Labour & Anti-Semitism.

[Shechemite]

Little bit creepy but there we are

 

[Shechemite]

To be honest I’m combative if I think I should/need to be. If I think I don’t need to be combative I’m generally a cheerful soul. Like riding the tube. Help people with their bags/buggies/finding where to go/give up your seat for them. Makes life easier. YMMV

 

[Shechemite]

Anyway, in the spirit of comradeship, here’s this.

Labour is Cleaning House, the Tories Must, Too. - JewThink

Barnaby Marder explains why if the Labour Party is tackling antisemitism, we have a right to expect the same from the Conservatives. In the Jewish Chronicle last week (August 12, 2020) Lee Harpin wrote a puzzling article about how leading Conservatives were ‘baffled over signs of Jewish support...

www.jewthink.org

SAAS are a bit too liberal paternalist for my liking - Tories are unfair and ineffective managers of the NHS etc, we need fair and effective managers who will also deal with the ‘issue’ of racism fairly and effectively (VOTE LABOUR!)

Nevertheless this article is an attempt to de-factionalise racism, albeit within their own framework.

 

[sleaterkinney]

From the horses mouth:

 

[Smokeandsteam]

From the horses mouth:

I thought Murray was meant to be one of the intellectual heavyweights around Jezza?

 

[Cerv]

with friends like these Corbyn doesn't need enemies. yikes. what was Murray thinking?

A question that troubled some was whether Corbyn categorised antisemitism as the kind of racism he had always set himself against. Andrew Murray, the trade unionist, said: “He is very empathetic, Jeremy, but he’s empathetic with the poor, the disadvantaged, the migrant, the marginalised . . . Happily, that is not the Jewish community in Britain today. He would have had massive empathy with the Jewish community in Britain in the 1930s and he would have been there at Cable Street, there’s no question. But, of course, the Jewish community today is relatively prosperous.”

For Murray, the fact that antisemitism and economic exploitation were not necessarily entwined posed a difficult question for many on the left: “Racism in British society since the Second World War — what does it mean? It means discrimination at work, discrimination in housing, hounding by the police on the streets, discrimination and disadvantage in education, demonisation and mischaracterisation in the mass media. That is what has happened to Afro-Caribbean and Asian immigrants and their descendants. It is not, mainly, what has happened to Jewish people. The fascists I knew in the 1970s didn’t go out Jew-hunting, they went out Paki-bashing. For a whole generation — that’s now quite an influential cohort in the Labour Party and around Jeremy personally — that is what racism is. They would say, ‘Of course, Jewish migrants to Britain in the first half of the 20th century — they lived in appalling conditions. They had it rough, they were attacked by the fascists. But, you know, that was then. The Jewish community’s moved on. It’s developed, it’s integrated and . . .’ This is where the failure to understand comes in — that, actually, antisemitism has different aspects to other forms of racism.” Many wondered, therefore, not whether Corbyn would empathise, but whether he could.

 

[Pickman's model]

From the horses mouth:

The horse being the Murdoch times I see

 

[Pickman's model]

with friends like these Corbyn doesn't need enemies. yikes. what was Murray thinking?

Would this be Andrew Murray who spent so many years in the cpgb and cpb?

 

[Cerv]

Would this be Andrew Murray who spent so many years in the cpgb and cpb?

that's him yeah.
quit the CPB to join Labour in 2016 when he was seconded from Unite to work for Corbyn.

 

[Pickman's model]

that's him yeah.
quit the CPB to join Labour in 2016 when he was seconded from Unite to work for Corbyn.

And the darling of the left while he was in charge of the stwc

 

[two sheds]

with friends like these Corbyn doesn't need enemies. yikes. what was Murray thinking?

I presume there's more in the article, but that seems just his opinion and his opinion of what corbyn believes, nothing on corbyn's actually said or believes.

 

[Cerv]

I presume there's more in the article, but that seems just his opinion and his opinion of what corbyn believes, nothing on corbyn's actually said or believes.

not really. that's the whole part Murray's quoted at the end. preceding is mostly the timeline of events and gossip about McDonnell & Corbyn disagreeing

yes it's just Murray's opinion. but whether you believe him or not I'd prefer he'd kept unhelpful remarks like that to himself.

 

[Larry O'Hara]

Could you be a bit more specific and point me to what you've written on this particular subject (jews doing undercover black ops for the met in return for the police being on their side)? Very interested in that in particular. Tbh i don't believe you without any evidence so would like to see please.

You will: but on my time schedule not yours. Entirely legitimate for you to not believe me before I publish the evidence of course, no problem with that.

 

[sleaterkinney]

Report is here: http://sentpressrelease.com/pressre...ion-into-antisemitism-in-the-labour-party.pdf

Not surprising reading.

 

[JTG]

Report is here: http://sentpressrelease.com/pressre...ion-into-antisemitism-in-the-labour-party.pdf

Not surprising reading.

Seeing as you've read the whole 130 page document this morning, perhaps you could summarise?

 

[sleaterkinney]

Seeing as you've read the whole 130 page document this morning, perhaps you could summarise?

There's an executive summary on page 5 if you're struggling.

 

[JTG]

There's an executive summary on page 5 if you're struggling.

Good to know you were able to skim read it

 

[sleaterkinney]

Good to know you were able to skim read it

Anything to say about the actual report?

 

[Badgers]

Corbyn was not anti- semitic shocker perhaps?

 

[JTG]

Anything to say about the actual report?

It was released a few minutes ago and all I've seen is ghouls like you triumphantly using it as a weapon to fight your factional battles with

So I may find time to have a look at it later but it will be with a view to listening to what a variety of Jewish voices have to say about it and not someone as fundamentally unserious about combating racism as you evidently are.

 

[sleaterkinney]

Corbyn was not anti- semitic shocker perhaps?

I think you'll find comrade, that the leader's office found he had no case to answer. (pg 44)

 

[Knotted]

I don't want to say there weren't any problems in the LP but here is one of the examples that Labour is being held accountable for political interference in the disciplinary process.:

On 26 June 2019, the NEC decided that Chris Williamson had engaged in misconduct in respect of antisemitism, and that he should receive a formal NEC warning (thus lifting his administrative suspension) rather than be referred to the NCC for disciplinary proceedings. The NEC decision was leaked to the press and prompted an outcry from Campaign Against Antisemitism, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Labour MPs and peers.
The following day, one of the NEC panel members, Keith Vaz MP, called and emailed Jennie Formby saying that, for a range of reasons, including his own health, the decision from the previous day ‘cannot stand’. The Labour Party reopened the complaint to be heard before another NEC panel. On 19 July 2019, the new panel decided to refer Chris Williamson to the NCC.
Chris Williamson successfully challenged the decision to reopen the complaint in the High Court. The court found that:
‘it is not … difficult to infer that the true reason for the decision in this case was that members were influenced by the ferocity of the outcry following the June decision … the NEC should decide cases fairly and impartially in accordance with the rules and evidence; and not be influenced by how its decisions are seen by others. Internal and press reaction to a decision are not of themselves proper grounds for
Investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party
47
reopening a case that was not otherwise procedurally unfair or obviously wrong.

So they're damned for reversing the decision for not suspending Chris Williamnson. How's that for a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't?

Edit: Similar thing with the suspension of Ken Livingstone.

 

[sleaterkinney]

It was released a few minutes ago and all I've seen is ghouls like you triumphantly using it as a weapon to fight your factional battles with

So I may find time to have a look at it later but it will be with a view to listening to what a variety of Jewish voices have to say about it and not someone as fundamentally unserious about combating racism as you evidently are.

Its a factional battle should never have occurred, a pointless waste of energy over a faction which never should have been near power and brought this shit with them, I hope it disappears from Labour with them also.

 

[bimble]

my twitter is a swirling hell of vitriol again to greet the arrival of this report, after a lovely respite of people not spending every day shouting at each other about jews. What is the point? I don't think the report will change a single person's mind.

 

[JTG]

Its a factional battle should never have occurred, a pointless waste of energy over a faction which never should have been near power and brought this shit with them, I hope it disappears from Labour with them also.

And this proves my point in all honesty. The idea that AS was absent from Labour before 2015 and between 2015 & 2020 was confined exclusively to one particular section of the party is
a) quite nonsensical
b) motivated by factional politics and not at all by a desire to combat anti-semitism

 

[JTG]

I made a complaint to the Labour Party about the current shadow minister for the Duchy of Lancaster tweeting admiration for a known anti-semite in February this year. The complaint was acknowledged over four months later and I have heard nothing whatsoever since

I do not expect any action to be taken over this but it is an interesting exercise in who exactly gets to be held to account for this stuff and who does not.

The Labour Party itself is a nest of snakes and absolutely riddled with racism and transphobia. This permeates every section and faction of it from the current leader downwards

 

[Larry O'Hara]

Have read quite a bit of it. Take so far

1) a lot of the problems it points to actually took place while anti-JC types were in control of Labour HQ and many were remedied under the Corbyn regime: eg speeding up complaints handling, devoting more resources to it post March 2018
2) Accuses Leaders office of interfering in sensitive cases without really acknowledging that much (not all) of this was done to expedite matters
3) Does provide some instances of unacceptable behaviour by the leadership certainly: and by members.
4) it is troubling that they find Labour as a whole legally responsible for actions of councillors (eg Bromley) and NEC members.
5) seems to take at face value rubbish like the Panorama programme. Does not at all seem to accept that some undoubted instances of anti-semitism were hyped by the Labour Right for factional reasons

on a more general point, the EHRC is interfering in politics in a way I do find disturbing and which in the long term can have unintended and undesirable consequences. For example, the EHRC moves to strangle the BNP while successful in the short term led some members to abandon formal politics and proceed down the violent route leading to National Action.

A delicious irony (if you can call it that) is that the Starmer regime accepting this report will lead to the party shelling out millions, thereby hindering its ability to fight future elections....

 

[JTG]

2) Accuses Leaders office of interfering in sensitive cases without really acknowledging that much (not all) of this was done to expedite matters

Is it correct that this includes the Livingstone suspension?

 

[Badgers]

Assume now that the EHRC will investigate
the ingrained racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia & far-right links in the Conservative party.

 

[sleaterkinney]

And this proves my point in all honesty. The idea that AS was absent from Labour before 2015 and between 2015 & 2020 was confined exclusively to one particular section of the party is
a) quite nonsensical
b) motivated by factional politics and not at all by a desire to combat anti-semitism

I don't think it was completely absent from labour or even the tories, but I do think there was a big upsurge in it following Corbyns election and the new members joining and I don't think he did enough to counter it, whether that was because he agreed with it or because he was indecisive.