A slow-burning antidemocratic coup
JVL Introduction
From all over the UK, stories have been proliferating for many months of the Starmer Labour bureaucracy tightening its authoritarian grip on the party.
One recent victim of the ongoing purge is Martin Abrams, a Jewish councillor in London and member of Momentum’s National Coordinating Group, suspended by the Labour group in Lambeth for supporting a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Here Martin analyses the evidence of systematic vote rigging in the use of Anonyvoter, the online voting software used by local Labour Party branches. Not only has Anonyvoter likely been abused on an industrial scale to rig internal Labour contests, he says: “The unfolding scandal around Labour’s parliamentary selections is much bigger than an internal party matter — they are at the forefront of the slow-burning, antidemocratic coup.”
Below the article we reproduce a video Martin made in February 2020 in the JustJews series, broadening the debate about antisemitism and the Labour Party to include alternative Jewish viewpoints.
NWI
This article was originally published by Tribune on Thu 11 Apr 2024. Read the original here.
Rigging Britain’s Democracy
The allegations that Labour has used its online voting system to rig parliamentary selections suggest that Starmer’s addiction to purging the left is corroding the integrity of Britain’s democratic system.
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This has been evident from the moment Starmer gained the leadership and the odious Evans was appointed Gen Sec. The list of chicanery even made it to my constituency where the CLP were told a candidate would be selected centrally, rather than a competition between two very worthy locals.
As Ralph Miliband once wrote:
“Pious references to the Labour Party being a ‘broad church’ which has always incorporated many different strands of thought fail to take account of a crucial fact, namely that the ‘broad church’ of Labour only functioned effectively in the past because one side – the Right and Centre – determined the nature of the services that were to be held, and excluded or threatened with exclusion any clergy too deviant in its dissent.”
Labour under Corbyn was an exception which will never be allowed to be repeated.
Excellent. At last we are getting real about what Starmer is doing to the LP and what we should be doing about it. Certainly we should have an independent investigation of what is going on in the LP. and Starmers flagrantly dishonest election. I think Starmer should be sued for misuse of LP funds in paying LP staff hush money to ensure their silence about his clique’s improper behaviour regarding their disloyalty to Corbyn and Labour ideals etc. Any action would be well supporters and funded by socialist members present and past. Also we should have a minimum requirement for membership ( of ,say, support for UN Dec of HuMAN RIGHTS- WHICH WOULD IMMEDIATELY CUt OUT sTARMER) AND BRING BACK THE ORIGINAL CLAUSE 4). Perhaps the Good Law Project would be interested in helping as well.
Solidarity Martin. Anyone with an ounce of humanity Stands with you. The UK was downgraded to obstructed democracy some time ago. With starmer its obstructed on steroids.
Chris Matthews quote is absolutely right. The “broad church” is really a cult, a sect, a barrier to socialism and progressive ideas. Whilst the debate is important, we admire those still battling, we miss the crucial point: we confine ourselves to a narrow perspective, where the Labour Party is the focus of our energy. Those of us who left, voluntarily or involuntary, didn’t join the party to play administrative games with the right wing bureaucrats, political chameleons and opportunist politicians. I hope we joined to fight for a voice for ordinary people with aspirations like decent homes, decent wages and conditions, extending public ownership and deprivatising the NHS. Starmer and his apparatchiks care about ongoing legal challenges and processes as much as they care about Dianne Abbot, Jeremy Corbyn and all those principled MP`s, Councillors and former activists. The emergence of hundreds of Independent councillors, former party members and others, provides the real political platform for the future.
How can anyone continue to support a party led by someone and his entourage who support ethnic cleansing and genocide, (if the bombs don’t get you, starvation will), in Palestine?
I thought the result in Birkenhead looked rather interesting. The incumbent MP for most of the constituency was beaten by someone who was the incumbent for a clear minority of the seat.
I do not know if Anonyvoter was involved.
As well as the ‘Hey-Nony-Nony-No voting system, the “Police and Crime Commissioner” candidates throughout the country were, to the best of my knowledge, imposed from on high, certainly in the Eastern region, without a word or semblance of a long/short list hustings or vote.
There appears to be a danger of missing the bigger picture here. This isn’t the usual left/right struggle within the Labour Party. Starmer’s anti-democratic practices are unprecedently appalling to such an extent, many past leaders couldn’t now get into the Labour Party. And under Blairites the Labour Party is now inverted and redistributing from the General Public and Public Commons to the super rich.
But this is part of a much larger global pattern whereby lobbying money goes into progress parties quickly accompanied by opportunist carpet baggers content to subvert everything those parties have achieved.
The Clinton insurgency in the Democrat Party did the economic opposite of everything that had been achieved from Roosevelt to Carter – practices that Blairites copied. Macron and cronies attempted to do the same in the French Socialist Party – thankfully failingly before leaving for En Marche. And we’ve seen the primary function of the SNP undermined by exactly the same lobbying corruptions. There are global economic forces out there attempting – with a good deal of success – to destroy any alternative to the Reagan/Thatcher globalised counter revolutions.