Winning the Battle and Losing the War

Momentum's Inertia is Turning Victory into Defeat

Jon Lansman - unelected leader of Momentum is leading the Left towards a glorious defeat

The Brighton rally for Corbyn - as with many meetings there was an overflow of hundreds outside

The unprecedented attack on Jeremy Corbyn is not because of any perceived personal failings of his, but because of the politics he is seen to represent.  Corbyn’s politics pose a direct threat to the Establishment and those who own and control the wealth of this society.

Even worse he isn’t a British nationalist.  He doesn’t go along with militarism and flag-waving.  In not supporting NATO and Trident, Corbyn represents a threat to the  bipartisan consensus around foreign, military and security affairs.  The idea that we all have common interests abroad is the basis of class collaboration between Labour and Tory parties.  It leads inexorably to ‘reforms’ to the welfare state in the interests of foreign interventions and wars.  Labour was the party, which under Clement Attlee, first developed the nuclear bomb and fought in Korea.  That was the basis of the first cuts in the NHS and the introduction of prescription charges, which led to the resignations of Aneurin Bevan and Harold Wilson from Attlee’s cabinet.  Bipartisanship means that we have common interests with the United States in suppressing popular movements abroad.

To the Labour Right, it is an article of faith that nuclear weapons are a deterrnent.  New Labour’s support for ‘independent’ nuclear weapons was a symbol of its support for US imperialism.  In breaking from that consensus, in however timid and hesitant a fashion, Corbyn has unleashed the fury of the British establishment.  To question Queen and country and to fail to bow before the monarch or sing her dirge of an anthem, is symbolic of a lack of respect for the institutions of the capitalist state.

New Labour’s weakness is that it hasn’t any political alternative to the Tories.  It is one reason why Owen Smith has been parodied as Corbyn-lite.  He literally has nothing on offer bar a second referendum on Brexit.  New Labour can offer no reason as to why people should vote for it.  Its ‘electability’ is a myth.  In 1997 Blair gained a  victory over a discredited and divided Tory government, circumstances which will never repeat themselves.  In the subsequent 13 years, New Labour lost 4m votes.

The rally of ten thousand in Liverpool for Corbyn

It is Corbyn’s radicalism which appeals to people who have become disillusioned with a political and economic system which has long ceased to deliver for them.  A system with an enduring housing crisis that only gets worse, an NHS that is in terminal decline and public services which are being slashed to the bone.  There was a time when you could take a degree and survive on the grant whilst not having any fees to pay.  It was New Labour which abolished grants and introduced the concept of full cost fees. 

It was New Labour that demonised those on benefits.  They broadcast ads which talked about ‘benefit thieves’.  Tax thieves eluded Mandelson’s attention.  The first thing they did on coming into office was to cut single parents benefit.  It was the cuts to benefits including the cap combined with declining incomes and people being forced into zero hours jobs and precarious employment which enabled Corbyn to be the recipient of that frustration last summer.  From the rallies this year it would appear that that sentiment has not declined.

Corbyn speaking to the Brighton overflow

The same forces of alienation that produced 4m votes for UKIP are also driving the base of Corbynism.  Those who saw controls on immigration as a priority were really talking about bad housing, declining living standards and NHS cuts.  They saw immigrants as being responsible for the decline of public service but they were and are open to more radical solutions.

The Labour Right has reacted with fury to the breakup of the bipartisan consensus.  New Labour signed up to free market capitalism and neo-conservatism as much as Thatcher did.  It is not for nothing that Thatcher said that her greatest achievement was New Labour.

With Labour Party General Secretary Iain McNicol trying to rig the election, it is impossible to be certain that Corbyn will win the leadership contest still less that he will win by a comfortable enough margin.  The Right has ensured this time around that there was only one right-wing candidate, Owen Smith.  Angela Eagle, who couldn’t even secure the support of her own constituency, became a laughing stock when the press deserted her for an announcement from Andrea Leadsom.

Unlike last year, when indecision reigned as to the Right’s best response to the prospect of Corbyn winning, when just 4,000 registered voters had their votes nullified (including me!) this time a smooth operation is underway to debar thousands of potential voters.  There isn’t even a pretence that this is not aimed at Corbyn supporters. 

Ron Draper the suspended leader of the Bakers Union

Smith supporter Michael Foster can get away with calling Corbyn supporters Sturmabteilung storm troopers (SA brownshirts) in the Daily Mail, without any consequence but if you call someone a Blairite then you are suspended and debarred from voting.  [ex-miner John Dunn is guilty of speaking truth to power – so the Labour Party have suspended him!]  Ron Draper, President of the Bakers Union has been suspended for no discernible reason other than that he is on the Left. [Long serving trade union leader banned from Labour Leadership vote]

It is crucial that there is an instant response now to what is blatant poll rigging.  Momentum, if it has any purpose in life, should be mobilising for demonstrations outside Labour Party HQ.  We should be going further, with non-cooperation locally with the suspension of parties and individuals. 

We should take reports that 100,000 people have been barred from voting in the leadership elections with a pinch of salt.  If true then the result may indeed be in doubt since it would mean that, including the 130,000 new members who have already been barred, up to quarter of a million people would have been prevented from voting as part of the Rights’ project to restore Labour Party democracy! 

One thing the present crisis has demonstrated is the hollowness of the Right’s commmitment to democracy.  The present system of elections replaced the electoral college because the Right wanted to free the Labour Party from union influence.  It was the Right who campaigned on one member one vote. They believed that the rank and file membership of the Labour Party would support a continuation of the Blair project.  This has proved to be a fatal miscalculation.

But we should be under no illusion.  If 80% of those who have been deprived of a vote are supporters of Corbyn, then a decisive victory may be a steep hill to climb.  The Court of Appeal’s decision to overturn the judgment of the High Court and bar new members voting, was an overtly political decision.  It accepted the rationale of McNicol that there was a genuine fear of people having joined solely in order to vote, despite the fact that noone in January 2016 foresaw that there would be another leadership election a year after the last one.  The decision to accept that the Right’s bogus fears of entryism outweighed the contractual entitlement of members who had joined, reflected the concerns of the political establishment at the loss of a safe and reliable second party of capitalism.

Ignoring members contractual rights, the Court of Appeal held that the NEC’s right to freeze the date of eligibility to vote in the elections could be backdated.  Normally the word ‘freeze’ is understood as keeping something as it is.  Backdating it flies in the face of the commonly understood meaning of the word.

If we assume that even the best attempts of McNicol and Tom Watson MP to rig the elections are insufficient and that Corbyn wins the leadership election against Corbyn, the question is what next?

If Corbyn does not win at least 60% vote of the vote, despite the widespread suspension of members and the mass removal of members’ rights to vote, then any victory is going to be treated by the Right and the mass media as a defeat.  Even if Corbyn does win more than 60% of the vote, one thing is certain and that is that the Right are not going to accept the election result.  To Progress and a majority of Labour MPs, the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell would be illegitimate even if he gained 99% of the vote. 

Despite the attempts of Owen Smith to portray himself as Corbyn lite, there is no possibility of any compromise between Corbyn and his detractors.  The belief of the leadership of Momentum that they can appease the Right if they whisper the words ‘unity’ long enough is delusional.  It is an act of self deception.  No strategy for victory by Corbyn and his supporters is feasible or practical if it is based on the Right seeing reason or accepting the democratic decision of the membership.  The majority of the PLP will never accept Corbyn’s leadership.  The only thing they will understand is deselection.  The redrawing of the boundaries provides an ideal opportunity to be rid of Labour’s Tories.

There is a fundamental political gulf between what Corbyn represents and people like Hilary Benn. At the heart of Corbyn’s anti-austerity programme, however it is dressed up in soft keynianism, lies a direct challenge to the market economy and those who own and control the vast majority of wealth in this society.  Corbyn represents the movement to reverse the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich that began with the age of Thatcherism and continued under Blair and Brown.  It raises the question of socialism – is production to be for need or for profit?

The most important social questions are those of housing and the NHS.  It is here that the bankruptcy of the market is starkest.  We cannot solve the question of housing need and homelessness via the market.  Rent controls and security of rent are essential mechanisms to ensuring that housing is no longer seen as an investment opoprtunity.  Social need rather than profit poses a direct threat to those who have made their fortunes out of a booming housing economy.  It also makes sense economically.  Investment in land is an absurd waste of resources.  There is no .increase in productive capacity.  The swing in property prices poses a direct threat to financial stability.

Support for the ‘special relationship’ with the United States is one reason why support for Israel and opposition to ‘anti-Semitism’ has been so prominent in the attacks on Corbyn.  Support for Israel and Zionism has been a litmus test of adherence to the Blair/New Labour Project.  Opposing ‘anti-Semitism’ allows our rulers to dress up their support for war and terror abroad in the language of anti-racism.  Like the British in India, New Labour doesn’t rationalise imperialism in terms of plunder and exploitation but as one of civilisation and anti-racism. 

Corbyn’s past history, however much he has rowed back on it, has become a lightning rod for attacks on his leadership. It matters not one jot how many times Corbyn rebuts allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ nor however many inquiries he sets up into a non-existent anti-Semitism, his critics will not be silenced.  The ‘anti-Semitism’ of the Zionists is not the same anti-Semitism that most people understand as anti-Semitism. [Daily Mail, 7.8.15. EXCLUSIVE: Jeremy Corbyn's 'long-standing links' with notorious Holocaust denier and his 'anti-Semitic' organisation revealed].  Nor was it just the right-wing press which indulged in this act of political defamation.  The Guardian and Jonathan Freedland, were foremost in the ‘anti-Semitic’ attacks on Corbyn. [see Labour and the left have an antisemitism problem

Anti-Semitism functions as an false, establishment anti-racism.  Jews in Britain today are not under attack, they do not suffer economic discrimination, low wages or state racism such as police racism and deaths in custody.  British Jews are White.  Geoffrey Alderman, a Jewish Chronicle columnist observed that British Jews had, by the 1960’s moved decisively into the Conservative camp.  By 1961, more than 40% of Jews were located in the upper two social classes compared to less than 20% of the general population. [The Jewish Population in British Politics, p. 137, G Alderman, Clarendon Press, 1983].  William Rubinstein, the former President of the Jewish Historical Society, wrote of: ‘the rise of Western Jewry to unparalleled affluence and high status’ which ‘has led to the near-disappearance of a Jewish proletariat of any size; indeed, the Jews may become the first ethnic group in history without a working-class of any size.’ [W.D. Rubinstein, ‘The Left, the Right and the Jews’, p.51, Croom Helm, London 1982].  In what way then are Jews oppressed in this society?

Anti-Semitism is confined to the fascist margins.  Ironically the fascists aren’t considered anti-Semitic because they are pro-Israel!  In Israel's anti-Semitic friends Ruth Smeed, spokesperson for the Board of Deputies of British Jews admitted that ‘‘The BNP website is now one of the most Zionist on the web – it goes further than any of the mainstream parties in its support of Israel’. [The Guardian, April 10th 2008]

Anti-Semitism as traditionally understood is hostility, violence, hatred and stereotypes of Jews. This anti-Semitism does not concern supporters of Israel.  Zionism has never had any problem working with anti-Semites since they both accept that Jews don’t belong in non-Jewish society.  One of the main protagonists in the battle to prove that Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic has been the Jewish Chronicle and its editor, Stephen Pollard.  Pollard is a member of the cold-war Henry Jackson Society 

In 2009 the Conservatives left the pro-federalist Christian Democrat group in the European Parliament for the Eurosceptic far-right European Conservatives and Reform Group.  This group was chaired by Michal Kaminski, of Poland’s Law and Justice Party.  Kaminski in his earlier life had been a member of a neo-Nazi group.  Pollard had no problem defending Kaminski from accusations of anti-Semitism.  He wrote that Poland's Kaminski is not an antisemite: he's a friend to Jews,.   

In 1941 hundreds of Polish Jews were burnt alive in a barn in the village of Jedwabne, not by the occupying Nazis but by fellow Poles.  This was the subject of a book by Polish-Jewish historian Jan Tomasz Gross  [Neighbours: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, May 2000]  The book caused a far-reaching public debate that split public opinion. [The Legacy of Jedwabne]

In July 2001 on the 60^th anniversary of the massacre Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski apologised on behalf of the Polish people for what had happened.  A memorial was erected in Jedwabne.  Kaminski led the campaign against the memorial and apology and suggested that it was the Jews who should apologise!

For Pollard and the Jewish Leadership Council (a Zionist body then consisting of large Jewish capitalists), even mild criticism of David Cameron for his support of Kaminski was outrageous.  [Leaders split over David Cameron's Euro allies’ 8.10.09.]

What concerns the Zionists who have led the bogus campaign against Labour Party ‘anti-Semitism’ is opposition to Zionism, what they call ‘new anti-Semitism’.  According to this redefinition of anti-Semitism, Israel is the ‘Jew among the nations’.

It would have been simple to put an end to the lie of Labour Party anti-Semitism if Corbyn had declared that he opposed both anti-Semitism and attempts to portray supporters of the Palestinians or anti-Zionists as anti-Semitic.  Instead Corbyn prolonged and continues to prolong the campaign by accepting that it has substance.  Everytime he opens his mouth and declares that there is an anti-Semitism problem in the Labour Party he makes a rod for his back.

Strangely despite the consensus about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, there are virtually no examples of this phenomenon.  Jewish philosopher Brian Klug, summed up this bogus campaign against ‘anti-Semitism’ when he said, in a lecture in the Jewish Museum in Berlin that, ‘a label can turn into a libel when it is pinned on the wrong lapel. Antisemitism has rightly been called a ‘monster’.  But false accusations of antisemitism are monstrous too.  For all these reasons and more, the word matters a great deal.’  ^[1]

After the leadership election

Of one thing we can be certain and that the Right will refuse to accept a Corbyn victory.  There is no possibility that they will accept the validity of the election.  What form this will take at this point is difficult to know.  There was talk of forming a breakaway group in Parliament under the label of the Co‑op Party.  That appears to have been scotched.  There is a strong possibility that New Labour will form a separate group in Parliament.  What should our response be?

We should recognise that Hilary Benn, Caroline Flint and their co-conspirators are closer to the Conservative Party than they are to the Left of the Labour Party.  Whatever minor disagreements they have with the Tories, they are as nothing compared to the chasm between themselves and socialists in the Labour Party.

Corbyn will have even less time or space for manoeuvre than he did this time last year.  If Corbyn is to retain the leadership of the Labour Party in the face of an all out attack from the Right, a number of things are essential. 

Firstly it is crucial that Corbyn begins to act as a leader of the Labour Party.  That means we have to put an end to a situation where the unelected civil service of the Party, represented by Iain McNicol spends its time plotting against the elected leader.  At the moment Corbyn is in office but not in power.  Iain McNicol has to go along with the Compliance Unit.  Corbyn should have learnt this from his mentor Tony Benn.  To fail to control the civil service is to fail.

Secondly it will be impossible to win over at least half of the PLP.  Some people will make their peace with the Left but there are those who will never reconcile themselves to the Left such as Chuka Ummuna and John Woodcock. 

Momentum Cowardice

When I stewarded the Corbyn rally in Brighton we got instructions from Momentum not to mention the word ‘deselection’ if we were interviewed by the press.  This has to cease.  Changing the composition of the PLP is vital to the success of the Corbyn leadership.  Far from being ambivalent about deselection a democratic Momentum has to embrace the need to change the composition of the PLP.  MPs have to reflect and act as the instrument of the Party.

The second step is for the Left to become organised.  Momentum must become democratic and have a life of its own.  It has to be taken out of the hands of Jon Lansman and ex-public schoolboys like James Schneider.  At the moment it is a phone bank organisation that organises large rallies.  Rallies are what dictators not democrats do.  At the moment Momentum sees its role as holding the left back, not mobilising it.  It acts as Corbyn’s cheerleader, fostering a cult of personality whilst heading towards a catastrophic defeat for the Left in the Party.  If Momentum doesn’t democratise, it will be necessary for the left to form other organisations 

The unelected leadership of Momentum is paralysed by indecision.  In Sheffield when Corbyn spoke, the local group was told not to even have a stall at the rally.  They ignored the instruction, had a stall and recruited 100 members and raised £600.

Momentum should be organising a mass campaign against the gerrymandering of McNicol and Watson.  That includes court action and also demonstrations outside Labour Party headquarters and MP’s offices.  The proposed national conference of Momentum must be brought forward from February to October or November.  Corbyn may not be leader by February unless the Momentum organises.  The present leadership of Momentum operates by way of patronage and school chumminess.

We should oppose this personality cult around Corbyn.  He is a human being with all the frailties of a human being.  He is widely admired and quite rightly so for his long period of opposition to war and Blair.  His refusal to be corrupted and the fact that he was almost alone in being untainted by the expenses scandal, but he is fallible. 

Corbyn’s walking out of the NEC once he had got on the ballot paper and failing to notice the proposal on the agenda to bar 130,000 members from voting was a catastrophic mistake.  There is clearly an element of truth in the criticism Corbyn’s inability to get on top of policy and organisation.  We should ourselves be critical, not in order to destroy someone as the Right desires, but in order to spread the collective weight of responsibility.  Corbyn has surrounded himself with a group of advisors led by Seamus Milne whose advice has been lamentable.  They have served him ill. 

One failure is not to respond to media attacks and try and ignore them.  One thing New Labour got right was their instant rebuttal unit.  Don’t let lies build up momentum.  Deal with them at the time.  Corbyn also has to shape up and become more aggressive and determined.  Corbyn admires Harold Wilson, When Wilson was faced with rumours of a coup and plots before he became Prime Minister he told the Labour Party conference that people had been asking what was going on:  ‘I’m going on’ was his response.  That should be Corbyn’s response too. 

There seems to be a woeful lack of preparation for Prime Minister’s Question Time.  It was predictable that Cameron would welcome Labour infighting and attack Corbyn remaining as leader.  It wouldn’t have taken much to have retorted that an attack from Cameron was proof positive that his decision to stay was the right one.  

Supporters of Corbyn comprise a large range of the Left.  It is an alliance that may succumb to war weariness.  Momentum has to show that there is a path to victory, that change is possible and that those who stand in the way, the dinosaurs of the PLP will be relegated to history.  Deselection has to be adopted as a weapon in the battle to change the Labour Party.

Policy is still an area where the present leadership is, to be blunt, woeful.  There still has not been a housing programme, with a clear call for rent controls, security of tenure and an end to the right to buy.  Simple and popular demands.

Nationalilsation of the utilities has dropped off the agenda despite it being extremely popular since fuel poverty is a real issue as are water bills.  The crippling debt that the NHS faces because of the PFI scandal brought about by New Labour should be met with a determination to reverse this theft of the nation’s resources.  There should be a statutory reversal of the unfair and one-sided contracts that New Labour signed.  It won’t be popular with the rich and powerful and goes against the grain of the capitalist law of contract but if the banks and privatisers can buy national assets on the cheap they can be bought back again cheaply.

Corbyn’s proposals for rail privatisation are completely bonkers.  To wait till the current contracts mature will take 15 years.  If a Labour Government is to have any momentum it has to nationalise rail in one go, like the Attlee government did.  This means minimal compensation to the rail companies and immediate nationalisation.  It is only possible to overcome the fragmentation of rail if it is nationalised as a whole, not piecemeal.

Without boldness and a determination to begin deselection and take the fight to the Right there will be an increasing demoralisation in the ranks of the Left.  Corbyn’s supporters are not an undifferentiated mass.  Those who put their hope in him will, sooner or later, succumb to the argument that Corbyn cannot win a general election.  Of course we all know that the policy of the Right is to secure defeat rather than victory under Corbyn which is why appeasing the Right is pointless and counterproductive.  The only way Corbyn can become Prime Minister is to serve notice on his opponents and their paymaster Lord Sainsbury, that it is time they departed for another party.  Then and only then will the Left in the Labour Party be able to organise for victory.

Tony Greenstein

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[1]           What Do We Mean When We Say ‘Antisemitsm’? Echoes of shattering glass, “Antisemitism in Europe Today: the Phenomena, the Conflicts” 8–9 November 2014

The Calm Before The Storm – As Corbyn Wins the Right Intensifies Its Destabilisation Strategy

It’s not an Olive Branch but the Sword of Deselection that Labour’s Right Requires

Tom Watson - most members would put their trust in a rattle snake first

For the second time in a year, Jeremy Corbyn has been elected by an overwhelming majority of Labour Party members.  Indeed this year, despite the attempts of Tom Watson’s lapdog, General Secretary Iain McNicol to remove Corbyn supporters from those eligible to vote, Corbyn increased his majority from 59% to 62%.

Immediately Jeremy Corbyn sought to put what had happened in the last wasted year behind him and start, in his own words, with a clean slate.  There is nothing wrong with this but only a minority of the Right is going to engage with Corbyn at all meaningfully.  We have to face the fact that the majority of the Right will continue their strategy of tension and destabilisation.

Alan Johnson MP - former Blairite Minister and Nonentity in Chief

Momentum has to accept that appeasement of Progress and its supporters will not work.  Their loyalty is not to Labour or socialism but to capitalism and the system we live in.  Their differences with the Tories are minimal compared to their differences with those who wish to change society.  When a wild animal threatends you it’s best to shoot it not appeal to its better nature.  Momentum needs to be democratised urgently because at the moment it is good at winning elections and lousy at winning the peace.

People like Alan Johnson, the former Blairite Cabinet Minister, have made it clear that they intend to attack Corbyn from the outset.  The Right’s coup has failed, for the time being, but it will be renewed in a different form.

One sign of this was the presentation of a monster constitutional package by Tom Watson at last Tuesday’s NEC, with barely a few hour’s notice.  Even my local union branch demands that resolutions are tabled with a week’s notice but Watson presented the Rights programme to destabilise Corbyn at the last possible moment.

Corbyn, true to form, didn’t oppose the proposals for additional right-wing members from Scotland and Wales (the leaders of the Scottish and Welsh parties, not the members will choose them) thus wiping out his own majority on next year’s NEC instantly.  It was little wonder that arch right-winger Luke Akehurst tweeted that in one stroke control of next year’s NEC had passed to the Right despite the Left having won the election to the 6 NEC seats amongst the constituencies.

Although Corbyn finally woke up today and tried, unsuccessfully, to reverse the decision his inability to understand the forces ranged against him is disconcerting.  Even Jesus Christ, who was quite hot on loving thine enemy, drove the money lenders from the Temple.  A bit of muscular Christianity is what is needed!  Watson is acting not only on behalf of the Labour Right but on behalf of the British state. 

Huffington Post reported on Watson’s Project Anaconda, specifically designed to destroy Corbyn’s leadership by surrounding him with enemies.  ‘HuffPost UK has been passed extracts from internal party emails claiming that the deputy leader has been operating a so-called “Project Anaconda” with Shadow Cabinet reforms and wider NEC proposals.’

Huffington quoted an email from Watson’s team that:  “’Project Anaconda’...will involve isolating and weakening JC and ultimately crushing the life out of his leadership,” “Every concession JC makes will be used to tighten the grip.”   

That is why the Right, which walked out of the Shadow Cabinet, has now decided that they want democratic elections to the body they don’t want to sit in!  Why?  So that they can run an alternative administration.  Corbyn won’t be able to sack them and so it will effectively paralyse him and render him ineffectual. 

Then they will be able to turn around and say he is a weak leader and the polls will naturally reflect this.  What is needed now is determination and ruthlessness.  If the Right or part of them wish to be part of the Shadow Cabinet, then fine.  But only if they wish to work together not against their leader.  That must mean that Corbyn appoints the whole shadow cabinet in these circumstances.  What was good enough for Ed Miliband is good enough for Jeremy Corbyn.

If Corbyn values his leadership he should face down Watson now, when he is strongest after his electoral victory.  Tomorrow it may be too late.  As the article observed ‘Last week the NEC agreed to widen its membership to include Scottish and Welsh Labour reps, a move that could swing the balance of power on the ruling body to an “anti-Corbyn” majority.’

Instead of calling Watson’s bluff, instead of taking to the media to say that there was only one leader and denouncing Watson as the enemy within, Corbyn accepted major planks of his programme, including those denying him a majority.

The obvious thing to do would have been to move ‘next business’ and to make it clear that if necessary he would appeal to Labour Party Conference and the Unions over the heads of the present right-wing NEC.  Instead, once again, Corbyn first accepted and then tried to reverse the proposals once it had eventually sunk in what they involved. [Labour MPs Who ‘Mugged’ Jeremy Corbyn ‘In Cold Blood’ Should Now Back Him, Shami Chakrabarti Warns]

Even more amazingly Corbyn told the NEC that he had never criticised the very Labour Party staff who had spent the summer suspending and expelling members on any and every pretext.  It is one thing to react to a situation where someone is genuinely abused on social media and to call those responsible to account, it is entirely another thing to go and trawl through the social media posts of thousands of people on a fishing expedition in order to try and disqualify the supporters one candidate.

In The numbers Labour did NOT want you to see on TV this morning – and why the following table reveals that of 551,000 members, just 285,000 voted, leaving 266,000 without a vote.  Even leaving aside the 130,000 members who joined after January, this means that another 136,000 didn’t vote.  Of course some may have abstained but we know from reports that thousands, some estimate 60,000 were simply not sent a vote.  Thousands of others were suspended or otherwise denied a vote. 

Clearly Labour Party staff were so busy disqualifying members that they didn’t send out ballot papers to thousands of people because they were seen as hardline Corbyn supporters.  In other words people had their votes held back until they could first be checked in order to find any dirt or pretext on them. 

Of the 181,000 registered supporters, over a third, 62,000 didn’t vote.  Why?  It is highly unlikely that having paid £25 many of these people didn’t bother to vote.  The only answer is that they were disqualified – either because they weren’t on the electoral register (since Labour Party staff insist on working to last year’s one this is not surprising or they were disqualified for being Corbyn supporters).  Even if they weren’t on the electoral register so what?  If they could prove they existed, then given the Tories efforts to remove people from the Electoral Register they should have been given a vote.

We want answers about the corrupt electoral practices of Crooked McNicol.  Instead of backing him up,  Corbyn should be demanding his head.  It is absolutely essential that Corbyn ensures the loyalty of Labour’s civil service.  At the very least the Compliance Unit and McNicol should go and every single suspended and expelled person should be reinstated, with the exception of Daily Mail guest columnist Mike Foster.  Parties such as Brighton and Hove and Wallasey should also be reinstated.

Jeremy Corbyn was Tony Benn’s closest comrade.  He should remember Benn’s sage advice that when he was a Cabinet Minister, his first act was to secure the loyalty of his civil servants.  It is a lesson that Corbyn should take to heart.

It is also essential that Momentum now democratises.  There is a battle ahead.  Corbyn won’t be able to repeat today’s victory indefinitely.  People will become demoralised.  The Right has to be tackled from the start if they refuse to accept Corbyn’s victory as leader.  That means, as a minimum that it is Jeremy Corbyn who appoints a Shadow Cabinet.  If the Right don’t want to serve, then so be it.  Labour Party members will no doubt take this into account when MPs stand for reselection!

Further there should be a review of the composition of the NEC.  Tom Watson is right, but for the wrong reasons.  At present Scottish and Welsh members can stand and Rhea Wolfson from Glasgow won a seat.  The best solution would be to increase the CLP section from 6 to 12 and to reduce seats for MEPs and councillors.  There is also no reason why the Deputy Leader should be a member of the NEC.

Rule changes for next year should include a proposal that the number of MPs needed to stand for Leader or Deputy Leader be reduced from 20% or 15% to 5%. 

The time for turning one’s cheek is gone.  If the Labour Right refuses to accept the decision of Labour Party members as to who is Leader they should be shown the door.  Labour MPs might claim they have a greater mandate because they are elected by the electorate but history shows that MPs are elected, not because of their inflated sense of their self-importance, because of their party allegiance.  If they wish to stand as independents no one is stopping them, however very few (6) of the 26 Labour MPs who broke from the Labour Party in the early 1980’s to join the SDP were re-elected at the 1983 General Election.  Hilary Benn and John Mann are welcome to stand as independents.  Indeed they should be encouraged to do so!

Tony Greenstein 

Brilliant Momentum Rally Says Corbyn Stays

Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here

I attended the Momentum rally last night, together with my son Tom and about 10,000 other people. It was a brilliant and optimistic rally with a clear message – Jeremy Corbyn isn’t going anywhere.

Making their way to the rally

John McDonnell, Corbyn himself, Dennis Skinner, the President of ASLEF and others had a simple message -  Jeremy Corbyn was elected by Labour’s members and only they will vote him out.

Corbyn speaks to the rally

At last night's rally

Only the blind and stupid will believe the New Labour pretext for attacking and trying to depose Corbyn – that it was all down to the Brexit vote.  The vote in the northern working-class constituencies for Brexit weren’t the doing of Corbyn.  UKIP gained 4 million votes in the May 2015 election.  Those who remember that awful election night will recall that the Sunderland constituencies each delivered votes of approximately 8,000 votes to UKIP.  Just like the decimation of Labour in Scotland, the erosion of working-class support for Labour took place on New Labour’s watch.

One of the New Labour traitors

The idea that Corbyn could reverse the damage that New Labour had done, at the same time that New Labour in the form of Wes Streeting, John Mann and Hilary Benn were waging war on him, is fanciful.  From the time that Corbyn was seen as a credible candidate last summer to today, the Right has waged a war against Corbyn in alliance with the Daily Mail and the Tory press.  Today the Daily Mirror, a paper that once supported Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists, joined in the witchhunt.

John McDonnell speaking to the rally

There will be some people who supported Corbyn who will not lost heart and succumb to the nonsense that this is all about Corbyn winning the next General Election.  Without New Labour muddying and diluting Labour’s message of an end to austerity there is no doubt that Labour under Corbyn could do much better than Ed Miliband.  The only obstacles to this is New Labour which is determined to ensure that Labour remains a safe alternative party of capitalism.

Corbyn making his way to the rally

The Right started off the attack with bogus ‘anti-Semitism’ and it has now ended with Hilary Benn’s treachery.  It is fortunate that his father Tony Benn is dead otherwise he would be aghast at the behaviour of his son in emulating the worst characters of Labour historically such as  Ramsay MacDonald. 

At last night's rally

With the Tories in disarray and Britain facing a constitutional crisis and with Chilcot around the corner, the Labour Right was desperate.  What they feared was that at a general election Corbyn could win.  As Tony Blair said

“Let me make my position clear: I wouldn’t want to win on an old-fashioned leftist platform. Even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn’t take it.”

It is essential that the left in the Labour Party should keep their powder dry, support Jeremy Corbyn, build Momentum and above all deselect those who tried to stab Corbyn in the back.

Tony Greenstein 

It’s time for Iain McNicol, Labour’s Crooked General Secretary, to depart

McNicol - Disloyal, Deceptive and Dishonest

Deliberate deception and disloyalty from Iain McNicol

One of the key lessons that Tony Benn learnt from his time in government was the need for Ministers to control their civil servants.  It is elected politicians who should make political decisions not an unelected civil service.

It is a lesson that Jeremy Corbyn has yet to learn.  Iain McNicol, Labour’s General Secretary, was foisted on Ed Miliband who never trusted him, by Sir Paul Kenny of the GMB.  Previously McNicol was the GMB’s Political Officer.

John Stollard Labour's Matthew Hopkins - Witchfinder in General

Throughout Corbyn’s 10 month leadership, McNicol has sought to undermine him every step of the way.  The attempted purge of supporters and members last summer was instituted by McNicol in a vain attempt to reduce the expected vote for Corbyn.  McNicol has promised more of the same this year in another attempt to try and fix it for Owen Smith.  The Guardian cited McNicol as saying that ‘Labour would issue bans because it was not enough simply to criticise some of the aggressive and intimidating behaviour that has soured the contest so far. “Words of condemnation are meaningless unless they are backed up by action.”

The suggestion that there is widespread ‘intimidation’ has been a regular theme of Owen Smith, Angela Eagle and the anti-Corbyn forces.  We had the affair of Angela Eagle’s broken constituency window, the most famous window in Britain.  It later transpired that it was a window in a stairwell of a building shared by a number of organisations.  It wasn’t her office window at all.  But the Right of the Party is using fake allegation of ‘intimidation’ as an alibi for their expected heavy defeat.  McNicol is lending this doing his best to help this lie despite there being no evidence whatsoever of intimidation.  It is a thoroughly bogus issue yet McNicol is happy to help out.

The Labour Party is not big enough for both Jeremy and McNicol

When Michael Foster, the Zionist funder, brought an action in the High Court to prevent Corbyn from standing, Corbyn was so distrustful of any defence mounted by McNicol that he applied to the Court to become a co-defendant.  He feared that McNicol might do a sweetheart deal with Foster and effectively agree to the action, thus sinking Corbyn’s candidature.

An article in last Monday 25^th July’s Telegraph, Labour leadership contest: Legal documents reveal depth of split between Jeremy Corbyn and party’s general secretary has gone largely unremarked but it was based on the legal papers submitted in the Foster case.  The Telegraph’s Political Correspondent, Ben Riley Smith, reported that

‘Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters have accused the head of the Labour Party of “subverting” internal rules and keeping legal advice “hidden” to effectively block him running for the leadership, legal papers have revealed.’  Documents asserted that Iain McNicol went to “great lengths” to keep secret a crucial party board meeting about his future. The Telegraph reported that McNicol tried to “manufacture a situation whereby Jeremy Corbyn’s name will be omitted from the leadership ballot” despite being bound to remain impartial during the contest. 

The Telegraph drew the conclusion that

‘It reveals the total breakdown of trust between Mr Corbyn’s allies and Mr McNichol, the most senior official in the Labour Party, and details the depth of the split at the top.   The criticism also calls into question whether Mr McNichol can retain his post should Mr Cobryn win re-election this summer, as the bookmakers have suggested…. such is the level of distrust between the two camps that Mr Corbyn has insisted he is placed as a co-defendant in the case to ensure the claims are robustly challenged….

McNicol - an attempt to conceal his intentions from Corbyn and McDonnell

A letter from solicitors acting for Jim Kennedy, a member of UNITE- accused Mr McNicol of not telling the leadership about a crucial meeting which would decide the rules for the contest.   It claimed McNicol had gone “to great lengths to conceal [his] intentions from the leader and the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer”. 

Criticising  the demand Mr Corbyn get the backing of MPs, it said McNicol had no grounds for “subverting the democratic procedures of a political party in such a way or the principles of the Labour Party”.   The letter also said the meeting about rules for the contest was an attempt to “manufacture a situation whereby Jeremy Corbyn’s name will be omitted from the leadership ballot”.  Part of the letter read:

“It is clear you are acting as General Secretary in a manner which has not been seen before in the Labour Party.” It also said legal advice was being “kept hidden” from Mr Corbyn.  In his concluding remarks, the judge said “there was suspicion by some NEC members of an attempt to ‘stitch-up’ the Applicant [Mr Corbyn] at the NEC meeting to prevent him being able to stand for election.”  He also said there was a “risk” that Mr McNicol “may well overlook points which it would be in Mr Corbyn’s interests to make”, however “inadvertently”.

In an article Legal letter to NEC chief over Labour leadership rules in the Guardian of 12th July, the day of the NEC meeting which decided Corbyn’s name should be on the ballot paper, we learnt of a quite remarkable and pungent letter sent by solicitors Howe & Co. to McNicol.  The solicitors were acting on behalf of Jim Kennedy of UNITE.   

McNicol was accused of ‘having gone to ‘great lengths to conceal your intentions from the Leader and the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer’ to call a meeting of the NEC the following day.

The solicitors bluntly told McNicol that ‘You have an obligation as General Secretary to act in good faith.  You personally are required by the Party rules to be transparent and to uphold the aims and values of ‘open democracy’.  The manner in which this special meeting has been arranged has all the hallmarks of anything but “open democracy”.  (my emphasis)

McNicol was told not to destroy, delete or conceal evidence - this is the man in overall charge of Labour's disciplinary process!

McNicol is told that he is under a duty to act according to common law notions of fairness and that according to the Labour Party’s constitution the election of officers, shall be conducted in a‘fair,  open and transparent manner.’   McNicol should not have needed to be told that ‘natural justice requires you to act fairly’ but as the experience of those suspended demonstrates, McNicol has little or no understanding of the concept of fairness or natural justice.

Howe and Co. tell McNicol that ‘Our clients are very concerned that the purpose of the special meeting is to manufacture a situation whereby Jeremy Corbyn’s name will be omitted from the ballot paper.’  

McNicol is also accused of withholding the legal advice he has obtained to members of the NEC, despite having received the advice of 3 barristers including Mike Mansfield QC.  McNicol is reminded that he has a duty to preserve all documents, emails etc. with his fellow conspirators such as Deputy Leader, the ‘fixer’ Tom Watson.   The solicitors finish off what is an extremely strong letter with a series of questions:

Who is it  who is instructing you to carry out the actions you intend?  Who has suggested to you that the legal advice the Labour Party has received is to be ignored or kept hidden?  Who is it who has suggested that the leader be barred from the special meeting of 12 July 2016 and that the motion be voted upon in secret?’

Under McNicol leaking information to the press is standard procedure - when details of my suspension were leaked to The Telegraph and  The Times McNicol lied when stating that it hadn't come from LP HQ

McNicol is also told that his favourite occupation, leaking material damaging to his political opponents is a 'serious disciplinary offence'.  

On the basis of the allegations in this letter the NEC has no alternative but to suspended Iain McNicol for gross misconduct.  It is unconscionable that the General Secretary of the Labour Party is acting at the instigation of the forces of the Right opposed to the Leader.

It is clear that there has been an  irretrievable breakdown in the relations between McNicol and Jeremy Corbyn.  In an employment relationship that would be reason enough to dismiss someone.  It is clear that McNicol has to go and Corbyn should ensure that his first action after being re-elected is to send Iain McNicol packing.

Jeremy Corbyn and the Retreat from Palestine

Elected as supporter of the Palestinians - beating the retreat

Jeremy Corbyn's recent statements to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is a wholly Zionist and establishment group, that he recognises Israel's 'right to exist' [no one doubts the State exists, the question is what type of State it is] is a formula indicating acceptance of Israel's right to be an Apartheid state. When this is coupled with Corbyn's appointment of an overt Zionist Fabian Hamilton, to join Hilary Benn in the Shadow Foreign Office team, it is clear that Corbyn has retreated in regard to his previous support of the Palestinians.

Stephen Pollard - Jewish Chronicle Editor, launched attack on 'anti-Semitic' Corbyn.  Has no problem defending real anti-Semites like Michal Kaminski

Corbyn's overt support for a 2 States solution, which no Israeli government minister supports and which no observer believes is possible, given the extent of colonisation and settlement of the West Bank, is a code for accepting the current status quo. Over 4 million Palestinians are subject to a different legal system (military) from that of the Jewish settlers (civil Israeli law) in the same area, the West Bank. This is Apartheid.

Fabian Hamilton - Zionist who calls Palestinian supporters 'anti-Semitic' - appointed by Corbyn as junior Shadow Foreign Office Minister

“This land is ours. All of it is ours. We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognise Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere.” Tzipi Hotoveli, Deputy Foreign Minister, Israel

In the words of Israel’s religious nutcase and Deputy Foreign Minister, Tzipi Hotoveli, “This land is ours. All of it is ours. We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognise Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere.”

Bishop Desmond Tutu - calls Israel worse than Apartheid in South Africa - obviously anti-Semitic!

Giving lip service to a '2 States solution' provides a pretext for the continuation of the present Apartheid situation. Israel cannot grant the right to vote or any other civil or political rights for those living under Israeli military rule because this would threaten Israel's Jewish majority in the Jewish State. The 2 States formula is a means of avoiding having to confront the fact that there is a conflict between being a Jewish State and a Democratic State.

Michal Kaminski - fresh from calling on the remnant of Polish Jews to apologise to their oppressors, pays tribute to the holocaust dead at the Yad Vashem propaganda museum in Jerusalem

My article details the recent history of Zionist attacks on Corbyn and how he has responded by trying to appease those critics. Of course appeasment only whets the appetite of the aggressor, witness the recent attacks on Oxford University Labour Club for 'anti-Semitism'

No backtracking on Palestine

Unfortunately the Labour leader appears to be beating a retreat, writes Tony Greenstein

Jeremy Corbyn: long and consistent record

I first met Jeremy Corbyn over 30 years ago when I chaired the Labour Committee on Palestine/Labour Movement Campaign on Palestine.¹ It would be no exaggeration to say that Jeremy, along with Ken Livingstone and the late Joan Maynard, were the most consistent supporters of the Palestinians. He later became a patron of Palestine Solidarity Campaign and a regular fixture at PSC annual general meetings.

Hilary Benn - Shadow Foreign Minister who believes Saudi allies in Syria are part of a socialist, anti-fascist struggle

The policy of the LMCP, which Jeremy Corbyn sponsored, was to support a democratic, secular state in the whole of Palestine rather than a two-state solution. We did not support the ‘right to exist’ of the apartheid state of Israel, for whom its Palestinian citizens are a demographic threat. We supported the creation of a unitary state of its own citizens, regardless of ethnic or religious affiliation, rather than a state of the Jews.

The 1982 Labour Party conference, held in the wake of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, passed an emergency resolution calling for a democratic, secular state in the whole of Palestine. People forget the international reaction to an invasion which killed over 20,000 people. Two thousand Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps were butchered with medieval savagery by Israel’s Phalangist allies. The Israeli army lit up the night sky in order that they could kill their victims, mainly women and children, more efficiently. The Labour Party reaction mirrored that of British society, which was one of horror. In Britain a group of us formed the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

It was therefore no surprise that the Zionist movement, when it was obvious that Corbyn was heading for victory in the Labour Party leadership contest, pulled out all the stops to prevent it. Together with the Daily Mail, Zionists attempted to brand him a holocaust denier. This is somewhat ironic, given that in the 1930s the most pro-Hitler paper was the same Daily Mail. Citing a magistrate who had complained that “The way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring in from every port of this country is becoming an outrage”, the Mail commented that “the number of aliens entering the country through the back door [is] a problem to which the Daily Mail has repeatedly pointed”.²

Jonathan Arkus of the Zionist Board of Deputies of British Jews

On the basis of an article alleging that Corbyn had attended a concert organised by a holocaust denier, Paul Eisen,³ the Zionist movement engaged in a conscious and sustained smear campaign. Leading the pack was the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, a member of the cold-war far-right Henry Jackson Society, who posed a series of questions to Corbyn.⁴

Unfortunately, instead of responding with a few questions of its own, Corbyn’s campaign decided to treat them as genuine queries. Needless to say, their answers were never going to satisfy the Zionists. Those of us with experience of the Zionist attack dogs know that they cry ‘anti-Semitism’ whenever support for the Palestinians is on the agenda. Only last month Oxford University Labour Club was the subject of vicious attacks - it was labelled anti-Semitic after it decided to support Israeli Apartheid Week.⁵

Stephen Pollard - Editor of the Jewish Chronicle and friend of anti-Semites who support Israel

It is no accident that the Zionist movement in this country acted as the outrider for those who wanted to keep the Labour Party safe for capitalism. It is an article of faith for New Labour that they must stand firmly alongside US imperialism - which means unquestioning support for the Israeli state. ‘Anti-Semitism’ has become the rallying cry of The Guardian, its Comment is free editor Jonathan Freedland and liberal bourgeois opinion in general.

‘Anti-Semitism’ is today’s false anti-racism of the right.⁶ It is sometimes called ‘new anti-Semitism’ to distinguish it from the traditional variety. ‘New anti-Semitism’ has nothing to do with hatred of, discrimination or violence against Jews. It is about opposition to Zionism and the state of Israel.
According to Abe Foxman, former national director of the Anti-Defamation League (which specialises in defaming its opponents), Israel has become “the Jew among the nations”.⁷ Criticise Israel and you are criticising the collective Jew, which makes you an anti-Semite! If you criticise Israel for its confiscation of land or locking up Palestinian children and torturing them, then you are a vicious Jew hater. Telling the truth can be equivalent to anti-Semitism where Israel is concerned.

Zionist anti-Semitism

Of course, if you hate Jews but love Israel then there is no problem. Even English Defence League thugs understood this when they physically attacked the stall of Birmingham Palestine Solidarity Campaign, carrying an Israeli flag in one hand, whilst giving Hitler salutes with the other!⁸

Christian Zionism provides the best example of this form of anti-Semitism. According to pastor John Hagee, president of the million-strong Christians United for Israel, Adolf Hitler was not so much a genocidal anti-Semite as a hunter, sent by god to drive the Jews to Israel!⁹ According to Hagee’s interpretation of Jeremiah, Hitler was an agent of God! Abe Foxman, always eager to detect signs of ‘anti-Semitism’ when criticism of Israel is involved, leapt to Hagee’s support: “Pastor Hagee has devoted his life to combating anti-Semitism and supporting the state of Israel.”¹⁰

Stephen Pollard is a British replica of Foxman. In 2009, the Tories left the European People’s Party in the European parliament, and joined the European Conservative and Reformist Group. The ECRG contained far-right politicians such as Michał Kamiński of Poland’s Law and Justice Party and Robert Zile of Latvia’s For Fatherland and Freedom.

Both Kamiński and Zile had a record of support for fascism and anti-Semitism. On July 10 1941, up to 900 Jews were burnt alive in a barn by fellow Poles, under the approving eye of the SS, in the village of Jedwabne. Although the majority of Jedwabne’s population was Jewish before World War II, today there are no Jews left in what was a 300-year old community.¹¹ Polish-Jewish historian Jan Tomasz Gross estimated that 300 Jews had been burnt alive,¹² but a subsequent book by Anna Bikont¹³ revises these figures to over 900. The massacre led to a national Polish apology in 2001.
Jedwabne was represented by Kamiński in the Polish parliament from 1997. He vigorously campaigned against any apology. In an interview with the nationalist Nasza Polska newspaper in March 2001, Kamiński argued that Poles should not apologise for Jedwabne until Jews apologised for “murdering Poles”.¹⁴ Kamiński had previously worn the Mieczyk Chrobrego - the Chrobry sword, symbol of the National Radical Camp, which “practised violent anti-Semitism, including attacks on Jewish students, buildings and businesses, organised boycotts of Jewish businesses and attacks on leftwing groups”.¹⁵

None of this, however, stopped Pollard, who led the campaign to smear Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite, from defending Michał Kamiński. In a quite extraordinary article for The Guardian¹⁶ Pollard claimed that Kamiński was “one of the greatest friends to the Jews in a town [Brussels] where anti-Semitism and a visceral loathing of Israel are rife”. Note the sleight of hand. Kamiński is a “friend to the Jews” because of his support for Israel, notwithstanding the fact that he is an anti-Semite.

Historically anti-Semites have been some of the strongest supporters of Zionism, from Édouard Drumont and Heinrich Class to Adolf Eichmann and Alfred Rosenberg. Next year the Zionists will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, when Britain, in the form of its foreign secretary, Arthur James Balfour, agreed to sponsor the Zionist settlement in Palestine. Balfour was also the home secretary who, in 1905, introduced the Aliens Act, whose aim was to prevent Jewish refugees from Czarist Russia entering Britain.

Kamiński has been feted in Israel. Not only has he made the ritual trip to Yad Vashem, the holocaust propaganda museum in Jerusalem, but in 2009 he was a guest speaker at the World Summit on Counterterrorism conference at Herzliya.¹⁷

Robert Zile is also a fully paid up anti-Semite. Every March he marches with the veterans of the Latvian Waffen SS in Riga. Yet like Kamiński he is a strong supporter of Israel.

Appeasement

Instead of responding to the Zionist attacks on him by pointing to their hypocrisy, Corbyn has chosen to appease his critics by playing down his support for the Palestinians and retreating into meaningless soundbites.

For example, Corbyn sent a letter to a Zionist heckler at the Labour Friends of Israel meeting he addressed at Labour Party conference, reassuring him that he was pleased to “have the opportunity to express how I felt about progressing the peace process in the Middle East … Israel has always, and will continue to be, recognised by both myself and the Labour Party.”

Last week, following talks with Corbyn, the Board of Deputies of British Jews was quoted as saying that they “were pleased that Mr Corbyn gave a very solid commitment to the right of Israel to live within secure and recognised boundaries as part of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict”, whilst demanding “more clarity” that the Labour Party “will maintain its longstanding opposition to boycotts against Israel”.¹⁸

People need to face up to the fact that one of the consequences of the attacks on Corbyn has been a retreat from his previous political positions. I have never heard Corbyn previously speaking about the need to recognise the state of Israel. He used to be more concerned about recognising its repressive qualities. Instead of distinguishing between the oppressor and the oppressed, the coloniser and the colonised, Corbyn has depoliticised the issue, calling for peace in the abstract.

It is as if Corbyn had called for peace between white proponents of apartheid and black South Africans rather than supporting the abolition of apartheid. This is one of the political liabilities of Corbyn’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament-style politics. Instead of opposing imperialism and Zionist settler colonialism, Corbyn imagines that ‘conflict resolution’ via United Nations diplomacy will solve what is at heart a political problem - the racist oppression, dispossession and expulsion of the Palestinians.

No-one in Israel seriously believes that a two-state solution is achievable. There is not one government minister who supports it. The leader of the Israeli Labour Party, who is more hawkish than prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, also opposes a two-state solution. In the words of Israel’s religious nutcase and deputy foreign minister, Tzipi Hotoveli, “This land is ours. All of it is ours. We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognise Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere.”¹⁹

Corbyn retreats into the weasel words of Israel’s ‘right to exist’. The problem is not Israel’s rights, but the lack of Palestinian rights. Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. What does that mean? It is a state which counts how many Jews it has compared to non-Jews. It is an ethno-religious state, in which Jews have privileges compared to non-Jews. So, for example, because I am Jewish, I have an automatic right to ‘return’ to a state where I have never lived. Palestinians who were born in Jerusalem have no such right. But like all settler states, Israel is very good at portraying itself as the victim. Corbyn pays homage to Israel’s right to ‘secure borders’ (Israel frames its racism in terms of its own security needs), while it seems Palestinians have no need of security.

Not only is partition - a two-state solution - neither desirable nor feasible, but it serves as a pretext for Israel’s continuing denial of even the most basic civil or political rights for Palestinians in the occupied territories. ‘Two states’ provides a justification for a situation where there are two legal systems - military law for the Palestinians and civil Israeli law for Jewish settlers on the West Bank. The idea that Israel is going to withdraw over 600,000 settlers behind an imaginary green line is the stuff of dreams.

Jeremy Corbyn, as a patron of PSC, was a supporter of boycott, divestment and sanctions. But this is an issue over which he has recently gone very quiet. Corbyn has forgotten that Israel is a Jewish supremacist state, which defines its Jewishness in terms of maintaining an 80% Jewish majority population. It is a state where virtually all areas of public life, from housing to education and employment, are segregated. A symptom of Israel’s Nuremberg mentality is the decision of the education ministry to ban a book, Borderlife, from the high school syllabus because it depicts a romantic relationship between Jewish and Arab teenagers. In an ethno-religious state, inter-marriage is seen as equivalent to national treason, a betrayal of one’s racial kith and kin.²⁰

Corbyn’s retreat from the Palestinians is best demonstrated by the appointment of a rightwing Zionist, Fabian Hamilton, as a junior shadow foreign office minister. In a recent article Hamilton was quoted as saying that boycotting the Jewish state without taking action against other countries is “simply anti-Semitic”.²¹Perhaps Bishop Desmond Tutu and Ronnie Kasrils (a Jewish member of the African National Congress and former government minister in South Africa) are also anti-Semitic for supporting a boycott of Israel?

Hamilton said that he was “staggered” to have been appointed and that when he initially asked if his support for Israel was a problem, he was “told by Corbyn’s office in clear terms it wasn’t”. I was also staggered by this totally unnecessary concession to the Zionist right. The appointment of an open Zionist suggests that Corbyn has effectively decided to abandon his previous support for the Palestinians.

Appeasement of Labour Friends of Israel will not serve the cause of either socialism or peace in the Middle East. Nor will it help Corbyn’s own precarious position as leader. Quite the contrary.

Notes

1  . In 1982, following the passing of our successful amendment at the 1982 Labour Party conference, the Labour Committee on Palestine was taken over by the Workers Revolutionary Party, with the help of our Treasurer, Ted Knight.
2 . Daily Mail August 20 1938.
3 . Daily Mail August 7 2015.
4 . Jewish Chronicle August 12 2015.
5 . See letter from 22 Jewish people:
6 . See T Greenstein, ‘Redefining anti-Semitism - the false anti-racism of the right’ Return No5, December 1990.
7 . Israel now Jew Among Nations - Foxman
8 . The Fascist EDL Attacks Birmingham Palestine Solidarity Campaign Stall
9 . Hagee: Pro-Israel, Anti-Semitic?  The Nation  23.5.08.  Max Blumenthall.
10 . www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/hagee-still-sells-controv_b_107545.html.
11 . Pastor Hagee Still Sells Controversial 2005 'God Sent Hitler' Sermon, Apologizes To ADL For Wrong Sermon  Huff Post Politics 23.5.11.
12 . T Gross Neighbours: the destruction of the Jewish community in Jedwabne, Poland London 2000.
13 . The crime and the silence, which won the European Book Prize in 2011.
14 . The Observer October 11 2009.
15 . Jewish Chronicle October 10 2009.
16 . The Guardian October 9 2009.
17. World Summit on Counter Terrorism: Terrorism’s Global Impact - ICT’s 9th International Conference
18 . Jewish Chronicle February 9 2016.
19 . The Guardian May 22 2015.
20 . ‘Marriage to an Arab is national treason’ Ynet 27.3.07.  Roee Nahmias
21 . Jewish News January 13 2016.