Hat tip to Gillyflowerblog, one of the great commenters on this blog, for finding this and posting a comment about it. Right-wing internet host Alex Belfield has been in court this week defending himself from charges of stalking eight people on the Net, including the presenter Jeremy Vine. He started harassing some of them as far back as 2012, when he left BBC Radio Leeds. The Beeb report begins
‘A former BBC radio presenter has gone on trial accused of stalking eight people, including TV and radio presenter Jeremy Vine.
Alex Belfield is alleged to have repeatedly harassed the victims, including via email and through his YouTube channel and Twitter account.
Mr Belfield, who is 42 and lives in Nottingham, denies eight counts of stalking.
When arrested he told police he was “the victim of a BBC witch-hunt”.
Mr Belfield, of Shaldon Close, Mapperley, is not accused of physically stalking the eight complainants, but the prosecution said some of them were “worried about the possibility of Mr Belfield turning up at their homes”.
Opening the case at Nottingham Crown Court, John McGuinness QC said Mr Vine was so worried “he thought he ought to take security advice for the protection of himself and his family”.
The full wording of the charges claims Mr Belfield, who is representing himself at the trial, had “pursued a course of conduct that amounted to harassment” of the complainants, which had “amounted to stalking” and caused them “serious alarm or distress”.’
Belfield has had some kind of feud going on against various TV and radio personalities and workers for years and has frequently criticised and attacked various people on his internet show, like Vine. Several commenters have said in the past that there was more going on regarding their various legal cases against Belfield than he was telling us. Gillyflower, who posted a link to this, commented:
Belfield has, of course, been on the Net presenting his side of the story, and A Certain Internet Historian has also posted a video about it. It’s going to be very interesting how this case develops, and what else comes out.
Kudos and respect to Mike on Vox Political. Nottingham is hosting a ‘Festival of Resistance’ on October 16th and 17th, and Mike has been invited to speak at a workshop on ‘Resisting Lawfare’. Lawfare is the term used to describe the use of the law by political organisations to penalise and silence their opponents. The Israel lobby is currently using this tactic to criminalise the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement in America. Various states and other areas have passed legislation outlawing the BDS movement as anti-Semitic, with Zionist groups pushing for the prosecution of people and organisations that adopt and promote it. The BDS movement, in my view, is very far from anti-Semitic, though I can well see how its opponents believe and make the claim that it is. Real anti-Semites have organised boycotts against Jewish firms, the most infamous being the Nazis’ though they weren’t remotely alone. Right-wing Polish nationalists demanding independence from the Russian empire also saw Jews as their enemy and organised boycotts against them. But the BDS movement isn’t against the Jews, or even Israel as a whole. It is just against trading with Israeli businesses in the occupied territories. It is not anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, but pro-Palestinian. And it is backed by a number of Jewish Americans, who despise the Israeli government’s persecution of the indigenous Arabs.
Rachel Riley has risibly accused Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters of anti-Semitism, even going so far as compare the band at the Durham Miners’ Gala to the SS because they dared to play ‘Hava Nagila’ at their annual gala as they do every year. It’s a ridiculous, deeply insulting claim particularly as it was the trade unions and the Communists who joined their Jewish brothers and sisters and resisted real Fascists in the shape of Oswald Mosley and his storm troopers when they came goose-stepping down the East End. Riley has also threatened anyone who dares to contradict her with legal action, and her prosecution of Mike for libel may, I feel, be reasonably seen as lawfare.
Mike, I can state with utter honesty, is very firmly anti-racist and definitely far from an anti-Semite. Genuine Jew-haters and Holocaust-deniers will get short shrift from him, as will other bigots and racists. Mike will not be giving details of the Riley case, but he does intend to talk about what it feels like to be on the end of such SLAPP suits. He makes the point that the bullies behind them are trying to make their victims feel helpless, but that hasn’t been the case with him because of the donations he has received from his supporters. He is very grateful, but asks people to continue giving. He also hope some of the people, who have supported him against Riley, will come to the Festival as he’d really like to meet them.
I think it’s great that Nottingham is hosting such as Festival, as we need to resist the Tories even more now as they pursue their policies of attacking the welfare state, privatising the NHS and driving more and more working people into poverty while promoting racism and bigotry. The Labour left has organised Zoom rallies for such resistance as part of the Arise festival of left-wing ideas. I’m pleased that Mike has joined what I’ve no doubt are a number of other great people to speak. I regret, however, that at the moment my illness prevents me from travelling anywhere outside Bristol, and so I shan’t be able to go and see him and the others. I hope some of his supporters will be able to go and meet him, as they’re great people doing a great job.
And solidarity to our left-wing brothers and sisters in Nottingham and to every socialist and critic of Israel who has or is being threatened with prosecution or expulsion from the Labour party simply for criticising Israel and its barbarous ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
As the late Bobby Ball, of comedy double act Cannon and Ball, used to say, ‘Rock on!’
I went to an amazingly great pro-NHS zoom meeting last night organised, I think, by the anti-NHS privatisation organisations We Own It and/or Keep Our NHS Public. The speakers included Dr. Louise Irvine and Antonio Perez-Iranzo, a Spanish doctor working in the NHS, who described how Centene, the private health care company that’s being given positions on NHS boards and allowed to take over doctors’ surgeries, has managed to wreck healthcare in his home country. They were so terrible that eventually the Valencian government was forced to take the service back inhouse and kick them out. Rabina Khan, a Lib Dem councillor in Tower Hamlets, talked about her experience of the poor service they delivered when they took over the traditional GP’s surgery at which she was a patient. She was particularly concerned about the effect of privatisation on the elderly, and on Black and Bangladeshi women. Another speaker told of the vastly poorer service they gave when they were given NHS contracts and acquired GPs’ surgeries in Nottingham. The final speaker was Jeremy Corbyn, introduced as the ‘best Prime Minister this country never had’. Absolutely. He provided more details on the continuing NHS privatisation, showing his absolutely and unfailing commitment to the great institution created by Nye Bevan. He reminded everyone that one he waved the documents showing this was going to happen in parliament and asked Johnson about it, prime ministerial liar called him a liar. But he was right, and if, anything, understated the case. There was also time given for ordinary folks to ask their questions and give their experiences of the destruction of the NHS by these parasites.
In every case, the story was the same. Centene are given the contracts without warning, over the heads of local people, patients and even other doctors. Notification of the change comes from a bland, corporate letter and people are urged to get on Zoom for further information. This is a problem for older people, those not on the internet or who have problems using it, and people for whom English is not their primary language. Centene is a for-profit American health insurance company. Already big, it became massive in America with the introduction of Obamacare. It states in its corporate literature that it is only interested in making a profit, and that if this doesn’t happen, it will divest itself of those loss-making interests. Louise Irvine stated that, as a doctor, you don’t think of making a profit, even though since the inception of the NHS doctors are actually private businessmen, who contract in to the NHS. The only way to make a profit is to reduce costs. Which means sacking people and actually providing a worse service by reducing the amount of care given. In Nottingham, when Centene took over the service, they dispersed 3,000 of the 11,000 patients in their newly acquired GPs’ surgeries to others.
They are purely in it for the money, the profits of which go outside this country to their American shareholders.
Keep Our NHS Public is planning a demonstration against the privatisation of the NHS In London on Saturday, 3rd July 2021. This also includes issues like patient safety, and pay justice. They are going to assemble outside UCH on Euston Road, NWI at 12.00 before marching to parliament square. There are other protests also planned elsewhere in the country for the same day. Details of them can be found at their website https://keepournhspublic.com/ They also recommended people looking at an essay on this privatisation by a member of the Socialist Health Alliance, whose website is https://sochealth.co.uk.
They are naturally extremely keen for people to join their organisation or set up their own. Whatever we do, we have to organise to show the strength of opposition to this privatisation. They state it will be a long struggle, but people have succeeded in getting contracts taken away from the profiteers Serco, Circle Health and others.
The message is clear: Get rid of Centene and the other private companies profiting from the NHS. Get Boris out, and a proper government in, one committed to ending NHS privatisation.
And that does not include the Labour Blairites, who were as keen to privatise the NHS as their Tory heroes.
We Own It is an organisation campaigning for the renationalisation of public industries. It is particularly against the Tories’ ongoing privatisation of the NHS. I got this email from them yesterday about a public zoom meeting they’re organising on Monday against the Tories’ decision to hand over a number of doctor’s surgeries to Centene, a private healthcare company. This is going to be the thin end of the wedge, leading to further GP’s surgeries being privatised unless stopped. The email runs
“Our NHS turns 73 this year.
As part of this year’s NHS birthday, a coalition of NHS campaign groups – including We Own It – is organising a public meeting on stopping the private takeover of NHS GP surgeries.
Can you join the online (ZOOM) public meeting at 6pm on Monday, 28th June?
Our NHS was founded on the principle of equality: equal access to healthcare for everyone – from the rich to the poor. That is why the NHS was established as a public healthcare system, free at the point of use and funded through general taxation. Our local GP surgeries are the first point of contact with the NHS for over 80% of us. But with companies like Centene now getting their hands on our NHS GP surgeries, many of them risk being closed if they are not profitable. Centene has already closed surgeries in Harlow (Essex), Leicester and Camden for not being profitable. And by doing so, they are depriving the communities access to readily available care. It is so important that we continue to fight back and stop these takeovers.
As we celebrate the 73rd anniversary of our NHS, your involvement in events like this, David, is so valued. The truth is that without the fight that you have put on over the years, there may no longer be an NHS.
Thank you so much for the incredible work you’ve been doing to protect our NHS.
Cat, Alice, Pascale, Chris, Zana, Johnbosco – the We Own It team
PS: You still have an opportunity to fund action and campaigning against the government’s plan to allow private companies, like Virgin, to sit on ICS boards. Integrated Care Systems (ICS) boards will make decisions about how NHS budgets are spent in our local areas.Sign up to donate £5 a month or whatever you can afford. Every penny helps in the fight to stop this privatisation of our NHS.“
Of the speakers, Jeremy Corbyn needs no introduction as the former, and vilely maligned leader of the Labour party, but it will be interesting to hear from a medical doctor, Louise Irvine, and the Spanish speaker about how Centene is wrecking their country’s healthcare system, all in the name of profit.
I haven’t donated to the organisation, but I do intend to go to the Virtual meeting. I think the time is 6.00 – 7.30 pm on Monday, 28th June 2021. If you feel the same, you may also want to do the same to protect this most vital of British institutions.
Simon Tormey, Anti-Capitalism: A Beginner’s Guide (London: One World, revised edition 2013).
Like many people, I’ve been doing some reading during the lockdown. I found this in one of the mail order book catalogues I get, and ordered it as it looked interesting. I got through the post the other day. It was first published in 2004 and was republished in a revised edition nine years later. The blurb for it on the back runs
The financial crisis, bank bailouts, and the dash to austerity have breathed new life into protest movements across the globe, and brought anti-capitalist ideas into the mainstream. But what does it mean to be anti-capitalist? And where is anti-capitalism going – if anywhere?
Simon Tormey explores these questions and more in the only accessible introduction to the full spectrum of anti-capitalist ideas and politics. With nuance and verve, he introduces the reader to the wide variety of positions and groups that make up the movement, including anarchists, Marxists, autonomists, environmentalists, and more. Providing essential global and historical context, Tormey takes us from the 1968 upsurge of radical politics to the 1994 Zapatista insurrection, the 1999 Seattle protests, and right up to Occupy and the uprisings across the Eurozone.
This is a fascinating and bold exploration of how to understand the world – and how to change it.
A biographical note states that Tormey is a political theorist based in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney. He was the founding director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice at the University of Nottingham.
The book has an introduction and the following chapters:
The Hows and Whys of Capitalism
Anti-Capitalism after the ‘End of History’
A ‘movement of movements’1: ‘reformism’, or ‘globalisation with a human face’
A ‘movement of movements’ II: renegades, radicals and revolutionaries
The Future(s) of Anti-Capitalism: Problems and Perspectives
There is a timeline of contemporary anti-capitalism, a glossary of key terms, thinkers and movements, and a list of resources.
Although the book was published eight years ago, I think it’s still going to be very relevant. The world may have been in lockdown for the past year with governments supporting their economies, but the Tories have neither gone away nor changed their stripes. It’s been pointed out that they never let a crisis go to waste. Once the lockdown is lifted, they’ll revert back to cutting the welfare state, privatising the NHS and with further attacks on workers’ rights, increasing job insecurity and lowering wages. We will need to organise again and resist them. The book’s short at 181 pages, excluding the index, but it looks like a very useful and necessary contribution to combating neoliberalism and the poverty and misery it is inflicting on working people across the globe.
Also according to next week’s Radio Times, Saturday’s edition of Archive on 4, 22nd August 2020, is ‘Working-Class Heroes’. The blurb for it in the Radio Times runs
Danny Leigh revisits the settings of three 1960s British kitchen-sink dramas: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning; A Taste of Honey; and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. In Nottingham, Salford and Blackpool he finds out from contemporary working-class communities how people relate to the films today.
I can’t say that any of the above flicks really appeal to me. I’ve always preferred fantasy and escapism to social realism. But there is an issue here in that film, TV and literature is dominated by middle class heroes to the exclusion of the working class. It’s something the great British comics writers, Pat Mills, set out to correct in the strips he created. One of these was the long-running anti-war story, ‘Charlie’s War’, in Battle, whose hero was very definitely an ordinary working-class Tommy. I put up a video from YouTube of Mills talking about comics and working- and middle class heroes to the comrades of the Socialist Party, formerly the Socialist Workers’ Party, a little while ago. It’s very interesting and well-worth watching, if you’re interested in this aspect of popular culture. When asked which of his creations he identifies with, Mills replies ‘Rojaws’, the crude, vulgar, subversive sewer droid, who gets on the nerves of his mate Hammerstein, a patriotic war droid, in the strips Robusters and ABC Warriors. Which also shows that you can combine hilarious fantasy and SF with working class protagonists.
The programme ‘Archive on 4: Working Class Heroes’, is on Radio 4 at 8.00 pm.
A week or so ago Mike put up a piece on his blog commenting on the Equalities and Human Rights Committee’s apparent double standards towards racism in the Labour and the Conservative parties. They have spent a year combing the Labour party for evidence of anti-Semitism. It’s undoubtedly there, because it exists in wider British society. However, the fact that they haven’t published anything about it so far indicates what has already been said about anti-Semitism in the Party: it’s at a much, much lower level than mainstream British society, and the majority of it comes from the right and especially the far right. However, the Tory, media narrative demands that Labour be a hotbed of anti-Jewish hatred, and so they’re determined to find it. No matter how long it takes.
This is in sharp contrast to the Tory party, which is seething with real islamophobia. The internet personality Jacobsmates found plenty of it on Tory Facebook and Twitter accounts, with the supporters of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg expressing real, vicious, murderous hatred towards Muslims. Sayeeda Warsi has been demanding that islamophobia in her party should be investigated, as has Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Great Britain. I think Boris even promised an inquiry, but put it off until after the election. How very convenient! A fortnight ago, 20 Tories were suspended and expelled for their prejudice towards Muslims. But so far the EHRC has done nothing. Perhaps it has something to do with its leader, Trevor Philips, being suspended from the Labour Party for it. This has infuriated the Tories, who are all claiming that Philips is innocent and it’s because he was telling the truth about Muslims and their grooming gangs. But the evidence against Philips seems strong. He did make false accusations against Muslims, particularly over the case of a child placed with a Muslim foster family. Please go and see Zelo Street’s posts about this for further information, such as https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2020/03/trevor-phillips-doth-protest-too-much.html
Now the anti-racism/anti-religious extremism organisation, Hope Not Hate, has published its list of Tory islamophobes, and is calling on the Conservatives to take firm action against them and racism in the party. The organisation says
Throughout 2019 there was a steady flow of allegations made against Conservative Party councillors, activists and members which, when viewed alongside the polling of members conducted by YouGov in July, paints a picture of a party that has a significant problem with anti-Muslim sentiment at local level. Now HOPE Not Hate can reveal a new dossier of Islamophobic social media posts by more than twenty Tory officials and activists, including six sitting councillors. We are calling on CCHQ to take immediate action against these individuals, and will continue to demand that they take proper steps to tackle the Islamophobia crisis that has gripped the party at every level.
The list includes:
CouncillorSteve Vickers, of Nottingham County Council
Councillor Sonia Armstrong, Harworth and Bircotes Town Council
Councillor Judith Clementson, Winchester City Council
Councillor Karl Lewis, Llandinam Community Council
Councillor Derek Bullock, Bolton Council
Councillor Ranjit Pendhar Singh Gill, Hounslow
Parliamentary Assistant Fraser McFarland
Ex-councillor Bryan Denson, Wakefield
Ex-Councillor Gail Hall
Ex-Councillor Christopher Meakin
Ex-Councillor Susanna Dixon, Coventry
Ex-Councillor Martin Akehurst, Henley-on-Thames
2019 Council Candidate Liam Christopher Ritchie
2019 Council Candidate Roger Vernon, Bassetlaw
2019 Council Candidate Deirdre Vernon, Bassetlaw
2016 Council Candidate Yonah Saunders
2018 Candidate Paul Ingham, Tower Hamlets
2017 Council Candidate and Former Chair, Alan Booth, Durham
2016 Council Candidate John Hill, Portsmouth,
2016 Council Candidate John Shoesmith, Calderdale
2016 Council Candidate Charles Beckham, Darlington
Party Donor Fraser Duffin
Activist Fraser Duffin, Inverness
The offensive comments and posts they made include personal attacks on London’s mayor Sadiq Khan and Sayeeda Warsi, general hatred of immigrants and support for Donald Trump. Unsurprisingly, some of them also believe that Muslims are collectively responsible for 9/11 and support terrorism, as well as the various conspiracy theories about Muslims deliberately invading Europe in order to take over and destroy western society. Many of them believe the discredited ‘Eurabia’ nonsense, which holds that Muslims are outbreeding everyone else, and in two generations will be the dominate ethnic/ religious group.
I have strong reservations about Hope Not Hate. They’ve done some brilliant work exposing genuine racism and religious extremism. However, one of the organisations they liaise with is the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, which has been one of the major promoters of the Labour Party anti-Semitism smears. Nevertheless, they’ve done an excellent job in helping to expose the rabid islamophobia in the Tory ranks.
And Labour’s allegations of deep-seated islamophobia in the Tories is clearly causing more than a little discomfort. One of the hacks in the I last week wrote a piece attacking political ‘whataboutery’. I didn’t read the article, just the headline, so I may well be wrong. But I took this to mean that they weren’t happy with Labour raising the issue of Tory islamophobia in response to the anti-Semitism smears. Smears which the I, like the rest of the press, was all too eager to promote.
This is an embarrassing issue for the Tories. Which is why they and the media are trying to play it down and cover it up. But it’s not going away, and needs to be exposed and dealt with.
Perhaps after Hope Not Hate, other organisations will take up the challenge and pressure Johnson to do more to combat such racism in his ranks. But as he’s one of them, don’t bet on it.
On Wednesday there were demonstrations against BoJob’s proroguing of parliament the same day as he, or rather, the West Country’s answer to the Slender Man, Jacob Rees-Mogg, persuaded the Queen to sign his wretched order. Even more followed on Saturday, with people marching up and down the country holding banners and placards, making it very clear what Johnson is: a dictator.
Jeremy Corbyn spoke to protesters in Glasgow denouncing BoJob’s decision. The Labour leader also issued a tweet thanking everyone who had taken to the streets both their and across the country, and pledging the Labour party to oppose BoJob’s attack on British democracy and stop a no-deal Brexit.
In London, demonstrators marched on Buckingham palace to make their feelings very known about the Queen’s decision to give in to his demand to assume authoritarian rule. The were also demonstrations in Hereford, Staffordshire, Nottingham, Oxford, King’s Lynn, where the local radio station for West Norfolk, KLFM 967 came down to cover the demo; and in Trafalgar Square in London.
One of the most sharply observed was the banner at the beginning of Mike’s article, showing BoJob wearing a swastika armband and Nazi officer’s cap, flanked either side by the evil clown from Stephen King’s It, with balloons above them showing his and Rees-Mogg’s heads. This bore the slogan ‘Before 1933 People Thought Hitler Was A Clown Too…’. Yes, they did. One of the characters in Bernardo Bertolucci’s cinematic classic, The Conformist, makes that exact same point. The film’s about a man, who becomes a Fascist assassin after believing he has shot and killed the paedophile, who had attempted to assault him. In one scene, one of the characters reminisces how, when he was in Germany in the 1920s, there was a man, who used to go round the beer halls making speeches and ranting. ‘We all used to laugh at him’, the character recalls, and adds that they used to throw beer glasses at him. He then sombrely concludes ‘That man was Adolf Hitler’. And before he came to power, some Germans used to go to his rallies just for the fun of seeing who he would abuse next. Presumably this was in the same manner that people used to tune in to the genuine comedy character, Alf Garnett, although Garnett was very definitely a satirical attack on racism and the bigotry of working class Conservatism. Another banner made the same comparison with the Nazi machtergreifung: ‘Wake Up, UK! Or Welcome to Germany 1933′. Again, this is another, acute pertinent comparison. Everything Hitler did was constitutional, as was Mussolini’s earlier coup in Italy. Democracy collapsed in those countries because of its weakness, not because of the Fascists’ strength. And they were helped into power by right-wing elites in the political establishment, who believed that including them in a coalition would help them break a parliamentary deadlock and smash the left.
Zelo Street also covered the demonstrations against Johnson’s attempt to become generalissimo. The Sage of Crewe noted that not only were people marching in London, and large provincial cities like Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Brighton, but they were also occurring in middle ranking towns like Shrewsbury, Bournemouth, Cirencester, Lichfield, Stroud, Colwyn Bay, Clitheroe, Oxford, Swindon, Middlesborough, Exeter, Southampton, Derby, Weston-super-Mare, Falmouth, Bangor, York, Poole, Leamington Spa. Cheltenham Spa, Chester and others. ‘Places that do not usually do protests’. And the protesters are not, whatever BoJob’s focus groups say, going to vote for him.
I doubt that the demonstrations will personally have much effect on Johnson himself. He’s a typical Tory, and so has absolutely nothing but contempt for popular protest. However, the march on Buckingham Palace may have made an impression on the genuine guardians of the British constitution. The monarchy is supposed to be one of Britain’s central institutions, like parliament. Prime ministers come and go, but the monarchy is a central pillar of the British constitution. And its guardians in the British establishment may not take kindly to Johnson dragging the Queen down with him. There may also be some hope in that it was popular demonstrations and dissatisfaction with an unjust policy – the poll tax – that culminated in the removal of Thatcher. I hope it isn’t long before BoJob goes the same way.
Earlier this week, on Tuesday, 25th September 2018, a film about the vicious smearing and attacks on the former vice-chair of Momentum, Jackie Walker, was due to have its premier at Blackburne House, Liverpool. It was to be shown as a fringe event of the Labour conference then being held in that fair city. Directed by Jon Pullman, it took its title, The Political Lynching of Jackie Walker, from a blog post written by the redoubtable critic of Zionism, Tony Greenstein, The Jewish Labour Movement and its Political Lynching of Jackie Walker. There has also been a play about her mistreatment, The Lynching.
The film was shot in Britain and Europe, and followed Walker’s activities for over a year, as she worked, performed and interviewed her across her kitchen table, including comments from her friends and enemies, in order to get the real issue behind the headlines, and show the woman behind the activist.
Walker, you will remember, was smeared as an anti-Semite because members of the Jewish Labour Movement hacked into a private conversation she was having on Facebook about Jewish involvement in the slave trade. They took her words out of context and passed them on to that libelous rag, the Jewish Chronicle. They claimed that she had said that Jews were responsible for the slave trade. Walker has made it very clear that this is absolutely untrue.
She said
Yes, I wrote “many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade”. These words, taken out of context in the way the media did, of course do not reflect my position. I was writing to someone who knew the context of my comments. Had he felt the need to pick me up on what I had written I would have rephrased – perhaps to “Jews (my ancestors too) were among those who financed the sugar and slave trade and at the particular time/in the particular area I’m talking about they played an important part.”
For the record, my claim, as opposed to those made for me by the Jewish Chronicle, has never been that Jews played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic Slave Trade, merely that, as historians such as Arnold Wiznitzer noted, at a certain economic point, in specific regions where my ancestors lived, Jews played a dominant role “as financiers of the sugar industry, as brokers and exporters of sugar, and as suppliers of Negro slaves on credit, accepting payment of capital and interest in sugar.”
The producers had hoped that it would be shown as part of Momentum’s The World Transformed event, but Momentum refused, banning not just the film but also Free Speech on Israel and Labour Against the Witch-Hunt. The film was cancelled in its new venue after the organisers received an anonymous call claiming that there was a bomb in the building.
Mike, Tony Greenstein and Martin Odoni have all written pieces about this. Mike believes that the hoaxer may have been inspired by a piece in the Scum by one Hugo Gye. The Scum had been outraged by Momentum’s refusal to allow their journalists into their event, and bitterly complained. Then Gye wrote his piece in the rag describing the film and play. He called Walker herself a ‘far-left activist who was kicked out of Labour for making anti-Semitic slurs’, and quoted the Labour MP and member of the Israel lobby, Louise Ellman, as saying that it was ‘disgraceful’ for other party members to tolerate banned activists. This nasty piece of character assassination masquerading as journalism also included an image of a flier for the event, giving its date and venue.
Martin has cautiously suggested that the hoaxer may well have been a Zionist, noting that there have been a number of attempts by Zionists to disrupt meetings of left-wing Jews over the past couple of years, including one of Jewish Voice for Labour this same week. Martin goes to ask
Perhaps Labour right-wingers like Margaret Hodge and Luciana Berger, with their ridiculous histrionics-for-the-cameras with needless bodyguards, and comparisons to the Holocaust, would like to consider that a real threat is being aimed at the very people by whom they claim to be threatened? There is every chance that this threat was made by one of Hodge’s/Berger’s allies. If that is the case, what will they have to say about that?
Greenstein, however, believes very strongly that the hoaxer was probably inspired by Marie van der Zyle (pictured below) and the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Yes, the joke’s getting old now, but it’s still funny.
Zyle and the Board have done their level best over these past few years to stop Walker speaking. When Walker and Greenstein spoke in Brighton and Nottingham, the Board phoned the venues beforehand and tried to get them to cancel them. They did the same in 2016, when Walker was due to speak at a church in Bradford, slandering her as ‘an unapologetic Jew-baiter’. They also tried the same stunt to stop her appearing at the Edinburgh Festival.
Greenstein writes
Even if the hoax bomb caller was unknown there can be no doubt that he was doing the work that Marie van der Zyl, Jonathan Arkush and the Board of Deputies have been doing these past two years.
Even if their methods were slightly different the objective was the same. To prevent Jackie Walker exercising her right of free speech. Defence of the pernicious and racist Israeli state was the aim of both Marie Van Der Zyle and the hoax bomb caller. Whereas Ms Zyle merely threatened, cajoled and lied to the owners of venues which she contacted, the anonymous person who phoned on Tuesday simply promised to blow people up Israeli style.
Both Martin and Greenstein also describe the immense hypocrisy of the Board and the Groaniad, who have tried to make political capital out of the incident by describing it as ‘anti-Semitic’. The Groan’s headline about the incident was so misleading that one Peter C. Burns, tweeting about it, apparently believed that it was the Zionists, who had been threatened.
Greenstein points out in his article that the hoaxer did call it a ‘Jewish event’ in his phone call, even though it wasn’t. And it’s rich that the Board has used it to tweet a message about how we must all stand together against anti-Semitism, when they themselves have been whipping up hatred against Walker, libeling her as an anti-Semite. This has resulted in Walker being sent vicious abuse, expressed in foul and anti-Semitic language from other Jews. Because, as Greenstein himself has experienced, Zionist Jews hated Jewish critics of Israel more than gentile anti-Semites.
Greenstein also notes the monumental lack of interest in this by the media, with the exception of the Guardian. He observes that if this had happened at a Zionist event, then Luciana Berger, Ellman and Margaret Hodge would all be shouting about how they were being victimized and needed protection.
Both Mike and Greenstein write in their articles that far from shutting down interest in the film, this will only make more people interested in it. And Mike asks if her accusers’ case is so fragile, their only answer to Walker and her film is to try to stop it being thrown through bomb threats.
It also includes some prize examples of the abuse Walker has received. It’s nasty, racist and viciously misogynist stuff. ‘Lying sack of excrement’ is one of the least foul terms her abusers use. So decent, sensitive souls be warned.
On a more positive note, he also includes a brief trailer for the film, which is very much worth watching.
Mike has put up news that there are going to be mass demonstrations across the UK today against Trump’s ban on immigration from seven Muslim majority countries. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has demanded that Trump’s state visit to Britain should be cancelled. And, almost predictably, Theresa May has failed to say very much about it. She has asked Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, to raise the issue of the travel ban with their opposite numbers in the US administration. But this seems to be less than altruistic. She’s not worried about the ban on Muslims going to the US so much as how it would affect the Tory MP, Nadhim Zahawi.
The demonstration in London is due to be held this evening at 6.00 pm outside Downing Street. There are also demos in Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Falmouth, Glasgow, Hastings, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Preston in Lancashire, Sheffield and York. The demos are organised by Momentum, but people of other views are welcome to join them.
There is also a petition currently being compiled against a state visit by Trump to the UK, which people may also wish to sign. And Mike has also suggested that those with a Tory MP may also like to write to them in protest about it, using the tools provided by Write To Them for creating such messages.
For further information, please go to Mike’s website, where there are appropriate links to the internet pages of the organisations mentioned.
Mike’s article also has a few Tweets from those disapproving May’s silence on this critical issue. One of them is Gary Lineker, wondering when May’s going to speak out. The other is Hugh Terry, who aptly describes May as not a prime minister, but a ‘fascist apologist arms dealer disguised as a rancid old school-marm!’ Which is an accurate description of May, and indeed, of that great, golden Tory icon, Maggie Thatcher.
Beastrabban\'s Weblog 