
Paul Elam
The 2018 International Conference on Men’s Issues
Be warned that some of the views of these men’s rights activists are extremely unpleasant. Some of them do justify rape, or at least try to excuse it, and they also hold very racist views.
Mike and the Skwawkbox have this week posted a series of articles reporting and commenting on David Davis’ unwelcome attempt to foist his attentions on Diane Abbott, and the complete failure of Harriet Harman to stand by her alleged feminist and egalitarian beliefs and actually stand up for her.
Davis is the minister in charge of Brexit. On Wednesday, Abbott voted to support the Article 50 bill, so that evening Davis mockingly showed his appreciation by hugging her and allegedly trying to kiss her in the Strangers’ Bar in the House of Commons. For which Abbott rightly told him to ‘F*** off.’
Mike’s article quote Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin in Left Foot Forward, who commented on the lack of condemnation of Davis’ actions by the Tories shows how they believe sexual assault is still acceptable. She makes the point that if an MP like Abbott can be assaulted with impunity, then younger women in more junior positions are that much more vulnerable. She wrote
“His behaviour is offensive and disrespectful to Abbott — who has repeatedly been a target for sexism and racism — but it also raises serious questions about Davis’s attitude to women generally, and his treatment of younger, more vulnerable women he encounters.
“For those young women, who put up with sexism for fear of losing out professionally if they complain, the message this gives is that there’s no level of success that will shield them from the lecherous and powerful men of Westminster.
“One of parliament’s longest sitting members? Doesn’t matter. Shadowing on of the great offices of state? Doesn’t matter. There will always be someone who’s willing to humiliate you then ‘walk off laughing’.”
Yesterday, Mike reported that Young Labour Women and Labour Students Women have also condemned Davis’ actions and the way they have been treated. In their view, this has not only been misogynist, in that Davis’ harassment has been viewed by the media as a jolly jape, but is also racist. Abbott’s understandable outrage at his assault has been deliberately misrepresented to conform to the stereotype of the ‘angry black woman’. They therefore called upon Theresa May to launch an investigation into the incident, and show that the government will not turn a blind eye to such abuse.
Davis denies trying to kiss her. But he did embrace her, and then sent offensive texts afterwards to one of his Tory colleagues in which he made jokes about not being blind. This has been reported in the Mail, so Mike advises us to make up our own minds whether it is true. This is part of their article quoted by Mike:
‘I whispered in her ear ‘Thanks for your vote’ hence the ‘F off’. I am not blind.’ Davis’ friend responded: ‘Ha! Ha! Thank god you aren’t blind. Great week for you and Brexit!’
Davis: ‘Actually it would make a good Optical Express advert… Yes, a reasonable success.’
His last text appears to be a reference not to Optical Express but another opticians, Specsavers, whose TV adverts feature hilarious mix-ups caused by bad eyesight, followed by the slogan: ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers.’
His line about not being blind seems to be a reference to Miss Abbott’s appearance.
The assault was part of a week of bullying of Abbott, including one incident in which a Tory councillor, Pearmain, called her ‘an ape’. However, the Skwawkbox noted that Harriet Harman, who has been touring promoting her new book, A Woman’s Work, and other female Labour MPs, who were ready to denounce the attacks on Angela Eagle for sexism, have said absolutely nothing about Davis’ assault on Abbott. The Skwawkbox wrote
The first ever minister for women and a former Secretary of State for women and equality, Ms Harman is considered a prominent campaigner on behalf of women’s rights and equality, so of course she would be quick to jump into the fray on Ms Abbott’s behalf, right?
Wrong. Ms Harman’s Twitter feed is active, for that of a busy politician. She found plenty of time for tweets to promote her new book. She found time to tweet in praise of Jess Phillips, a Labour MP and Chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party, who infamously bragged about telling Ms Abbott to ‘f*ck off’ and laughed as Abbott was mocked by a TV impressionist.
But a message of support and solidarity with a mistreated female colleague, or to condemn the racism of Councillor Pearmain or the misogyny of David Davis?
This really shows the threadbare feminism and supposed anti-racism of Harman and her camp. Harman is fiercely ambitious – she’s been going around telling everyone what a great leader of the Labour party she’d make, and presents herself as a feminist firebrand. So much so that at least one Tory organ has called her ‘Harriet Harperson’.
Last week, Guy Debord’s Cat wrote a piece criticising the bizarre behaviour not just of Harman, but one of her supporters, Helen Lewis, one of the hacks on the New Statesman. Lewis sent a tweet declaring that Harman was a person, who had really stood up to the ‘establishment’.
Wrong. Like many of the anti-Corbyn lobby, Harman is the establishment. She supported the government’s anti-welfare bill, and ordered other Labour MPs to do the same. Then she told Southwark News a few weeks later that she’d oppose it.
Then both Harman and Lewis issued messages calling on Corbyn to quit. The reason for this is that Corbyn imposed a three-line whip on the Article 50 vote. This is the first stage in the process, but as the Cat has pointed out, it’s been misrepresented by the media as the last stage. So Harman and Lewis have been trying, once again, to oust Corbyn.
In the article, the Cat reminds us that both Lewis and Harman come from privileged backgrounds, and therefore represent the Establishment. They are certainly not against it. He writes
In the last few weeks, the media has paraded a series of Orwellian neologisms like “post truth politics” before us. Can we therefore regard Lewis’s Tweet as “post-reality”? Let’s remember that Lewis herself comes from a privileged background and is, for all intents and purposes, like Harman, a member of the establishment. So it’s unlikely that she possesses the ability to identify anti-establishmentarianism and is more likely to characterize it as something else.
Harman’s feminism and alleged anti-racism is all about getting nice, middle and upper class women into power, while keeping the proles down. It’s the same kind of faux feminism mouthed by Hillary Clinton. Her supporters also made much about the supposed misogyny of the ‘Bernie Bros’ – who didn’t exist – who criticised her campaign. But Clinton is an extremely rich woman from a privileged background, who has been responsible for some the actions of the US government which have harmed women both in America and the Developing World. It was Killary who voted with her husband, Bill, to continue destroying the American welfare system after Reagan. It was Killary, who passed the anti-drugs legislation which has resulted in so many Black men being slung into jail, even though the same proportion of Blacks and White use drugs. It was Killary who talked about ‘superpredators’, when this term referred almost exclusively to young Black men. And it was Killary who made sure that US support went to the military junta in Honduras when they overthrew the previous, liberal president.
Clinton has always supported corporate power, including taking massive payments from Wall Street. Over half of Americans now recognise the need for a single-payer healthcare system. They also want education to be free. But Clinton blocked this, telling Americans that it was ‘utopian’.
This has not stopped her supporters presenting her as some kind of feminist radical. Madeleine Albright, who has been responsible for extolling and promoting some of America’s worst foreign policy atrocities, declared that there was a ‘special place in hell for women, who do not support [her]’. It was a view that many American women rejected, on the reasonable grounds that Hillary’s election to the presidency, while a historic feminist victory, actually wouldn’t make any material difference to the worsening conditions they and their families find themselves in.
And Harman’s the same. A woman from a privileged background, who stands for the corporate control of the Labour party, which Blair introduced, who despises the working class, who appears to be entirely comfortable with the privatisation of the NHS. Which was again continued after Thatcher and Major by Tony Blair.
In considering her feminist credentials, I’m reminded of a line from the American comedy Frasier. There was one episode where Niles’ estranged wife, Meris, was accused of stealing a piece of art from the Vatican. Niles thought that it was most unfair that she should be so accused, and so exploded ‘Rich, white women just aren’t getting their fair whack!’ Or words to that effect.
As for the Tories, their feminism has always been cosmetic. Margaret Thatcher did not see herself as a feminist, and her cabinet was repeatedly attacked by feminists because it had no female members. The Tory press, particularly the Scum, the Express and the Mail, have always been extremely anti-feminist. Over the years the Mail has run endless articles arguing that women’s places is back at home in the kitchen, and certainly not at work. And all of them have attacked legislation promoting racial and sexual equality, and outlawing the kind of assault Abbott has suffered, as ‘political correctness gone mad’.
They also have a cavalier attitude to sexual assault, regardless of the gender and sexual orientation of the perp and the victim. Remember when one Tory politico was acquitted of trying to rape a male colleague? Even though that gentleman was found not guilty, he had still tried to force his attentions on the man, and the incident showed an atmosphere in parliament where aides, both female and male, were regularly groped by the politicians.
So no, Harman and her colleagues aren’t going to stand up for Abbott. She’s too left-wing and too Old Labour, which puts her well outside the circle of privileged women Harman wants to promote. And as well as being deeply sexist and racist, whatever Cameron claims to have done, the Tory party seem to think that sexual assault is just one of those things the proles and new bugs have to put up with from their superiors. No doubt it all comes from the culture of bullying, including sexual assault, that went on at Eton and the other public schools.
It’s disgusting, and it’s high time Harman put her act in order to back Abbott on this point, and for May to show that her party is genuinely committed to protecting people of all backgrounds from sexual harassment. But I’m not holding my breath.
Oh, the irony! Jess Phillips, who regularly accuses her critics of misogyny and claimed she was building a Safe Room because of the abuse levelled against her, has now herself been accused of racism and misogyny. One of her victims was Mike, over at Vox Political, because he dared to suggest that misogynistic abuse perhaps wasn’t the real reason she was having it built. Now Mike has put up a piece from EvolvePolitics about Phillips herself being accused of misogyny and racism, after it was revealed that she played a leading role in having Dawn Butler replaced as chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party. Phillips disliked her holding the post, because she wasn’t an opponent of Corbyn. But Phillips has form in trying to get the few women of colour to hold posts in the Labour party removed from their positions. Last year she also had a row with Diane Abbott, in which she told the Shadow Health Secretary to ‘F*ck off’.
I can’t say I’m surprised at her attitude. This seems to follow the sociological origins of many of the New Labour female MPs. Most of these seem to come from the upper and upper middle classes. They’re public school girls, who like the idea of expanding democracy, greater representation and rights for women and ethnic minorities, while at the same time supporting all the policies that keep the working and lower middle classes down: cuts to welfare benefits, job precarity, and the privatisation of essential services. This all follows Tony Blair’s copying of Bill Clinton’s ‘New Democrats’, who also talked about doing more for women and minorities, while at the same time supporting Reagan’s economic and welfare policies. The sociological origins of the journalism staff in the Groaniad, who have also been pushing the New Labour line against Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum in recent weeks. After they published various pieces lamenting that so few people from working class backgrounds were rising up to higher positions in society, in management and so forth, Private Eye published a little piece about the backgrounds of the paper’s own managers and journos. They were all, or nearly all, very middle class, and privately educated. This isn’t really surprising. Gladstone way back in the 19th century was very relaxed about the press not stirring up revolution in Britain, because most journalists back then were from propertied backgrounds. The book, Confronting the New Conservatism, attacking the Neocons and their pernicious influence on politics, noted that part of the problem was a broad consensus across the American ‘Left’ and ‘Right’, in support of deregulation, welfare cuts and privatisation, along with admiration for Britain, and a support by the middle class elites for affirmative action programmes as long as they didn’t affect their own children.
In short, they like the idea of equality, except when it challenges their own privileged position. As for Phillips’ racism, real or perceived, that’s also similar to the attitude adopted by one of the architects of the ‘New Democrats’, Hillary Clinton. Clinton for some reason is extraordinary popular amongst Black Americans. As part of her presidential campaign, she met a group of Black celebs, in which she tried to impress them by mentioning how much she liked hot sauce. Apparently, this condiment is a stereotypical favourite of Black folks. A lot of people weren’t impressed, and found her attitude distinctly patronising. There were sarcastic comments asking why she didn’t also say she liked fried chicken and watermelons. More serious, however, is the fact that Clinton was the architect of the punitive anti-drugs legislation, that has resulted in a much higher incarceration rate for Blacks, despite drugs being used by the same proportion of Blacks and Whites. She also made a speech about the threat of urban ‘superpredators’, when that term was almost exclusively used for Black gangs.
The sociological origin of New Labour female MPs also explains the accusations of misogyny aimed at Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters. The basic line seems to be that ‘Old’ Labour, based in the male-dominated heavy industries, was nasty, patriarchal and therefore sexist. There’s an element of truth in it, in that traditional gender roles were much stronger generally, and women very definitely had an inferior position. However, this was changing in the 1980s. John Kelly, in his book Trade Unions and Socialist Politics (London: Verso 1988), has a section, ‘Still a Men’s Movement?’ discussing the growing presence of women in the trade unions and the way these were adopting an increasing number of feminist policies as a result. For example, in 1985 32 per cent of TUC members were women. In some unions, the majority of members were female, such as COHSE, 78 per cent; NUPE, 67 per cent; and NALGO, 52 per cent. He notes how a number of unions ran women-only courses, and were adopting policies on sexual harassment, low pay, shorter working time, equal opportunities and equal work for equal pay. He notes that sex bias in job evaluation and sexual discrimination were still not receiving the attention they should, but nevertheless the unions were moving in the right direction. (pp. 134-6). Of course, the occupations in which women are strongest are most likely to be white collar, administrative and clerical jobs, rather than manufacturing. But nevertheless, these stats show how the trade unions, and therefore the organised working class, were responding positively to the rise of women in the work force. If you want a further example of that, think of Ken Livingstone and the GLC. Livingstone’s administration was known for its ‘politically correct’ stance against racism, sexism and discrimination against gays. Red Ken devotes an entire chapter in his book, Livingstone’s Labour, to feminist issues, including his proposal to set up a nationwide network of bureaux to deal with them, ‘Sons of the Footbinder’, pp. 90-111. Among the pro-women policies he recommends the Labour party should adopt were
* A universal scheme of pre-school childcare for all parents who would wish to use it.
* Equal pay for work of equal value.
* A properly funded national network of women’s centres.
* A properly funded national scheme for the remuneration of carers.
*Full equality before the law.
Livingstone was one of the most left-wing of Labour politicians. So much so that he was accused of being a Communist. Hence Private Eye’s nickname for him, ‘Ken Leninspart’. Now the Blairites are trying to twist this image, so that they stand for women’s equality and dignity, against the return of Old Labour in the face of Jeremy Corbyn and his misogynist followers. This could be seen the in a bizarre letter published in either the Graun or the Independent, in which Bernie Saunders, the left-wing Democratic contender for the presidential nomination, and Jeremy Corbyn were both accused of being sexists, because they wore baggy, more masculine clothes, suggesting their ideological roots in the masculine blue-collar milieu of the 1950s, before women and gay men started affecting fashion. Private Eye put it in their ‘Pseud’s Corner’ column, but it reflects the attitude of the middle class feminists given space in those newspapers to attack Jeremy Corbyn and genuine traditional Labour.
The fear, of course, is not that Corbyn or his supporters are misogynists. That’s a convenient lie that was copied from Hillary Clinton, who made the accusation against Bernie’s supporters after they correctly identified her as a corporate whore. She is. She takes money from the corporations, in return for which she passes policies in their favour. Just like the majority of American politicians, male and female. In fact the fear of Clinton and the rest of the Democratic party machine, and New Labour over here, is that the corporatist system they are partly responsible for creating, and their own privileged position as members of the upper classes, are under threat from a resurgence of working class power and discontent from the Left. And despite the growing presence of women in the unions, Blair and New Labour despised them. It was Blair, remember, who threatened to cut their ties to the party, and was responsible for passing further legislation on top of the Tories to limit strikes, and deprive working people of further employment rights.
When Blairite MPs like Phillips make their accusations of sexism at Corbyn and his followers, they are expressing the fears of the middle classes at losing their privileged position, as members of that class, and its control over the economy and society. It’s made somewhat plausible to many women, because as a rule women were much less unionised than men, and the most prominent union leaders have tended to be men. But it’s a distortion of history to hide their own concerns to hang on to their class power. When Phillips and female Blairites like her talk about feminism and female empowerment, they’re expressing the same point of view as Theresa May. It’s all about greater empowerment for middle and upper class women like themselves, not for the poor, Black, Asian or working class.
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