Another last straw
JVL Introduction
Jay Blackwood has had enough and is leaving the Labour Party.
As he puts it “[T]he performance of the leadership candidates at this week’s hustings proves conclusively that whoever is elected leader the Labour Party is determined to steer back onto its traditional course of loyal support for the Israeli state. Anyone who opposes that will be silenced.”
We understand Jay’s choice and wish him well. We have no doubt he will remain a committed grass-roots activist and socialist fighting for the things we all believe in. Unlike him, we still believe the Labour Party to be a crucial locus of the struggle.
We have not lost there yet, and must do what we can to stem the tide.
This article was originally published by Jewish Dissident Blogspot on Fri 14 Feb 2020. Read the original here.
Resignation
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I can’t argue with any of the fundamental analysis of this piece. Only the conclusion – but that disagreement is only one of personal preference.
In listening to the sad apologies for leadership faced by the bullies of the ant-Labour, anti-Palestinian JLM, I was reminded of the great soeech by Nye Bevan – made in Trafalgar Square – about the 1956 Suez Crisis. I am depending on memory, but the key sectio was somethinlike (on Eden) :
“If he believes what he is saying, he is too STUPID to be Prime Minister. If he doesn’t believe what he is saying, he is too DISHONEST to be Prime Minister.”
That we should have to apply the same measure to Labour candidates for leadership …..!!
Not to blow my own trumpet but it was because of us leftwingers who stuck it out under Blair that JC got elected in the first place. Groups like SA and TUSC went nowhere. I hope Jay reconsiders.
All candidates are running scared [not Richard Burgon -ed]. The Zionist lobby should have been tackled head on rather than appeased years ago as Chris Williamson stated.
Having discovered, in my mid-seventies, and somewhat to my surprise, that I am an antisemite (or as some would have it a self-hating Jew) I have referred myself to the Compliance Unit.
Even if, as I suspect, Palestine is not a major concern for the bulk of Labour voters, Jay is quite right to point out that the spinelessness shown by the leadership candidates in the face of relentless bullying by Israel’s local lobbies is a grim sign of where the party is heading.
I understand that Jo Bird’s suspension has been withdrawn – thankfully. Can I persuade you to think again and remain in the party to vote for her?
In the 3 months since I submitted my first *defence* [at that point on unspecified charges, but now a *standard* 3 [of racism, AS and hampering the LP’s fight against racism] couched in *mealy-mouthed* terminology ~ I have helped 3 organisations get funding: 1. Radio Diamond, who operate from Moss Side, Manchester ~ the heart of the Black community; 2. a multi-racial group based in Toxteth, who will seek to help new migrants [and others] keep their housing, and 3. supplementary education for Sudanese children in Bolton. Clearly my racism know no bounds!!! It did make me look out the Business Plan and funding bid I wrote for the Liverpool Jewish Representative Council, though! My antisemitism obviously being put to good use?
Whilst I have every respect for Jay Blackwood’s decision to resign from the party, in his statement he says, on the one hand, that:
Faced with the bogus antisemitism offensive, Jeremy and his inner circle seemed to believe that retreat was the best form of defence. Along with endless hand-wringing apologies for a problem that never really existed, Jeremy stood by while good socialists and anti-racists were drummed out of the Party. The wholly predictable net result was to embolden the anti-Corbyn forces in the Parliamentary Party, and encourage the Israel lobby and its supporters in the media.
This disastrous strategy, which played a major part in the general election defeat…….
And on the other hand, Jay says the following:
But as far as I’m concerned the performance of the leadership candidates at this week’s hustings proves conclusively that whoever is elected leader the Labour Party is determined to steer back onto its traditional course of loyal support for the Israeli state. Anyone who opposes that will be silenced.
Yes exactly, just as Jeremy and the leadership have been regarding the A/S Smear Campaign. To deny it was a problem just led to MORE condemnation and vilification – ie MORE smears.
I just feel really sad for Jewish people who have had their race and religion taken over by this cruel apartheid body
I think Jay Blackwood is right. The Labour Party now reminds me of the 1930’s when small groups of bigoted people try to control everything and do away with free speech and respect for other people’s freedom is completely abandoned.
I have every intention after the election, to report myself to the Compliance Unit, as several have already done, and for the same reasons. I cannot support a Labour Party that overtly supports the oppression of the Palestinian people, nor the suppression of voices for the Palestinians.
I see that the moderator was Robert Peston. That hardly fills you with confidence, does it?
“It is completely clear from video footage that @MattHancock’s adviser was not whacked by a protestor, as I was told by senior Tories*, but that he inadvertently walked into a protestor’s hand. I apologise for getting this wrong.”
Robert Peston (@Peston) December 9, 2019
* And made no effort to verify before repeating it
I respect your argument Jay but am saddened that you have arrived at your decision. What are you going to do now? How, practically, are you going to “construct an internationally based organisation….”? Of course the Labour Party has its limitations but what is there outside. Like many Comrades back in the 90s I left the LP over the decision to support the US invasion of Iraq in 1991. After flirting with other left organisations I found that I had and was achieving nothing other than a ‘holier than thou’ self-satsfying isolationist position. But I was achieving precisely nothing. At least in the Party I have a platform from which to argue, discuss and build a consensus. I can legitimately knock on doors, speak on picket lines, march as part of an albeit flawed organisation. Jay, please reconsider your position. We need people like you with integrity, passion and commitment to fight with us to try to keep the LP on the path reinvigorated by the Corbyn project. The time to resign is not now, this is the time to fight for the ideals about which we so strongly believe. Now more than ever we need the strength of unity of the left to fight for the Socialst alternative. Please stay.
The Leadership contest should – in this emergency situation – of bullying and interference, with procedure and Candidates,for leader, Deputy and NEC – be suspended. And the Current Labour Leader,who has not yet stood down, should remain, for the foreseeable future, in order to new get on with the business of expelling the ‘monstering’ Disciplinary Committee members, replacing them with fair-minded individuals, with a membership agreed, fair set of rules. Also, there is now an urgent need to put out and prosecute the people making false accusations, which ruin reputations,earning power and shorten lives. Labour cannot currently win any Parliamentary arguments requiring a vote; so this is the ideal time for a clean up to occur. Corbyn is the Leader to do it, together with Burgon. Who else will also pick up the idea of Corbyn remaining as a ‘clean-up Leader’?
As an addendum to Tony’s comments about the unfitness of Peston as a moderator, we should note that Asa Winstanley has highlighted Peston’s sectarian intervention which commented on Corbyn’s words :
“it should not be “regarded as anti-Semitic to describe Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist because of their discriminatory impact” on Palestinians.”
… calling such remarks ‘a disgrace’.
So … in the dominant media narrative, perfectly rational and evidenced analysis is now ‘a disgrace’. Nick Davies’s ‘Churnalism’ captured in one word.
Orwell ,,.. were’t thou living at this hour.
RLB ..she isn’t Corbyn in disguise..she is a servant to Momentum and it’s boss Jon Lansman.
Wow! That is a very clear and coherent picture of where the Labour Party now stands, particularly as regards “anti-semitism” and Israel..