Defend Free Speech – Join the Campaign for Free Speech Launch Rally this Saturday 12.00 p.m.

 Starmer and Evans Contempt for Democracy and the Rights of Members Speaks Volumes About What a Future Labour Government Will Look Like

Please register for Saturday Free Speech Conference here

We will have a range of speakers on Saturday including Craig Murray, the former Ambassador to Uzbekistan who was sacked by Jack Straw for exposing the country's torture.  Ilan Pappe, the Israeli Professor whose book 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine' details what happened in 1948 and Ronnie Kassrills, the Jewish former Commander of the ANC's military wing Umkontwe we Sizwe and a Minister in successive ANC governments in South Africa from 1994-2008. Ronnie has been outspoke in condemning Israeli Apartheid see here.

There is a wholesale attack on Labour Party democracy being waged by Starmer and his glove puppet David Evans.  It demonstrates the contempt that the Labour Right have for free speech and democracy.

But this is not just about democracy and free speech.  Nor is it just about defending the right of Israel to continue committing its atrocities. It is also about what a future Labour government looks like.

Let me be clear.  I think it highly unlikely that Starmer will win a general election. It’s not just that he has all the personality of a wet fish. It is highly unlikely that Labour will regain sufficient of the ‘red wall’ seats to even get back to the position that Corbyn achieved in 2017 with 262 seats. Given the permanent loss of the Scottish seats, the prospects of a future Labour government are slim indeed.

In retrospect Corbyn’s achievement in 2017 may come to be seen as Labour’s high water mark.  Labour’s decline as an electoral force is part and parcel of the decline in European social democracy, be it in the Scandinavian countries, France, Germany and Italy.  It has to date been masked by the first past the post electoral system. To put it bluntly.  Social democracy now has nothing to offer. 

Corbyn has refused to go onto the offensive against Starmer and the Campaign Group has done nothing

Corbyn’s Labour did have something to offer which is why the results in 2017 achieved the highest swing since 1945.  Unfortunately the fierceness of the fightback by his opponents, with ‘anti-Semitism’ being weaponised for all its worth, undermined the confidence of Corbyn and exposed the weakness of a Labour Left trapped by identity politics.  Their lack of class politics proved fatal.

Starmer doesn’t even have the personality or charisma of Tony Blair.  There is nothing subtle or charming about him. He is a walking corpse without a trace of humour. His commitment to rooting out ‘anti-Semitism’ is so patently insincere that it’s barely worth analysing.  Suffice to say that it is in marked contrast to his attitude to other forms of racism.  His response to Black Lives Matter was famously that it was a ‘moment’.

Corbyn refused to give support to anti-racist activist Marc Wadsworth after he was libelled by racist Zionist Ruth Smeeth, ex-Director of Israeli lobby group BICOM and Hate not Hope

Above all Starmer is waging a war of lies. His outlawing of any discussion on the EHRC’s pitiful report (see Mike Cushman’s excellent Don’t consign Labour Party democracy to the history books in the Morning Star) demonstrates how pitifully weak the report is.  See also The EHRC Report Should be Rejected - it is not fit for purpose – That's why Starmer has forbidden all discussion of this Flawed Report.

Despite all the lies about making a safe space for Jews (as long as they are Zionists) Starmer knows full well that the Report is full of holes.  Given that it has been produced by Commissioner Alasdair Henderson, whose own racist sympathies resulted in his tweeting his support for two fascists, Roger Scruton and Douglas Murray, the only place it should go is a litter bin.

‘Anti-Semitism’ is useful to provide a moral cudgel, nothing more. The Board of Deputies concern about ‘anti-Semitism’ i.e. support for Israel, is a handy excuse. The real reason for the attack on party democracy has nothing to do with ‘anti-Semitism’. Starmer envisages that he will come to power in a situation wholly unlike that of Blair in 1997.

Labour Against the Witchhunt's Fringe Meeting at Liverpool Conference 2018 - Chris Williamson was the only MP who opposed the witchhunt 

Although people best remember Blair for the Iraq War, PFI and privatisation and hostility to asylum seekers, New Labour also spent a lot of money on the NHS and tax credits. This was a time when the British economy was buoyant thanks to Ken Clarke, John Major’s Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Of course by the time Gordon ‘no return to boom or bust’ Brown had taken over and the financial crash had hit us, then the economy was anything but healthy.  New Labour’s bonfire of regulations led to a decade of austerity.

If, just imagine, that a Starmer government came to power in 2024 then the situation will be infinitely worse. The government has borrowed hundreds of billions of pounds thanks to the COVID crisis. It is going to have to pay that back and it is an educated guess that it’s not the rich who are going to have to pay it!

LAW picket of Labour Party HQ Southside

It is unlikely that Rishi Sunak will impose a wealth tax of say 20% of all liquid and fixed assets on the top 10% of society to meet the COVID bill.  Instead it will be the working class who will be told to pay up.  Starmer is nothing if not the bastard offspring of the ruling class. He is the only member of the Trilateral Commission, an international ruling class organisation containing such luminaries as Henry Kissinger. We are facing austerity on stereoids.

A future Labour government will not be a reformist government.  It will be an echo of Ramsay Macdonald’s 1929-31 government which cut the dole and led to a national government. We can’t of course foresee the exact circumstances in which such a government gains office, almost certainly as a minority government, but the omens aren’t promising.

Jon Lansman - the man who did the most to defeat Corbyn

That is why Starmer is determined to crush the Left now and that is also why socialists have to fight, fight and fight again (to borrow Hugh Gaitskell’s slogan) against Starmer and the even more pitiful Rayner. It is a measure of how pathetic and weak the Campaign Group of Socialist MPs is that they are unable even to mount a defence of Corbyn.

Corbyn himself, instead of leading the fightback, has resorted to trying to secure backroom deals and a form of words that will placate Starmer.  Instead of taking to the stage and mounting a campaign against Sturmer and Evans he is remaining silent hoping to slide back and regain the Whip.

According to Skwawkbox Corbyn and Long-Bailey’s offending statements were pre-approved by the treacherous Starmer.  That is quite likely, not least because we know as a fact that Starmer’s office was leaking to the press in July that Corbyn was likely to be suspended when the EHRC report was released.

If the Campaign Group and Momentum had any political analysis then they would look forward and see that the battle against the neo-liberal Starmer has to start now.  Starmer is our enemy. There should be no question of uniting with him or the right.  This has been the fateful mistake of the Labour Left historically.  Today it represents a disaster in the making. When Starmer/Evans attack the democracy of the Labour Party they are doing it on behalf of capital and the City. That is why rich benefactors are standing by, reading to replace trade union money.

Keir Starmer - the charisma of a wet fish and the honesty of a second hand car dealer

That is why we should support a group of 7 Labour Party members, 4 of whom are Jewish (but the wrong sort of Jews) who are taking the Labour Party to court about the breach of their most basic democratic rights.  Despite the EHRC saying that Labour’s procedures are unfit for purpose and making a series of proposals to improve them, the Labour Party witchhunters are saying that the EHRC proposals don’t apply to them!  Thus making a complete mockery of Sturmer’s acceptance of the Report lock stock and barrel.

The Right haven't yet got round to this!

Please support Labour Activists 4 Justice crowdfunding appeal,

It has raised just over half of the £100,000 necessary in order to bring judicial proceedings. But they need another £50,000.

JUSTICE FOR ALL LABOUR PARTY MEMBERS.

LABOUR PARTY GOES BACK ON ITS PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE OF EHRC RULING

CASE GOES TO HIGH COURT

Seven members of the Labour Party today filed a claim in the High Court in light of the Party’s acceptance that its disciplinary process is unfair and not fit for purpose. 

The group of members, Labour Activists For Justice (LA4J) who have all been unjustly accused of undermining the Party’s ability to campaign against racism, have been working for six months to persuade the Party to improve its disciplinary process for the benefit of all members, but have been rejected at every approach. Last month the EHRC Report on its Investigation into Antisemitism in the Labour Party found that the Party’s disciplinary process was not fit for purpose, and recommended that the Party should put in place a new fair system. 

When the EHRC Report came out, the Party said it would implement all the recommendations as a matter of urgency and would commission a new process. So LA4J approached the Party again to ensure that the Party did not continue with its investigations under the unfair process, only to be told the Report did not apply to them and the Party would continue to use the same disciplinary processes that were found to be seriously unfair by the EHRC. Today LA4J filed a claim in the High Court through their solicitors, Bindmans LLP, to ensure that the Party must now address what they and the EHRC say are multiple failures in its disciplinary process.

The points made by the EHRC are almost identical to the points made by LA4J, including:

·       the lack of clear guidelines on how antisemitism cases are judged

·       the Party has now confirmed that it uses a version of its Code of Conduct to judge what is antisemitic that it will not publish or even send to people under investigation

·       withholding the identity of accusers without good reason

·       a lack of fair process for the accused

·       a failure to provide adequate reasons for the decisions made.

The members of the group, four of whom are Jewish, have all had disciplinary action taken against them and are currently under investigation over alleged rule breaches relating to antisemitism, which they strongly reject. They know that many other members are in similar situations. They are making this High Court claim because the suggestion in many cases, including their own, that there is anti-Semitic content in the evidence provided by the Labour Party is unfounded and offensive. They want a fair disciplinary process to be implemented for ALL Labour Party members where the criteria by which they will be judged are clear and public and the procedures are fair.

One of the group, Diana Neslen, an 81year old Orthodox Jew said:

‘Throughout its history the Labour Movement has fought for the rights of workers, including the right to a fair and just disciplinary process. If any employer tried to impose the party’s process on their employees today, the Labour Movement and the unions would be up in arms. It is a disgrace that needs to be fixed.’

‘Over the last six months we have drawn the party’s attention to our concerns with several lawyer’s letters, but every time they refuse to address our arguments.  The idea that the EHRC Report does not apply to us is the last straw. A legal challenge is not a road we want to go down, but they have left us no choice. ‘

LA4J’s Crowdjustice and other funding approaches have been, and continue to be, well supported by hundreds of individual contributors, many of whom have said they have donated or pledged precisely because we are taking action on behalf of ALL members.  However the likely costs of the action will run to  six figures so LA4J would be grateful for any further contributions.

Link to the crowdfunding appeal:

The Labour Party owes it to all its members to treat them with fairness and due process.

This should start now!

The Members of LA4J :

Diana Neslen (age 81) is a General Committee delegate to Ilford South CLP. She is an Orthodox Jew. She rejoined the Labour party in 2015 following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader and is a member of Jewish Voice for Labour. She has been a long time Palestinian and antiracist activist. In September 2018, five months after the sudden death of her husband and while undergoing cancer treatment, she received a reminder of conduct from the Labour Party detailing eleven 'offences' she had committed.  All were social media postings related to Israel’s policies and conduct. There was no indication anywhere as to the identity of the complainants or the definition of antisemitism the Party was applying, and some of the postings predated her Labour party membership.  Although she contacted the Party to discover the nature of the 'offences', she received no response.  In May 2020, while shielding alone, she received a notice of investigation from an anonymous employee of the Labour party  detailing  seven items that required investigation for antisemitism. The complainants were again anonymous and the definition not based on the published code. Although she has made contact with the party to request further information and later on to explain the proper context in which what she said must be understood, they have at no time had the courtesy to reply. It is chilling that the Labour party feels emboldened to accuse a Jewish woman of antisemitism on the basis of a hidden definition, and by its unfair processes expose the truth of the EHRC findings about its unjust complaints process.

Jonathan Rosenhead (age 82) is Chair of Hoxton West branch and serves on the Executive of Hackney South and Shoreditch CLP. He first joined the Labour Party in 1962, and was a Labour Parliamentary candidate in 1966; he rejoined the party in 2015. His Notice of Investigation served in May 2020 cited as evidence i) a speech at the February CLP meeting nominating Jo Bird for the NEC, in which his mention of her well known ‘Jew-process’ joke was allegedly a disciplinary offence; ii) words which were incorrectly asserted to be part of his verbal evidence as a witness at Ken Livingstone’s disciplinary hearing in 2017; and iii) an article he had written in Open Democracy in October 2017 describing the launch meeting of Jewish Voice for Labour (but which of the 3000 words were problematic was not specified). His conduct is being judged on the basis of an unpublished version of the code.

Michael Ellman (age 83) is Auditor of Junction Ward branch of Islington North CLP. He is a practising Jew. He joined the Labour Party in 1980, re-joined in 2015, and is a solicitor and former Vice-President of FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights), who has fought for human rights and against racism all his life.  He proposed a motion in August 2020 to an internal branch meeting to reconsider the IHRA definition of antisemitism because it might stifle legitimate political debate, and substitute the Oxford English Dictionary definition, which was leaked to the Press by an unknown person and he was immediately suspended from the Party for conduct grossly prejudicial to the Party following a complaint by an unknown person.

Mike Howard (age 68) Member of Hastings & Rye CLP.  Active Labour Party member for over thirty-five years, holding office in six CLP’s during this time. Twice elected Hastings Borough Councillor. Retired (former office-holding) Unison life member. Unite Community, JVL and PSC. He is a Jewish, lifelong anti-racist whose family escaped the murderous pogroms in pre-war Russia/Poland and fought the fascists in their East London neighbourhood. Mike has suffered real anti-semitism, and finds it completely unacceptable that Labour Party HQ, knowing that he is Jewish, has not responded to his solicitors’ request to drop an anonymous complainant’s accusations of anti-semitism against him which is based on the process the EHRC found was unfair and based on a code the Party will not publish. 

John Davies (age 66) Former Chair, St Michael's Branch, Liverpool Riverside CLP. Member since 2015. He is accused of 7 instances of hostility or prejudice based on race or religion. The instances are mostly re-posts of material posted by others, including a former Israeli minister and a Palestinian doctor, and the charges are based on definitions of antisemitism in a version of an antisemitism code of conduct that the Labour Party will not publish. Mr Davies has been an active anti-racist all his life, and denies all the charges.

Colin O Driscoll (age 60) Vice Chair Labour International CLP (Labour Party's International Section). First joined the Labour Party in 1978, rejoined in 2015 (pre-Corbyn). He is accused on the basis of social media posts of  ]various instances of misconduct. The complaint was made some time before May 2020, by a person or persons unknown. The charges were laid in 2020 as part of an express expulsion procedure. He strongly denies the charges, which again are based on an antisemitism code of conduct that the Labour Party will not publish.

Chris Wallis (age 71) Vice Chair Hazel Grove CLP (near Stockport) . Member since 2015 (pre-Corbyn). He is accused of 5 instances of conduct prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the party relating to racism, and in particular antisemitism. The complaint was made in December 2019 by persons unknown, but the charges were not laid till June 2020, and only then after he had requested an update from the Party as he was about to be Acting Chair of his CLP. He rejects the charges absolutely, which again are based on a version of an antisemitism code of conduct that the Labour Party will not publish.

We are preparing to file court proceedings!   Can you please help with our costs?

The Labour party disciplinary process has been condemned by the EHRC as fundamentally unfair to complainants and respondents.  This is not surprising.  Many of us who have had direct experience of the process can vouch for the fact that it is not fit for purpose. It is an opaque process, granting confidentiality to those accusers whose complaints are investigated, while treating the accused as if they were already guilty, and making vague accusations against people without letting them know the case against them or by what standards they are being judged.

It is fundamental to natural justice that an accused should know their accuser (unless there is very good reason for this not to be the case).  This requirement (confirmed by the EHRC) is, however, dispensed with by the Labour Party as a matter of course.  Indeed, the EHRC found that the Labour Party did not even always record the identity of complainant.  The accused is therefore kept in the dark about who the accuser is, or even if there is more than one.  The accused cannot therefore identify whether there might be other motivations for the complaint, including potential factionalism. Since the motives of the accusers cannot be challenged, the accused is denied a full opportunity to respond.

This is just one of the many unfairnesses identified by the EHRC that have pervaded the Party’s disciplinary processes and which still have not been addressed.  Indeed, we have tried valiantly since July to engage with the Labour Party (and others have preceded us) in order to encourage the Party to address the unjust and inequitable nature of their disciplinary processes and the devastating effect it has on the lives and well-being of those the Party chooses to target.

When the Labour Party finally engaged with our legal representatives they rejected all our reasonable submissions out of hand but without providing any adequate explanation.  It was not therefore surprising to discover that the EHRC’s report agreed with our concerns.  It recommended that the current procedure is so unfair that the party must put in place a new fair, transparent, independent process.   

The Labour Party has now publicly confirmed that it will implement the recommendations of the EHRC report and will put a new process in place.  But extraordinarily, they have refused to stop the unfair current investigations, suggesting that the Report is not for us: it is for complainants and ‘The Jewish Community’.  This is not only offensive, particularly to those of us who are Jewish, it is also simply wrong.  The Report identifies fundamental unfairness to complainants and respondents irrespective of their ethnic background or religion.  And it completely contradicts the Party’s public statements that it accepts and is currently implementing the EHRC’s recommendations by designing a whole new process for investigations.

The Labour Party cannot continue to act in blatant disregard of the recommendations of the EHRC when it suits them, while saying, in a blaze of publicity, that they accepted those recommendations and would act on them in full.  It is time to hold them to account. We now have no option but to file our claim in court. We hope to file within a matter of weeks.

We are deeply grateful to all those who, because they share our views on this issue, have so generously supported this cause already.  We would not be where we are without you.  We still need your help please, so we are asking again for further donations at this stage to fund court action - not just for ourselves, but for all those who have been targeted and to prevent others in the future from having to suffer the same fate. This should be for the benefit of all Party members, and for all those who believe in the rule of law and fair process.

Thank you. Solidarity.

For further information contact Chris Wallis on 07973 818298  

Alasdair Henderson, who led the EHRC Investigation into Labour ‘Anti-Semitism’, Liked Tweets Defending Anti-Semitic Bigot Roger Scruton!

The EHRC Report Should be Rejected - it is not fit for purpose – That's why Starmer has forbidden all discussion of this Flawed Report

In the 1970s Martin Webster, National Organiser of the neo-Nazi National Front wrote that the most important factor in the building of self-confidence among racists and fascists was the publication in 1969 of the views of Arthur Jensen, a psychologist at Harvard University. Jensen had written an article in the Harvard Educational Review that suggested that 80% of intelligence was hereditary and that Black people had a lower IQ than whites.

Sir Cyril Burt - racist and scientific fraud

In the UK, the belief that intelligence is hereditary was debunked in the 1980s when its major proponent, Sir Cyril Burt, an educational psychologist and principal mover behind the introduction of the 11 plus, was shown to have manipulated the data in his research into hereditary intelligence, based on the study of identical twins.

Alasdair Henderson expressed his support for Scruton

In 1992, Robert Joynson wrote a defence of Burt in the Salisbury Review, a magazine edited by Roger Scruton, a far-Right philosopher and academic who was its first editor.

A book by Charles Murray and Professor Richard Hernstein, The Bell Curve, Intelligence and class Structure in American Life argued that African Americans do badly in tests because they are less intelligent than whites, and that average American IQ was falling because of “dysgenic forces” including immigration by non-European stock and the relatively high fertility rates of the white and black underclass. They suggested that welfare payments which encouraged low IQ women to have babies should be stopped.

As the Editorial in CARF No. 23 stated, all that IQ tests measure is the ability to sit IQ tests! They are culturally biased.

Roger Scruton, who Theresa May appointed as Chair of the government's Building Better Building Beautiful Commission was fired for calling Chinese people "robots" and claiming Islamaphobia was "invented by the Muslim Brotherhood”. Scruton also accused Hungarian Jews of being part of a “Soros empire”.

In 2005 he gave a talk in the United States in which he claimed that there is “no such crime” as date rape. He told his audience that:

When a woman cries date rape what she means is the whole thing went too quickly.

In 2007 Scruton wrote a piece for the Telegraph which stated that "although homosexuality has been normalised, it is not normal". His article argued that gay couples should not be allowed to adopt on the grounds it was an injustice to children.

In a 2014 speech published on his website, Scruton said the Jewish “intelligentsia” in Budapest “form part of the extensive networks around the Soros empire” thus echoing the anti-Semitic propaganda of Prime Minister Viktor Orban who won the 2018 General Election on the back of attacks on George Soros, a child survivor of the Hungarian holocaust.

In 2019 in an interview Scruton said that “Anybody who doesn’t think that there’s a Soros empire in Hungary has not observed the facts,”. Soros has for years been portrayed by the far-Right as a Jewish puppet-master. It was this interview that cost him his Government job but it speaks volumes about the Tories opposition to genuine anti-Semitism as opposed to anti-Zionism that he was ever appointed. Scruton was known to be a racist and fascist.

Henderson 'liked' this tweet

Scruton’s views were summed up in an election speech by Orban, which contained every element of what makes up the Jewish Conspiracy Theory:

“We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world,”[1]

One of the anti-Semitic election posters using  Soros as a Jewish scapegoat for Hungary's ills - that doesn't stop Netanyahu being Orban's good friend

None of this however prevented Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forging a close friendship and alliance with Orban. Netanyahu too hated Soros for having funded Israeli human rights organisations such as B'tselem. Genuine anti-Semitism has never disturbed Zionists.

Scruton edited the Salisbury Review - a bridge between the Tory far-Right and fascist groups

Scruton was the editor of the Salisbury Review from 1982-2001. It formed a bridge between the politics of the Tory Right around the Monday Club, which advocated the repatriation of Black people from Britain and openly neo-Nazi groups such as the NF and BNP.

The very first issue published a talk by John Casey on the politics of race. The presence of “West Indian communities”, he claimed

 “offends… a sense of what English life should be like…(only the) “repatriation of a proportion of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population” could forestall “the possible destruction of civilised life in the centres of the big cities”.

Gay sex was another concern of the Salisbury Review under Scruton. “A concern with social order,” Scruton wrote in an editorial, “prompts us to view… homosexuality as intrinsically threatening.”

You might think that anyone associated with the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, whose duty it is to ensure compliance with the Equalities Act 2010 wouldn’t go within a mile of Roger Scruton. In particular anyone who is one of their Commissioners.

Alasdair Henderson - the EHRC's racist Commissioner

However you would be wrong. It would seem that the Commissioners are a repository of bigotry and racism. None more so than Alasdair Henderson, the barrister charged with investigating and producing a report on Labour Party ‘anti-Semitism’.

According to the Guardian and other papers, Henderson was an avid fan of Scruton and an all round bigot. Indeed one might call Henderson a mini-me Scruton.

Earlier in the year Henderson liked a tweet attacking ‘offence-taking zealots’ who accused Roger Scruton of antisemitism, Islamophobia and homophobia. He also liked another tweet by Douglas Murray, who once called for Muslim immigration to Europe to be banned.  Murray is author of the ‘Strange Death of Europe’ which argued that Muslim immigration is literally murdering Europe as we know it. Murray’s book is the basis of the far-Right Identitarian Replacement Theory.

On 3 September, Henderson liked a tweet which read:

“It’s amazing to me that Tory ministers still flounder and flub when some media moron incants the magic words ‘misogynist’ and ‘homophobe’, as if those are empirical statements about reality, not highly ideological propaganda terms.”

On 24 June, Henderson liked a tweet by Douglas Murray in which, responding to a statement by Cambridge University defending the right of academic staff to hold personal and controversial views, Murray said:

“Nope. Nobody believes that. We remember the cases of Noah Carl and Jordan Peterson. Your institution dropped them in 2 secs once the mob came for them. But it’s interesting you’re standing up for someone who actually is a race-baiter this time.”

In 2006, Murray made a speech in the Dutch parliament, saying “all immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop” and “conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board”. Noah Carl was sacked from a Cambridge University college after a panel found he had collaborated with far-right extremists in his writings linking intelligence to race.

As if this wasn’t sufficient Henderson made clear his hatred for Black Lives Matter. Henderson liked a tweet thread that included:

“The Met are clearly treating the (illegal under the Covid regs) BLM protests much more indulgently than they have treated other protests and gatherings. This is poison to an open society, but no-one seems to care.”

Of course to be fair to Henderson, and I always try to be fair to those I criticise, he is not alone amongst the Commissioners. Newly appointed Commissioner David Goodhart has praised the government’s “hostile environment” policy while Jessica Butcher urged women who have been discriminated against at work not to “go cry to someone” but to “take the onus to circumvent the situation”. She has also criticised the #metoo movement.

For good measure the EHRC found that the BBC isn’t discriminating against women when it comes to pay, despite copious evidence to the contrary. It is little wonder that the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee ‘slammed’ the record of the EHRC.

But it is Henderson I want to focus on because this bigot was in charge of the ‘anti-Semitism’ investigation which found that the Labour Party had ignored ‘likes’ on Facebook. They found that:

This was at clear odds with the Labour Party’s commitment to zero tolerance of antisemitism. It meant that repeated sharing of antisemitic material could have escaped investigation

The report concluded that

As a result of its policy, the Labour Party failed to investigate antisemitism complaints based on likes, retweets and shares on social media. This policy contradicted the Labour Party’s commitment to zero tolerance of antisemitism.

One can only hope that the EHRC will now adopt its own recommendations and give this prize racist and bigot the boot.  Meanwhile the fact that the ‘anti-Semitism’ Report was produced under the watch of a racist and bigot clearly discredits it. The Labour Party should now seek to set aside the Report’s conclusions as legally unfounded. What it should have done under the hapless Corbyn was to seek a judicial review of its decision to investigate the Labour Party in the first place.

I do not expect Starmer to resile from the Report he has invested so much political capital in because it is such an important weapon in his armoury in the fight against the Left. However since Starmer has described himself as a ‘Zionist without qualification’ his own racism is also beyond dispute.

A Short Analysis of the Deficiencies of the EHRC Report into Anti-Semitism

I have read the EHRC Report twice and what leaps out is how weak and insubstantial it is.  It is difficult to believe that it has been produced under the aegis of someone who is an employment barrister since its conclusions on harassment are simply at odds with the law. I get the impression that Henderson must have burnt the candle thinking up how to shoehorn ‘harassment’ into the Report’s conclusions.

Above all the Report is transparently shallow and insubstantial. I get the overriding impression that it is what you might call political reverse engineering. Henderson first reached his conclusions and then set about finding the evidence.

I know that groups like Jewish Voice for Labour have invested a lot of energy into producing an analysis of the Report. Indeed far too much energy. My advice to them is not to over analyse it.

The Report is, above all, a political report.  By its own admission it decided that it was not ‘proportionate’ to ask for the evidence behind Labour’s Leaked Report. Given the evidence of racism, misogyny and abuse by Labour staff and their cynical manipulation of the issue of ‘anti-Semitism’ this decision is astounding. Since when is it proportionate to ignore evidence?

The other astounding feature of a report into anti-Semitism is that nowhere does it even attempt to define the ‘anti-Semitism’ it is investigating though it does say that its findings were in accord with the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism's Racist Profile of Muslims

This Report came about as a result of complaints by two Zionist organisations. One the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism is a far-Right, Islamaphobic organisation.  Nowhere does the Report even question the motivation or bona fides of the complainants.

The CAA is widely believed to be funded, directly or indirectly, by the Israeli state.  It produced a Report 'Britsh Muslims and Anti-Semitism'. Although the full Report  has been deleted from the CAA's website, a stub remains including a picture of a (presumably) Muslim person holding a ‘Hitler you were right’ poster.  

The clear and obvious implication is that many if not most Muslims are Hitler supporters. The stub contains the sentence that ‘On every single count, British Muslims were more likely by far than the general British population to hold deeply antisemitic views.’ This obnoxious and racist statement was accompanied by a full colour silhouette of the typical Muslim male. This has now disappeared.  If anyone were to post a similar meme of the typical Jew there would be uproar yet the EHRC did no due diligence into their complainants.

The second organisation is the Jewish Labour Movement, the British wing of the Israeli Labour Party which it calls its ‘sister party’. The CAA is widely believed to be funded, directly or indirectly, by the Israeli state.  In essence this is a Report produced as a result of the intervention of the Israeli lobby and the Israeli state into British politics.

The context of the Report is that no investigation was conducted into the Tory Party, nearly half of whose members oppose having a Muslim Prime Minister and two-thirds of whom believe that Islam is a threat to the Western way of life. Instead the Tory Party was left to conduct an investigation into itself. The reasons for this decision are not hard to find. Its Commissioners, including their former Chair David Isaac, were closet Tories.

The failure of Corbyn and the left to call out the EHRC for what it was, a racist state body whose interest was not in combating racism (e.g. it has been silent over the Windrush Scandal) but absorbing and deflecting the anti-racist movement and anti-racism.

Its first Chair, Trevor Phillips, was suspended by the Labour Party for being an Islamaphobic bigot. Two disabled Commissioners resigned when Phillips was reappointed in 2009. In all 6 Commissioners resigned on his watch. A House of Commons early day motion in 2017 with 62 signatures criticised its sacking, with 1 days notice, of 10 staff, 7 of whom were Black.

In 2012, two former EHRC commissioners — Simon Woolley, previously the only black person on the Commission, and Meral Hussein-Ece, the only Muslim, found out that they had not been reappointed to their posts because they took racism too seriously.

In November 2019 BBC’s Newsnight reported the contents of a leaked letter from the EHRC’s chief executive Rebecca Hilsenrath, in which she accused Isaac of being too close to the Conservative government: Isaac, Hilsenrath wrote, “regularly declines to take public positions” on issues that might prove troublesome for the ruling party.

The Report stretches to breaking point the legal definition of ‘harassment’ to include political speech arguing that alleging that anti-Semitism in the Labour Party is ‘fake’ is a form of harassment. It does this in order to scapegoat Ken Livingstone and Pam Bromley. Yet unsurprisingly it fails to find any victims of their harassment.  This is legally untenable.

Likewise its finding that interference by the Leader of the Opposition’s Office into the anti-Semitism complaints was a form of indirect discrimination is untenable.  This action has to be detrimental to those affected yet nowhere does the Report state why that is so or who suffered a detriment. If permanent staff were running their own campaign targeted at e.g. anti-Zionist Jews then such interference is perfectly acceptable.

For indirect discrimination to be found there first has to be a PCP (provision, criteria or practice) that adversely affects a protected group despite being ostensibly neutral. The Report doesn’t even attempt to point out what that PCP is. This is quite amazing.

The Left should be clear.  This Report is not worth the paper it is written on. Now that we know that it was itself produced by a racist it should be rejected outright.

Starmer has done his best to prevent any discussion about the Report's contents. He suspended Corbyn for having the temerity to suggest that reports of anti-Semitism were deliberately exaggerated by a hostile media. This  suggests that even Starmer knows that the Report is indefensible.

Starmer though did his best to ensure that the Report was as adverse as possible in order that he could wield the anti-Semitism weapon against his opponents. The fact that the Report is anodyne – for example it doesn’t accuse Labour of institutional anti-Semitism – must be a severe disappointment.

Starmer paid off, to the tune of £3/4 million the very Labour staff who had done their best to lose Labour the 2017 General Election. Staff who had waged a constant war against the elected leader for three years were rewarded. The reason for this is obvious. By conceding a case that Labour’s lawyers advised they could win, Starmer figured that the EHRC would then be prevented from criticising the staff in its Report.  There is no other conclusion that can be drawn.  If this were a criminal case Starmer would be guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice and be eligible for a hefty prison sentence.

Starmer’s behaviour is both dishonest and shameful and is itself reason enough for his dismissal as Labour leader. To his credit Corbyn made it clear that the decision to settle with the former staff was a political not legal one.

The Report repeatedly refers to ‘Jewish stakeholders’. It never explains who this means – the Board of Deputies?  The Zionist Federation?  Nowhere does the Report acknowledge the large number of Jewish anti-Zionists in the Labour Party who disagree with the JLM's positions.

The Report's finding that ‘denialism’ is harassment is particularly problematic. There is abundant evidence that false allegations of anti-Semitism are ritually made by Zionists. Joan Ryan, the Chair of Labour Friends of Israel was secretly filmed by the Al Jazeera undercover programme The Lobby falsely accusing Jean Fitzpatrick of anti-Semitism. 

Jean was suspended but when the film came out she was reinstated. The accusation that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism was made by, among others, Jonathan Arkush the previous President of the Board when he accused Corbyn of anti-Semitism despite a plethora of evidence to the contrary. In other words if you support the Palestinians you are anti-Semitic. The Report never once acknowledges that  'antisemitism' is the ritual accusation of Israel's defenders.  I don't know one Palestinen solidarity supporter who has not been accused of 'anti-Semitism'.  To suggest that telling the truth is harassment is a new low, even for a bigot like Henderson.

The Labour Party is a political party which debates political issues. This includes racism.  To suggest that this is harassment debases the English language. People have the right to call out Zionism for the racist creed it is without being accused of anti-Semitism. It is not racist to say that Zionism, the ideology of the world's most racist state has weaponised anti-Semitism.

Another example of how the Report doesn’t understand what it means to be a socialist political party is where it says that indirect discrimination might include holding meetings on a Saturday. Clearly Henderson knows nothing about progressive politics despite being a human rights barrister (like Starmer!). The Report says that

This is likely to be indirect discrimination against Jewish members because of their religion or belief, unless it can be justified as appropriate and necessary for achieving a real need.

This betrays the complete lack of understanding of the right of a political party to declare that it is secular. It is not racist to say that religious superstition should play no part in the proceedings of political parties. I am opposed to paying the slightest heed to religious sensibilities. Whether a meeting is held on Friday, Saturday or Sunday should be irrelevant. I am an atheist and I don’t believe that religion should play any part in a party’s proceedings. This is not discrimination its about freedom to reject religious tyranny.  Apart from the fact that most Jews don't observe the sabbath and those who do are usually the most right-wing Jews.

In practice most demonstrations take place on Saturday as Sunday is a secular day of rest. Most British people don’t go to Church on Sunday they go shopping!

The very concept of denialism is a McCarthyite charge. Again Corbyn, being the chump he is, adopted the very rhetoric of his accusers.  In essence if you deny that there is an anti-Semitism problem then you are part of the problem. Corbyn didn't apply this to himself.  He was most pained to be accused of being an anti-Semite and quite rightly so.

In the 17^th century Salem Witchhunt, denial of being a witch was taken as proof of the same. As Elizabeth Reis wrote:

“During examinations, accused women were damned if they did and damned if they did not. If they confessed to witchcraft charges, their admissions would prove the cases against them; if they denied the charges, their very intractability, construed as the refusal to admit to sin more generally, might mark them as sinners and hence allies of the devil.”

Likewise under McCarthy. It’s like saying that if you are charged with an offence, go to court and plead that you are innocent then that in itself is proof of your guilt! It is an interesting legal concept that only racist barristers like Henderson or Starmer could dream up.

The Report points to a ‘culture’ that permitted anti-Semitism without every saying what this culture might be, (p. 10) I think he means socialism.

The Report recommends an independent disciplinary process for the Labour Party. Given the fact that the present disciplinary system is a conveyor belt of injustice I can see some merit in this idea. Peter Mandelson has criticised what is one of the main EHRC proposals. Has Starmer suspended him for not accepting the Report lock, stock and bloody barrel?  Like hell he has, thus demonstrating that Starmer is a lying toe-rag.

The Report lay stress on the right of Labour Party members to freedom of speech under Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights. On page 27 it states:

Speech does not lose the protection of Article 10 just because it is offensive, provocative or would be regarded by some as insulting

No one can surely disagree with this but then I turned to page 30, a mere 3 pages on and what did I find?

It gave as examples the speech of Naz Shah and Ken Livingstone.  Neither of them mentioned Jews. Naz Shah, in what was a humorous remark, suggested that Israel would be better off being relocated in the United States! Ken Livingstone pointed to the undoubted historical fact that the Nazis supported the German Zionist  movement in preference to non-Zionist Jews. That is documented by serious historians such as Francis Nicosia in his book Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany.

Yet the Report endorsed the comments of the JLM that:

Labour Party members told us that the comments by Ken Livingstone in relation to Naz Shah (referred to above) caused shock and anger among Jewish Labour Party members. They felt his comments were appalling, highly offensive and very distressing. They said the effect of these comments was humiliating, denied the victims’ experience, diminished the issue, and had the effect of stirring up and fuelling hatred for Jews. Labour Party members also told us that Pam Bromley’s conduct, including the Facebook posts above, contributed to a hostile environment in the Labour Party for Jewish and non-Jewish members.

So which is it?  Does the Report support freedom of speech or doesn’t it?  Or does it support it when that criticism doesn’t include anti-Zionism?

It is noticeable that the JLM members don't alleged that Livingstone's comments were untrue.  It is just that they were offended and distressed.  But that is the essence of free speech.  The right to offend.  I supported Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. Without doubt it offended many Muslims. Was that a reason to ban it?  Was it Islamaphobic on that count alone? These are very slippery and dangerous ideas that this Report is propagating at the behest of Labour's right-wing. Let us be honest Labour's Right and the Zionists have never believed in free speech.

On page 29 the Report stated that

The comments made by Naz Shah went beyond legitimate criticism of the Israeli government, as she acknowledged, and are not protected by Article 10. Neither is Ken Livingstone’s support for those comments.

It gave as an example the fact that

In April 2019, Pam Bromley posted on Facebook: ‘Looks like fake accusations of AS [antisemitism] to undermine Labour just aren’t working, so let’s have Chris Williamson reinstated’. On 15 December 2019, she posted on Facebook about Jeremy Corbyn:‘My major criticism of him – his failure to repel the fake accusations of antisemitism in the LP [Labour Party] – may not be repeated as the accusations may probably now magically disappear, now capitalism has got what it wanted’

On what possible basis can either of these comments be deemed as not being covered by Article 10 of the ECHR? The Report simply doesn’t say still less explain. Pam Bromley is expressing a political comment on the witchhunt. That is obviously protected speech.

The Report concludes that the remarks were ‘conduct creating a hostile environment for Labour Party members.’ It provides no evidence for this assertion.  Presumably it means Jewish members but plenty of Jews are making just these accusations. It is abundantly clear that the Report is partial, wrong, biased and instead of making evidence based accusations relies on assertions alone. These are all the hallmarks of a politically biased Report.

The Report defines a list of examples of ‘unwanted conduct’ which is the definition of harassment in s.26 of the Equalities Act.

Ø   diminished the scale or significance of the Holocaust

Ø   expressed support for Hitler or the Nazis

Ø   compared Israelis to Hitler or the Nazis

Ø   described a ‘witch hunt’ in the Labour Party, or said that complaints had been manufactured by the ‘Israel lobby’

Ø   referenced conspiracies about the Rothschilds and Jewish power and control over financial or other institutions

Ø   blamed Jewish people for the ‘antisemitism crisis’ in the Labour Party

Ø   blamed Jewish people generally for actions of the state of Israel

Ø   used ‘Zio’ as an antisemitic term, and

Ø   accused British Jews of greater loyalty to Israel than Britain.

The idea that referring to a witchhunt, or using the shortened form of Zionist ‘zio’ is anti-Semitic is absurd. Since it is integral to Zionism that Jews should show more loyalty to the Israeli state then it is the JLM which is anti-Semitic! As for blaming Jewish people for Israel’s actions unfortunately the Israeli state makes this claim.

I would doubt that simply expressing doubt about the Holocaust is harassment.  It is many things but harassment?  It would depend on the context of where such a statement was made.

Strangely enough there is no criticism of Chris Williamson in the Report.  That was because Chris, once he received a draft of the Report, took legal action, so the criticism was removed. That shows just how shoddy the Report is.

The thinking behind the Report is bizarre.  It defends its assertion that Labour’s actions were indirectly discriminatory by saying that:

Jewish members are proportionately more likely than non-Jewish members to make a complaint about antisemitism. Consequently, the practice of political interference in antisemitism complaints, and in ‘politically sensitive’ complaints generally, put Jewish members at a particular disadvantage compared to non-Jewish members.

This whole paragraph is a non-sequitor in that there is no connection between the statement that Jews are more likely to complain of antisemitism than non-Jews and suggesting that political interference puts Jewish members at a disadvantage. It is a dogs dinner of a report.

The comparator above is indeed non-Jewish members but the Report doesn’t say why Jews would be disadvantaged. Would e.g. Muslims making a complaint also be disadvantaged? There is no reason to believe that political interference in itself is disadvantageous. Although it is true that Jews are more likely to complain about anti-Semitism the question is which Jews. In Brighton former Councillor Caroline ‘poison’ Penn made 60 complaints of ‘anti-Semitism’ yet she is not Jewish so even this statement may not be factually correct.

Interestingly, although I am not named, the injustices in my case are highlighted on page 63 where it states as an example:

In 2016, a member was suspended with no details about the underlying allegations. Despite requesting this information on several occasions, the member was not informed about the specific allegations until months later. Following an application for an injunction to allow the member more time to prepare for the disciplinary proceedings, the High Court held that the Labour Party’s approach to the timing of the NCC hearing was procedurally unfair and granted an injunction. The member was later expelled.

On this basis I shall have to apply for readmission. Since Starmer is pledged to implement the Report fully, I confidently expect to be readmitted after Corbyn’s unfair expulsion!

Another example of ‘anti-Semitism’ is the statement by one member that:

‘How can we not have empathy with the Palestinians when they are up against these murdering, Zionest [sic] bastards. Their NAZI masters taught them well’. (p.79)

I’m still having problems working out where the anti-Semitism is.  It is never explained.  Another example is where

A member shared a meme in March 2018, which expressed that ‘an antisemite is now someone Jews hate’

Although the investigation was not to know this, this meme was the brainchild of the late Hajo Meyer, a Dutch survivor of Auschwitz. If anything is anti-Semitic it is the Report's accusation.  Hajo’s full quote was that anti-Semitism used people hating Jews. Now it is someone the Jews hate! Clearly that is not anti-Semitic and racist barrister Henderson is the last person to accuse holocaust survivors of anti-Semitism.

Pam Bromley’s statement on Facebook that

‘A huge sigh of relief echoes around Facebook’ (comment accompanying a shared BBC News story with the headline ‘Israeli spacecraft crashes on Moon’, 12 April 2019)

is certainly amusing, with more than an element of truth to it.  But anti-Semitic?  Is Israel a Jew?  They then go on to say

We find that Pam Bromley’s comments were unwanted conduct related to Jewish ethnicity,

If Henderson believes that being an Israeli and a Jew is synonymous then it is he who is anti-Semitic.  Which may well be true since he is a fan of Roger Scruton. In so far as Henderson completely ignored Jewish anti-Zionists and therefore equated Jews and Zionists he is guilty of the same anti-Semitism that he accused others of.

As I said at the beginning I have spent more time than I intended on this defective Report but we should waste no more time on it.  It was produced by a racist lawyer and is only fit for the wastepaper bin.

Tony Greenstein 

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