When you open sluice gates nasty stuff flows out
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
Mike Cushman responds to the recent EHRC “exoneration” of the Labour Party and the venomous attacks on Jewish Voice for Labour by Ruth Smeeth, Margaret Hodge and others.
Those doughty defenders of all Jews who felt uncomfortable in the Labour Party three years ago, are now inviting left wing Jews to leave it, as pro-business, pro-Nato, pro-Israel sentiments seem to be the new condition for membership.
This article was originally published by the Morning Star on Wed 22 Feb 2023. Read the original here.
When you open sluice gates nasty stuff flows out
Last week’s EHRC statement on anti-semitism in Labour is based on flawed premises and has led to an undemocratic enforcement of ideological purity within the party
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“Again, we see this supposed link between anti-semitism and lack of support for business. It’s almost as if there is for these people an unbreakable join of Jews with business…”
Not what I see. It’s just they are out in the open now indicating it’s not about antisemitism but about getting rid of anti-capitalist and anti-war socialists. And anti-Zionists of course.
Excellent informative article. Thank you
As Starmer’s grip over Labour’s component parts grows ever stronger, the party has become unrecognizable. Its traditional commitment to equality and human rights has now been replaced by a commitment to ‘business’, which in Starmer’s terms means big business, the interests of large corporations. Since those interests seem these days to be divorced from any responsibility for the welfare and decent wages of the workers who keep those corporations running, it is hard to see why any trade union would continue to find Labour worthy of its support.
The right, in short, seems by all accounts to have succeeded in disposing of a socialist and anti-racist they feared and hated by painting him as an antisemite, replacing him with a leader who will do their bidding, and using the new leader to execute a complete takeover of the party and its function. But none of this has been won fairly, by debate and reason, only with despicable lies and calumnies. Referring to these illegitimate outcomes as ‘victories’ is a mistake. An advantage gained by cheating is not victory but theft.
Labour now seems to hold an unassailable lead lead in the polls. Such is the unholy mess created by the current administration, this is likely to translate into a huge Labour landslide in 2024. Nonetheless I find it hard to believe that the public has been entirely fooled. Despite the best efforts of a servile media to conceal the truth, Starmer is generally viewed with suspicion and dislike. How all this will play out I have no idea, but I continue, perhaps vainly, to believe the motto taught to us as children: that cheaters never prosper, and those who win a game with lies will some day receive their comeuppance.
Anti-Semitism hype was a classic ‘Moral Panic’ used as a stick to beat Socialist Labour.
“Its traditional commitment to equality and human rights”
How do Afghanistan and Iraq fit into the above narrative ? Dont tell me, that was just Blair/New Labour, and it was all better in mythical Old Labour times. You know, the elitist Fabiens and imperialist Atlee.
No shortage of anti-Corbyn letters published in yesterday’s Guardian. Hard to believe that no pro-Corbyn letters were received.
Peter Kyle is strikingly frank in his assimilation of ‘anti-semitic’ to ‘anti-Business’. He comes close to accepting that the ‘antisemitism’ of which Corbyn was accused was simply a coded reference to his criticism of capitalism.
Of course the position taken by Kyle and others like him only makes sense if it is tacitly accepted that generally speaking all capitalists are Jews and all Jews are capitalists. The dirty little secret beneath all the rhetorical outrage is that the entire narrative of ‘Labour Party antisemitism’ rests on an assumption that is not only false but in itself antisemitic.
I’m with “dave” on this. First they came for the anti-Zionists, then they came for those protesting the expulsion or proscription of anti-Zionists, then they came for the anti-capitalists and the Nato-sceptics…
About two years ago now I went on to the CST’s website to check how many ‘Prosecutions for Antisemitism’ they had listed for 2020, and found that there was nothing listed, and only prosecutions up until 2019 were listed. So anyway, it just occured to me to check again, and it’s STILL the same – ie there is no annual listing of prosecutions beyond 2019 (the year JC and the LP lost the GE and Jeremy announced that he was standing down as of when a new leader is elected).
As far as I can tell (from their website) the CST have been publishing annual lists of prosecutions for antisemitism since 2003, and I can’t see any explanation for why it suddenly came to a halt in 2019. Why would it?!
What they say on the page is ‘CST will continue supporting prosecutions against antisemitism and will update this list as required.’ Could it be a case of ‘Mission Accomplished’ and they’re not bovvered anymore!
https://cst.org.uk/research/prosecutions-for-antisemitism
I just went back onto the CSTs website to have a bit of a look around (which I’ve not really done before), and the very first thing I came across – which I don’t recall hearing about before – is a CST report (so-called) entitled ‘Engine of Hate – The online networks behind the Labour Party’s antisemitism crisis’, pubished in 2019. Here’s a short extract from the intro:
This report identifies 36 key pro-Corbyn Twitter accounts, each with their own, overlapping, online networks that drive social media conversations about antisemitism and the Labour Party. These 36 accounts have been dubbed the ‘Engine Room’ in this report as they are amongst the most influential accounts on Twitter in engaging with online conversations about Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party and antisemitism.
I’ve only skimmed through it reading a bit here, and a bit there (it’s a 52 page pdf file), but the main claim being made appears to be that that these accounts are claiming that it’s all been exaggerated and weaponised to undermine Jeremy Corbyn, and that THAT amounts to Hate….. Well, yes, it does – ie persecution and hate-mongering against those telling the truth and exposing the malevolent falsehoods and lies for what they are!
Anyway, at the beginning of page 9 they’ve got like a screenshot of part of a Skwawkbox article, which they don’t comment about, but seem to imply that it’s an example of Jew hate/anti-semitism, and yet when I did a search re the subject matter of the SB article, the Times of Israel had an article about it as well. They also disseminate the falsehood that KL said Hitler supported Zionism. He didn’t! He alluded to The Haavara Agreement, and then said in respect of the agreement, that Hitler *was* supporting Zionism.
Yep, we all know (on the left) about the REAL Engine of Hate, and who’s behind it!
The most deranged comment to date on the readmittance of Luciana Berger to the Labour Party (against Labour policy as defined in the rule book, but who cares? Certainly not Mr Rules himself) comes in a tweet from ex-Tory Christian Wakeford to the effect that he is ‘thrilled’ to see Berger back in the party after the ‘depths of depravity’ of the Corbyn years. As one who took part in those ‘depths of depravity’, I find myself pleased to see one of Starmer’s recruits exposing himself with such lack of moderation. It revives my faith is what was achieved and how much it mattered. A recent piece by Jonathan Cook entitled ‘Starmer is paving the way for the triumph of dark politics’ offers an analysis of recent developments in this saga infused with his usual wisdom and insight. There is a warning there about the dark currents which might be stirred up by Starmer’s purge of the left, but Cook also offers a germ of hope that given the glaring absence of solutions coming from the two main parties, ‘Voters will increasingly be drawn to figures promising decisive action over inaction.’