The Labour party, the blood libel, and me
JVL Introduction
This article is almost a year old. Because of a miscommunication we didn’t repost it when it first appeared.
We’re pleased to do so now, with its author’s agreement.
The story it recounts is unfortunately still relevant today.
It reveals the dynamic of a witch hunt which is still all too alive: the labelling of individuals as antisemites, on the basis of spurious evidence and quotes wrenched out of context; malicious hounding by the trolls; and the willingness of Labour’s disciplinary machine to give credence to such wilful and vindictive accusations…
Here Simon Maginn gives the record of his surreal ‘notice of investigation’ by the Labour Party – for antisemitism.
We had believed things were getting better following Jennie Formby’s appointment as General Secretary. Recent evidence suggests there is a long way to go.
This article was originally published by Medium on Thu 28 Feb 2019. Read the original here.
The Labour party, the blood libel, and me
WARNING: This post contains images of abusive tweets which some readers might find offensive.
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A seminal witness to the corruption of the ‘antisemitism’ scam.
This witch-hunt has got to stop. The Labour Party is being destroyed from within and without by this pernicious propaganda. We have to put a stop to this!
Simon M, thanks for this powerful piece. It makes clear that one of the purposes of the smear campaign is to drive people out of the Labour Party. Unfortunately, it seems to be succeeding. It has been so successful I can’t see it stopping any time soon. But I’m sure that history will record this as one of the darkest episodes in the Party’s existence. A grim end to the decade.
I have long felt this must be the case – you’ve confirmed it. I’m sorry you had this experience and I despair of the LP.
I am shocked and I am ashamed to be a member of the Labour Party I so much love. But I do not think that resignation from the membership is a right solution. I believe we should keep on fighting within the system to get rid of the injustice. Enough is enough!
Thank you Simon for such an articulate and informative article. When people speak of the damage to the ‘Jewish Community’, they don’t speak for left wing Jews who have suffered constant, targeted harassment and abuse online for supporting Labour. This includes some of the PLP who have used antisemitism a very convenient weapon because they disliked the twice elected leader.
Sadly I don’t see an end to it, with the Gnasher mob turning to attack a Jewish presidential candidate who just happens to believe in Palestinian human rights; and it will happen to the next Labour leader, unless they are completely uncritical of the Israeli government.
In the meantime, Britain has elected an actual racist. I’ve never seen so many racist tweets on my TL since the election and Britain First are in ascendancy. I would dearly love to be hopeful for 2020, but I’m not.
Wishing you a Happy New Year anyway.
This goes to show how careful one has to be when commenting. Putting ‘Rothschilds’ and ‘secretive foreign agencies’ in inverted commas (like I’ve done here) might have helped here, to show that the post is rejecting the idea of Rothschilds conspiracies. Any slight inaccuracy or slip or ambiguity will be jumped on to ‘prove’ mendaciously that a posting is ‘anti-Semitic’, as in this case, and once the bogus ‘proof’ is broadcast it’s a devil’s own job to put things right.
Dear Simon, please reapply for membership. The riiggtcwing are relying on people leaving in order to regain control of the party that tyey have been unable to do through democratic means.
Please stay and fight
The party seems to have adopted a position of presumption of guilt from which the accused has to prove themselves innocent without knowing the source and history of complaint. Having to answer very closed questions without the ability to clarify or challenge the status or purpose of the question is the opposite of due process, that the party should be champions of as a matter of civil rights.
At the very least the party should make provision for independent legal advice for members to create some sort of balance