I have now read my way through all 851 pages of the suppressed and leaked Labour Party report on its handling of anti-semitism complaints. It is an important document, that is fundamental to understanding a major turning point in UK history, where Northern European social democracy failed to re-establish itself in the UK.
If whoever leaked the document still has access to the vast amount of original source material on which it is based, this is documentation of immense historical value. I would strongly urge them to send the original thousands of emails, texts and messages to Wikileaks to ensure that this is preserved for the public record.
More mundanely, the report is of obvious value as evidence to the Equality and Human Rights Commission as part of its investigation into anti-semitism in the Labour Party. The fact that it has not been officially adopted by the Labour Party does not make any difference to its value as evidence; nor does its status as regards copyright or data protection law.
If, for example, I were to discover evidence of blatant racism, and send that to the EHRC, the EHRC would not refuse to look at that evidence on the grounds it breached the racists’ copyright or rights under the Data Protection Act. These excuses for suppression of the report are just that. I am accordingly myself sending a copy on to the EHRC making just that point. I find it rather troubling that Keir Starmer seems more interested in suppressing this report than acting on its alarming findings – and I say that as someone who is not initially hostile to Starmer.
What are the key points we learn from the report? Well, firstly that there did exist among Labour Party members examples of genuinely shocking and indisputable anti-semitism. It is also true that in many cases the processes of dealing with these individuals did drag on for months or even years. Much of the report is concerned with precisely whose fault that was within the Labour Party.
The report does conclusively refute the accusation that delays were occasioned by Jeremy Corbyn or his office, or that his office displayed any sympathy for anti-semitism. In fact, the opposite is the case. Corbyn’s office showed a proper hatred of anti-semitism, but also an alarming willingness to throw good people under the bus on very flimsy allegations of anti-semitism. pp306-7 The report shows a serious inability to distinguish between real, nasty anti-semitism and opposition to the policies of Israel. Furthermore, this is the attitude of the authors of the report themselves who in many scores of examples take for granted that the accusations of anti-semitism are sufficient to consider the case proven, and accept a number of specified opinions as proof of anti-semitism which are anything but.
The headlines of course have been grabbed by the report’s stunning exposure of the fact that Labour HQ was staffed by right wingers so vehemently anti-Corbyn that they actively wanted the Conservatives to win elections. I think it is important to understand just how right wing they really are. Senior members of staff were messaging each other opposing any increase in corporation tax and opposing re-nationalisation of the railways as “Trot” policies.
The case of the horrible and very right wing John McTernan is instructive. McTernan had taken to writing articles in the Daily Telegraph praising the Tories and attacking Labour, but the Governance and Legal Unit of Party HQ refused to take action against him. They finally took action when he wrote an article urging the Tories to “crush the rail unions” for hampering the operations of private railway companies; but the action taken was to suspend a member who called McTernan out on his Tory support. p.140
John McTernan, meanwhile, formerly involved in New Labour and a delegate to 2016 party conference, was repeatedly reported from 25 July onwards for abusive language on Twitter and elsewhere, including describing Labour MPs who nominated Corbyn as “morons”; tweeting twice that Corbyn was a “traitor”; describing “Corbynistas” as racist; telling an SNP MP that he should “Come down to Peckham and try saying that, mate”; calling Corbyn a “Putin-hugging, terrorist-loving, Trident-hater”; and writing in the Daily Telegraph that all of Corbyn’s supporters were “online trolls”.368
No action was taken, and McTernan received the staff decision “No action – removed at referral”. On 18 August, however, Dan Hogan did report a member of McTernan’s CLP, Omar Baggili, who – in response to an article by McTernan in “The Telegraph” urging the Conservative government to “crush the rail unions once and for all” – tweeted at him “seriously John why haven’t you got yourself a Tory membership card. They’re anti unions & pro privatisation like you.”369 Baggili was suspended for “abuse”.
This is by no means an isolated example. One of my favourites is the case of Andy Bigham (pp538-45), who initially came to the attention of the Governance and Legal Unit for suggesting Corbyn was a traitor and Diane Abbot should be “locked in a box”. This was considered insufficient for action to be taken against him, and incredibly this stance was still maintained even when he subsequently posted that he had voted Conservative, urged others to vote Conservative and became the administrator of a Conservative Party Facebook Group.
Meanwhile left wingers were being thrown out of the party for having advocated a Green vote years before they joined, or for calling MPs who supported the Iraq war “warmonger”. The report makes an overwhelming case that the Governance and Legal Unit of the Labour Party failed to take action on accusations of anti-semitism because it was devoting all of its energies to a factional effort to remove Corbyn supporters from the party.
These right wing staff were hoping for Labour electoral defeats in order to get rid of Corbyn. Senior Labour staff were actually hoping Labour would lose its seat in the Manchester Gorton by-election.
27/02/2017, 16:53 – Patrick Heneghan: Just had discussion at strategy meeting We will meet Steve and Andy next Monday – we are looking at all 3 in May but select in Gorton within 4 weeks Katy will speak to you/Iain
27/02/2017, 16:53 – Patrick Heneghan: From karie
27/02/2017, 16:54 – Patrick Heneghan: They didn’t include us in the discussion.
27/02/2017, 16:54 – Patrick Heneghan: Well let’s hope the lib dems can do it….113
It has long been known that there was tension between Corbyn and Labour HQ staff over allocation of resources to key marginals in the 2017 general election. What I had not known prior to this report is that HQ staff set up another organisation (p.92), based in another building, to divert party funds and secretly channel them to the campaigns of their favoured right wing MPs. On p.103 is detailed the horror expressed by Labour Party HQ staff at the Labour Party’s good performance in the 2017 election. People were “sickened” by the exit poll showing the Tories losing their majority.
The emails and messages quoted throughout the report are a tiny percentage of those available and are, of course, the selection of the authors of the report. That is why I call on them to dump the whole cache, which they say is many tens of thousands, to Wikileaks. One theme which continually crops up in the selected passages for quotation, but a theme on which the authors of the report scarcely comment, is that support for British military attacks abroad appeared to be the touchstone issue for who was “in” and who was “out” with Labour Party HQ staff.
The Manchester terror attack occurred in the middle of the 2017 General Election campaign. Corbyn bravely, and correctly, stated something that had been unsayable in mainstream UK political discourse – that British invasions abroad provoke terrorism at home. Labour Party HQ staff hoped and believed this would sink Corbyn and were actively wishing Labour to fall in the polls. pp 96-7
Jo Greening 09:12: and I shall tell you why it is a peak and the polling was done after the Manchester attack so with a bit of luck this speech will show a clear polling decline and we shall all be able to point to how disgusting they truly are
(now obviously we know it was never real – but that isnt the point in politics!)
Francis Grove-White 09:13: Yeah I’m sure that’s right
Francis Grove-White 09:16: My fears are that: a) the speech won’t go down as badly as it deserves to thanks to the large groundswell of ill-informed opposition to all western interventions. And b) they will use that poll to claim they were on course to win and then Manchester happened. And whether or not JC goes, lots of the membership will buy that argument. Like after the referendum when they distorted the polling and claimed we had overtaken the Tories before the “coup” happpened
Jo Greening 09:17: if this speech gets cut through – as I think it may – it will harden normal people against us definitely in the face of a terror attack normal people do not blame foreign intervention they blame immigration whats more – all they will hear is we dont want to respond strongly we want peace with ISIS it all plays into a bigger picture of how they see corbyn so I have a feeling this will cut through you are right on the second point it has to be up to the MPs though to demonstrate how toxic he is on the doorstep throughout but that this speech particularly was toxic and Manchester had happened when that poll was in the field on the supporters I personally think we are going to do very badly in deed and I think it will shock a lot of them how badly we do including JC so everyone has to be ready when he is in shock it has to be clean and brutal and not involve the party at all in my opinion those crazy people who now make up our membership never want us to win in anycase they are communists and green supporters even if Manchester hadnt happened and we got smashed they would have never changed their minds
Francis Grove-White 09:23: Yeah that’s true
My emphasis added to show just how right wing thinking is at Labour Party HQ.
To return to the failure to deal with cases of anti-semitism, a great deal of the problem appears to have arisen from sheer incompetence of staff. The Labour HQ staff had been inherited from the Blair years, and factional loyalty and a history of right wing political activity related to the Progress agenda were much more important in employment decisions than qualifications or competence. The Governance and Legal Unit, which handled the complaints of anti-semitism, was staffed by vehemently anti-Corbyn right wingers and was a bad actor; but it was also just useless.
The most basic systems were not in place, like a log of complaints/allegations – there was no log at all, let alone by category – and there was therefore no system for tracking the progress of individual cases. Emails went unanswered or even unread for many months, sometimes in email boxes which nobody attended. The epicentre of this incompetence was Sam Matthews, who was to be the star of the BBC’s Panorama programme “Is Labour Anti-Semitic” and the primary source of the allegations that Corbyn’s office was preventing action and protecting anti-semites.
It is impossible to read this report – and I have ploughed through all 851 pages – without coming to the conclusion that Matthews himself was responsible for a great deal of inertia. The report hints throughout that the failure to deal with anti-semitic Labour Party members was a deliberate act by party HQ staff in order to make Corbyn look bad. This evidence does not make that case conclusively, though it certainly does nothing to undermine it. The report expresses the suspicion most clearly in a passage on a period where Sam Matthews started inundating Corbyn’s office with requests for input on anti-semitism cases only later to produce the replies to him as evidence of unhelpful interference. This is a key passage of the Report (LOTO = Corbyn’s office):
However, Matthews’ emails reveal that he was the person who initiated a process of asking LOTO for their views on cases, on the basis that he was asking for their “help”, explicitly saying “it’s really helpful to have your input”. Matthews has also asserted:
“I had been privy to emails where Jeremy Corbyn’s Chief of Staff, Karie Murphy, was responding on a case by case basis on antisemitism in order to not suspend someone who they all knew damn well should be suspended.
I thought I just can’t countenance this.”1290
Matthews’ assertions about Murphy are also untrue. Murphy responded to GLU-GSO on just one case, Craig Allaker, agreeing with Emilie Oldknow’s suggestion of a membership rejection. Murphy’s other emails indicate that she did not want GLU involving LOTO in disciplinary cases and she questioned why Matthews had suddenly started involving them.
The conclusion of the Labour Party is that Matthews and possibly others in GLU-GSO instigated this process of consultation with LOTO, and proposed suspensions in some cases for conduct which GLU had previously not considered to merit any form of disciplinary action. This was later used by the same staff to accuse LOTO of involvement in antisemitism cases or of letting off antisemites, blaming LOTO and Jeremy Corbyn for GLU’s inaction on antisemitism complaints.. It may have been GLU and GSO’s intention to make this accusation when they initiated this process of consulting LOTO.
The report proves conclusively that Matthews’ allegations of unwarranted interference from Corbyn’s office to block anti-semitism action are malicious lies. It does not however conclusively show that his motive for asking for input from Corbyn’s office was to generate material to appear to substantiate his lies, not does it show conclusively that his incompetence and that of the Governance and Legal Unit in general was a deliberate ploy to make Corbyn look bad. These are not, however, unreasonable inferences.
What this report proves beyond any doubt is that the entire thrust of John Ware’s infamous Panorama episode, Is Labour Anti-Semitic, was simply wrong. Corbyn’s office was not responsible for lack of action over anti-semitism. The people responsible were the very people whom Ware chummed up with to make the allegations.
All involved were bad actors, including John Ware. He made no attempt to fairly assess or present the facts, or to hear the counter-arguments of those close to Jeremy Corbyn, and appears at the very best to have accepted an extremely selective presentation of written material from Matthews without proper question. But it is of course worse than that.
John Ware, a freelance journalist, was hired by the BBC to make that documentary despite a long history of anti-Muslim, and specifically anti-Palestinian, propaganda that had previously brought the BBC into disrepute and cost the license fee payer money.
In 2006 a John Ware produced Panorama programme Faith, Hate and Charity made deeply damaging false accusations about involvement with terrorism by Palestinian relief charity Interpal and caused the BBC to have to pay substantial damages to the director of another charity, Islamic Relief. Both Interpal and Islamic Relief have continually been targeted by the Israeli government.
John Ware has frequently been labeled an Islamophobe, including repeatedly by the Muslim Council of Britain. There is a double standard at play here. I suggest to you that it is simply the case that the BBC would never commission somebody denounced as “anti-semitic” by the Board of Deputies, more than once, to film a Panorama.
John Ware is proud of his activism for zionism. In 2016 Ware had a paid propaganda tour of Israel as part of a “Commitment Award” from the World Women’s International Zionist Organisation. Ware is perfectly entitled to write articles for the Jewish Chronicle attacking the BDS movement, and he is entitled to his views. But in the BBC Panorama Is Labour anti-Semitic? programme, Ware posed not as a strong pro-Israel propagandist, but as an independent journalist conducting unbiased investigation. In so doing, he allowed Sam Matthews and numerous other Labour staff members to put forward lie after lie after lie, which Ware appeared to validate, as is conclusively proven by this 851 page report.
I am not in a position to know whether John Ware knowingly connived in the lies, or whether he was so blinded by his deeply felt zionist ideology that he allowed himself to be taken in. I do know that today John Ware is engaged in fronting an attempt to takeover the Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News, which has drawn criticism from within the Jewish community because the source of its finance is secret. It was plainly wrong for the BBC to hire somebody with the obvious axe to grind of John Ware to make a Panorama documentary on this subject.
Like the rest of the mainstream media, and like Keir Starmer, the BBC has taken the excuse of this Labour report “breaching the data protection act” to avoid reporting the contradiction of the lies the BBC spewed out for years. You wont find Nick Robinson, Laura Keunssberg or Andrew Neil tweeting enthusiastically about this story. Never have journalists been so united in refusing hard news information because of the dubious legal basis – though unquestioned first rate source and access – of the leak. The Guardian for four years ran up to twenty “Corbyn anti-semitism” stories and columns a week. Their only action on this report has been to denigrate it by reporting gleefully that the Labour Party may be sued for large sums under the Data Protection Act.
To turn to the report itself, it contains so many examples of Corbyn’s office pressing the Governance and Legal Unit to shove alleged anti-semites out of the party quickly, that I am not going to detail them here, but it includes all the high profile cases including Ken Livingstone, Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker etc. It is plain from reading the report that the Governance and Legal Unit were both lackadaisical and incompetent – complaints against anti-semitism were a minority of complaints they received, and complaints of sexual harrassment were receiving even less action (p.264). But sporadically the party machinery appears more concerned to give a fair hearing than Corbyn’s office, who would just shoot anyone the Guardian requested.
There are horrific examples of anti-semitism within the report, but also instances where I would query the categorisation as anti-semitism not only of Labour HQ at the time, but of this report.
At p.214 a case is given of somebody deemed an anti-semite for quoting the Rothschild involvement in Genie Energy fracking in the Golan Heights. Now I claim to be the person who first broke this story to a wider audience, (after finding it in the trade press), and it is completely true. Here is Genie Energy’s own press release.
Mineral exploitation of the occupied Syrian Global Heights by the occupying power is illegal in international law. Shale gas drilling is highly problematic environmentally. It is Genie Energy’s own company press release which led with the involvement of Jacob Rothschild (and Rupert Murdoch).
Claude Pupkin, CEO of Genie Oil and Gas, commented, “Genie’s success will ultimately depend, in part, on access to the expertise of the oil and gas industry and to the financial markets. Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch are extremely well regarded by and connected to leaders in these sectors. Their guidance and participation will prove invaluable.”
“I am grateful to Howard Jonas and IDT for the opportunity to invest in this important initiative,” Lord Rothschild said. “Rupert Murdoch’s extraordinary achievements speak for themselves and we are very pleased he has agreed to be our partner. Genie Energy is making good technological progress to tap the world’s substantial oil shale deposits which could transform the future prospects of Israel, the Middle East and our allies around the world.”
I perfectly accept that there is a fundamental strain of anti-semitism that accuses the Rothschilds and other “Jewish bankers” of controlling world capitalism, and that this is dangerous and harmful nonsense beloved of the Nazis. The Labour report actually gives some examples of precisely that. But you cannot move from there to the position that any criticism of any specific action of the Rothschild family is therefore anti-semitism. To criticise their involvement in illegally fracking on the occupied Golan Heights is perfectly legitimate journalism. It is not an anti-semitic trope.
Similarly it is cited repeatedly (eg p.461) as “anti-semitism” to claim Israeli involvement with ISIS. Why is that? Nobody seriously disputes that the most important diplomatic change in the Middle East of the last decade has been the de facto alliance of Israel and Saudi Arabia (together with most of the GCC), aimed squarely at Iran. Nobody seriously disputes that ISIS, Daesh and Al Nusra have all been enabled at a fundamental level by Saudi and GCC funding and supplies. Some, but very few, analysts genuinely deny western assistance to those jihadi factions when operating against Syria. Nobody disputes the hostility between Isis/Daesh/Al Nusra and not only Hezbollah but also Hamas.
ISIS/Daesh/Al Nusra are the allies of Israel’s allies and the enemies of Israel’s enemies. It is not in the least irrational, nor anti-semitic, to posit possible cooperation. Personally I doubt there has been much – the Israelis are not as foolhardy as the Americans. The odd supportive air strike at Saudi urging, or targeted aid, or intelligence feed perhaps. There may be more. But the idea that it is anti-semitic to suggest Israeli aid to ISIS is wrong, and brings inyo play the question of the use of accusations of anti-semitism to chill legitimate analysis and criticism of Israel.
On Ken Livingstone, I do not think in the least that Ken is an anti-semite. I do however think he is wrong. I have always found the discourse around Nazi/Zionist links disturbing and generally anti-semitic in motivation. Of course there may have been contact at some early stage between Nazis who wished to eradicate Jews from Europe, and Zionists who wished Jews to move to Israel. But what purpose is there in pointing that out? The Jew-hatred of the Nazis is indisputable, and any misguided Zionist who tried to deal with them was not therefore a Nazi supporter. It is a pointless discussion with highly unpleasant undertones. How Ken was entrapped into it I struggle to understand.
The report is desperate to be seen as approving Labour’s now toughness on anti-semitism, and therefore endorses the characterisation of people as anti-semites whom I know not to be. Several instances are given of quoting or linking to Gilad Atzmon as evidence of anti-semitism, seemingly with no need felt to analyse the particular Atzmon article being quoted. Atzmon is of course an Israeli Jew of controversial views particularly on Jewish identity, but it ought not to be axiomatic that to refer to Atzmon is anti-semitic.
Some of this is troubling. We are all more aware nowadays of historic involvement in the slave trade. The BBC recently did some excellent programmes on Scotland and the slave trade. Yet the report contains an analysis by the Community Security Trust p.363 that states that to discuss Jewish involvement in the slave trade (in the instance in question, it was a Jewish person discussing) is an anti-semitic trope. The dangers of this approach are obvious. I have not studied it, and I doubt that Jewish involvement in the slave trade was as bad as Scottish. But I do not doubt it existed, and it ought to be equally as open as Scottish involvement to investigation and comment. You cannot dismiss just everything that may show any group of Jewish people in a bad light as “an anti-semitic trope”.
In short, in my view the report correctly identifies the existence of genuine antisemitism from a small minority of Labour Party members. It correctly identifies that the Labour Party machinery was highly incompetent in dealing with the vast majority of complaints of anti-semitism. It identifies that almost all input from Corbyn’s office was demanding tougher and firmer action. But it makes the error, in its desire to clear the Labour Party of any taint of anti-semitism, of enthusiastically endorsing definitions of anti-semitic behaviour which are so wide as to chill legitimate free speech.
So what conclusions can we form? Well, the first is that Corbyn failed to be sufficiently ruthless in clearing out the quite extraordinarily right wing Blairites that he had inherited as Labour Party HQ staff. The Labour Party is a horribly complex institution, with elected committees, and powerful unions to appease who control the purse strings. But Blair and Brown had managed to create a machine in their own right wing image, and it is hard to read this report without concluding that Corbyn lacked the ruthlessness required in a leader to spot enemies and be rid of them.
But then, his not being a ruthless bastard is why so many people flocked to support Corbyn in the first place.
The second point is that Corbyn’s tactic of constantly attempting to appease the media on anti-semitism was never going to work. The right wing press and TV had no genuine interest in anti-racism, other than as a tool to prevent the possible election of a European style social democratic government. Neither the media nor the Blairites were ever going to reconcile to Corbyn. We will never know what would have happened if he had come out and denounced the witch-hunt as an attempt to stifle supporters of the Palestinians, and spoken openly of Israel’s move to apartheid. He had the nerve to take on the establishment narrative when he stated that British military invasions cause terrorist blowback at home, and won public support. Whether a firm line on Palestine and calling out the witch-hunt would have had a better result than giving way before ten thousand unfair attacks, we can never know.
There are more general points therefore to consider about the nature of power and of political parties. I intend to address these in a further article – including some very worrying similarities with the staff and orientation of SNP HQ.
With grateful thanks to those who donated or subscribed to make this reporting possible.
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I agree Corbyn should have been tougher with the plotters, but such Blairite ruthlessness simply wasn’t in the man’s nature and the left was too small a part of the PLP to sustain what could’ve turned into a brutal internal war. And rumours were constantly swirling in the press that Tom Watson would lead 60-80 MPs out of the party to form a new party should Corbyn attempt any such purge. That was in days before what became Change UK- TIG showed what an empty threat that split threat was in reality.
The only thing Corbyn could’ve done differently is to have introduced some form of mandatory reselection or better, open selection for MPs, so CLPs can rid themselves of those who are too right-wing and/or were most disloyal during that time.
“The only thing Corbyn could’ve done differently is to have introduced some form of mandatory reselection or better, open selection for MPs, so CLPs can rid themselves of those who are too right-wing and/or were most disloyal during that time…”
But he couldn’t. This involved a Conference decision and Conference, no thanks to Corbyn, decided against mandatory re-selection, which, historically, was, I believe, always within the CLP’s power until the ’90s. What happened at Conference and the roles of McDonnell, Lansman and the Unions is going to fill a fascinating chapter of the inevitable best seller, which ought to be available for Christmas.
Well, I mean he(Corbyn) could have expressed a desire for it and put great emphasis on his determination to make it happen. It could have been Corbyn’s legacy; to fully democratise the party at local(CLP) level.
Chris Williamson toured the country arguing for it and Corbyn did what exactly to support those efforts?
Corbyn wouldn’t even stand by Williamson as those MPs opposed to open selection hounded him out of the party under the guise of AS. And I do think the reason Williamson is so despised by many RW Labour MPs, is that campaigning for open selection , not AS as presented – the evidence for which is flimsy, very threadbare.
Calling the bluff of the fascist wing and the zionist-antisemites was the only thing that could have redeemed the abysmal chances of the Corbyn regime. He lacked the guts, not the ruthlessness – look how quick he was to Judas the victims of the zionist-antisemites.
Craig writes: “…there did exist among Labour Party members examples of genuinely shocking and indisputable anti-semitism.” As a Labour Party member I have long been wondering what such examples consisted of. Can someone point me to the details?
The report is full of definite examples. Including most of those listed pp 270-2.
Thank you, Craig.
Most of the examples mentioned on those pages and (from a brief scan) elsewhere in the report seem to me to be trivial. I expected some generalised anti-Jewish rants but didn’t find any yet. There are some adverse references to rich bankers. There are sound historical and cultural reasons why a number of well-known banks were founded by members of Jewish families. For instance, educated Jews in mid-19th century Bavaria were excluded for most professions (other than medicine) and from government service. That was serious institutional top-down anti-Semitism. Rather than join the family business some Franconian Jews chose to emigrate, including the eponymous founders of banks such as Goldman, Sachs and Lehman Brothers, each of whom came from families of Landjuden (rural Jews) in the cattle-dealing trade. If big banks are a problem now, that is because they are too big and not because some of them are or were Jewish-owned.
In any mass-membership party there will be a few ill-informed individuals with an axe to grind, nowadays able to use social media. Anyone spouting fantasies about international conspiracies by rich Jews will have no influence at any level within an organisation such as the Labour Party which rightly prides itself on not discriminating against anybody on the grounds of their ethnicity.
I posted a comment merely expressing the view that naming people in this report was unfair. They weren’t given an opportunity in it to respond, they haven’t been found guilty of any crime, and here we have trial by leaked report. Appalling.
Wouldn’t it be better instead of deleting my comment you had an argument against it? You were accused of anti-semitism Craig and you we’re in a position to defend yourself… money for a lawyer, this blog and so on… so I’m really taken aback.
Christ is that you H? You still spouting the establishment point of view, you do know that you don’t have to read the bloody article if you don’t want to. However I don’t recall, you ever preaching from your high horse in defence of say Assange, or Snowden.
Give it a rest H, we all know your angle you have no credibility in here ?
I’m not “H”, whoever that is, so your post is just silly.
You certainly comment like H, you have a slightly shortened version of H’s name into the bargain, you could be another though from the same Augean stables as H, they were long overdue a clear out.
Generally, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck , and quacks like a duck, then its a duck.
I posted a comment merely expressing the view that naming people in this report was unfair. They weren’t given an opportunity in it to respond, they haven’t been found guilty of any crime, and here we have trial by leaked report…
I really don’t know what your’e bleating about. They “haven’t been found guilty of any crime” because they haven’t been accused of any crime. So they’re not being subjected to “trial by leaked report”.
What they have been accused of is being lying two-faced aerosols who pretended to be working on behalf of the Labour Party while they were actually doing their best to undermine it and actually lose elections. If they don’t like that and they want the right to respond they are perfectly entitled to tell their version of the story. Nobody’s stopping them. I’ll give them a fair hearing.
I’m talking about the ordinary members of the Labour party who have been reported/labelled for anti-antisemitism as per the first post in this branch. That may not be obvious given that my first posts were removed… yet the tone of your response… big-cased quote… “bleating”… “lying two-faced aerosols”… and jumping to wrong conclusions about who I’m talking about… all go against you being someone who gives fair hearings…
@Habbak Hypocrite.
Back again?
In fact you invited other people to financially contribute to your defense… but when some other people are also called anti-semitic without a proper hearing… just a selective quote or action stated in this report… you call it definite anti-semitism. I know none of these people by the way, but naming ordinary members in a report in that way is unseemly.
Anonymity for the accused is a principle of British justice of which I was previously unaware. Certainly it is one more honoured in the breach than the observance.
It looks like these members have been reported to the Labour party (behind their back as it were) and the report hasn’t been acted upon. Perhaps they don’t even have any idea that any of this happened, and the first they’ll find out about it, if they ever do, is via this report – already published and naming them – of which they knew nothing.
@ Habbak April 21, 2020 at 10:08
So they can sue, if the cap doesn’t fit. They have plenty of dosh they have accumulated from members’ fees for doing a job to forward the Labour Party, when what they did was undermine it. I hope the Labour Party is bankrupted – that would ensure a Left Wing alternative party was created, that would tell the BoD what they could do with their IHRA definition; it would be far better than the faux ‘Labour Party’ continuing under right-wing control.
And members of the unions whose leaders voted for Starmer need to consider electing leaders who represent them, not the Establishment and their puppets.
Perhaps they don’t even have any idea that any of this happened, and the first they’ll find out about it, if they ever do, is via this report…
I’m sure you’re right Habbak. it happens to me all the time. I constantly send out strings of abusive emails and Whatsapp messages, reviling my colleagues and boasting about all the things I’m doing to undermine my employers – but I never know a thing about it until some nasty bully publishes them in a report.
Stonky – read my above reply before you do another post, please.
Why is Habbabkuk allowed back on here? Read what he says about Craig Murray and his blog on Twitter under another assumed name, Harry Johnson.
https://mobile.twitter.com/harryjo10476684
‘Another overlong, boring post from Craig Murray on his appalling website http://craigmurray.org.uk, he’s back on the “Labour is not anti-semitic” kick again. Guaranteed to get his anti-semitic followers all excited (they are many)!
Recognize the style?
Why does Murray bother, one wonders….’
Mr. Murray, you addressed to pages 270-2 of the report.
Yes, indeed, there are examples of obvious anti-semitism, e.g. irrational hatred or, I don’t know how to describe, these silly statements of the person Csatlos-Graudins.
But, along with that, the phrase by Andrew Bryant, which clearly lacks context.
I would be very grateful if you could clarify for what reason such a statement was made. Was it made on Holocaust, or?
If the details are unknown, then at least I hope I could rely on your own assessment. I trust your knowledge and experience and would like to know if you rate this phrase as “directly antisemitic comment”?
My own opinion is – if Bryant’s phrase refers to the Holocaust or other historical injustices of the Jewish people, then I disagree with him.
If the phrase describes how today they refer to historical events in order to prevent criticism of their modern actions, then I also see this, as does Bryant.
@ Tatyana April 21, 2020 at 10:47
I read pages 269 -285; I found little there I would class as anti-Semitic, and agree with most of it.
The essence of Zionism was stealing other people’s land, and expelling , killing or disenfranchising them.
Paul, I believe what you say demonstrates a strong need for either new descriptions, or clearer phrasing.
Zionism is, to some, simply Israel’s right to exist; which is complicated by the fact that it already does, so being anti-Zionist could come across as wanting to destroy or depopulate an existing nation.
The argument of Israel’s initial right to be founded was controversial at the time, but it’s happened now, and retroactively wanting to deny that right would be extremely messy.
However, Zionism is mixed in with some far-right nationalism, along with a need for territorial expansion by conquest. *That* is the bit that most people are angry about. By all means protest against the far right, against ultranationalism, against territorial conquest.
I would use the word Zionism with extreme caution, or better still, not at all. Because the latter examples of very legitimate criticism is easily conflated with the former.
It may make more sense for the left to accept Israel’s existence on the 1949 or 1967 borders, but to categorically reject all forms of illegal expansion. No need to give it a label.
@ Rob April 21, 2020 at 11:44
Israel was created by underhand backroom deals and terrorism by Zionists; and the great majority of modern Zionists agree with their governments’ treatment of the Palestinians.
So that is the way I shall continue to refer to them, as I can think of no better description.
And I know they have much greater goals than even ‘Greater Israel’, and are well on the way to accomplishing them, but it will all end in tears.
I believe a return to the pre-Six Day War 1967 borders would be accepted by most Palestinians, even though it would be grossly unjust, but I also know Israel would not accept it.
There is only one solution – Armageddon. And that will solve a lot of other issues too.
Not that it’s relevant, but I was actually in Jordanian-controlled Palestine in February 1967, including in East Jerusalem and Aqaba (where I was briefly questioned by Jordanian security), in a meander off the overland ‘Hippie Trail’ to India.
As you’re repeating the names of people mentioned in the report, despite my objection that it is not fair or proportionate, you should be putting your own full name in the name box surely?
Ditto “Bayard” and probably “Republicofscotland”
(I wait…)
@Rob
Typical excuses for the third and last apartheid shitehole to desecrate the earth. I wonder if your apologetics extend to the Smith regime or the Boers? No state has a right to exist, not East Prussia or Sudetenland nor the zionist occupation of Palestine. The Euro and ex-Euro slave empires are defunct and that process was “a bit messy” wasn’t it? A new colony was transplanted to Palestine courtesy of US imperial realpolitik and wouldn’t last five minutes if its patronage was removed, as can be seen in the demise of Rhodesia, Apartheid South Africa French (!) Algeria etc etc.
YouTube: ”Renegade Inc: Labouring Under Anti-Semitism.”
An interview with Norman Finkelstein.
What’s the likelihood of some form of class action taken by Labour members and donors to recover monies given during the period the party’s electoral campaigns were being deliberately sabotaged from within?
What’s the likelihood that moderately left wing people realise that they have no political representation in the UK? Corbyn should lead a split from Labour, thereby throwing it back in their face.
@ Deb O’Nair April 21, 2020 at 02:40
If he did (and welcomed in all those unfairly kicked out of Labour for AS allegations) he would get the same huge rapturous rallies, and would be bound to get a fair number of seats in Parliament, where they could tear into the government at every opportunity. But he would have to tell the BoD what they could do with the IHRA definition. It would also be advisable, if legally possible, to require anyone who stands for office in the Labour Party, or as an MP, or as a Union official, to state any conflicts of interest, such as Freemasonry, FoI etc. so the voters or those who decide to employ them are aware where they stand.
Also their stance on wars and military attacks and threats.
Although I believe Stop the War is heavily infiltrated (what decent organisation isn’t?) this could be some kind of core organisation to build the new party around. Rather woolly thinking, but I’m not politically minded, more Human Rights.
I’m sorry; but the idea that Corbyn, or anyone else should start a new party and then try to get a majority in the commons is a total non-starter. The vast majority of working class people read the S*n and The Mail, and they believe every word that they read. They also watch the BBC, ITV and Sky news. If you think that you can prevail against all that and get a Left Wing party elected then you are living in cloud cuckoo land.
The answer, I think, is to stay in the Labour Party and adjust your focus. We cannot win a GE. Even if a Starmer led LP wins an election the Tories will have won because, as most of us agree, Starmer is a Tory.
But if we, on the left, were to shift our focus to local socialism, as they have in Wigan, I believe we could succeed in creating a better life for most people. Start slow and keeping your ideals intact and in a few years much could be achieved. Lead by example, it can be done.
One item in the report that shocked me, was that the High Court acknowledged that Jeremy Corbyn had to have his own counsel, as he could not rely on Ian McNicholl’s department for fair representation in the hearing about whether he needed support from 20% of PLP in 2016 Leadership contest. (And McNicholl later appeared on the Panorama Programme). Yet McNicholl was given a peerage – what was going on?
“Yet McNicholl was given a peerage – what was going on?”
He was doing the bidding of those who rewarded him with a peerage?
To get him out of the NEC I guess they had to do this…
By my standards I donated quite a bit to the Labour Party in the 2017 campaign. That some of my money was used to actively undermine what I gave it for is indeed quite upsetting! Its certainly worth more thought.
It was possible to donate to individual candidates which I did and again in 2019.
“We will never know what would have happened if he had come out and denounced the witch-hunt as an attempt to stifle supporters of the Palestinians, and spoken openly of Israel’s move to apartheid.”
The bigger question is WHY Corbyn never did this. Or never simply said “I’m tired of being libeled and slandered by racists and their enablers.”
It’s like they have genuine video of him with a sheep or something.
@ Steeve Greene April 20, 2020 at 21:25
I thought Jeremy was English (I’m trying to phrase it to avoid erasure)!?
Thank you for that, Craig.
I agree with many of your observations to which I would add these:
One, the role of the previous LP General Secretary, Iain McNicol was an odious and dishonest one, assuring Corbyn and the party’s elected national executive committee (NEC) that action was being taken when it wasn’t. Until the report appeared, Lord McNicol had been promoted to Labour Deputy Whip in the Lords.
Two, of the key figures in the McNicol regime identified in the report, one is married to Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth – https://chase.live/emilie-oldknow-obe-chief-operating-officer-unison/ –
and another to disgraced former New Labour minister Phil Woolas – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Woolas
Along with many of the party bureaucracy Corbyn inherited and was stuck with until he obtained a majority on the NEC, these were playpen NUS politicos who prospered under Blair and Brown as their reported language and attitudes amply demonstrate.
When you rise in politics on the New Labour wings of Blair, Brown, Mandelson and Campbell it’s easy to believe cynical smearing, dishonesty and manipulation is the only way politics should be done. But any organisation whose members have a largely ethical commitment to it cannot be successfully led by cynics.
Three, Starmer now has a real problem as many of those he has brought into his Shadow Cabinet team, like Ashworth, are closely associated personally, politically and historically with the corrupt and incompetent McNicol regime the report describes.
That Starmer failed to disclose during the Labour leadership contest that Israel-supporting Blair backer David Garrard was one of his big funders doesn’t help his credibility.
A broader explanatory context for some is this is Robin Ramsay’s 2002 Lobster magazine piece on Blair and Israel, since updated:
https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster73/blair-israel.pdf
Someone asked earlier in the thread if the same Corbyn defeating tactics were being similarly employed by the Party at the last GE. Knowing now of Ashworth’s marital connection it certainly puts into context that incident whereby a Tory chum of his “leaked” their conversation to the media and world at large, which Ashworth put down to “joshing”. I thought it odd at the time but it certainly makes sense now as a deliberate act of sticking the boot in. Labour must have been delighted at the size of the Tory majority!
Just a line of thanks for your work.
There is clear evidence of right-wingers hindering antisemitism investigations specifically to damage Labour:
https://skwawkbox.org/2020/04/13/excl-departing-right-wing-labour-staff-shredded-1000s-of-disciplinary-docs-but-gave-copies-to-press-2/
Blair Paterson
April 20, 2020 at 15:00
“Momentom [sic] should break away and form a Real Labour Party and leave the so called remaining labour who complain about real socolium [sic] and lets see how many votes those who remain get ??? ”
………………………………………………………
BP,
It is absolutely the desire of Blairites to rid the Labour Party of members who are to the left of the Tories. Why make their job easy by breaking away?
It is imperative that all genuine Labour members stay in the party and increase in number.
It is reported that lots of its members voted for Starmer.
I posted earlier praising Craig Murray’s review very highly, but criticising it for not acknowledging Gilad Atzmon’s antisemitism. Apologies – I was wrong – reading too fast. What the article says is: “Several instances are given of quoting or linking to Gilad Atzmon as evidence of anti-semitism, seemingly with no need felt to analyse the particular Atzmon article being quoted. Atzmon is of course an Israeli Jew of controversial views particularly on Jewish identity, but it ought not to be axiomatic that to refer to Atzmon is anti-semitic”.
This seems reasonable – as a friend commented on reading and admiring the review “a good prima facie position to adopt”. But it ceases to be that once you know what there is to be known about Atzmon (as the articles from the Jews for Justice for Palestinians website demonstrate). In the same way, you wouldn’t link to a speech by Hitler which happened to get something right. Atzmon himself is now indelibly linked with antisemitism, and people who give him credibility must, at very minimum explain themselves.
You do not understand Atzmon.
But go ahead and call him Hitler anyway.
And, no, I do not need to “explain” myself.
Well put, Steeve; it’s been entertaining watching the zionist counter-attack sneaking in BTL. I notice that “Naomi Wayne” tries to get away with guilt by allegation and guilt by association, both being, inter alia, antisemite tropes.
What can you say? It’s the enemy within. The deep state. I gather there are plenty of those in the SNP, Greens or PC. Basically, anything that deviates from the status quo.
There is a reason why it is the status quo, and will remain so.
‘Moosy April 20, 2020 at 22:06
And the ‘Enemy Without’, with their 5th Columnist accomplices: see Al Jazeera’s ‘The Lobby’ parts 1 & 2. and Pompeo’s assurance that should JC survive the gauntlet, there were further plans to make sure he didn’t attain power (I am paraphrasing, but that was the gist).
The framework that has been built by media and politicians around the notion of anti-semitism is misleading. I can see strong parallels between Israel and my country New Zealand. Both have a history of mass migration from Europe. Both have the imposition of a European form of government. Both have then experienced the creation of laws that progressively alter the ownership of land in favour of the European immigrants.
The Jewish people who moved to Israel were not people who had recently departed the middle east. They were from families that had lived in Europe, USA and USSR for many generations. Describing them as semitic people is a lie. This is at the heart of the modern framework surrounding accusations of anti-semitism. Continuing to refer to these people as semitic is itself racism. Much like the apartheid days of South Africa. They said you can remove a Bantu from the bush but you cannot remove the bush from the Bantu. Now by implication Europeans are saying you can remove a Jew from his semitic homeland but you cannot remove semitism from a Jew.
The Jews I live with in New Zealand are not semitic they are New Zealanders like me. Europeans are not semitic, the Slavic people of the old USSR are not semitic, Americans are not semitic and these are the people of Israel. The small number of middle eastern Jews who live in Israel are not in control of that country. Israel is a European colony, the latest crusade to free the holy land.
Another point you raised was the recent connection between Israel and Saudi Arabia. When Iraq invaded Kuwait the Saudi’s realised they were militarily impotent. They also knew from history that with western support Israel was undefeatable.
The USA is using Saudi Arabia to achieve its foreign policy goals in the middle east. The USA has provided Saudi Arabia with significant military power to achieve that. It seems that there is little long term thought in that. The Saudi’s are now the second strongest military force in the middle east (excluding USA). They are capable of becoming the strongest force due to their financial power. They have now practiced war.
How much of this is Saudi policy as opposed to American policy. Do you really believe in the long term the Saudi’s would prefer to go to war with Islamic Iran while being an ally of Jewish Israel. Do you think that the Saudi leadership would survive its people’s reaction in that scenario.
Over the next century oil will become a less valuable resource. The anglo-american policy of destabilisation in the middle east will become irrelevant. Israel has always been the cornerstone of that policy. It will be a pity for the European people of Israel when they are abandoned by the west and left to face the resurgent power of the Arab world on their own. And it has all happened before, you just have to read the history of the medieval crusades.
>>Over the next century oil will become a less valuable resource.
It is becoming a less valuable resource now. Some blends are already in the $-5 to +5 range.
In a century, indeed long before that, there will be no oil. None.
OIL ARMAGEDDON: What Will It Mean For You? Mike Maloney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQuXDvA8l24
John Manning
If oil is so vastly unimportant why has this country secured control over Brunei, saudi Arabia, Iraq, libya , Somalia, Ukraine?
There is nowhere to store oil at the moment so the price has fallen. It remains the only way to transport millions of tonnes of goods daily by lorry. I suggest you go stand on a motorway bridge near you to see how useless it is to the economy.
John, I was resident in Saudi Arabia for most of the 1980’s and so I received a fair understanding of how they thought and acted. I just wanted to add to your thoughts and I don’t necessarily disagree with ‘When Iraq invaded Kuwait the Saudi’s realised they were militarily impotent’. However, The Kingdom at that time did possess the largest and most modern air force and military materiel in the middle east. Their pilots were trained, they just lacked the confidence (as that’s the nicest word I can use) to carry out military missions and sorties without the backing of a coalition of western powers. Essentially they were on the horns of a dilemma by asking western countries to step into the breach and help defend their oil wealth. Nothing is worse in their culture than to lose face in either an argument or be bettered in an armed conflict and the Saudis lost a lot of face during that time just by accepting the fact that infidel troops were present on their soil to help defend them.
re John
“The Saudi’s are now the second strongest military force in the middle east (excluding USA). They are capable of becoming the strongest force due to their financial power.”
and re Shardlake
” they just lacked the confidence”
This is all not quite right. Saudi is a very brittle military edifice. All the Gulf countries basically lack manpower, though Saudi has rather more than the Emirates or Qatar. But that rather greater population is counterbalanced by the lack of loyalty to the Saudi dynasty. The military are just there for the money, and MBS, like many previous Arabian rulers, distributes money to retain the tribes’ loyalty, in the form of supernumerary employments where the people do nothing. The elite pilots are somewhat better, but they’re a small group. It’s only last year that more than a regiment of native Saudi troops surrendered to the Houthis without a fight.
Good except that there’s northing Jewish about the zionist occupation; zionism is an antisemite ideology, you can’t be a Jewish antisemite; ask Herzl.
“We are all more aware nowadays of historic involvement in the slave trade. The BBC recently did some excellent programmes on Scotland and the slave trade.”
It’s a strange and twisted logic, that when discussing slavery, this immediately means that someone associated with those who participated in slavery either by race or nationality is somehow tainted by racism and owes the relatives of the supposed former slaves some sort of reparation.
Take William Ellison, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ellison a negro slave owner in the deep south of America. As well as owning a number of slaves he sent his sons to fight for the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Does it mean that because people like Ellison (and yes, there were others) owned slaves, every black person in America owes reparation to someone (I suppose every other black person) because they profited from slavery and is there a hint of racism about American blacks for the same reason?
Absurd isn’t it? Yet this is always hinted when this topic is discussed.
BBC can not be source to any discussion. I do feel sick when ever hear the name of it.
You have an almost perfect non argument. Let’s take an equivalent from the art world. You’re arguing that the stolen painting cannot be returned because the current owner didn’t steal it and the former owner is no longer alive. The fact of the painting is carefully elided.
It’s actually fairly easy to identify the wealth generated by slavery, and any reparations need only apply to the current beneficiaries and owners.
It is immoral to profit from the proceeds of crime; note that the zionist occupation is still collecting reparations from Germany. So the answer is yes, just as every working class person deserves to get back the money that everyone else is stealing from us.
Storms in a social-media tea-cup, future generations will look back on this as we do with Tulip-mania. Ought to do by now with religions and other dogma, surest signifiers of mental and moral deficiency, all of them, identifying controlling and coralling the mugs. The deadliest virii of them all. Free-speech is, necessarily must be, un-policeable, that’s what makes it free, trying to do so eventually consumes all energy, becomes an end, then the only end in itself. A sugar-lump for the first to mention shouting “coronavirus” in crowded supermarket queue. Who didn’t already know the Labour Party was a busted-flush since at least the days of Callaghan-Healey? Or even fifty years before that with Ramsay-Mac? Let it go start again, avoid the same mistakes, make your own new ones, it’d still be better than the present irredeemable crock o’ shit. Ditto for the SNP, consumed itself in record time. More of the same rotten apples.
Please start a new and unrelated thread soon Craig, this one is stale and irrelevant already, just attracting flies.
Meanwhile in other news man recovers from slight cold.
So, does the Labour party still represent the working class?
The historic role of the British Labour Party has been to betray the working class. It was almost immediately, from its foundation, infiltrated by the Oxbridge ‘born-to-rule brigade, and other elite interests, and has never shaken that off.
The role of such as the Fabians, with whom it has a long and disastrous association, is precisely to defuse the potential of Labour to be a real workers party, able to bring about effective change. This has succeeded admirably from the ruling class point of view.
A moment’s thought on the prospect for the ‘parliamentary road to socialism’ should leave any rational person heaving with laughter.
Indeed, the concept of parliamentary ‘democracy’ let alone socialism, is utterly absurd. It provides a useful simulacrum of it to confuse and confound enemies of the ruling class – the elites remain in control – and governments are quite literally owned by big finance.
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
― Emma Goldman
John O’Dowd
The jewel in the Crown of the Labour party was Working Tax Credit which subsidised employers for 20 years, enabling them to continuously reduce the real value of the wages they paid to their employees and keep profits in their pockets.There has never been a wages policy so profitable to capitalism.
I notice that the labour party bureaucracy favoured foreign military interventions. You gain the weapons sales and production and you win the cheap oil.
A labour party that is dominated by unions is polluted by self interest. Blame the born to rule Fabians if you like , but the swing to the right is led by the Unions not by pseudo intellectuals.
Or if you like carry on conflating the two. It worked for the antisemitism issue. It might work for the other issues too. The unions want high paid jobs in industry in a country that has exported manufacturing abroad.
They are slaves to the military industrial machine and they pay Fabians to preach that message. Not vice versa
Hi Giyane,
I’m not going to disagree with you. I just wanted to keep it short. the LP is indeed the creature of the corrupt trade unions, whose bloated bureaucracies work in the principle of liberating and enriching the working classes starting (and finishing) with themselves.
My point about the Fabians, Oxbridge and other elitist entryists, was to highlight the propaganda system that provides the (pseudo)intellectual underpinning for bourgeois skimming and pillage, whilst not merely posing no threat at all to the ruling class, but rather defusing any potential threat by promoting and spearheading ‘the cause’: “The Labour Party is a Moral Crusade, or it is Nothing”.
Well, actually, under war criminals Bliar and Broon – it was an actual crusade killing many hundreds of thousands of innocents. Many decent people have been fooled by this, including my youthful self nearly 50 years ago – my education came slowly.
And yes, the idea that Mr Corbyn was anything other than a modest social democratic in the reformer tradition, is utterly absurd – but even that was clearly too much for the Powers!
This is by far the best analysis of the report that I have read. Thank you.
The suppression of the shocking truth in this report just confirms how rightwing Britain’s leftmost media has become. It reinforces a fear that nothing to the left of Blairism is achievable any longer in Britain. No wonder so many Scots want out.
” It reinforces a fear that nothing to the left of Blairism is achievable any longer in Britain”
I blame the spooks.
Presumably as part of the Kier Starmer pro EU stance Labour is repositioning as the remain/rejoin party and Islington Town Hall is now flying the EU flag for the first time in about a year.
Sure, some Labour honchos were pro Zion, maybe balancing out those who were pro Wahhabism: a similar struggle plays inside the Tories. The UK followed the US in all ME wars as co-mercenaries. The struggle in Syria pales to the wars against Shia Iran in Irak and now in Yemen, showing that the Wahhabi oil beats Zionic zeal in appeal.
Oh all right (again) but only because you’ve said so twice. I’m consoled by the fact that you know what a Seppo is. :O)
I’m not British, but here’s what I’ve learned in from this site in the past two weeks:
1) The Labour Party is full of people who actively worked to undermine their own party leadership.
2) The SNP is full of people who actively worked to undermine their own party leadership.
If that isn’t proof of the Iron Law of Institutions, I don’t know what is…
For ‘is full of’ how about editing to ‘contains a faction’?
Excellent piece Craig, thank you very much. If the BBC was still a properly functioning public service broadcaster, deserving of its high standing, this is just the sort of journalism it would be producing. But, of course, it’s not and it isn’t.
“It was plainly wrong for the BBC to hire somebody with the obvious axe to grind of John Ware to make a Panorama documentary on this subject.”
Except, of course, that in the BBC’s eyes, having already carried out a Panorama hatchet job on Corbyn before – “Panorama: Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s Earthquake” (url below) – John Ware was the perfect man to take the role again with regard to antisemitism (AS) and he duly delivered.
The BBC had been dead set against Corbyn from Day1. There was never even any pretence of impartiality. Even the BBC Trust had to call out Laura Kuenssberg (surely the most biassed Political Editor in the history of the BBC) when she clearly maliciously edited an interview with Corbyn to misrepresent his views to make it look as though he was such a peacenik that he would refuse to sanction the use of police weapons even in the event of a live terrorist attack.
There bias was such that when, as required by Ofcom, during the 2017 general election they were more politically even-handed it actually seemed very weird to see them treat Corbyn and Labour reasonably fairly.
But having failed to see off Corbyn in 2017 it was always obvious that they wouldn’t be so fair during the 2019 election, and so it turned out, Kuenssberg surpassing herself this time by blatantly breaking electoral law by revealing the results of the postal vote before election day.
And part of that campaign (for that is clearly what it was) was to fully contribute to the promulgation of the AS smears against Corbyn and Labour, their ‘reporting’ of which was all of a piece along with Ware’s programme.
The problem is not with Ware. It is with the BBC.
Complaints to the BBC are unsurprisingly stonewalled.
Fortunately we have a “world class” communications regulator in Ofcom who will surely address this serious problem. Except, of course, we don’t and they won’t. Ofcom have summarily dismissed complaints against the Panorama programme without even an investigation.
So what’s to be done?
Justin Schlosberg of the Coalition For Media Reform has crowdfunded £25,000 to mount a legal challenge (not sure how exactly) to the BBC and to Ofcom’s decision.
You can see his campaign here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/challenge-bbc-bias
And you can see John Ware’s previous Panorama hatchet job on Corbyn here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O7swacyZnY
In the meantime in the Labour Party, while the Establishment’s boy Sir Kier Starmer may seek to sweep the report under the carpet, the pressure to properly address the outrageous and disgraceful behaviour of the party’s right will be immense. Certainly the likes of Len McCluskey are unlikely to go quietly.
See his contribution here:
https://labourlist.org/2020/04/unite-behind-keir-starmer-to-cleanse-labours-shame
Peter;
There will be those who think that if the nice people at the BBC don’t like him then Corbyn must be a wrong ‘un. But of course that opinion must steadily erode if it is continually exploited. I wonder if the right wing infiltration from the Murdoch Mafia is designed to erode public support for the BBC to help get it sold off.
In 1926 the BBC denied Labour M.P.s and trade union leaders access to the radio when they wished to explain to the nation the working conditions that had brought about the General Strike.
It didn’t take the Murdoch/Tory Mafia to bend the BBC to move against the Labour party and democracy.
The history of COMbbc as an establishment stooge is the history of the bbc; the era of TradBBC that I grew up in was the exception, COMbbc was the norm. Now they don’t bother to pretend.
@ Johny Conspiranoid
Indeed. The situation is a win-win for the Establishment right as they have a compliant BBC and one that is at the same time alienating its support on the left – see nevermind’s comment at 12:23 – potentially making privatisation/dissolution easier.
Personally, I remain a fully committed supporter of public service broadcasting but despise the current regime running the BBC which is long overdue for reform – reform for which Corbyn and Labour were developing a very good policy programme.
On Murdoch, it’s interesting that at the weekend G Galloway claimed that Murdoch has withdrawn his support for Johnson and is now seeking to replace him with Gove. If true, and it’s certainly plausible, it’s incredible that Murdoch can still exercise such influence on British political and public life – another problem which requires addressing.
It’s already gone, Maquarrie owns it. Thatchler’s Gleichschaltung is complete. Spend the tv poll tax on dvds instead.
@ Peter April 21, 2020 at 06:37
But ‘get behind Starmer’? How can he expect Sir ‘Establishment’ Starmer to do anything but cover-up and whitewash, and continue to get rid of genuine Labour Left members?
@ Paul Barbara
Simply put, you have to begin by seeking as much unity and consensus as possible around a particular position in order to garner support – a position for which there will be much support in the Labour Party.
You don’t begin by launching an all-out war on a new leader.
I think McCluskey’s position is crystal clear from the above quoted article.
Siren song, that’s what got you lot (and Corbyn) into this mess. Cumbaya is no substitute for principles. Bury this establishment stooge then perhaps the waverers might listen but that’s what you want to avoid, isn’t it?
@ Squeeth
Neither I nor McCluskey are singing Cumbaya, neither he nor I are the type.
You begin by maximising your support not alienating it, which an immediate all-out war would do.
The harder, sharper edge can, if necessary, can come later.
Come off it, fair weather friends always desert you.
Craig, if you haven’t already read ‘The Transfer Agreement’ by Edwin Black – who is both Jewish, and a Zionist – I highly recommend it. It covers in great detail the discussions between Nazis and Zionists to ‘resettle’ German Jews in Palestine. It also details a significant turning point of the Second World War, which bizarrely took place in 1935: a Jewish-led effort to implement a worldwide boycott of Nazi Germany, which Black posits would have toppled Hitler from power, was undermined by business interests, (some) Zionists, and some Jews who feared it would lead to more persecution of their German co-religionists. It is a remarkable book.
Pretty clear Craig has not read it. Neither has he read Lenni Brenner.
Edwin Black made considerable changes between the 1984 first edition and subsequent printings, seemingly at the insistence of his pissed off and embarrassed mother.
There are talks he has given in recent years available on YT. Basically now peddles The Likud/NeoCon line. Hard to believe he perhaps once thought differently.
Comments on the article:
Craig is wrong about Ken Livingstone and his reasoning is wrong and shows a fear of speaking the truth, which is what Livingstone did. It is wrong to say: “discourse around Nazi/Zionist links disturbing and generally anti-semitic in motivation” because that is a capitulation to Zionism. but the “any misguided Zionist who tried to deal with them was not therefore a Nazi supporter” avoids saying what the Zionists actually did.
Jonathan Rosenhead, an Emeritus Professor of Operational Research at the London School of Economics and chair of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, and Vice-Chair of Free Speech on Israel wrote in the Haaretz, the left wing Israeli paper, on Apr 12, 2017:
So what did Livingstone say that makes his expulsion so compulsive? He said, in his now infamous radio interview, that when Hitler became chancellor “his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism” This Transfer (Ha’avarah) Agreement is, perhaps unfortunately, solidly based in fact – and many more people probably know that now than did before Livingstone’s gratuitous history lesson. The agreement was based on a unity of purpose (but not of motivation) between the Nazi regime and a range of European Zionist organizations, which lasted through to 1937. The Nazis wanted Jews out of Germany, and Zionists wanted Jews to settle Palestine. As a quid pro quo for the arrangement Zionists called off the economic boycott of Germany and gave other assistance to the faltering German economy.
How could this statement of facts be seen as anti-Semitic? One neat solution found by Livingstone’s enemies was to misquote it, either as “Hitler and the Zionists collaborated”; or even as “Hitler was a Zionist.” The host on a BBC radio program swore blind to me that Livingstone had said just that.
Quoting historical facts can hardly be anti-Semitic, which is presumably why the Labour Party didn’t even charge him with it. The allegation was, rather, of “bringing the Party into disrepute” – a nicely vague and plausible accusation, for which he received a two-year suspension. No penalty was imposed on all those MPs and other Labour worthies from the right of the Party who seemingly thought they might be able to get rid of one of the Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s most effective supporters. They brought the party into disrepute but, of course, were not charged.
The report is desperate to be seen as approving Labour’s now toughness on anti-semitism, and therefore endorses the characterisation of people as anti-semites whom I know not to be. Several instances are given of quoting or linking to Gilad Atzmon as evidence of anti-semitism, seemingly with no need felt to analyse the particular Atzmon article being quoted. Atzmon is of course an Israeli Jew of controversial views particularly on Jewish identity, but it ought not to be axiomatic that to refer to Atzmon is anti-semitic.
Jonathan Rosenhead, Haareth, Apr 12, 2017, In Defense of Ken Livingstone, Quoting historical facts can hardly be anti-Semitic, which is presumably why the Labour Party didn’t even charge Livingstone with it, In defense of Ken Livingstone
Surely the reason Livingstone brought up Hitler was to make the point that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not the same thing, ie How can they be when the worst antisemite in history once found a degree of common cause with Zionism?
A simple and effective pedagogical point. Nothing remotely antisemitic about it.
Surely the buck stops with McNicol? He seems to have allowed the culture of scepticism and factionalism to flourish in spite of having power and responsibility to moderate it. In fact he must have actively encouraged it .
Shades of Integrity Initiative and CA – will they never learn?
https://skwawkbox.org/2020/04/21/biggest-political-scandal-since-cambridge-analytica-about-to-break-as-fake-nhs-accounts-set-up-by-dept-of-health/?fbclid=IwAR2pI5rEBfRQ3ROKXkDMHiXF4Ktf44iuh2oeRoUcfo1faJJWDHbSeyRCMa0
Sarah Wollaston, former Chair of the Health Committee:
https://twitter.com/sarahwollaston/status/1252510982489939969?s=20
“This tweet is unavailable”. What a surprise. Can you give us some indication of what it was about, please?
Sarah Wollaston, former Chair of the Health Committee.
This is a deeply shocking deliberate deception and the individual responsible for authorising it should be named and resign. Everything about it is sinister:- https://t.co/4ZlDfeNBLY
— Sarah Wollaston (@sarahwollaston) April 21, 2020
Interesting to see sensible centrist Labour trailing 20pts behind a callous, incompetent Tory government responsible for mass death. Seems at odds with the narrative of the past half-decade that Labour would be 20pts ahead of the shambolic Tories if they had *any* other leader.
It is worth remembering when assessing the impact of this leaked report, that when the Labour Party ask members for funds to win elections, it is not the leader’s name at the bottom of the letter or email, it is the General Secretary’s.
A general secretary who wasn’t trying to win an election, in fact the opposite.
This will only end one way, in court. However much starmer wants to bury it.
Is Jewish racism mentioned even a single time in the report? If not, then no respect should be accorded it.
What about the power of the racist organisation that is called “Zionism”, e.g. its power to influence the media, political parties, and governments? Is that mentioned?
As for “in the face of a terror attack normal people do not blame foreign intervention they blame immigration”, that is not a left wing or a right wing statement – it is a statement about what normal people do, and it is TRUE. The norm isn’t where the author of this blog and most of the commenters here (including me) would like it to be. Best to recognise that fact rather than deny it. Or else…big trouble…as usually happens when big stuff is denied.
Is British political culture “institutionally denialist in respect of Jewish racism and the influence of Jewish racists?” Let’s have a report into that.
https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-hypocrisy-of-ephraim-mirviss.html
That’s not fair, Jews aren’t zionists. Zionism was invented in the 1890s as a replacement for Judaism, it’s the most antisemite ideology left on the planet. Zionism is the antisemitism of frauds.
“in the face of a terror attack normal people do not blame foreign intervention they blame immigration”
How do you know?
Mods O/T – latest ONS out maybe a new article?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/04/coronavirus-time-for-an-amnesty-for-illegal-immigrants/comment-page-3/#comment-937237
Thanks for your close examination and reasoned take Craig. These people are a blight not just upon the Labour party but upon national politics as a whole. Never understood what they are even doing in the Labour party if they deem anybody who is anti-austerity or antiwar to be a hateful “Trot” But I found these pieces useful in explaining the role of the Labour Right or “Centrists”, a group well to the right of most of the electorate.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/inevitable-division-politics-and-consequences-of-labour-split/
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/04/the-blairite-roots-of-the-leaked-labour-report