One year on: the duplicity of Jeremy Corbyn’s ongoing suspension
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
Dan Finn, features editor at Jacobin, takes a long, hard look at the significance of the ongoing suspension of Jeremy Corbyn from the Parliamentary Labour Party.
He argues convincingly that: “The indictment of Corbyn drawn up by his opponents is so preposterous that it poses a real challenge for anyone whose approach to political discussion is still based on logic and evidence.”
And, as he reveals, it is a tale of duplicity, dishonesty, distortion, and destructiveness.
Hats off to Jacobin for publishing this powerful indictment.
This article was originally published by Jacobin on Fri 29 Oct 2021. Read the original here.
Jeremy Corbyn’s Suspension Is a Monument to Keir Starmer’s Political Bankruptcy
British Labour chief Keir Starmer has now kept his predecessor suspended as a Labour MP on spurious grounds for an entire year. The ongoing saga of Corbyn’s suspension perfectly encapsulates the destructive and duplicitous nature of Starmer’s leadership.
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A good article but this isn’t just about Corbyn but the cynical use of a huge smear against the left in general that of course is ongoing.
As for: “As well as mobilizing the party membership in defense of Corbyn, the Labour left’s most prominent figures could have acted immediately by repeating the central point Corbyn had made and elaborating on it.”
Well yes but by that time it was far too late. The antisemitism smear, let’s be clear, was mobilised to take down the pro-Palestinian left and Labour socialists in general. The EHRC report is a sideshow after the main event although more of the PLP calling it out may have prevented some of the witch hunts we now see against members.
The Socialist Campaign Group are useless.
Starmer reveals his duplicitous nature in not allowing the Forde Report to be published. He would be proving that he is unfit to lead a democratic party by publishing it unredacted, so suggestions are made that the eventually (perhaps by 2099?) it will be published redacted.
Newspapers, TV and radio fight shy of demanding its publication as it would show their attacks on Corbyn to have been and are still being dishonest.
Very good article, well worth reading.
Rational discussion of the issue cannot be allowed because it would expose its dishonesty.
A well-written, well-argued piece. However, I think the journalistic effort should now focus much more on whether Labour CAN survive the current leadership; how CLOSE the party is to bankruptcy and disintegration; and legally what the political options and property / brand ownership rights are AFTER Labour has collapsed.
The Mandelson fraternity – if such exists – would naturally want to take over Labour’s assets and name rather than take on the much more challenging task of setting up a new political party. How can Labour’s assets and brand be protected from such a coup?
Labour left are practically useless, which is the opposite of what you would expect of those who profess to be willing to die for the cause
At every turn the they have failed to man the barricades, dust off the pitchforks and form a Red line that cannot be crossed
Am I missing the cunning plan
As stated in the article, at least have your ‘I’m Spartacus ‘ moment and call out the duplicity, every Socialist PLP member should stand behind JC and force a show down with Temporary Embarrassment and his backers
Superb article.
Finn’s article is Enlightening. Crystal clear. Accurate. Insightful and disturbing.
Surely all grounds for expulsion from the British Labour Party.
I have read many articles such as this, detailing Jeremy Corbyn’s tussle with ‘antiSemitism’ and his battles within a Party overflowing with ‘antiSemites’. Those articles are as good as far as they go but not once have I seen anyone lay cards on the table and declare that the Labour Party was ‘riddled with’ ANTI ZIONISTS i.e. anti racists, not antiSemites, which is something to be proud of not ashamed. Since Tony Blair declared he was a Zionist, despite the obvious racist, apartheid nature of the Zionist Israeli government, hardly anyone in the Labour Party nor the MSM has had the bottle to point to the elephant in the room. Anyone such as Richard Burgon who attempted to do it was sat on and made to shut up. It was left to Chris Williamson to go it alone but even he, in an attempt to shield Jeremy Corbyn, apologised. An apology he later regretted.
Right from the start, Corbyn could have called out the Zionists for what they were but time after time he was given the wrong advice from people such as John McDonnell, Len McCluskey and others who thought they could take the easy way out using appeasement. They did not have a clue how ruthless the Zionists who were out to get Corbyn and anyone else who stood in their way could be.
How refreshing to read something intelligent, focused on revealing the truth and clearly seeing the multiple lies strewn in the path that was taken. So tired of the MSM!
The current elite is despicable and hypocritical. It is endorsed and covered up for by the despicable and hypocritical establishment media. Our people seem unable to realise that free speech and democracy are being taken away.
Brilliant article. Just a little aside: The mostest anti-semitic tropes and smears have come from the pink tories in the party, at least that is what I have observed, both on a national level and sadly silently condoning this on local level too, just to earn some brownie points me thinks. The hatred with which the establishment persecutes socialists breaks my heart. How can these people live with themselves????
Just make sure to post this article again down the line in case we all forget again that Jeremy Corbyn and Labour’s Left was setup the moment Mr Corbyn MP became Labour leader. Mind you ~ Labour’s so-called Left had a lot to do with ‘it’. For example, how could the Labour membership, along with Jon Lansman’s Momentum, seek to have had Keir Starmer elected Labour leader. There has to have been some dystopian thing goin’ on that phased the minds of Labour membership’s voters. And, we know it was true with all the inquisitorial anti-semitic mind bending-jumbo sloshed around.
A brilliant article. It should be front page news everyware. In the current climate it wont even be mentioned.
I have spoken to people who came up with Corbyn is an anti-Semite. They have just read it someware sadly including the Guardian and Observer – the so-called left of centre liberal papers.
It is sad that these newspaper’s are afraid to confront issues like Corbyns suspension. There is no hope from the rest of media including BBC.
I guess with opinion writers like Freedland in the Guardian and Cohen in the Observer there is not going to be much change there.
Eventually there must be somebody in MSM who is prepared to confront this false narrative that Labour and Corbyn were anti Semitic
Where is Owen Jones for example? Peter Oborne I think is the only journalist who has dared to challenge these views re Corbyn.
LBC and James O’Brian continue at every opportunity to savage Corbyn. He rarely allows alterative opinions to have much space on his program and will continually interrupt and speak over them, while those who agree with him about Corbyn get a free ride.
Its sad because he is a very good debater generally, but has a big blind spot re Corbyn and much of what he describes as hard left, whatever that means.
So where are there upright honest journalists out there who are not afraid to take there falsehoods and lies on. Where? Are they all strangled by editorial policy or fear of anything that is considered anti Israel??
A great analysis, many points of interest not least the aspect that we are all busy but this paragraph copied is the nub of it. “The false narrative that has congealed around Corbyn’s stint as Labour leader is a perfect example of a thought-terminating cliché. Its chief function is to obstruct any sensible discussion of what happened while Corbyn was at the helm, or of what his successor has been doing since replacing him. Such barriers are especially important for Starmer, since he has comprehensively failed to deliver on what he promised during the 2020 leadership campaign, whether in terms of policy, party management, or “electability.””
Linda, in the event of bankruptcy, most of the bankrupt entity’s assets are seized and auctioned off to pay their creditors. So it’s not likely that the left would be able to retain any of them.
Besides, the one asset of the left that is significant is immune from seizure: our numbers.
We should not, however, look forward to the bankruptcy of the Labour party. The likely result of that would be the foundation of a number of political parties on the left, all of them small and under-resourced. The right wing of the Labour party, on the contrary, would be a small but well-resourced party (rich doners) and would move to pull all the others into its orbit. But one thing is sure – there’d be no effective opposition to the Tories for a decade or two.
It’s a sign of how grim things are that people are looking at such a scenario and wondering if it might not be the lesser of two evils.
Daniel Finn’s opening comment says it all for me: “The indictment of Corbyn drawn up by his opponents is so preposterous that it poses a real challenge for anyone whose approach to political discussion is still based on logic and evidence.”
How many of us gaped – appalled and speechless – at this vicious and fallacious piece of Starmerism which labelled Jeremy Corbyn an antisemite, and still bars him from his elected office?!
(How do we sue the leading prosecutor-as-was..? Even if we could afford to…?)
Labour Party members and other socialists should keep a close eye on Israeli propagandists such as Labour Friends of Israel and Labour Against Antisemitism. When it comes to UK elections their socialism is unlikely to be exactly congruent with yours – as we saw in 2019, when the generally right-wing Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) decided not to vote Labour specifically to block Jeremy – with Dames Hodge and Ellman featuring prominently!
The smaller left-wing Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) didn’t have a compensatory number of votes.
I have been in discussion with St Paul’s School, which I attended in London many years ago, because it has turned out that Gideon Falter attended it in the years, 1996-2001. Falter is the leading figure in Campaign Against Antisemitism and, therefore, one can presume that he has been involved in the matters described in the article. Falter is giving a talk on zoom for the “St Paul’s Community” on 9th November about his work to combat antisemitism (which, so far, is meant to be private, but I have asked if it to be available subsequently, because I am not able to attend at the time). I, also, told the Community that the A-S campaign to destroy the Labour Party before the election was wrong, as were the actions of Israel against the Palestinians, which I was bound, as a Christian, to protest against. The current article came up yesterday and I forwarded it to the school Community. I reminded them that the school was founded by John Colet, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1509 for pupils from “all nations and countries”. It was not founded for the education of pupils from all nations and countries except Palestine. In no way should the school, or its governing body endorse anything being proposed on these matters by Falter, because he was one of its old boys, or for any other reason. Yes, they could give a platform to Falter, on free speech grounds, but there it must end.
Stephen Flaherty – please do you know which entity owns the Labour name? Ownership of the name could be important.
Irrespective of any wishes we might have, the Labour party (as it’s being run now) stands a fairly high chance of becoming insolvent, in my view.
Rich donors haven’t been able to stem the losses accruing from diminishing subscriptions from members and unions, they no longer seem interested in doing so. Their confidence in Starmer seems to be dwindling. There isn’t an obvious “heir apparent” to Starmer who could BOTH make it worthwhile for rich donors to support the party and revive the party as an electoral force. I also don’t think there’s any room politically in the UK for another centrist party similar to the LibDems but lacking the genuine commitment and idealism of so many LibDem activists.
I agree with you about the impact the further decline of Labour will have on wider British politics over 10 years or more. It worries me deeply.
Anthony Sperryn’s post about Gideon Falter giving a school talk is worrying as this outreach work by them no doubt presented from only one (extreme) side, and unopposed, normalises the smear campaign.
In 2018, I made a complaint about Dave Rich being invited to speak on ‘Labour’s Jewish problem’ at our local community association, but it fell on deaf ears. I was unable to go unfortunately as he would have been challenged by me.
Linda
If the ‘Labour’ name is treated as an asset then it can be bought from the Receiver
If the entity is dissolved then it can be registered by a new party
I think !
I suppose 10 yrs it could be before Labour could be electable. Linda It means really a lot of the complacent I am alright jack over 50s will die out or have less political influence. The young under 30s will dominate. They are generally better educated internationalist above all don’t read right wing MSM. There is hope. ? but who knows
Could be that that things get worse people start to see that Brexit and Johnsons lies come whom to Roost . The Tory party has not much of a youth movement and members are mostly over 60.
Maybe I am clutching at straws here.
It is amazing that Major has criticised the Tory Party
for their arrogance and non adherence to Rules. This (rightly) received a lot of interest and there was much discussion in the MSM.
Yet the Labour Party’s arrogance in telling its members what they can and cannot talk about has received little or no interest. More importantly the purge of Jewish members has – so far as I know – not appeared in any of the MSM outlets.
Linda, having consulted the Collation of Ancient Wisdom, I find that the Labour Party is an Unincorporated Association, which means it does not have a separate legal personality and so cannot own anything. Including the name. It might be trademarked, but I doubt it – again, as an Unincorporated Association, the Labour Party cannot register trademarks.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there were a dummy association, a corporation or IPS, that owned all the labour Party’s assets and was set up in such a way as to be under the control of the Labour Party. Charities often do that (as they’re forbidden to trade). They might own the trademark on the name.
However, I remember a case some 20 years or so ago when someone set up a party called “The Literal Democrats” and ran in one constituency in an election, getting a few thousand votes despite not campaigning at all. When the Liberal Democrats – who’d lost this constituency as a result of them gaining the few thousand votes – took this to court, they were informed there was nothing they could do and – crucially – that there would have been nothing they could do even if this party had called itself the Liberal Democrats.
All of which is to say that I’m not sure that the name “the Labour Party” belongs to anyone.
Back to the idea of a split, the only way I can see it working is if we were to take the majority of the 400,000 or so members with us. And, preferably, a majority of the Unions and other Affiliates as well. Less than that, the new party would likely become an irrelevance and/or split the anti-Tory vote disastrously.
Of course (to return to a well-worn theme of mine) if we didn’t have such an undemocratic and unfit-for-purpose electoral system as FPTP, all this would be a lot easier and a lot more likely to succeed, not to mention that it wouldn’t run the risk of granting the Tories victory for a generation or two… PR Now!
Stephen – I agree with your proposition about PR.
Some of us put forward a motion on PR to be considered at Conference – and so far as I remember it did not get passed.
Whether it was rejected or not even considered am not sure – there was so much that was unbelievable about the Conference.
Just checked – the motion for PR failed in spite of 80% of CLPs wanting it – however the Unions did not back it and nor did the leadership. See
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/80-of-clp-back-pr-but-motion-falls-at-labour-party-conference/
Yes, I was one of the people who put forward a motion on PR (unfortunately, my CLP didn’t back it). And, yes, the PR motion at conference failed because 95% of Unions voted against it, which outweighed the 80% of CLP delegates who voted for it. The kicker is that, a few days later, UNITE came out in favour of PR. Had they done that earlier, the motion would have passed.
Still, next year… Hopefully UNITE will be joined by UNISON (which, now that I have a job again, I’m rejoining and so can try to nudge them that way, however little effect I can produce).
Sometimes, I think this is the only reason I’m staying in the Labour Party. (Not that the pro-PR organisations like Make Votes Matter and Labour for a New Democracy are any better than the Labour Party – I was banned from both for, you guessed it, antisemitism. In a move that was arguably worse than the Labour Party, they didn’t even bother with a sham hearing, just banning by diktat, with no chance to defend myself or appeal).