Labour’s double standards: the case of Luke Akehurst
JVL Introduction
Luke Akehurst , the Labour candidate parachuted into North Durham constituency last week, has said or done many things similar to or more offensive than those which have had many a lesser person suspended from the Party or denied the possibility of standing for Parliament.
Apart from being on the right of the Party, enthusiastic about Guantanamo Bay, regarding arms production as a very socially useful form of production, and stridently defending Israel’s actions in Gaza as proportionate, Akehurst appears to relish causing offence, for example bandying about tropes such as that non- and anti-Zionist Jews aren’t real Jews, having “abandoned very much of their Jewish identity”.
But Akehurst is apparently untouchable, feted by Labour in contrast to the savage treatment meted out to Diane Abbott, Faiza Shaheen and many others..
Maybe because he is a leading light in We Believe in Israel and Labour First, Starmer’s faithful backers?
Rivkah Brown investigates.
RK
This article was originally published by Novara Media on Fri 7 Jun 2024. Read the original here.
Is Luke Akehurst Labour’s Untouchable ‘Bigot’?
Seems so.
Loading article text…
That short ‘chicken soup’ clip is from a much longer video – Akehurst is talking about Tony Greenstein and Graham Bash, and he knows the latter from Hackney days. It may be flippant but Akehurst as far as I know has never been anti-Jewish – quite the reverse. This is just another riff on the vast majority of Jews having Israel/Zionism as part of the identity and Akehurst is playing his usual nasty political Zionism card.
The zionist bigot could end up with a position in Starmer`s Cabinet! The first foreign Government Representative in the British Parliament. Not only have the Zionists got their potential future Prime-Minister, but a very dangerous fascist with access to top classified information. Frightening.
The Labour Party’s remaining tattered mythology rests upon the Attlee government and its record in office. But what did this government actually do? Attlee and his gang declared a state of emergency twice in order to use state forces agaisnt striking workers. They sanctioned the mass usage of scabs against strikers with the connivance of the trade union leaders, they used the army as strike breakers 18 times between 1945 to 1951. The Attlee government made some concessions but it spent much more time and energy defending the ruling class and breaking strikes as well as committing appalling crimes in places like Malaya to hang onto British colonies. It was the enemy of working class power and the enemy of independence fighters. It has been presented to us as the closest thing to socialism we’ve ever had but the truth is far from that. It was a government that made the minimal concessions it could get away with and defended the power of British imperialism. We must shake off the mythology the Attlee era and bury it.
I see Michael Rosen has commented, in his inimitable fashion, on Akehurst’s suggestion that non- and anti-Zionist Jews “have abandoned very much of their Jewish identity”:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C77-BlMI5e5/?igsh=MWE4YW9nZmNucGwxMQ%3D%3D
No use complaining about him. Is there a strong green or independent standing in North Durham opposing him and letting local people know of his real nature. We’ve got some good people opposing Labour in Kirklees. We’ve already destroyed their grip on the council.
He is also a very strong supporter of nuclear weapons.
Point of information with regard to Akehurst’s support for torture at Guantanamo Bay: What the Americans would rebrand as ‘Waterboarding’ as if a harmless leisure activity was actually a water torture technique invented by the Nazis. In the aftermath of WW2 this became so well known that it actually featured in popular culture – in films ‘Battle of the V1s’ (1958) and ‘Circle of Deception’ (1960). There are clips about half way down in this article about representing western imperialism – see link
https://arena.org.au/post-wwii-film-and-the-rejection-of-empire/
HELLO Mr “This is my Party” Starmer. Who said he wouldn’t allow any antisemitism in ‘His Party’!!! Then gives a safe LP Constituency Seat to an out and out antisemite!!!
The Goyisher Zionist Luke Akehurst stands as the arbiter on who is an authentic Jew! Perhaps the Board of Deputies should hire him whenever they want a second opinion. To be serious, I am not Jewish, and as such I would not ever consider making such judgements; there’s something deeply offensive about this bloke’s presumptuousness.