Labour’s NEC vote against restoring the whip to Jeremy Corbyn!
Early news from today’s NEC meeting (25th Jan 2022) is that the motion to reinstate Jeremy Corbyn into the Parliamentary Labour Party was defeated by 23 votes to 14 with one abstension. We note also that apologies for the meeting had been sent by Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner.
JVL members and supporters are aghast at the NEC’s decision not to restore Jeremy Corbyn MP to membership of the Parliamentary Labour Party. The situation in which the massive majority of voters in Islington North are not represented by a Labour MP is untenable. It has become a liability for Labour when a Tory MP, who voted for the cruel cuts made by this Government, can cross the floor to be welcomed by the Party leadership. Voters and commentators are justified in asking, who and what does the Party stand for?
In the two years in which Jeremy Corbyn has been suspended by the PLP, representations and petitions have been made on his behalf from as far afield as South Africa, Europe and the Middle East. This can only diminish the Party’s reputation in the eyes of the world.
The Party’s championing of democracy was severely undermined by Keir Starmer’s Tweet (dated 18 November 2020), stating that “I have taken the decision not to restore the whip to Jeremy Corbyn”. Not only was this decision not his to take, as it overturned the decision of the NEC, the Party’s ruling administrative body, taken only the day before, but also Keir’s statement flouted the EHRC’s firm recommendation that political interference should play no part in disciplinary processes. In addition we have learnt from Len McCluskey that Keir went back on an earlier agreement.
During the five years of his leadership Jeremy Corbyn stood back from disciplinary processes, sometimes to the dismay of his supporters, apart from when he was alerted that the processes were being undermined and delayed by staff with other political ends. In that period, several changes were made to improve processes, which were acknowledged by the EHRC and included strengthening the NCC, a reform which has now been effectively undone by David Evans and Keir Starmer.
Corbyn faced a vicious series of attacks while he was leader in attempts to undermine him. These attacks continue relentlessly to this day, directed at him and his supporters, including many of our own members and supporters. Many false claims have been made. For example, it is frequently alleged that the EHRC found the Party to be institutionally racist. Nowhere in its lengthy report does the EHRC make this claim. The instances of unlawful acts by two Labour Party members, have now been granted permission by a court to be subjected to scrutiny by a Judicial Review. Corbyn never supported antisemitism in any shape or form and his solid reputation as an anti-racist activist has been widely recognised. The EHRC Report did not find he was antisemitic and indeed did not even report charges made against him.
JVL’s own research and analysis of the publicly available statistics, combined with our own lived experience as Labour Party activists, support Corbyn’s statement that the scale of antisemitism has been dramatically overstated by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media. It is our view that such exaggeration has damaged the Party, created division and caused appalling pain to those wrongly accused. Above all it has held back an effective fight against an uncaring and incompetent Tory government.
Spot on. Absolutely true
That’s one hell of a margin against party unity. I want to see who ratted
Terrible day for democracy really.
Seemingly one rule for our politicians & another for the rest of us. Labour has an established ‘rule book’ but lately they seem to have tossed it out of the window, much like the tories. If we are to prevent wars, Global strife & climate catastrophe we must change our politics quickly, there is no time to plaster over LP wounds, we need to get moving NOW ideally with Corbyn on board…
This made for depressing reading. Evidence supporting the article are everywhere now and exposes the hypocrisy of the current NEC as a body. There would be an irony to a situation whereby if JC stood as an independent, won the seat and was the difference in giving a parliamentary majority to Labour.
It seems the Party has lost all sense of reality further illustrated by Rachel Reeves’ monstrous slur on all those who joined the Party in response to Corbyn’s election in an article in the FT. The article clearly characterised all those who joined as antisemites. No evidence is proffered and none exists. Never mind due process this is wild accusation at thousands who join Labour in support of transformative policies as well as Palestinian rights.
It’s difficult to see how much further the leadership can sink in its attempt to justify the purge
Is there any Labour Party protocol that might facilitate the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s reinstatement back into the Labour Party? I’m thinking of a kind of referendum organised for Labour Party members to vote yay or nay. There’s no question that the former Labour leader has been ostracised in the most grievoius, unrighteous and unjust fashion.
So sorry about the injustice. However, Labour HQ’s behaviour over the last 2 years puts into question whether Corbyn or anyone else would see renewing their membership as a plus.
Thus is an utterly diabolical decision by the NEC and one that flies in the face of both facts and justice. One thing is quite certain and that is the deleterious effect of the growing and insidious right-wing influence over Starmer’s hopelessly corrupt Party!
Entirely predictable given the degenerate state of the party at the moment
Well said. The Labour Party is so lost with this rightwing PLP and arbitrary leadership. Very sad.
The malice which informs this decision to ensure that Jeremy Corbyn should no longer represent the Labour Party in his constituency; and the arrogance with which those who oppose his return to the Labour Party suppose that they do not have to take any notice of all the entreaties made on his behalf, nor take the blindest bit of notice of what so many ordinary members have to say, is breathtaking in its severity. I wish they cared that the party is losing the support of so many who otherwise would – did – support it; but there’s no point since they have clearly decided that playing footsie with the Tories is more important than ensuring that the party is ruled justly and fairly
This is a re-confirmation that the Labour party is no more. It is now a Tory party masquerading in a different colour and getting rid of all socialist shades.
The NEC’s decision not to overturn the withdrawal of the whip for Jeremy Corbyn is vindictive and part and parcel of the campaign of personal vilification dating back shortly after he became party leader. Clearly many in the PLP did not accept nor respect him in that role and continue to show that same animosity today. Shameful!
Dark indeed this dictatorship
Jeremy is not the only one they are glad to be rid of. Here is Rachel Reeves in the FT, joyous at the plummeting membership figures –
– Meanwhile Reeves said that a drop in Labour membership, which has reduced the party’s income, was a price worth paying for shedding unwelcome supporters and removing the “stain” of anti-Semitism from the party.
“Membership in my constituency is falling and that’s a good thing,” she said. People had left “who should never have joined the Labour party. They never shared our values,” she added.
Gutted but not in the least bit surprised. The NEC have gone against their original decision of restoring Jeremy to the Labour Party and have allowed Starmer to interfere, against EHRC directives. They are not worthy to call themselves Labour Party members and are not fit for purpose as representatives of the Labour movement. More like Starmer’s ‘henchmen’, doing his cowardly work for him. I just hope that North Islington constituents and Labour members retain their loyalty and support and vote for Jeremy as an Independent candidate in any forthcoming elections. ‘What goes around comes around’; Starmer will face the consequences of his petty, spiteful, cowardly and dishonourable actions by losing the North Islington seat to a far more decent and caring man and I suspect it will not be the only seat he loses for the Party.
My heart goes out to Laura and all the Islington CLP members who want Jeremy as theit MP. fine man, rejected by a committee of political mediocrities with, motivated by spite, envy and vindictiveness.
I am appalled at this decision and at the cowardice of Starmer.
I think starmer has committed a crime ,by punishing an honourable person who as done no wrong and has in fact done much good ,how can someone who purports to be legally minded with integrity ,even consider such an action ,but sadly he has the result is the death of the labour party, by the way where’s all the money gone ?
Starmer appears so completely spineless his actions indicate another hand on the tiller, he must be following orders, assuming he is not completely deluded one wonders what they have on him.
Way past time for a new party. The Labour Party I’ve supported for 50 years is no more.
I was a member of LP many yrs until I realised New Labour was Not Labour. I rejoined so happily when JC was elected leader. I cancelled my direct debit membership fee last Wednesday with relief. I have prevaricated for months hoping some back benchers would ‘call out’ the treatment of an honourable man.
Now it’s the time for a socialist party to rise.
What ARE Rachel Reeve’s values, from what I have seen & heard in the past void of emptiness in a tattered Labour Party, there ARE NO VALUES.
NO INTEGRITY, NO SOCIALISM.
I am grieving the death of a once working peoples Labour Party, created with blood, sweat, tears & hope. Created by all manner of folk from different walks of life, religions, colour & refugees.
Now because of Blairite , Zionist influence, this Right wing atrocity, Starmer has undone over a hundred years work & thrown it all away.
Mr.Corbyn amassed thousands of hopeful people, McDonnell put together economic solutions that many economists approved of but once the lies, smears were paid for all hell broke loose!
Now we have an ex Labour Leader BANNED from a Party he worked for with enthusiasm. He remains working for justice, fairness now as an independent.
WHY did the NEC reject him, WHO rejected him in the NEC?
Personally I regard them all corrupt & bordering on criminality.
Morally they are finished.
This is STARMER’S SHAMEFUL MOMENT, it will be remembered in history that Starmer & conspirators destroyed a Labour Movement & lost all the £ 3 plus millions that Mr.Corbyn accumulated for the party.
Where did the money go Starmer.????
Will you be welcoming all the Tory defectors now who are a waste of space & lazy.
Well done again JVL. A superb review of the injustices that happened and are continuing to Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters. Thank you.
We now have 2 CLP’s where LP members are in an impossible situation -Islington North and Bury South. If Corbyn decides to stand as an independent where does that leave the LP’s members? And Bury South, where members will be put in a situation where they are being expected to canvass for a Tory. Glad I’m not in either of those CLP’s. As an expelled member I’m not even in the LP either.
The fact that the NEC has been systematically purged to get this rigged result has not gone unnoticed by both party members and voters alike. There is no possible way that we can win an election with these bogus socialists in charge, let alone fight the tories.
It goes without saying that this decision is both predictable and outrageous.
However that does not mean going along with everything Corbyn said either. His statement that ‘the scale of antisemitism has been dramatically overstated by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.’ entirely misses the point.
The campaign against ‘antisemitism’ was NEVER about antisemitism. It was always about support for Palestinians, opposition to Zionism and bipartisanship on foreign affairs with the Tories. Of course there will be a few antisemites, just like there would have been a few paedophiles and far greater numbers of Islamaphobes in the party but it wasn’t about them.
This was an entirely bogus campaign which Corbyn unfortunately gave credence to by statements such as that those who deny the problem of antisemitism are part of the problem (‘denialism’).
This is not an academic point. On p.306 of Labour’s leaked report Corbyn and his office are described as pushing for the swift expulsion of myself, Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and Ken Livingstone
In 2017 LOTO staff chased for action on high-profile antisemitism cases Ken Livingstone, Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth, stressing that these cases were of great concern to Jewish stakeholders and that resolving them was essential to “rebuilding trust between the Labour Party and the Jewish community”..
Well we know how that one turned out. When you say that ‘It is our view that such exaggeration has damaged the Party, created division and caused appalling pain to those wrongly accused.’ I disagree. What damaged the party and hurt individuals was accepting that antisemitism was any kind of problem in the party. Of course there were a few antisemites in the party but that wasn’t what the ‘antisemitism’ campaign was about. As the Leaked Report demonstrated, a genuine holocaust denier was protected. It took a petition from several hundred members of Labour International before that person was suspended, 20 months after the initial complaint and it took in total 3 years before he was expelled.
So we are being forced to conclude this nasty vindictive bandwagon is what the labour party really wants to be.
I suppose it was a foregone conclusion, especially given that the LP is riding high in the polls at the moment – with an average ten point lead in the last fourteen polls – and has consistently been ahead of the Tories for over six weeks now. The point being that if Jeremy HAD been reinstated, then all the usual suspects – along with the MSM who gives them a ‘voice’ – would have gone into meltdown, albeit a totally fraudulent and confected meltdown and, as such, had a negative impact on their polling results.
That said, the same thinking would have applied if they’d been behind in the polls, only the fear would have been that they would drop FURTHER behind (as a consequence of all the (faux( outrage).
And no doubt Starmer and Rayner knew what the result of the vote would be beforehand, and that they didn’t need to participate as such.
Just prior to coming on here I did a search to ascertain how widely the MSM were reporting the result and, as such, came across what turned out to be a pre-NEC vote article, but in reading it, it made me think of something I hadn’t thought of before. The article was in the Express, and here are several clips from it, starting with the headline and sub-headline:
Keir Starmer hits back at Jeremy Corbyn allies’ plot to reinstate former leader
JEREMY CORBYN will not be allowed to sit as a Labour MP until he apologises for his past comments, Labour has said amid fury from his supporters
But the leadership insists it will not allow him to sit as a Labour MP until a full apology is issued.
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “It’s been made very clear to Jeremy Corbyn what he must do to move this forward.
“That hasn’t changed, it’s in his hands.”
And THIS is what occurred to me: That Jeremy should write to Starmer and ask him exactly what it is that he – Starmer – wants him to aplogise for. It’s convoluted- it often is when you’re dealing with liars – but think about it! Clue: notice how they NEVER spell it out, and just allude to the Big Fat Falsehood that Starmer dissembled!!
NB And it IS odd how the headline says ‘Keir Starmer hits back at Jeremy Corbyn allies’ plot to reinstate former leader’, and yet in the article there’s nothing whatsoever to that effect!
The black propaganda Deception Brigade at work yet AGAIN!!
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1555611/keir-starmer-news-jeremy-corbyn-whip-labour-party-mp-nec-meeting-latest
Absolute disgusting behavior , I am ashamed after 50 + years as a Labour supporter we have come to this … a party of centrist Tories in Labour colours
Starmer is no inspiration to any voter
A friend of mine, a professor, who had been a Labour Party member for best part of 50 years left after the treatment of Ken Loach, he must be the type leaving a stain on the Party then Rachel Reeves?
I first met Jeremy in the 1970’s when I was secretary of Barnet Trades Council. I’ve watched his career with interest since. It’s not Jeremy they were out to get. It was socialism and integrity. Had he made it to power, something worse might have happened to him. The British State and its allies in the Labour Party, headed by Starmer, are totally ruthless. As Lavery said ‘It’s not called the struggle for nothing’.
Just a thought. When JC was voted leader, a surprise, especially for him.
I think immediately his chosen front bench were working against him , even if they spouted socialism. Starmer et al gave him wrong advice re antisematism, JC is a straightforward individual, and didn’t realise the knives were already out. He was new to this job, not even a previous shadow or cabinet member.
I was also not happy with his response , so unexpected .
I suppose the only way to correct this injustice is for Jeremy Corbyn to go to the law courts. It will be worth it to wash Labour’s dirty linen in public and just let English Labour go the way of the Scottish Labour Party and hope that when Jeremy wins his case it will act as a catalyst so that a pheonix can rise from the ashes and we can have a socialist party which aligns itself with the greens and other anti-climate change and anti-Westminster groupings which are able to bring about meaningful change imroving the lives of ordinary people.
Covid has shown that new ways arre possible, and the acceptance and success of the National Assemblies and the Mayoralties shows the truth of Tip O’Neal’s remark that, “all politics is local”, and a different system of government, a new kind of state, is possible where power comes from below and not from the heights of wealth and lineage or dark money donations.
Labour can’t win the next election, not least because Starmer, the Trilateral Commissioner and ardent Zionist, is even less trustworthy and more dangerous than Boris Johnson, and Boris’ Tory successor will scrape Starmer from his shoe on the edge of the nearest pavement and the electorate will share his disgust. Sad, but true.
But we still have the 2019 Manifesto which provides us with a realistic guide out of the political, economic and environmental swamp into which we were pitched by the banking crash of 2008. Given the phenomenol rise in asset values – shares and property – made possible by the idiotic mechanism of quantitative easing (ie, cheap and even free loans to the banks which brought us here in the first place), we can expect a second financial crash sooner rather than later and that’s the point at which new parties of the left will emerge and, hopefully, unite to undo the damage inflicted on the planet and society by an increasingly unrestrained and unregulated capitalism since the Carter-Callaghan years.
After this decision by the NEC and in light of the shameful, incredible actions taken by the Party against so many of our own committed members ALL Labour Party members should be asking themselves: “. . . who and what does the Party stand for?”
I’m surprised that some of those who have posted above are shocked by this decision and expected the LP to behave better. This is a strictly political issue: Starmer has decided that the best way to become PM is to get rid of all the socialists in the party and that’s what he’s doing – it’s quite simple.
He will carry on until he’s succeeeded and can present the party as a “safe” alternative to the Tories. The lack of any significant fight-back shows that this battle has been lost. It may be that a new party should now be considered, but there will be no point launching it until solid support has been gained from at least one large union and most (or at least some) of the left MPs.
This decision stinks. Emboldened by Labour’s phantom lead in the polls – thanks solely to the disgraceful behavior of Johnson and his chums – the slavish supporters of Starmer’s reign of terror now feel confident enough to further confirm Corbyn’s exile. Once an election looms they will almost certainly expel him, and if he stands as an independent they will try to parachute an ex-MP into his seat – probably someone who considers themself a victim of Labour’s alleged antisemitism under Corbyn’s leadership.
As a Labour party member knowing how many people wanted Corbyn to be PM this is the most unfair treatment I have ever witnessed. Though Labour was the party for me but this behaviour is definitely making me think of going elsewhere and I have already started looking at either Greens or not participating.
Thank heavens for Tony Greenstein.
Even when I partly disagree with him, Tony’s critique challenges and prompts me to rethink my own views.
If the Tories soon have a new Leader I assume that person will select a new batch of loyal sycophants [cabinet]. And perhaps pick a moment for a General Election.
Where would Jeremy Corbyn+whip fit? Does he give an undertaking to support every whipped vote? Or should he agree to be occasionally “unwell”? Or perhaps go to the toilet more conveniently and often?
In the meantime? Go around the country painting the roses red?
Or would Corbyn be a sort of honorary rebel to demonstrate Labour’s heart still ticks? [Just a bit?]
Or would the Starmer Chamber insist on more apologies? “Going down on [his] knees” as Emily Thornberry phrased it?
Last night we wrote to our (Labour) MP, as follows:
Dear (redacted)
I hope you are well.
My wife and I are in our seventies and are currently inactive members of the Labour Party. We are writing to you, our MP, today to express our dismay at news of the defeat at the NEC of a motion to restore the Labour Party whip to Jeremy Corbyn.
We read that the party is riven with factionalism and has lost over 200,000 paying members since Keir Starmer was elected Leader. Today’s NEC decision will do nothing to remedy this situation; on the contrary it will only make matters worse.
We read that Keir Starmer decided, via then chief whip Nick Brown, to make any restoration of the whip conditional on Mr Corbyn’s withdrawal and repudiation of part of his statement following the publication of the EHRC report, i.e.
“Will you unequivocally, unambiguously and without reservation apologise for your comments made on the morning of 29 October, in particular for saying ‘One antisemite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media (…)”.
This demand is like something out of Orwell’s 1984, where the protagonist Winston Smith is pressured sadistically to agree that 2+2=5, as a demonstration of his intellectual obedience to the ruling party; as we’re sure you know, Orwell’s book was based on the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s.
In other words, Mr Corbyn is being asked to humiliate himself and retract a statement that is factually, provably, true (a host of examples are readily available); such a statement is also completely permissible under the terms of the EHRC report itself.
Mr Corbyn’s statement might well have been felt by Keir Starmer to be inconveniently timed. It might well have angered him and caused him embarrassment, on a morning when his strategy was clearly to try to draw a clear distinction between his leadership and that of his immediate predecessor. But to be prepared on that basis to ruin a fellow party member’s career, let alone that of the former leader under whom one has served, is unworthy behaviour and deserves to be called out as such.
Keir Starmer has overruled the NEC once in this matter; he should now do so again and restore the whip to Mr Corbyn, so that the party can start to heal and unite, ready for the next election.
We know that you are a hard-working constituency MP, one who very much likes to get on with the job, as it were. But we urge you to reconsider the degree of your support for Keir Starmer on this particular matter, as you outlined in your letter to us of (redacted). There is such a thing as loyalty to the truth and to one’s conscience.
Kind regards,
Phil and Anthea Adams
Any lawyers out there? I’m just wondering, as a fee-paying Labour Party member, whether I have a reasonable expectation that party rules should be followed by those in elected office, and whether I have any legal recourse in respect to them breaching the rules?
Tony Greenstein has said all this before of course but it must be repeated over and again until people on the left stop talking as though this was ever about antisemitism, and also misrepresenting Corbyn as blameless. Simon Maginn’s #ItWasAScam twitter feed and articles are good to unite behind. And ‘scam’ hardly sums up this huge political smear that has not run its course even after 5 years and is taking out the left in Labour on a scale we’ve never seen before.
Thank you …. a million times over. The whole debacle is a scandal and will go down in whatever is left of history as a disgrace and a deliberate ploy to destabilise and destroy. What has been effectively destroyed is democracy, The fact that the dreadful weapon of ‘racism’ has been deliberately used to bring these events about is shameful and Machiavellian. As a consequence it will also undermine the whole raft of legitimate claims of racism (both against Judaism and any other faith or race) which can no longer be taken at face value but looked on with suspicion to see who ultimately gains and who loses.
Re the demand for Corbyn to make an ‘apology’, more like a recantation. We have Stalinist leadership of the Labour Party: a Stalinist Labour Party is a useful oxymoron around which to focus analysis.
Tony, what would you have Jeremy say exactly, or HAD him say? I can only assume from your 00.51 post that you would have him say something along the lines of what you said in your post – ie that ‘the A/S thing is/was a smear campaign, and the reason for it is not because there is any particular problem with A/S in the party beyond that in society in general, but because of my own and the lefts support for the Palestinians and our opposition to Zionism……..’
I’d be really, really grateful though if you could spell out what you would have said exactly if YOU were Jeremy (and do it in a speech format), the main reason being that I can’t see how saying something in that vein wouldn’t have led to an eruption of condemnation and outrage by all the usual suspects, albeit fraudulent and confected, and, as such, get my head round how and why you think it is, that what YOU would have had him say – and have endlessly criticised him for NOT saying – could have led to some other, positive outcome.
You criticise him in your post for what he said in his statement the day the EHRC published its report, but then go on to say more-or-less the same yourself. And HOW can you disagree with what JVL says about the anguish and distress caused to people who have been falsely accused of A/S and, as such, suspended from the party or expelled. If they HAVE (been caused pain and distress) then they HAVE! So disagreeing doesn’t enter into it. I mean to take just one example – and someone you know well – look at all they put Ken through. And for what…… alluding to an historical fact! I mean it’s just pure evil at work! But I suspect Ken has a thicker skin than many who have been falsely accused after all the character assassination and demonisation he has been subjected to over the years.
Anyway, I’d be grateful if you could respond to my request. Thanks
All of the above just leaves me feeling empty and angry. We all know by now that Starmer is dishonest and totally unfaithful to Labour’s beliefs and cherished history yet this message doesn’t seem to have got through to its supporters and voters, mainly of course because their main avenue of in formation is our beloved media.
Each and every time I’ve written to MPs or newspapers on this subject I’ve had zero acknowledgments and obviously no letters ‘to the editor’ printed. There seems to be a press blackout about Starmer’s attitude to Corbyn, Jewish members complaining of Israel’s crimes against Humanity & apartheid and the Nakba, yet as someone who is sceptical of conspiracy theories it’s taken me a long time to begin to accept this. If labour is to regain its soul, Starmer needs to go.
“Winston Smith is pressured sadistically to agree that 2+2=5, as a demonstration of his intellectual obedience to the ruling party; as we’re sure you know, Orwell’s book was based on the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s.”
Absolutely Spot on Phil and Anthea!
Jeremy’s words involve the sort of issue discussed on
“More or Less” on Radio 4***.
How could anyone with any spirit say “One third is less than one thousandth”? The whole object is to humiliate the guy !
*** The statement is also denied unequivocally by a Jewish expert in statistics – but I cannot remembers his or her name.
PS I see that Laura Pidcock has resigned from the NEC – her statement is excellent.
Allan Howard – you are missing the point, which is that Corbyn mishandled the smear campaign from the start by not translating it into the politics it is when it could have been easier, and not targeting people such as Tony. It was far too late to do much after the EHRC report although Corbyn’s statement did indicate the weaponisation of antisemitism for political purposes.
He could still do a proper statement that acknowledges fully what actually happened and still is happening, and apologise to comrades he saw as expendable, but I doubt he will.
Another obvious point is that most members who voted for Starmer had no idea how right wing he was. He was hiding in plain sight
This is about much more than Jeremy Corbyn. 12.8 million people voted for Corbyn to run the country in 2017 and 10.2 million in 2019. The Establishment knew they had lost the argument so they simply pushed him out. After this can anyone have the bare faced hypocrisy to claim that we live in a democracy?
As I’m sure most readers of this site are aware – as Keir Starmer and David Evans and the chief whip undoubtedly are , and were at the time – that in his statement (on the day the EHRC published its report) – and prior to what he said about the problem being overstated – Jeremy said the following:
“Anyone claiming there is no antisemitism in the Labour Party is wrong. Of course there is, as there is throughout society, and sometimes it is voiced by people who think of themselves as on the left.
“Jewish members of our party and the wider community were right to expect us to deal with it, and I regret that it took longer to deliver that change than it should.
“One antisemite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated…….
And here’s what Starmer said shortly afterwards in a press conference (obviously alluding to Jeremy and what he said in his statement):
“If after all the pain all the grief and all the evidence in this report, there are still those who think there’s no problem with anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, that it’s all exaggerated or a factional attack, then frankly you are part of the problem too – and you should be nowhere near the Labour Party either.”
So Jeremy says “Anyone claiming there is no antisemitism in the Labour Party is wrong. Of course there is…”, and then Starmer says “If after all the pain….. there are still those who think there’s no problem with anti-Semitism in the Labour Party…”
Oh, I must have misread Jeremy! I could have sworn he said…….
Absolutely disgusting . Jeremy vorbyn has nothing to apologise for !! The only hope we have is him . You all should be ashamed of yourselves kier starmer and the rest of you tory scum !!
Jeremy writes letter to Starmer saying ‘Would you also like me to apologise for the bit in my statement where I say: “Anyone claiming there is no antisemitism in the Labour Party is wrong. Of course there is…”, or not?’
Look forward to hearing from you.
Peace and Justice, Jeremy
So Reeves believes 300,000 members who rushed to join the Labour Party when Jeremy became leader were not fit to be members . Those who comment in various newspapers say that Labour was swamped by Trotskyists. You would be hard put to find 300 of those in the whole country. At our CLP monthly meetings a list of new joiners was given to each member. I was amazed how many on the list were professionals such as doctors . Lots of the new intake were young ladies who worked in the NHS. I handed in my resignation when Jeremy had the Whip taken away. I had been a member since 1956,long before Rachel Reeves was born. My son and daughter left at the same time. Both had been members for decades. What she said is one of the most disgusting comments I have ever heard . She is not and never has been a socialist of any stripe. Membership cards bear the legend – the Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. She should not be a member
Er, no Dave, I’m not missing anything. But it’s interesting that you use the old chestnut about how if only he – Jeremy Corbyn – had responded (and ‘fought back’) at the outset of the A/S smear campaign etc. Well the episode that REALLY kicked it all off was the Naz Shah/Ken Livingstone episode, and when Jeremy denied that there was an anti-semitism crisis in the LP, THIS was the reaction by the plotters, courtesy of the MSM:
‘Labour in crisis over ‘anti-semitic’ scandal: MPs demand Corbyn gets his ‘head out of the sand’ after Red Ken is SUSPENDED for claiming Hitler backed moving the Jews to Israel…’
Jeremy Corbyn tonight denied Labour was facing an anti-Semitism crisis despite being forced to suspend his old friend Ken Livingstone for claiming Hitler was a ‘Zionist’.
Senior Labour MPs tonight expressed horror at the attempt to play down the explosive row, which has rocked the party just a week before crucial elections.
Former minister Ian Austin told MailOnline: ‘Just seven days from polling day and instead of knocking on doors like the rest of us, Ken Livingstone is treating us to his weird views on Adolf Hitler and his offensive views on Jewish people.
‘The media are talking about nothing else, the party is having to suspend people on almost a daily basis and Jeremy thinks there’s no problem?’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3563223/Ken-Livingstone-claims-Hitler-supported-Zionism-supported-moving-Jews-Israel-went-mad-ended-killing-six-million-Jews.html
And yes Dave, he DID imply the weaponisation of A/S in his statement the day the EHRC published its so-called report…. and just LOOK at all that has happened as a consequence!
This is a fairly crucial moment so far as the next General Election is concerned. For the first time it looked as if Labour might be close to a breakthrough and a gesture of reconciliation from the leadership might have united the party. Instead Starmer has demonstrated that fighting the left and pursuing his vendetta against Corbyn are his top priorities.To win an election you must really want to win. If winning is your second priority, or if you only want to win subject to various qualifications, you will lose.
Rachel Reeves’ comments about welcoming the loss of members point in the same direction. If she were a clearer thinker she would see that the reasons why people join a party and the reasons why they vote for it are pretty similar. If you lose members you must expect to lose voters. If Reeves thinks that losing a few hundred thousand members is a good thing the implication is that losing a few million votes is even better.
This of course is not a new issue. Long ago left-wing sects had to accept that there was a choice between the ideological purity of their membership and their chance of becoming a serious electoral force. The present leadership’s strategy of turning Labour from a mass party into a sect is still at an early stage and they may not yet have joined the dots.
Allan Howard – of course you are correct and Corbyns statement needs to be taken in context.
However if you take the shortened version – then it can only be judged in terms of “functional numeracy” –
which is what the R4 program is all about. This then
leads to the absurdity of what Corbyn is agreeing to ..
and what Winston Smith was forced to agree too.
They cannot have it all ways!
I shall be interested to see the state of the polls once the fuss over ‘Partygate’ has receded and the Tories have a new leader – almost certainly multi-millionaire Sunak, who maintains a less tainted public persona and won’t be subject to the same temptations as the cash-strapped Johnson. Since the current Labour lead only appeared once Johnson was publicly disgraced, I doubt that it will survive the arrival of a new sanitised Tory leader.
The public has never taken Starmer to its heart and I suspect it never will. To their credit, most people outside the political arena have divined something untrustworthy about the man – a quality which the media has been at pains not to explore. Conversely I believe that there is a lot of affection out there for Corbyn, dating back to his 2017 election campaign. Of course we all know that that affection was undermined by a vile campaign of smearing, but if he stands for the North Islington seat as an independent I am reasonably confident that he will win and that his reputation as an anti-racist will revive.
The public is as always susceptible to smears and misinformation, but trust in the media is not what it was in 2019, and many people have enough sense of justice and a person’s true worth to override media conditioning once a period of time has elapsed. The time for Corbyn to be our standard-bearer has probably elapsed but I have great hopes for the younger generation of socialists who acknowledge his influence – fine comrades like Laura Pidcock, for example, who responded to this latest decision of the NEC by resigning in disgust.
Politics right-wing equates to MAN’S INHUMANITY TO MAN which is why the UK’s nuclear warheads were increased two years ago by the Tory government. Politics left-wing equates to PEACE AND JUSTICE/HUMANITARIANISM which is why Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership election outright in 2015 which gave people hope for the future.
It was a tremendous shock to the Blairites when Jeremy won the leadership election, so they, backed by the JLM swung into action to oust him. Luciana Berger, parachuted into the Wavertree constituency by Blair, Margaret Hodge, Louise Ellman, John Mann, Ruth Smeeth, Mandelson, Blair, Michael Foster, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mervis, Archbishop of Canterbury, Joanna Lumley were desperate to remove Jeremy from power; they knew he would end corruption by the few for the benefit of the many. Jeremy would have won the 2017 election had it not been for those named above including those who appeared in the FAKE Panorama program and paid a six-figure sum by Keir Starmer.
Did these same people raise concerns about the unnecessary deaths in Iraq; the Yemen by UK armaments sold to Saudi Arabia; Syrians, Palestinians killed by the Israelis; thousands of deaths from Covid due to Jeremy Hunt ignoring the NHS Cygnus report in 2016; 72 people who died during the Grenfell Tower inferno – right-wing politics accepts all these deaths as collateral damage.
A Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn would have accepted the 2016 NHS Cygnus report saving thousands of lives including my brother-in-law. Left-wing politicians believe in dialogue not death and destruction. Those who favour war should offer themselves and their families on the front line.
How insulting, Rachel Reeves stated it was a ‘good thing’ Labour members had left the party falsely accusing them of being anti-Semites. The Party now under Keir Starmer will fade into oblivion.
I can’t be the only person who’s recently received an email from Momentum Building Movement, inviting me – and everyone else either in Labour or not in Labour but in sympathy with what Labour (used to?) stand for – to join and support their efforts to build back a non-Blairite party.
It strikes me that the Momentum Building Movement may be ideally placed to act as the go-between HQ for disenchanted unions once affiliated to Labour; Labour members forced out; and Labour members too disgusted by Starmer and Evans to stay inside the party. Momentum have the organising capability and resources to outfox and outlast Starmer and Evans … and there’s no pressure that Blairite apparatchiks can exert on the body. Momentum might even go so far as to promise to disband itself when Labour has regained its purpose and propriety.
Some temporary “home” is needed to help Labour sympathisers and activists from all parts of the Labour family (unions, grass roots organisations, disbanded CLPs etc) stay together and keep working together. Maybe Momentum Movement Builders can provide that temporary “home”? If MMB promise to use as their starting point the 2017 and 2019 manifesto policies us politically homeless voters are likely to find their offer extremely attractive.
The minimum cost of joining MMB is £3 a month – worth a punt, methinks.
Allan Howard – the anti-left forces were mobilised when Ed Miliband was leader owing to his pro-Palestinian views. It didn’t start under Corbyn but escalated under him. There were a number of ways it could have been addressed earlier. Obviously, Corbyn let the internal right reign over the administration for far too long, and externally there are plenty of senior Jewish people who are authorities who could have been enlisted for support. It could hardly have been handled worse from a left standpoint.
Dave: You seem ‘determined’ to blame Jeremy for all that happened during his tenure as leader, and since, your line being that if only he’d fought back and refuted the allegations at the outset of the A/S black op smear campaign, he would have stopped it in its tracks before it REALLY started to escalate. Yes, I’m sure if he’d said publicly – say in defence of Naz Shah, for example – that the ‘map’ she re-posted was just a joke, and that obviously she wasn’t somehow seriously suggesting that Israel – the population of Israel – be moved to the US, the plotters would have just nodded their heads in agreement and said nothing. Of course they wouldn’t have!
Or – if he’d said in defence of Ken Livingstone – that “Ken was alluding to The Haavara Agreement, an historical fact, so why are these people so outraged and claiming what he said was anti-semitic and highly offensive…… It doesn’t make sense, and they obviously have an agenda” etc, I’m sure that the BoD and the JLM and the CAA and the LAA and LFI and and the JC and other Jewish newspapers and the MSM and the likes of John Mann and Ian Austin and Smeeth and Hodge et al would have refrained from (fraudulently) condemning and vilifying him. As if!
Yes, if only he’d kicked out the Blairites when he was first elected leader, then the 170 odd that supported the No Confidence motion the following year would have been gone, and I’m sure that the MSM would have been very eager to report what these ‘senior Jewish authorities’ (whoever they are?) had to say….. As if!
“What damaged the party and hurt individuals was accepting that antisemitism was any kind of problem in the party. Of course there were a few antisemites in the party but that wasn’t what the ‘antisemitism’ campaign was about. ”
I agree in part with that from Tony Greenstein. The reason JC had to go was that the establishment feared his becoming PM with his team putting into practice the excellent manifesto policies, and discovered that accusations of antisemitism, if taken up by MSM, could and did monster JC’s character. His pledge to recognise Palestine as a State was enough to raise the level of hatred exhibited by the right-wing BoD and Chief Rabbi Sacks in their rhetoric (existential treat to the Jewish community in the UK) and picked up by Margaret Hodge. Her reaction on being suspended prompted the following completely ott (I paraphrase) “now I know how my father felt when he had to flee Nazi Germany”.
I checked on p306 of the leaked report and was saddened to see confirmed it read as you said. What was it that prompted your expulsion as I’d like to know the basis if it’s easy to summarize.
It shows a remarkable confidence in the the NEC doing their bidding that Starmer and Rayner didn’t feel it necessary to exercise their influence.
The only light I can see is the bankruptcy of the Labour party, does anyone know if the NEC get a financial statement at the meetings
Bringing JC back was the last chance to save the party
Therefore it’s time to merge with the Socialist Party, with JC as chair and spiritual leader
I read your post with interest Dave – but think Corbyn did not understand the politics of the Jewish Community, finding it confusing. He and one or two others first approached JLM as representing the Jewish Community in spite of the fact that his friends had a different viewpoint. Maybe this was because he had no (religious) faith of his own?
This is all surmise of course – but anyone who had knowledge of the Christian Community would have understood that religious communities have their divisions. Northern Ireland illustrates this .. where the Unionists (Protestant) dominated the province while the Nationalists (Catholic) had their rights trampled on.
Can I just make one more – and important – point (yes, we all know the MSM is totally corrupt, but THIS is actual proof):
In my 22.05 post on Jan 26th – as others have done of course – I quoted what Jeremy said in his statement just prior to what he said about the problem of anti-semitism in the party being ‘dramatically overstated’ etc – ie that ‘“Anyone claiming there is no antisemitism in the Labour Party is wrong. Of course there is….’. Now you can be absolutely certain that every single so-called journalist and editor saw Jeremy’s full statement and, as such, they knew that Starmer was lying when shortly afterwards (at a press conference) he accused Jeremy of having said that there is no problem of A/S in the party (and then promtly suspended him based on his Big Lie). And my point is of course that any journalist or editor worthy of the name would have pointed out what Jeremy said AND that Starmer was lying. But not only did they NOT do that, but they ALL went along with the falsehood and, as such, deceived and duped their readers and viewers and listeners – ie millions of people.
Now I have never had reason – until NOW – to check the MSM (in so far as I can) to ascertain which of them included Jeremy’s FULL statement in their coverage, and which didn’t, but what I DO know is that they soley focused on the one passage – ie the ‘dramatically overstated’ passage. That said – before I thought of the above ‘disparity’ – I happened to read the Daily Mirror’s coverage a few days ago in the process of doing some research on the matter, and they did in fact include his full statement, albeit right at the end of a pretty long article, although it does say the following near the beginning of the article:
‘Offering no apology in a defiant 270-word statement, he said “of course” there is anti-Semitism in the party but turned his fire on “opponents” and the media for exaggerating the problem.’
But the ‘tone’ of the coverage was already set at the outset by the headline and sub-headline anyway! And, very weirdly, it says the following at one point: ‘It appeared Sir Keir had not seen Mr Corbyn’s comments when he spoke at a press conference’, and DID so just five lines after having said the following:
‘Minutes after Mr Corbyn’s statement, new leader Keir Starmer explosively said those who make similar comments did not belong in the Labour Party.’
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/jeremy-corbyn-declares-anti-semitism-22924833#comments-wrapper
Apologies for going over your limit…..
I can only imagine how much it must have pained Jeremy Corbyn to have to stand aside and watch while loyal former colleagues like Chris Williamson and Jackie Walker were pilloried as a result of bad-faith accusations of antisemitism – accusations that he will have known without the shadow of a doubt were politically motivated snd utterly false. But he took his responsibilities as leader seriously, bit his lip and allowed it to happen. In his mind will have been his historic responsibility to the party, the country and to the cause of international socialism, which any attempt on his part to intervene to correct an obvious wrong would have jeopardized.
In hindsight, perhaps, he could have intervened, but that would probably have done more harm than good. So far as the Labour right, the media, the Liberal chatterati and the doorstep grumblers were concerned, there was nothing he could have done to mitigate the dreadful reputation he had acquired — or for that matter make it any worse.
Corbyn’s real mistake, as I see it, was to let the snake Starmer and his crew of People’s Vote anti-democrats shift his conviction that the Referendum result had to be respected. Had he stood firm and defied the right of his party and the Remain waverers, they might well have brought him down, but if so another leader — almost certainly Starmer — would have had to take the blame for the Red Wall collapse in 2019, and many Leavers would have remembered his term as LOTO with affection rather than the contempt they are currently encouraged to hold him in.
Starmer will come to regret his actions over time ,as he notices that no body trusts him anymore ,and that precipitates his own crises in confidence and in turn his judgement
This is what Starmer said: “If ……there are still those who think there’s no problem with anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, that it’s all exaggerated or a factional attack, then frankly you are part of the problem too – and you should be nowhere near the Labour Party either.”
This is what Corbyn had said:
“Anyone claiming there is no antisemitism in the Labour Party is wrong. Of course there is, as there is throughout society…..One antisemite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated…….”
There you have it. Starmer is employing hyperbole here. Brown is demanding Corbyn apologise for something Starmer said.
Corbyn must not back down, to do so would accept the premis of this incriminating ultimatum.
It is extraordinary that this expulsion has been allowed to stand and that there has been no systematic campaign by the media or MPs to expose the double standards and hypocrisy of Starmer’s Labour Party, a man riding high on his credentials as a Human Rights lawyer, whilst actively targeting Jewish members of the Labour Party for removal because they are the ‘wrong sort’ of Jew and Labour supporter. Perhaps the most unedifying and galling spectacle, however, is the EHRC’s refusal to intervene and respond directly to these pernicious tactics that, to any observer, contain clear breaches of the obligations set out in its report. How is it that Keir Starmer can interfere with a disciplinary process days after the EHRC complained about GHQs involvement in the party’s legal and disciplinary processes while Corbyn was leader. Is the EHRC simply a political pawn to be instructed by powerful others? For the media, we are told that Corbyn’s ‘Antisemitism’ is settled and Labour is back to normal, with no further comment on this. This is a flagrant mistruth. The Labour Party has never been more toxic than it is now, activating what surely must be a policy that breaches human rights. I, like many others, hope that the legal intellects in JVL and their supporters will see to it that Starmer will not get away with this anti-democratic, anti-human rights stance.