Democracy and the Corrupt Seven (Eight) 453


UPDATE

So now it is eight. If you want to understand that the UK truly is not a functioning democracy, consider this. Joan Ryan is all over the MSM this morning as being the eighth defector to the Independent Group. Yet astonishingly, while she is universally reported as citing anti-semitism as the reason she is leaving, it appears not one MSM journalist has asked her about her receipt of US$1 million from the Israeli Embassy for spreading Israeli influence. Not one. Nor has any mainstream media outlet cited the fact in its reporting today. Most, of course, never even mentioned it at the time.

ORIGINAL

I have heard it argued again and again on television this last 48 hours that it is deeply undemocratic for the electorate to be offered a choice that is any more complicated than between Red Tories and Blue Tories. It is apparently unthinkable and deeply wrong that Corbyn’s standard German style social democracy – which is routinely labeled “hard left” and “communist” – should be proffered to voters for them to support, or not.

The overwhelmingly Blairite MPs have put this case again and again to Labour Party members in repeated leadership elections, and have been roundly and repeatedly defeated. But now, according to no less a person than Tom Watson, Deputy Leader of the party, the losers’ policies must be embraced by the Party and adopted by its leadership, as to do otherwise is an affront to democracy. I confess I find this argument impossible to follow.

Corbyn has compromised already to a huge extent, even accepting that a Labour government will retain massive WMDs, in deference both to the imperialist pretensions of the Blairites and the personal greed of the demented Strangeloves who comprise the membership of the GMB Union. Labour’s pro-Trident stance will persist, until such time as enough Blairites join this forced march, or rather chauffeur driven drive, across their personal caviar and champagne strewn desert to their promised land of media contracts, massively remunerated charity executive jobs, and non-executive directorships.

Democracy is a strange thing. This episode has revealed that it is apparently a democratic necessity that we have another referendum on Brexit, while being a democratic necessity not to have another referendum on Scottish Independence, while the notion that the MPs, who now have abandoned the party and manifesto on which they stood, might face their electorates again, is so disregarded that none of the fawning MSM journalists are asking about it. In rejecting this option, the Corrupt Seven are managing the incredible feat of being less honorable than Tory MPs defecting to UKIP, who did have the basic decency to resign and fight again on their new prospectus.

Dick Taverne is a more directly relevant precedent, particularly as he was deselected as sitting Labour MP precisely because of his support for the EU. Taverne resigned, and fought and won his seat in a by-election in 1973, before losing it in the second 1974 election. There are also precedents for crossing the floor and not resigning and fighting under your new banner, but then there are also precedents for mugging old ladies. It is deeply dishonorable.

Luciana Berger is a one trick pony and it is worth noting that her complaints about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party date back to at least 2005, while Tony Blair was still Prime Minister. Berger had already by April 2005 spotted anti-Semitism in the National Union of Students, in the Labour Party and in her student union newspaper, those being merely the examples cited in this single Daily Telegraph article. I am extremely sorry and somewhat shocked to hear of the swamp of anti-semitism in which we were all already mired in 2005, but I do find it rather difficult to understand why the fault is therefore that of Jeremy Corbyn. And given that Tony Blair was at that time Prime Minister for eight years, I cannot understand why it is all Corbyn’s fault and responsibility now, but it was not Blair’s fault then.

On the contrary, the Telegraph puff piece states that Berger had met Blair several times and was Euan Blair’s girlfriend. This was of course before the privately educated Londoner was foisted on the unfortunate people of Liverpool Wavetree, doubtless completely unfacilitated by her relationship with Euan Blair.

The kind of abuse Berger has evidently been attracting since at least 2005 is of course a crime. Two people have quite rightly been convicted of it. Joshua Bonehill-Paine and John Nimmo sent a series of truly disgusting tweets and both were jailed. Both are committed long term neo-nazis. Yet I have repeatedly heard media references to the convictions squarely in the context of Labour Party anti-semitism. I have never heard on broadcast media it explained that neither had anything to do with the Labour Party. Like the left wing anti-semitism Berger has been reporting since at least 2005, this Nazi abuse too is all somehow Jeremy Corbyn’s fault.

It is further worth noting that in that 2005 article Berger claims a 47% increase in attacks on Jews, which is highly reminiscent of recent claims from community groups, such as the 44% increase claimed 2015 to 2017 or the 78% increase in violent crimes against Jews in the UK in 2017 alone claimed by the government of Israel.

One antisemitic attack is too many and all anti-semitism is to be deplored and rooted out. But if all these claims repeated again and again over decades of 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70% increases in attacks per year were true, then we would be now talking of at least 12,000 violent attacks on Jews per year, if we take Ms Berger’s 2005 claim as the baseline.

Yet we are not seeing that. The average number of convictions per year for violent, racially motivated attacks on Jewish people in the UK is less than one.

If we add in non-violent crimes, the number of people convicted per year for anti-semitic hate crime still remains under 20. And I am not aware of a single such conviction related in any way to the Labour Party.

Let me be perfectly plain. I want everybody convicted and imprisoned who is involved in anti-semitic hate crime. But the facts given above would cause any honest journalist to treat with more scepticism than they do, the repeated old chestnut claims of huge year on year increases in anti-semitic incidents.

There really are in logic only two choices; either anti-semitism is, contrary to all the hype, thankfully rare, or the entire British police, prosecutorial and judicial system must be systematically protecting the anti-semites. And I hardly see how they could blame Jeremy Corbyn for that.

None of this will stop the relentless promotion of the “Corbyn anti-semitism” theme, as the idea of a leader not completely behind the slow extirpation of the Palestinian people is unthinkable to the mainstream media class. The Corbyn anti-semitism meme is possibly the most remarkable example of evidence free journalism I have ever encountered.

Still more fascinating is the way the broadcasters are going to devote an astonishing amount of time to these political puppets. Of one thing I can assure you – these seven MPs will get more airtime than the 35 MPs of the SNP, with at least twice as many Question Time and Today programme appearances.

At some stage they will have to form a new party, in order to get airtime in elections. At what stage Blair declares for them is an interesting question. It is also a crucial test of just how horribly degraded the Lib Dems have now become. My old friend Charlie Kennedy will be spinning in his grave at an alliance with the Blairite warmonger faction, but the modern party appears bereft of any of the old Liberal values, cleared away by Clegg and his fellow orange Tories. If the party members do not revolt at association with Mike Gapes and Angela Smith, it really is time to wind the party up.

That the Corrupt Seven are some of the most unpleasant people in British politics is not entirely relevant, nor is the question of which interest groups are funding them. They are just an emission of pus, a symptom of the rottenness of the British body politic. They have nothing interesting to say and are feeble tools of the wealthy, thrown out as protection for a crumbling political system. The end of the UK is not pretty, and this is one of its uglier moments. It really is beyond time to crack on with Scottish Independence and the reunification of Ireland.

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453 thoughts on “Democracy and the Corrupt Seven (Eight)

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  • David Robert Hann

    Fully agree with above article.Certain themes and words are being very cleverly used by these Labour right wingers. Every time they open their mouths they spout out about the Labour being antisemitic. However, this is just a cover up when really they are just out and out right wingers.They say the Labour Party no longer speaks for ordinary people.Can someone please tell me what the hell to they mean by ordinary.It is an adjective and subjective.It is a nice,squishy,warm fluffy word.Again the infamous seven say the Labour Party is no longer mainstream.Another word which is meaningless,an adjective and is subjective.It is also nice and fluffy.However, the seven say that the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is extremist.This is also an adjective and subjective,open to interpretation.But unlike the other words it is cold and harsh which can conjure up negative emotions.These right wingers are not daft,they are insidiously using these words for their own ends.

    • Terence callachan

      It used to be the case that you were accused of antisemitism if you hated Jews
      but now you are accused of antisemitism if Jews hate you
      I’ve been to Israel ,all the Arab towns and in between you will see the Israel flag every fifty metres along the road even in the countryside, it’s overwhelming even to an outsider tourist then in the towns the Israelis have put up barbed wire fences and lookout posts along the streets so that you have to pass through a turnstile barrier and show I.D.to a soldier who is usually a kid doing Israeli national service all part of the training how to mistreat the Arabs and sympathisers.
      As I walked up a road a group of three teenage Israeli soldiers stared at me pointed and discussed me from fifty metres away and pointed a machine gun at me following me in their sights for a couple of hundred metres up the road.
      Jerusalem is a crazy place you wouldn’t believe the behaviour of Israelis towards Arabs , the Arabs have to defer always, they hav3 to give up their seat on buses are not allowed to eat in the same place and not allowed to look at Israelis if they do the patrolling soldiers are called and they just wallop people openly in the street shouting and belittling them.
      If you get the chance you should go and see it for yourself.

      • Garth Carthy

        What gets in my craw is that Israel condemns non-Jews left, right and centre with largely spurious accusations of anti-Semitism and racism while they are themselves being racist by claiming to be ‘God’s chosen race’.
        A certain Adolf Hitler thought the Aryan German race were the chosen ones and look what he did to the Jews.
        It’s such a sad irony that the race so appallingly oppressed and murdered en masse by Hitler is itself now controlled by a similarly styled Nazi-like leadership with its all its propaganda and oppression of the Palestinians.

        We often read about how those who are abused often themselves become abusers.
        Is this what has happened with those Jews that hate Palestinians and their supporters so much?
        Or is it simply because the US, with the massive backing of the Jewish Neo-cons, supports the extreme right Israeli government. Who knows?

        • Jo Dominich

          Garth, good questions. I seem to remember that, when Yasser Arafat was Leader of the Palestinians he made huge concessions in order to achieve peace and create a Palestinian State alongside the Israeli State – a two state solution. When, I think it was Bibi became President following this Israeli/Palestinian accord, Bibi immediately renegued on what Israel had negotiated and agreed citing support from the USA to do so. In short, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat negotiated a peace deal in which Arafat had made significant concessions. Trouble is Bibi wants to erase the Palestinians through Genocide – if it wasn’t for Medecins Sans Frontier – the massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli Government would never had been made public or come to light. Bibi refused and blocked a United Nations Investigation. The simple truth is, Bibi h as no interest whatsoever in peace – he enjoys, really really enjoys, massacring Palestinians, genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid. He doesn’t want it any other way does he?

    • Garth Carthy

      @michael norton

      Yes. It’s also strange how many Jews comprise the Neo-Con gang and predominate in other positions of power (Kissinger being the ultimate example).
      Is it because the Jews have always been persecuted over the centuries and so they have over-compensated in reaction to being ostracised?
      So then, why have they always been so persecuted? Is it jealousy? They do have a wealth of talent for making money but in fairness, they have also produced some of the great contributors to humankind: Einstein, Niels Bohr, Chomsky, Marx, Spinoza, Freud, Bob Dylan etc. etc.
      Whatever the answer, it’s very sad that the Israel State has proved to be every bit as vindictive and immoral as the State departments in the rest of the world.

  • michael norton

    Gavin Shuker is going to be the spokesperson for the New Labour Independent Group, not Chukka.

  • Durak

    Witchhunt comes to mind, and even this is becoming apparent to the masses. They can only bullshit so much without losing credibility.

    Funny how all the anti-semites are conveniently NOT Blairites!

    Strange that.

    • Garth Carthy

      I think Corbyn and McDonnell may rue the day they kept apologising for all this alleged anti-Semitism.
      It’s patently obvious that the ‘Friends of Israel’ aka ‘Enemies of the truth’ will never allow Corbyn to remain leader whatever concessions he makes and they will think of some new ways of getting rid of him even if the public become fed up of their present disgusting behaviour.

      As most of us on Craig’s blog will know, not all Jews approve of the anti-Semitic slurs against Corbyn but I think the Party needs to rid itself of any Blairites and others who make exaggerated or false claims of anti-Semitism.
      In the short term, the Party will lose a lot of people but at least they will be much less divided and will still be able to form a strong opposition – especially if the Greens and others join forces.
      Things can only get worse while the Tories are in power but it’s no use trying to fight them with a Labour Party that is, in effect half Tory.

    • michael norton

      Yes, I also thought there seemed to be an alignment
      Blairite, loving wars/E.U./Israel

      I wonder if they have free holidays in Israel?

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