By Reuters Staff
The 21-minute clip, titled “THE TRUTH ABOUT COVID-19”, can be found here .
China’s New Morning Star Friends and other Fellow Travellers.
Morning Star platforms ‘Marxist-Leninist’ defence of Chinese Regime.
“Perhaps China’s current ability to tolerate paradoxes is the most notable legacy of Mao – that dedicated admirer of contradictions.” (P 465) “An adaptive ‘guerrilla-style’ mode of policymaking”, “”Maybe that is why China, for the time being, can be ruled by a party that continues to emphasise its Marxist-Leninist-Maoist heritage, whole proclaiming the necessity of market forces; that proclaims its possession of a ‘comprehensive plan’ at a time when China is more complicatedly diverse than at any point in is history. Maybe this explains also why I has a leader who has revived Maoist strategies fifty years after his family were torn apart by Mao’s policies.”(P 465)
Maoism: A Global History. Julia Lovell. 2019.
The one-time pro-Soviet Communist Party of Britain has taken to admiring the Chinese Communist Party.
Quotes from Mao festoon party members’ tweets, the CPB has taken to calling itself ‘Marxist-Leninist'(an old orthodox Official Communist tag, but one these days largely confined to the remaining fragments of Maoism) and they have produced this:
It seems as if the CPB, lacking the Beacon of the USSR, has, in desperation, found a new Socialist Fifth of the World.
Enter the latest sally.
Xinjiang: staying afloat in a wave of disinformation
Kate Woolford, a member of the Southampton Young Communist League and social media editor of Challenge (The YCL journal) writes.
“The latest red scare propaganda targets China and its autonomous region of Xinjiang. Many people will have seen statistics that refer to “one million Muslims” being held in concentration camps and various other human rights abuses — even “genocide.” It is crucial that the public are aware of where the main allegations come from and gain a picture of what is really going on in Xinjiang.”
Scales no doubt fall from our eyes when, after a farrago of ad hominem attacks on small number of reports abut the persecution of this minority we come to,
According to CGTN, “From 1990 to 2016, thousands of terrorist attacks have been launched in Xinjiang, killing large numbers of innocent people and hundreds of police officers.”
In response, China has launched campaigns to crack down on violent extremism, separatism and terrorism with a focus on re-education. The camps were built to de-radicalise Muslims who had been victims of Etim’s ideas — this is the point of the mass mobilisation in the region that has led to false allegations of “genocide,” “forced sterilisation” and “torture.”
In the spirit of fairness, after having rubbished any report of bad treatment of China’s Uighur minority China expert Kate Wolford cites the Chinese state’s own line:
“the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China puts the state’s case forward plainly.”
“Faced with this severe and complex problem [religious extremism], Xinjiang has upheld the principle of addressing both the symptoms and the root causes in the fight against terrorism and extremism, by striking hard at serious terrorist crimes, which are limited in number and by educating and rehabilitating people influenced by religious extremism and involved in minor violations of the law.
“In accordance with the law, it has established a group of vocational education centres to offer systemic education and training in response to a set of urgent needs: to curb frequent terrorist incidents, to eradicate the breeding ground for religious extremism, to help trainees acquire a better education and vocational skills, find employment and increase their incomes and most of all, to safeguard social stability and long-term peace in Xinjiang.”
At the camps residents are taught Mandarin — the lingua franca spoken by 73 percent of the Chinese population — taught technical skills in order to help them find work when they leave and offered mental guidance to overcome radicalised ways of thinking.
Of course, as is the case everywhere in the world, the severity of a sentence depends on the scale of the crime and the willingness of a person of acknowledge their guilt.
The people in the re-education centres are assessed on how much harm they have been caused, their willingness to receive training and whether they have already completed a prison sentence but might still require further rehabilitation.
The people in the centres are provided with free education and once the trainees reach their expected criteria, they are offered certificates of completion and can leave. Depending on the reason they are there, many are allowed to go home to visit their families once or twice a week.
It is absolutely not a campaign to stop them practising Islam — religious activities are protected by Article 36 of the constitution: “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief. No state organ, public organisation or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion.
The lengthy piece ends with this:
“We cannot ignore the drive to war against China. Fear of speaking out against atrocity propaganda because of its upsetting and controversial nature will only lead to the manufacturing of consent for war. Western intervention led to two million people dying in Korea, 2.4 million people dying in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, three million people dying in Vietnam among millions more elsewhere.
Given the history, given the body count, socialists have a duty to vehemently oppose the idea that our countries should be able to interfere in others; denouncing the false narrative on Xinjiang is now part of that duty.”
This is how the Chinese state has reacted to reporting on the issue;
BBC journalist leaves China after Beijing criticises Uighurs coverage
John Sudworth’s relocation to Taiwan comes after ‘months of personal attacks’ over reporting of alleged abuses of minorities
Here is some more History.
. “From October 1050 to October 1951, the regime eliminated somewhere between 1,5 and 2 million people. (P 24) this time, death sentences were fewer, formal executions many suspects killed themselves. “The objective was to produce a docile population by transforming almost every act and every utterance into a potential crime.”(P 241)
The Cultural Revolution A People’s History, 1962—1976 Frank Dikötter 2016.
Here are some more Fellow Travellers: John Ross, former leader of the International Marxist Group (IMG),
The main theme of the fellow Travellers of Chinese Communist Party is that its development of the productive forces in the country is a miracle. The lack of democracy, human rights, is less important that “this extraordinary successful political project”. The regime has “extraordinarily” increased the ‘real’ freedoms of the population. Happiness is the CCP.. (Martin Jacques).
Martin Jacques, editor of Marxism Today, was famously the betist of bêtes noires of the Communist Party of Britain. Speculation is growing that he will be invited back to their pages.
Left Internationalists do not agree:
Update: there is also this,
‘FIND OUT THE FACTS ON THE UYGHURS’
The Communist Party of Britain is urging labour movement bodies not to rush to judgment on the Uyghur question in China.
Mr Griffiths said the reports of ‘genocide’ from a network of right-wing institutes and pressure groups funded by the US, British and Australian governments are recycled uncritically in the Western media.
As one of many international delegations to visit Xinjiang, he had seen for himself that mosques are open, the Uyghur language can be seen and heard everywhere, and the majority of top state and political officials are Uyghurs, not Han Chinese.
Morning Star Hails “much-needed intervention” as Communist Party of Britain Stands Against Labour in Local Elections.
Candidates Against Labour, “for a sovereign, united and internationalist working class.“
The Morning Star, independent of the Communist Party of Britain, and owned by the co-op, leads with this Editorial Britain’s communists and the May elections: a much-needed intervention.
For many years British Communists have stood ‘witness candidates’ in elections. This year the Communist Party of Britain is running in local elections.
They are engaged in a battle across the country. Who are our enemies, who are our friends? They ask.
TOMORROW sees the launch of the Communist manifesto — the Communist Party (CP) of Britain’s manifesto for the Scottish, Welsh and English local elections, that is.
Revolutionary Left.
The party is standing its biggest slate of candidates since the 1980s after six years in which it didn’t stand — calling, as did much of the revolutionary left, for maximum support for Labour during the Jeremy Corbyn years.
Much of the labour movement remains sceptical of voting left of Labour. Despite the party’s lurch right under Keir Starmer, there is a widespread belief that a non-Labour vote only helps the Tories in England and Wales, and the SNP in Scotland.
Here is the Communist Party of Britain standing up to the right:
Labour Movement Welcome.
Labour’s poor projections nationally — with polls placing it about 10 points behind the Conservatives — can encourage this caution. Yet there are good reasons the renewal of communist election campaigning should be welcomed across the movement.
The British government’s handling of coronavirus has been catastrophic. We have one of the highest death tolls anywhere in the world and the deepest recession in Europe. Tens of thousands of lives could have been saved, hundreds of thousands would not have lost their jobs, had Britain adopted the zero-Covid strategies implemented by countries as diverse as China and New Zealand.
Follow the successful models of Cuba and Venezuela!
As countries which have successfully kept deaths and disruption to a minimum have proved, Covid-19 did not need to provoke a prolonged crisis. The worst-affected countries have been the heartlands of neoliberal capitalism — western Europe and the United States in particular. In Latin America, the contrast between the performance of socialist-led countries such as Cuba (40 deaths per million) and Venezuela (62) and neoliberal ones like Ecuador (995), Colombia (1,308) and Brazil (1,673) has been especially dramatic (figures from statista.com).
Covid has put the status quo to the test and found it wanting. There are plenty of people who recognise that. The point is regularly made from trade-union platforms and at online meetings.
But the pandemic struck Britain just as Labour was transitioning from a socialist leadership to a restorationist (??? Note to Subs, translate) one that has rowed back on the Corbyn movement’s searing critique of economic inequality and social injustice while stressing its support for (fawning on) “business as usual.”
With a handful of honourable exceptions, this has deprived institutional politics of voices drawing out the lessons of the pandemic to challenge the capitalist system itself.
Public Debate.
Yet we sorely need a public debate on an alternative economic and political strategy: one that understands the role of the market in creating the jobs crisis, the housing crisis, the climate crisis — and outlines real solutions to these, which must involve a big expansion of public ownership and economic planning.
Labour is not raising these issues. In a campaign in which it seems determined to compete with Priti Patel’s increasingly authoritarian Tories for the “law and order” vote, and in which it has even been caught distributing race-baiting anti-Gypsy and Traveller leaflets, the importance of an intervention from the left is paramount.
Learn from China’s Example of Racial and Political Tolerance!
Standing Against Labour Will Help Left Unity.
Far from undermining left unity, the left within Labour will be strengthened by the promotion of socialist solutions to the crisis and by leftward pressure on Labour candidates across Britain.
But besides that, we know that Labour’s long assumption that working-class voters have nowhere to go has been exploded by events — for years now in Scotland, more recently elsewhere. Refusing to challenge Labour from the left has not upheld its vote: it has simply meant disillusionment and anger at a party that no longer seems to represent ordinary people has been expressed by not voting at all or by voting for parties to its right.
The left has lost a lot of ground across Britain over the past year. We cannot sit out the first significant Britain-wide platform for political debate since the pandemic struck. The Communist Party’s election campaign will be a significant contribution to the revival of a militant and combative socialist movement.
What serious spotters want to know is if there are any contests between Communist candidates and the Socialist and Trade Union Coalition (TUSC), and the Monster Raving Loony Party.
Socialist Workers Party (US) “anti-scientific thought police try to erase the existence of women” by recognising Transgender rights.
SWP (US) World’s Oldest Trotskyist Party Goes Confusionist.
The US left is now having its own ‘Spiked’ Moment.
Don’t say ‘mother’! Speech code is blow to fight for women’s rights
Liberal social engineers are striking blows to women’s rights as they push laws and regulations that eliminate the word “mother.” This is the latest front in their drive to deny women’s oppression under capitalist rule and to hide the long struggle for women’s equality that has made gains and strengthened the working class.
..
Manchester University in the U.K. announced March 6 new guidelines that replace the words “mother” and “father” with the “gender-neutral” terms “parent” or “guardian.” And Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust has new guidelines that replace the term “breastfeeding” with “chestfeeding.”
All of this is bad for the working class.
A friend of mine who went for prenatal care was referred to by a medical professional as a “pregnant person,” because a transgender “man” can have a baby. At a public forum in Louisville, Kentucky, on a woman’s right to abortion one of the invited speakers lectured participants that we should say “a person’s right to abortion” for the same reason.
Some good news: female human beings give birth to 385,000 babies in the world each day. That’s how the human race continues to exist. If a few of the mothers don’t identify as women, that’s their prerogative and they shouldn’t face discrimination, but it doesn’t change reality.
…
Campaigning broadly among working people, Socialist Workers Party candidates find a welcome response to our program, which starts from the capacities of working people to join together to change our conditions and to advance our self-confidence and class consciousness— the opposite of identity politics. A good reason to join the SWP campaigns!
Brendan could not have said it more clearly.
Now it obvious that the Tendance, which comes from the ‘Paboite tradition loathes the US SWP from the depth of our being, but even so, we are shocked.
This was the founder of their Party, James P. Cannon.
They asked, “What have you against him?”
I said, “He wears a corduroy suit up and down Greenwich Village, with a trick mustache and long hair. There is something wrong with this guy.”
I wasn’t making a joke, either. I said, people of this type are not going to be suitable for approaching the ordinary American worker. They are going to mark our organization as something freakish, abnormal, exotic; something that has nothing to do with the normal life of the American worker. I was dead right in general, and in this mentioned case in particular. Our corduroy-suit lad, after making all kinds of trouble in the organization, eventually became an Oehlerite.
The Dog Days of the Left Opposition. 1994.
Update: Background to the Present Evolution of the SWP:
Balance Sheet on the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.A.)
Adopted by the Fourth Internationalist Tendency National Conference, September 2, 1990.
Our platform briefly described the programmatic revisionism of the Barnes leadership on five crucial questions: the application of the theory of permanent revolution; political revolution in the deformed and degenerated workers’ states; the recognition of the interdependence of the three sectors of the world revolution; the application of the transitional method and the united front to the class struggle in this country; and, “defense of workers’ democracy as a necessary basis for the functioning of the working class movement in general, and of the Leninist party in particular.”
The death agony of the Socialist Workers Party. Louis Project. 2017.
In the recent past, there have been such shocking developments with this sect-cult of probably around a hundred members with an average age of 55 or so that I have decided to file this report. I don’t think there is much point in trying to connect its paroxysms with the tasks facing the left today except maybe to indicate that “Leninism” can produce some remarkable pathologies.
How an organisation becomes a cult
Barry Sheppard’s The Socialist Workers Party 1960-88 (Volume 2: Interregnum, Decline and Collapse, 1973-88) reviewed by Patrick Scott.
To briefly summarise Volume 1, dealing with the 1960s and early 1970s. Amongst many things Sheppard takes us through the Cuban revolution, the black civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and the growth of the women’s and lesbian and gay movements. The US SWP certainly did not get everything right in this period. But it was definitely a revolutionary organisation that actively intervened in a broadly positive way into the class struggle and the major political and social movements that arose though struggle. At the time the party was also the largest revolutionary organisation on the US left with well over a thousand members. How therefore can we square this with the burnt out shell of a sect that the US SWP and its satellite organisations (sometimes referred to as the Pathfinder Tendency) have become today?
The Rise of Right Wing Identity Politics.
“‘Identity politics allows the privileged to pretend to be oppressed’” Brendan O’Neill. (Spiked)
Identity politics have become the plaything of the right and an array of confusionnistes. Farewell Woke. Goodbye gender politics. Adieu, Intersexuality. The magnetism of the national neo-liberalism of the British Government, and ;the claims of National Sovereignty have worked their effects. The politics of the identity and, nation, and flag, right wing identity politics are everywhere. There’s even a ‘left’ version, claiming to speak for the ‘real’ working class, not the shifting cosmopolitans of the left,, and a variety of nationalist (SNP) and regionalist forms (Northern Independence Party, NIP).
Post Brexit you would have thought that Sovereigntist politics, left’ or right would have lost traction. But from the pages of Spiked to the launcher of GB News, it’s the right wing, the nationalist populists, who are leaders of the pack.
“Andrew Neil launches 24-hour news channel to rival BBC and Sky.”
Nowhere have the voices of the new identitairians been louder than in the London Mayoral Elections.
From the London mayor: The full list of candidates standing at the 2021 election
Piers Corbyn and the Let London Live movement demand an immediate end to all lockdowns and restrictions imposed on the people in the name of fighting a virus.
If elected as Mayor of London Piers Corbyn calls on the people to “refuse to abide by coronavirus restrictions on freedom, life and liberty. I will instruct the police to stop enforcement of coronavirus rules and regulations in London. We will stand up as a beacon of hope to the people of the world.”
..the breakthrough for the pandemic industry had to wait for the next opportunity which came in 2020 with the SARS-COV-2 “pandemic” which they had been preparing by means of simulations and catastrophe planning exercises, like an army prepares for war. …..It is not a conspiracy theory to say that there is no pandemic.
Confusionist, Conspiracist, one-time International Marxist Group activist, and, for term, a Labour Councillor in the 1990s: He has actually got on the ballot.
Piers Corbyn, Let London Live
Peter Gammons United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). There is no need to comment further
Social Democratic Party (SDP), canal historique, now a hard-line pro-Brexit groupuscule:
David Kurten Heritage Party: “a socially conservative political party in the UK, standing for free speech, traditional family values, national sovereignty & financial responsibility.”
This chap, already familiar to our readers:
And, naturally, old matey Fox:
To round it off there’s this, (Spiked) Julie Burchill.
Harry and Meghan can’t hold a candle to Prince Philip
He showed the self-obsessed duo what a life of public service really looks like.
Just as I could never vote Tory until it became clear that this was the only way to get Brexit done, so I could never stand up for the queen’s theme song until Harry and Meghan rocked up with their passion project – ‘The Grabdication’ as I coined it – to make it all about them.
16 Monster Raving Loony Candidates (and one TUSC) in Kingston on Thames Council By-Election.
Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) Faces Tough Competition From Monster Raving Looney Party.
Newshound David Walsh writes,
In this strange week where nothing political is stirring – anywhere – and nowhere on the left, please see the attached notice of nominations for a mundane by election in the Chessington South ward of Kingston upon Thames Borough Council. This follows the death of a Lib Dem Councillor.
When you open it, you will see that beside the three main parties , there are 13 candidates for the Raving Monster Looney Party – ranging from the Lady Dave Pither to the Count of Casual Corinthians via Captain Coily. In a ward where the last elections saw the Tories fighting off the Lib Dems in the mid one and a half thousands, and Labour trailing in with a couple of hundred it seems an odd place for Loonyism. Street view shows solid upper middle England villas and detached houses, and Google Earth shows a lot of big gardens with the blue dots of swimming pools. For the Loonies to have got the 130 signatures is a job of industrial enterprise. Odder still, the contest also sees a TUSC candidate – they must have found a hidden proletarian enclave that escaped me. See PDF from the council.
A total of 13 candidates for the Official Monster Raving Loony Party are standing for just one seat in Kingston’s Chessington South by-election, possibly setting a record for the number of candidates a party has contested in a single-seat election.
There is nothing in the rules against this stunt, and there have been occasions in the past where two or three candidates have stood for one political party in a seat.
But it obviously makes it harder for a political party to win if their votes are split between several candidates. But then maybe that’s the point…
The story continues.
Loony candidate A. Gent Chinners tweeted about the political ploy stating: “It’s going to be a squeeze getting all 13 of them into that seat!”
He told MyLondon that despite “this massive plan of mine taking up far too much time” it was something he’d always wanted to try and arrange in a local election “and this one just seemed right what with lockdown.”
Speculation is growing in the international workers’ movement as to whether TUSC will manage to beat the Official Monster Raving Loony Party in a crucial contest in the proletarian heartlands.
Prince Phillip: Mixed Responses to 8 Days of National Mourning.
Not a Real, but an Ersatz Patriot says Morning Star.
Partisans de la ligne de la Tendance! Respond to the passing of Prince Phillip with dignity.
Quiet Mourning, and Condolences to the Family should be the hallmark.
Alas, this well meaning advice does not seem to have been universally followed.
This is what is happening (Telegraph).
“Britain has entered eight days of mourning for the Duke of Edinburgh during which flags will be flown at half mast, TV presenters will wear black and Parliament will pass no new laws.”
“MPs are expected to wear black armbands while they are at work, and armbands are likely to be worn at sporting events this weekend. A-two minute silence will be observed at the Grand National at Aintree on Saturday.”
Parliament will scale back its work in a similar way to periods of “purdah” before elections. No new laws will be passed, no Government announcements will be made and no ministers will give interviews or tweet about policy unless it is specifically to give public health guidance.”
“Major TV channels responded to the Duke’s death by cancelling planned programmes and showing tributes instead. Presenters and newsreaders were told to wear black or dark clothes and black ties. The official Royal family website was replaced with a single memorial page to the Duke, while the Prince of Wales’s website was suspended.”
This is excessive, as Cde Osler has remarked, Christians only have four days to mourn the death of Christ – a somewhat more important passing for millions of people.
No wonder that this was a reaction.
Within six hours of Prince Philip’s death being announced the BBC had received so many complaints about its wall-to-wall coverage of the news that it opened a dedicated complaints form on its website.
The BBC curtailed dozens of broadcasts on Friday, taking the nation’s most popular television and radio channels off air and reduced dozens of other broadcasts on stations across the country, in order to provide uninterrupted coverage of tributes to the Queen’s husband.
This lot have no idea of how to react either:
Socialist Worker: Queen mourns as another racist bites the dust.
Prince Philip looked like the living dead whenever he left hospital during recent health scares. On Friday, he was just dead.
The racist royal finally snuffed it after 99 years of privilege, triggering “Operation Forth Bridge”, the British government’s plans for the funeral. In line with his wishes for “minimal fuss”, there will only be eight days of official mourning for the queen’s husband.
The anti-Labour and national Sovereigntist Morning Star attacked the Duke of Edinburgh for being a real patriot.
They began by making a side-swipe at the Labour Party.
“The diktat from the Labour leadership that the party’s election campaign be immediately suspended until further notice will doubtless be obeyed.”
The paper, independent of the Communist Party of Britain and owned by the Co-op will no doubt carry reports of Communist Campaigning in local elections in the coming days.
To the Daily the Royal Family are not genuine patriots.
“Philip himself — second cousin to his betrothed and the princely son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg — personified the nonsensical conceits of an ersatz patriotism in which the closely related royal families of European nation states and Russia shared class interests and family links while the peoples over whom they ruled were dragooned into war and inter-imperialist conflict.”
From the Red-Brown Front there’s more appreciation:
Frank Ferudi writes in Spiked,
Even though I am not a royalist, I always admired Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. He was often criticised in the media for his many so-called gaffes. However, his formidable track record of saying unfashionable things in public can be taken as a positive testimony to his refusal to follow the rules of media training.
It’s all about me:
I first encountered Prince Philip accidently in Nakuru, Kenya in 1972. I was travelling around doing interviews for my PhD thesis on the Mau Mau revolt. He was running so fast on the street that his posse of bodyguards could barely keep up. Occasionally he would stop to exchange a few words with some locals and then move on. at struck me was the effortless way he conducted himself and the affectionate reaction he got from the people he talked with
Even though I am not a royalist, I always admired Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. He was often criticised in the media for his many so-called gaffes. However, his formidable track record of saying unfashionable things in public can be taken as a positive testimony to his refusal to follow the rules of media training.
Unlike most of the other royals, Philip was often ‘off-message’. In a world in which royalty comes wrapped in the accoutrements of celebrity culture, Philip stood out as a genuine individual who was reluctant to express himself through a script written by public-relations advisers.
I first encountered Prince Philip accidently in Nakuru, Kenya in 1972. I was travelling around doing interviews for my PhD thesis on the Mau Mau revolt. He was running so fast on the street that his posse of bodyguards could barely keep up. Occasionally he would stop to exchange a few words with some locals and then move on. What struck me was the effortless way he conducted himself and the affectionate reaction he got from the people he talked with.
The next time I met Prince Philip was three decades later at the Royal Geographical Society in London
The former leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party concludes, “Yet despite all the small-minded and sneering criticism he faced from the new cultural establishment, Philip had a good run. In decades to come, he will be remembered as someone who turned out to be a very human prince.”
We await the response of Baroness Claire Fox, if her ladyship can surmount her grief and write a tribute.
“Our condolences to the Queen and her family.” – Republic.
Children add to the floral tributes for Prince Philip outside the Henry VIII Gate of Windsor Castle
Buckingham Palace has announced the passing of Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh, at the age of 99.
Campaign to replace the monarchy with an elected head of state:
Northern Independence Party Fails to Register as Political Party for Hartlepool Election.
More Borders Party Want to Run an Independent County.
The full list of candidates standing to be Hartlepool’s new MP has been published.
People will vote on 6 May after the by-election was triggered by the resignation of Labour’s Mike Hill last month.
These are the candidates (listed alphabetically by surname):
- David Bettney, Social Democratic Party
- The Incredible Flying Brick, The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
- Hilton Dawson, The North East Party
- Gemma Evans, Women’s Equality Party
- Rachel Sara Featherstone, The Green Party
- Adam Gaines, Independent
- Andrew Michael Hagon, Liberal Democrat
- Steve Jack, Freedom Alliance, No Lockdowns, No Curfews
- Chris Killick
- Sam Lee, Independent
- Claire Martin, Heritage Party
- Jill Mortimer, Conservative Party
- John Prescott, Reform UK
- Thelma Doris Walker, Independent
- W. Ralph Ward-Jackson, Independent
- Paul Daniel Williams, Labour Party
There are already theories
Plans for the restoration of the Heptarchy continue:
Galloway goes NIP: call to break up Scotland into Unionist enclaves and Nationalist fiefdoms.
More Borders Galloway: Independence Leads to Break up of Scotland.
Borders are back in fashion…..on the left. A decade ago one of France’s best known believers in the Gauche républicaine Régis Debray wrote Éloge des frontières , In Praise of Frontiers. Full of guff about the moral and intellectual necessity of borders, and the way they help flourish diversity, it marked the return of Giuseppe Mazzini’s 19th century call for a world of “free, independent, republican nations.”
Another left wing writer, the German Wolfgang Streeck has become interested in the progressive potential of national frontiers. As Jerome Roos explains, “In recent years, Streeck has increasingly been tempted to fill this void with a reassertion of national borders as the last-remaining expression of ‘organised’ political control against the ‘destabilising’ external forces impinging upon it – irrespective of whether these are flows of ‘hot money’ or actual people fleeing poverty and war.[101] These calls for stricter border control in turn hinge on a rather one-dimensional and underdeveloped theorisation of the impact of globalisation on the international border regime (From the Demise of Social Democracy to the ‘End of Capitalism’: The Intellectual Trajectory of Wolfgang Streeck).
After the Brexit vote Debray wrote L’Europe fantôme (2019). Imagining a “post-European era”, the end of “mythe galvanisant, cet ersatz de messianisme”, the “plaything of elites”‘an “empty monument” under the Shadow of Uncle Sam…The real Europe is plural, because to exist we need differences, to separate ourselves off.
Streeck, less a prophet, lost his honour in his own country and this one by active involvement in the Full Brexit Red-Brown Front between Brexit Party supporters, Blue Labour, national sovereigntists and the Communist Party of Britain.
From these prominent contributors to the New Left Review blog, Sidecar, to the political confusionism of the post-Corbyn left. Pro-border left wingers who back the Scottish National Party and Scottish independence have seen others join them in recent months. There is the restoration of the Heptarchy for Northern Independence Party, and now, the pro-Unionist George Galloway and fervent Brexiteer….
Galloway puts forward ‘bizarre’ plan to partition Scotland if country votes for independence Telegraph.
in a suggestion described as “bizarre” by opponents, he said ‘regions’ should be able to secede from an independent Scotland, if the country was to vote for separation, and instead remain a devolved part of the UK. He cited Edinburgh, Aberdeenshire, Orkney, and Dumfries and Galloway as parts of Scotland that may demand to stay British rather than be part of an independent state. (Thanks David)
The Daily Record,
The former MP, who is heading the All for Unity, said places like Shetland, the south of Scotland, Aberdeen and Edinburgh would not want to become “part of a separate Scottish state dominated by the Central Belt”.
Galloway said: “I think the demand for it would become unstoppable. starting in Orkney and Shetland. I don’t believe that they will allow themselves to be dragged into an independent Scottish state.”
“I know in Dumfries and Galloway where the great majority, more than two thirds oppose separatism, the demand to remain in Britain would probably become the settled will of the people there.”
“It may be the Edinburgh the financial sector, Aberdeenshire with its with its fishing with its farming with its oil related activities, might very well begin to demand in a way that might become unstoppable.”
He added: “It’s not my view, I wouldn’t wish it to happen, but it would be an extraordinary irony if the break up of Britain gave birth to forces which then began to break up Scotland. The country would be eating itself.”
The saga continues,
Left Wing, Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), opposed to rare earth mining project wins Greenland election.
A left-wing environmentalist party opposed to a controversial mining project won a clear victory in Greenland’s parliamentary election, according to results released Wednesday.
With 36.6 percent of the vote, Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) was ahead of Siumut, a social democratic party that has dominated politics in the Danish territory since it gained autonomy in 1979.
“Thank you to the people who trusted us to work with the people in the centre for the next four years,” IA leader Mute Egede said on KNR public television after the results were announced.
IA, which was previously in opposition, is expected to grab 12 out of the 31 seats in the Inatsisartut, the local parliament, up from eight currently.
INUIT ATAQATIGIIT, (Site)
Inuit Ataqatigiit (lit. ’Community of the People’, Danish: Folkets Samfund. (Wikipedia)
The opposition Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) party has won the early parliamentary elections in Greenland.
After votes were counted on Wednesday morning, the left-wing indigenous party made strong gains receiving 36.6 per cent of the votes, according to official figures.
The previous ruling Siumut (Forward) party – traditionally the strongest political force in Greenland – finished second with 29.4 per cent of the votes.
IA leader Múte Bourup Egede, 34, will be the first to try to form a new government, needing at least 16 of the 31 seats in the Inatsisartut parliament for a majority.
The snap election had been brought forward to 2021 after the previous coalition government of Kim Kielsen collapsed amid an internal power struggle. Kielsen was replaced as President of Greenland by Erik Jensen in late 2020.about:blank
Campaigning was also dominated by a dispute over a controversial mining project for the extraction of uranium and rare earth.
The debate over whether international companies should be allowed to mine in Greenland led the centre-right Democrats to pull out of the coalition.
According to the US Geological Survey, the sparsely inhabited island has the world’s largest undeveloped deposits of rare-earth metals.
These materials are used worldwide in a variety of products including smartphones, wind turbines, microchips, batteries for electric cars, and weapons systems.
In 2019, former US President Donald Trump privately discussed the idea of purchasing Greenland from Denmark in a bid to expand American territory.
Alas,
The suggestion was met with uproar in Copenhagen and dismissed by Danish authorities.
International interest in Greenland has continued as major powers, including China and Russia, are racing to establish their presence in the Arctic Circle.
The Guardian elaborates on this point,
At the heart of the election was a proposed international mining project by Greenland Minerals, an Australia-based company with Chinese ownership, which is seeking a licence to operate the Kvanefjeld mine in southern Greenland.
Apart from uranium, estimates show the Kvanefjeld mine could hold the largest deposit of rare-earth metals outside China (which accounts for more than 90% of global production). The calculation has led to international interest in Greenland’s natural resources.
Revolutionary Defeatism in Hartlepool.
Rachel Swindon: Corbynista Ultra, Revolutionary Defeatist.
“The Londoncentric Labour simply doesn’t give two hoots for the opinion of the working class northerner. They might be good at platitudes, and if they are it’s probably the only thing they are any good at, but apart from a few damn good socialists, the rest of the Labour Party is an anti-socialist, anti-working class, tool of the establishment, they bear the torch for the metropolitan liberal elite. They are the attacks dogs of the rich and powerful.
We used to just call them “Tories”.“ Split The Left Vote? Thelma Walker *IS* The Left Vote In Hartlepool
The anti-Labour site, Skwawkbox is revelling in this:
Weasel Walker is spending his last days, that is until his mates in UNITE pull the plug in the midst of the Hotel and Conference Centre scandal that’s erupted, trying to inflict maximum damage on the Labour Party.
Madness, they call it madness…Canary chief chirps up,
One time European leftists back restoration of Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.
There is one explanation for this pack’s stand:
In this case the crew wishing Labour defeats do not want their own ruling class defeated, they want the party of the labour movement to lose.
They join the red-brown front at Spiked:
Labour deserves to keep losing
Brexit was only its most egregious betrayal of the working-class voters it claims to represent.
This Blog does not wish ill on anybody in this contest but the Tories…
Historical note: The Myth of Lenin’s “Revolutionary Defeatism” Hal Draper.
(1) On the one hand, we have the leading anti-war internationalists like Trotsky and Luxemburg who were against both camps of imperialism in the war; against voting war credits; for irreconcilable class struggle during the war; for transforming the fight against the war into a fight for socialist power; for breaking with the International of the social-patriots of both camps. They counterposed, to the military victory of their own government’s imperialism, the victory of their own working-class struggle for socialism. To the military victory of their own government, they did not counterpose a desire for its military defeat. They counterposed their own socialist solution to any military outcome, victory or defeat, on the plane of the inter-imperialist conflict.
These anti-war socialists were not “defeatists”.
(2) On the other hand, we have tendencies which were for the defeat of their own government and at the same time pro-war on the basis of a position politically identical with that of their fellow social-patriots across the state lines.
But in the case of the position peculiar to Lenin, we have an attempt at a different kind of “defeatism” – one which sought to combine some variety of “defeat of your own government” with the anti-war policy of opposition to both war camps.
Lenin attempted to combine defeatism and an anti-war line.
Note that this is put in a manner precisely opposite that of the Lenin-myth, which has come to paint “defeatism” as the inescapable and necessary expression of anti-war line, which cannot see any problem at all in making such a combination.
Northern Independence Party in 2% Breakthrough Support for ‘left’ Resurrection of Ancient Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms.
“I trust that to very few of you, at least, I need dwell on the sublime origins of these legends. The very names of your borough] bear witness to them. So long as Hammersmith is called Hammersmith, its people will live in the shadow of that primal hero, the Blacksmith, who led the democracy of the Broadway into battle till he drove the chivalry of Kensington before him and overthrew them at that place which in honour of the best blood of the defeated aristocracy is still called Kensington Gore. Men of Hammersmith will not fail to remember that the very name of Kensington originated from the lips of their hero. For at the great banquet of reconciliation held after the war, when the disdainful oligarchs declined to join in the songs of the men of the Broadway (which are to this day of a rude and popular character), the great Republican leader, with his rough humour, said the words which are written in gold upon his monument, ‘Little birds that can sing and won’t sing, must be made to sing.’
So that the Eastern Knights were called Cansings or Kensings ever afterwards. But you also have great memories, O men of Kensington! You showed that you could sing, and sing great war-songs. Even after the dark day of Kensington Gore, history will not forget those three Knights who guarded your disordered retreat from Hyde Park (so called from your hiding there), those three Knights after whom Knightsbridge is named. Nor will it forget the day of your re-emergence, purged in the fire of calamity, cleansed of your oligarchiques.
Is this ancient spirit of the London townships to die out? “
How Regionalism Might Spread to London: The Napoleon of Notting Hill. C. K. Chesterton. 1904.
A couple of days ago the Guardian published this dish on the Northern Independence Party (NIP).
Is the Northern Independence party more serious than it looks?
In recent years, the north of England has become a blank slate for whichever stereotypes the London-based media wants to foist on it. Whether the topic of debate is the “red wall” or “left behind” voters, there is usually an assumption that northerners are socially conservative (patriotic, Brexit-y, even a bit racist). “Northern safari” media features, in which journalists parachute into former mining villages to gather vox-pops from disgruntled, often elderly voters, have tended to back up the point.
Now, a new political movement, the Northern Independence party (NIP), has started to make the case that the north can and should be a place of radical potential rather than a reactionary backwater.
…
NIP’s tactics are a challenge to established parties that need to raise their game and reconnect with younger voters who don’t seem to feature much in the political debates of the 2020s. One of the latest NIP mottos states: “We joke but we’re serious”. They might just be on to something.
It’s all go with the Nips, or Weasels, Stoats, Seals, Ferrets or Santa’s Little Helpers.
NIP has received a serious broadside from Prometheus writer Ed Mustill.
AGAINST REGIONALISM, AGAINST SEPARATISM, FOR CLASS POLITICS
Anecdotally it appears that a layer of what we might call the post-Corbynite left are considering supporting the NIP. Twitter handles are now adorned with red and yellow icons, as 21st century socialists bizarrely adopt the imagined motif of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom from the 7th century.
More than that alt-news sites like Skwawkbox, Novara Media, and the Canary, has puffed the Nips.
He continues,
A strong Twitter game has rapidly pushed the NIP towards 50,000 followers. Sparse on details, the party promises a referendum on northern independence, professes democratic socialism and advocates socially progressive positions.
The centrepiece of the NIP’s political offer is a referendum on the creation of an independent state in the north of England to be called Northumbria. The borders of this state, whether it is to be a republic or keep allegiance to the Windsors’ crown, and the currency it will use are all apparently questions to be settled at a later date.
Pointing that national self-determination is not some student union joke, or an idea from organs like the Suffolk Gazette, but (at present) a deadly serious matter for Kurds, Uighurs and Palestine, Mustill states,
There is only one small problem with applying the principle of self-determination to the north of England: there is no Northumbrian nation. No-one describes their national identity as Northumbrian. There is no distinct Northumbrian language or culture. There is, broadly speaking, a ‘northern’ identity, which is often defined negatively as against the south, and London in particular. But within this the north is home to a patchwork of local and regional identities, many of which are quite different to one another, and none of which constitutes a national group.
Mustill hits the nail on the head by effectively locating the self-identifying socialists of NIP with the right-wing identity politics of the ‘somewhere’ people railing at the ‘anywhere’ foreign, rootless cosmopolitans.
Their professed enemies – the ‘Westminster elite’ and the City of London that so imbalances the British economy – are the English ruling class, albeit described using lazy populist rhetoric. But they are defined as enemies not primarily in class terms but rather because they are not here but elsewhere. There is a comparison to be made with the Brexit movement. Many who supported Brexit were genuinely opposed to the undemocratic nature of the European Union and perhaps objected to its economic agenda, but the fundamental problem the Brexit movement had with Brussels was that it was over there, it was foreign.
Arguing that calling for more borders is the last thing we need at present he says, ” erecting more national barriers that “will somehow provide solutions to social and economic problems” is a dead end. In fact it’s the basis for the red-brown identarian politics of fronts like The Full Brexit, the Paul Embery Blue Labour vision of patriotism, flag, faith and family reduced to absurdity.
The self-identifying internationalists of Left Unity have now given backing to this motley crew of confusionists.
This highly recommended article concludes, “Is anger at Keir Starmer or frustration with the Labour Party enough to propel you to devote the next 10, 20, or 50 years of your political energy to resurrecting the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy?”
Why, we ask, stop there? G.K. Chesterton, not normally considered a writer of the left, foresaw a day when the Great Wen itself would splinter into independent statelets. The point is, what began as a joke by the King, Auberon Quin, got taken seriously by one “earnest young man who takes the cry for regional pride seriously – Adam Wayne,” A is the little Napoleon….
Northern Independence Party Application to Register as Political Party Refused.
Another Application is in the post.
They had some good times, the weasels -ferrets, seals and stoats of the Northern Independence Party. Puffed by alt-news sites like Skwawkbox, and warmly welcomed by other anti-Labour forces, not to mention self-identifying left wingers.
Only today:
Alas,
They are putting a brave face on this.
We hope they get right, perhaps on their third attempt, or the tenth.
Marine le Pen: Presidential “first Choice” for French 25 to 34 Year olds.
Marine le Pen: Presidential “first Choice” for 25 to 34 Year olds,
Le Monde has this story “If abstention remains officially the first choice of “first-time voters”, the voting intentions for young people in their late twenties and early thirties are for Marine Le Pen vote while 18-24 year olds lean more towards Emmanuel Macron.”
While the intention to abstain remains strong amongst those in the 25 to 34 cohort, “only 20% want to vote for Macron. Marine Le Pen has increased her backing from 23% in 2017 to 29% today.
“What is very striking,” says the deputy director of the polling institue Ipsos, “is that these young people, even more than the wider population, have deserted the traditional parties that were the Socialist Party and the Republicans (conservative right wing . They are looking for something else, something radical. In 2017, it was Mélenchon and partly Macron, today it is still a little Mélenchon and much more the greens, but support for the Rassemblement National has grown significantly.“
The historical links between Marine Le Pen’s party and its extreme right violent founders, illustrated by her father Jean Marie Le Pen’s comments on the gas chambers as a “detail of history”, no longer appear to repel large numbers of voters.
46% of young people believe that the RN is an honest party, that it is “capable of having a vision of the future for France” (45% among RN voters, 49% among 18-30 year olds).
An accompanying interview with the sociologist Anne Muxel is headlined:
“« Le clivage gauche-droite a perdu de sa pertinence chez les jeunes.”The left-right divide has lost its relevance among young people.
In effect that while backing the Greens or La France insoumise could channel the same anti-system protest vote casting a ballot for the far right, Muxel draws a parallel between the protest, radical vote, on the extreme right is and support for La France insoumise, She argues that Jean-Luc Mélenchon had known how to attract a a section of young people unhappy with the with the in-government official left. He also had a very good campaign aimed at young people, using their channels and vectors of expression.
The RN has also, it is widely reported, largely succeeded in a process of “detoxification” or “de-demonisation” of its brand which began with Marine Le Pen’s ascension to leadership of the Front National, name change to the Rassemblent National, (‘re-branding’) in 2017 and continues with her (formal) resignation of Party leader to stand for next year’s Presidential elections as the candidate for “all French people,”
One of the most important reasons for this development is that the French left is fragmented, Mélenchon is not a unifying figure, and people, young or old, cannot see a an alternative ‘bloc de gauche’ as a serious contender in the Presidential elections against either Macron or Le Pen.
The FT has the story today:
French politics: Macron faces test of character as Le Pen’s popularity grows
Victor Mallet
It would be a political earthquake as disruptive as the UK referendum vote for Brexit in 2016 and the election of Donald Trump as US president later that year. Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s extreme right Rassemblement National party, is doing so well in the polls that she threatens to foil Emmanuel Macron’s re-election bid and could win next year’s presidential vote to become the country’s first far-right leader since the second world war.
….
The latest opinion polls suggest Le Pen has a real chance of winning, representing a significant threat to the French establishment and the unity of the EU.
..
Next year, according to the latest opinion polls, Le Pen could lead in the first round and therefore be assured of a place in the final, and if it is Macron that makes it through as well then he is currently forecast to win by as little as 53 per cent to 47 per cent, according to a Harris Interactive-L’Opinion poll in March. The front républicain system is crumbling because many leftwing voters say they will abstain. Some may even vote for Le Pen, whose strongholds are in the industrial towns of the north once dominated by communists.
As Turkey Invades Iraq to attack Kurds, Turkish fascists assault Kurdish cultural centre in Lyon.
This lengthy article in the Guardian by Bethan McKernan in Istanbul and Adam Gnych in Amedi, northern Iraq, is heart-rending and through. It is essential reading.
Kurds in ‘mountain prison’ cower as Turkey fights PKK with drones in Iraq
Yesterday there was a sad reminder that supporters of the Turkish state and Erdoğan’s Islamist regime are prepared to extend their violence to Europe. Attackers, said to be from the extreme-right Islamist and nationalist Grey Wolves violently attacked a Kurdish cultural centre in Lyon. Banned in France after they defaced a memorial to the victims of the Armenian genocide, the group is still active.
Quatre membres de la communauté kurde blessés dans une attaque à la Guillotière.
The Mesopotamia cultural space, located on rue Mazagran, was reportedly taken over by 20 to 25 attackers, armed with iron bars, on Saturday at the beginning of the afternoon. Four people were injured.
It happened very quickly, they broke everything, ”reports a member of the Mesopotamia cultural space, located rue Mazagran, in Lyon 7 th . This place, frequented by members of the Kurdish community, was attacked Saturday, around 2:30 pm, by “twenty to twenty-five” individuals, armed with iron bars, according to this indirect witness. Four people were present inside the small room at the time of the events. All were injured.
The victims are between 30 and 40 years old and had been beaten with baseball bats, iron bars and weapons with blades, according to firefighters.
Commentators already note that banning the fascist organisation the Loups Gris (Grey Wolves), with links to the Turkish state, had not prevented this assault.
Today protests against the fascist attack took place in Lyon. Around 300 people took part. The window of a Turkish grocery shop was broken. The police used tear gas to break up the demonstration.
Alt Right Ipswich Tory MP in Shock as Ipswich Central Tory Club Has No Union Flag.
But No Flag at Ipswich Central Conservative Club.
Tom Hunt MP: Kids should be ‘educated’ to like compulsory Union flag flying
A CONSERVATIVE MP has come under heavy fire on social media for suggesting that people who do not wish to see the Union flag flown outside every school should be “educated” into thinking otherwise.
….
Social media users have been quick to condemn the MP, saying that his use of “educated” in quote marks sounds like “a veiled threat”.
Many said it was a move towards “Americanisation”, and suggested the Tories aimed to have children recite a pledge of allegiance to the flag as they do in schools across the US.
Richard Littler, creator of the satirical Scarfolk town, wrote: “‘What the flag actually represents’ and ‘compulsory’ don’t belong in the same sentence.
“Double whammy lack of self-awareness and comprehension. Extra points for making ‘educated’ sound like ‘we’ll kick the sh*t out of you until you comply’.”
Author Chris Brookmyre added: “Symbols famously mean absolutely the same thing to everyone who views them. And if this particular one doesn’t, Tom wants to ‘educate’ you until it does.”
Shock as Ace Reporter W reveals that this Morning, Ipswich Central Club had no Union Flag.
The Conservative Central Club is a few metres from Sainsbury’s, down a back alley way. An Ace Newshound took this picture today. I just walked by it and can confirm the trusty Newshound’s report.
The ICCC was founded in 1883 by a group of local business men. They bought the old Masonic lodge in St Stephens Lane and opened it to like minded individuals. As such the ICCC has been around over 120 years.
ICCC is located at the very heart of historic Ipswich, which has networks of narrow streets built along medieval lines, numerous timber frame houses and flint churches. There are also notable buildings from the Georgian and Victorian eras.
We pride ourselves in providing a comfortable place for people to visit and enjoy at any time of the day or evening, we call it “a little oasis” in the middle of Ipswich.
We in East Anglia have a worthy successor to Alan Partridge:
150 Years Ago the Paris Commune Adopted Secularism.
Vive La Commune! Décret, datant du 3 avril 1871.
“150 years ago today, the Paris Commune decreed the separation of Church and State and established secularism as one of the fundamentals of the workers’ movement.”
The Paris Commune, Considering that the first of the principle of the French Republic is Liberty; Considering that freedom of conscience is the first of freedoms; Considering that the budget of the religious bodies is contrary to the principle, since it is an imposition on citizens against their own faith; Considering, in fact, that the clergy were complicit in the crimes of the monarchy against freedom,
Article I: The Church is separate from the State.
Article II: The religious budget is abolished.
Article III: The so-called mortmain property, belonging to religious congregations, movable and immovable, are declared national property.
Article IV: An investigation will be made immediately on these goods, to ascertain their nature and put them at the disposal of the nation.
From Lucien’s Blog:
“Our secularism, the permanent protest of a class on the move against all the forces that tend to paralyze it, really deserves to concentrate all the fury of the social conservatives. (…) Our secularism is however sure to win, because it expresses the instinctive tendency of a class towards its economic liberation. ” (Marceau Pivert, 1932)
“One day or another, the vast majority of the international proletariat will agree with Rosa Luxembourg to appreciate exactly the religious phenomenon and to adopt a tactic of proletarian anticlericalism in accordance with the demands of the class struggle”
(Marceau Pivert, 1937)
Pour une laïcité prolétarienne
Solidarité avec les luttes sociales et féministes contre les cléricalismes, les intégrismes religieux, le capitalisme et le patriarcat rétrograde.
See also:
Batley Grammar: Two More Members of Staff Suspended.
The Left and Labour Movement Should Defend Secular Freedom.
Two more members of staff at Batley Grammar School have been suspended, it has been reported.
The school had apologised and suspended a teacher pending an investigation following a protest over the cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad being shown in a class last week.
The picture had been used as part of a religious studies lesson, and the teacher involved has since been suspended and gone into hiding with his partner and four children.
It has since emerged two other teachers have also been suspended although this information was not made available to the public.
According to Mail Online, one ‘school source’ said: “Two other teachers are also being investigated but the school has been trying to keep it secret because they don’t want attention being drawn to the fact that this went beyond the actions of one person.”
It is understood they were aware the material was going to be used, but were not in class when it was shown.
LBC continues:
Batley Multi Academy Trust said in statement on Wednesday that an inquiry panel would begin work within a fortnight and said: “We understand everyone will want clarity as soon as possible.”
It said: “We’re grateful for the constructive engagement with all our stakeholders over the last few days with regard to Batley Grammar, one of the schools within our trust.
“We believe the right way forward is for an independent investigation to review the context in which the materials (which caused offence) were used, and to make recommendations in relation to the Religious Studies curriculum so that the appropriate lessons can be learned and action taken, where necessary.”
This Blog does not usually recommend the Weekly Worker, still less ‘Eddie Ford’, although it is well known that many of our section of left contributed to its pages in the past, but one of the best articles on the issues raised is in this week’s edition, (extracts)
Blasphemy laws old and new
Outraged, the local mosque mobilised its supporters, forcing the school to adopt remote learning. Mohammed Hussain of the Batley-based ‘Purpose of Life’ group – a registered charity – declared that the teacher “has insulted two billion Muslims on the planet” and “we cannot stand for that”, sharing the teacher’s name on social media with a letter condemning him. Taking it upon himself to speak for the entire ‘Muslim community’, as so often happens, he went on to state: “We do feel that, if this had been something that offended the LGBT community or something that was anti-Semitic, he would’ve been sacked on the spot.” For Hussain, the teacher’s resignation “should be forthcoming immediately.”
Similar sentiments can be heard from the protestors. One of them was quoted in various media outlets as saying the western world “is at a loss in understanding the reaction” from the Muslim community, as they are “required to stand up when prophet Mohammed is insulted, and when all the prophets are insulted, including all the prophets of the Old Testament, including Jesus” – the British “Muslim community” everywhere needs to review the materials being taught in their children’s schools. Showing images of Mohammed, we are told, should be as unacceptable as using the word ‘nigger’. Just beyond the pale.
This begins with something on everybody’s mind.
The very first thing to say is that this is an extremely serious matter. In October last year Samuel Paty, a school teacher in Paris, was horrifically beheaded after he too showed Charlie Hebdo cartoons during a class about free expression. In that sense, very similar to Batley. It is widely reported that the teacher there, who loved his “fantastic job”, is now in fear for his life – as are his family. He was whisked away from his home on “police advice” after receiving constant death threats. He is unlikely to return to Batley, let alone his job.
Secondly, we should support the immediate reinstatement of the suspended teacher – the lesson was precisely designed, presumably, to elicit critical thinking and philosophical inquiry. In which case, why not show the cartoon? Teachers should be free to show cartoons, pictures or quote texts that are relevant to the subject. After all, how can you conduct a lesson on blasphemy otherwise? Thirdly, Kibble was totally wrong to make his wretched apology – it will only encourage a climate of censorship.
There are wider issues, as religious figures push for the banning of views they dislike.
Many of those protesting outside Batley grammar school, and beyond, want the UK to resurrect its blasphemy laws. The common-law offences of “blasphemy” and “blasphemous libel” were formally abolished in England and Wales in 2008 after an amendment was passed to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008.1
And in Scotland the blasphemy law was only formally abolished this month after the new Hate Crime Bill passed its final parliamentary vote. There is now a new offence of “stirring up hatred” on religious grounds, meaning that Scots could be subject to prosecution if their behaviour is deemed “threatening or abusive”.2 As a consequence, the threshold for prosecution for “stirring up hatred” on religious grounds remains lower than in England and Wales – inevitably having a chilling effect on freedom of expression north of the border. This only leaves Northern Ireland, where blasphemy continues to be an offence under the common law, despite an attempt in the House of Lords to abolish it in 2009.
”””
This Blog covered the SWP line. This is a excellent answer.
According to the SWP, there is “a big difference between ridiculing a religion such as the establishment-backed Church of England and mocking the beliefs of the poor and oppressed” – apparently Islam is above analytical criticism, sceptical questioning, let alone biting humour, and can never be the belief of the rich and powerful. Ignorance in the extreme. Religions are almost always cross-class phenomena. The Church of England unites Elizabeth Windsor and Justin Welby with the worthy poor who huddle in church every Sunday. Roman Catholicism is the religion of Francis I, a bloatedly rich bureaucracy, and huge numbers throughout the Americas, Europe and Africa. The same with Islam. Sunni Islam unites the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, the fabulously rich king of Saudi Arabia, with millions throughout the world. The same goes for Shia Islam, the Mormons and Judaism. Vicars, priests, imams and rabbis form a privileged middle class with a material interest in maintaining their hold over their congregations and fuelling hostility to secularism and anything that smacks of criticism.
There are countries with state churches, like England. But more widely it is not just the wealth of the pious religious bourgeoisie behind institutions of faith, right to their most extreme forms. Political Islamism enjoys the financial and political support of capitalist dictatorships, from Saudi Arabia to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The conclusion is absolutely spot on.
We do not want to unnecessarily offend religious people like modern-day zealots from the League of Militant Godless.5 Rather, we want to be freely able to use Marxism to investigate the truths and untruths of religion. Religion is profoundly human – bearing all the characteristics and contradictions of class society. In that sense, as Marx argued, religion is an encyclopaedia of humanity’s complex history.
Lest we forget, this is what actually existing Blasphemy laws are like,
Junaid Hafeez, a university lecturer in Pakistan, had been imprisoned for six years when he was sentenced to death in December 2019. The charge: blasphemy, specifically insulting Prophet Muhammad (P.B.H.) on Facebook.
Pakistan has the world’s second strictest blasphemy laws after Iran, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Hafeez, whose death sentence is under appeal, is one of about 1,500 Pakistanis charged with blasphemy, or sacrilegious speech, over the last three decades. No executions have taken place.
But since 1990 70 people have been murdered by mobs and vigilantes who accused them of insulting Islam. Several people who defend the accused have been killed, too, including one of Hafeez’s lawyers and two high-level politicians who publicly opposed the death sentence of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted for verbally insulting Prophet Muhammad. Though Bibi was acquitted in 2019, she fled Pakistan.
Opinion: Is Pakistan’s blasphemy law a result of the ulema-state alliance?
Suffolk Communists in bid for comeback.
Communists to Build on Suffolk’s CPGB Heritage.
Leiston had an active Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) branch, founded in 1934, which existed for decades, until the end of the CPGB. Communist Paxton Chadwick was the Chair of the Council after the Second World War. There is a pamphlet by John Saville.
At his funeral in 1961, “held at Golders Green crematorium” J Gollan, the General Secretary of the Communist Party gave the oration. “Paxton Chadwick was one of the great British natural history illustrators of the twentieth century.”(Page 27) There was an exhibition of his works in Ipswich Christchurch Mansion in the 1990s.
A good article is on the site of the Country Standard: Leiston- “Suffolk’s Little Moscow”
“As a classic single-industry town the employer/worker relationship consisted of a blend of paternalism and repression. At first there was a fear of activism but as unemployment grew so dependence on the company decreased.
Paxton Chadwick was returned as a Communist Councillor for Leiston in 1938 as the first Communist Councillor in Suffolk (Rural Norfolk also had Communist councillors).
During the war Chadwick was called up into the anti-aircraft arm of the Royal Artillery where he continued to carry out council work and produce a wall newspaper for his unit. Chadwick ended the war as a Captain. As chairman of Leiston council , he introduced a regular “open nights ”where electors could quiz councillors”, secured affordable housing, clean water, fought to abuses in the private rented sector, fought for improved war pensions and led the campaign to save the local Grammar school.
There were links to the famous Summerhill School Paxton had taught in the Art Department and acted as part time sectretary to A.S. Neill. Paxton’s second wife, Lee Chadwick had worked. She became a writer, and the author of one of the best books on the natural history of the Suffolk Sandlings In Search of Heathland (1982) continued the work after Paxton passed away, and was active in the period of the above Leiston Leader copies. At the time my parents were lay officials in the local Labour Party (Chair and Branch Secretary and worked with her and he Communists on issues such as CND led Peace campaigning and Sizewell Nuclear Power station. They made the news in the 1980s when the local Tories forgot to put in their nominations for the Town Council elections and two (the Country Standard says 1, but I had heard that 2 Communists won).
Lee Chadwick was greatly liked by many people, and respected, both for her writing and her open-minded approach to left politics. She was on the Euro side in the disputes which tore apart the CPGB in the 1980s. These points are also of interest.
Leiston had a Communist councillor in the 1980’s and the Leiston Leader continued into the 1990’s.
Paxton Chadwick Close, Leiston is one of the few roads in Britain named after a communist
I understand that Bill Howard a signalman at Saxmunden was the last Communist Councillor in Leiston in the 1980’s (he lived at Waterloo Avenue, Leiston
The Communist Party was involved in both English Folk revival’s and key to this was the Eel’s Foot Public House, Eastbridge, where A.L. “Bert” Lloyd Communist and Workers Music Association founder, recorded a famous BBC radio Folk session on 13th March 193
The present Communist candidates, from the Communist Party of Britain are from the opposing side, often called ‘Tankies’.They are no doubt respected and liked by their own supporters.. Internationalists point to their backing for the hard right Brexit and support for the Chinese Regime which few would consider socialist.
Anti-Labour Site Skwawkbox Boosts Northern Independence Party.
Seal, Stoat, Ferret, Whippet, or Polecat: Northern Independence Party Boosted by Weasel Walker.
From their website –
“Northumbria was a historical kingdom, formed when Deira and Bernicia merged in the 7th century. It means ‘North of the Humber’, and covers much of the area we now consider ‘the North’. We have chosen this name because this period was the last time the North was united in an independent country.”
Thelma Walker, the former Labour MP and now Northern Independence Party candidate in the Hartlepool by-election, tonight accepted an invitation to debate Labour candidate Paul Williams live on Socialist Telly.
Walker accepted less than 15 minutes after Socialist Telly extended the invitation
The Weasels have already inspired a new movement:
Day of Action and Bristol Protest to Defend David Miller.
Another Bristol Protest.
A coalition of Labour Left organisations has called a lobby to ‘Defend academic freedom and free speech’ for tomorrow March 31 in Bristol.
Bristol University is currently investigating Professor David Miller, teacher of political sociology, for alleged antisemitism. “Nothing could be further from the truth”, says the Labour Campaign for Free Speech. “Professor Miller is a highly regarded academic who has spoken out against Zionism. That is why he has come under fire. Professor David Miller’s job at Bristol University is at stake, because he dared to speak out on Zionism. This is an important test case – should he be sacked, this will result in even more attacks on academic freedom.”
Organisations in support of the March 31 action include Labour Campaign for Free Speech, Labour Left Alliance, Labour in Exile Network, Support David Miller Campaign, Labour Representation Committee, Labour International Left Alliance, Bristol and West Labour Left Alliance and a number of local left groups.
They will assemble at 2pm outside the Wills Memorial Building of Bristol’s University to express “solidarity and support for Professor Miller”.
Labour Campaign for Free Speech.
The claim that Miller is a “highly regarded academic” is not widely shared, nor that the controversy around him is primarily about free speech. However he clearly has the right to his views, however odd and unacademic. This is an interesting claim by these groups:
The proposed policing bill would make it illegal to cause “serious annoyance” – with punishment of up to 10 years in jail. Worse than that, the law is to be applied even if “somebody is put at risk” of so-called “serious harm” (like ‘annoying’ somebody) – ie, if no action has taken place. The bill would make it an offence if just one person complains about feeling “serious distress…annoyance…[or even] inconvenience”.
We hope these principled free speech defenders will stand up for the Batley Teacher in this row.
Batley Grammar School students are said to have been left “wordless and distraught” following the news a teacher accused of showing pupils a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad is “fearing for his life”.
Yesterday (Monday), the suspended teacher’s father spoke out for the first time since protestors swarmed to the school’s gates calling for his son to be sacked.
Socialist Worker, which does not seem to be involved in the David Miller considers that no issues of freedom of expression are involved. Protests after teacher shows racist cartoon to Muslim pupils.
Bigots and Islamophobes want to defend the ‘right’ of a teacher to show pupils an offensive image of the Prophet Muhammad. But parents are right to be angry.
They cite an individual with a “colourful past” an authority on the affair.,
Mohammed Shafiq from the Ramadhan Foundation denied violence at the peaceful protests.
He instead feared the incident “will be hijacked by those who have an interest in perpetuating an image of Muslims”. It is alarming that the Department for Education chose to amplify those divisions by attacking the parents and pupils,” he added…..
The cartoons in Charlie Hebdo are intended to humiliate people who bear the brunt of institutional and state racism. The Tories use their version of free speech as an excuse to offend and scapegoat minorities.
Stand Up To Racism said, “In educating students we must be clear—insulting the Prophet Mohammed is not freedom of speech, it is racist abuse.”
Here’s the background of the friend of the SWP and new expert on the Batley affair ;
In January 2014 Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Maajid Nawaz, a secular Muslim, posted a “Jesus and Mo” image on his Twitter account.[25] The image depicts Jesus saying “Hey” and Mohammed saying “How ya doin'”.[26][27] Shafiq then posted on Twitter “We will notify all muslim organisations in the UK of his despicable behaviour and also notify Islamic countries.”[28][29] Shafiq further Tweeted “Ghustaki Rasool Quilliam,” so linking Nawaz’s anti-extremist think tank with an Urdu term which means “defamer of the prophet”,[30] which under Islamic law is a crime that carries a death penalty.[31] Maajid Nawaz has since received a number of death threats.[25][29][32] Shafiq also reportedly organized an on-line petition to Nick Clegg to have Nawaz removed as a Liberal Democrat candidate,[30] though when the organizers of the petition, named as SA et al., were contacted by the press they distanced themselves from Shafiq.
Chris Williamson Backs Northern Independence Party.
Socialism in a Few Counties.
The Proudfoot dynasty, with deep roots in the Shire and Hobbit history and who founded the party, have found their candidate.
The far-right Express and alt-news site says, “
Northern Independence Party in by-election sparks panic for Labour Party
FORMER West Yorkshire Labour MP, Thelma Walker, will represent the Northern Independence Party in the Hartlepool by-election.
A few says ago the anti-Labour alt news site the Skwawkbox ‘reported’
Former Labour MP Walker ‘encouraged to stand’ for Northern Independence Party in Hartlepool
Skwawkbox understands that Ms Walker is ‘being encouraged to stand’ and will accept the nomination if no local candidate comes forward. NIP will complete its selection and announce the party’s candidate on Sunday.
The Grayzone Has it in for ‘UK Trotskyist’ Gilbert Achcar and…Noam Chomsky.
Democrats back letter on Syria and the ‘anti-imperialism of fools’.Grayzone Reveals ‘UK Trotskyist’ Achcar First Circulated it.
This welcome letter was published a few days ago:
Erasing People through Disinformation: Syria and the “Anti-Imperialism” of Fools
By: Multiple signersMarch 27, 2021
Disreputable writers and outlets, often operating under the aegis of “independent journalism” with purportedly “leftwing” views, are spreading corrosive propaganda and disinformation that aims to strip Syrians of political agency
[The following Open Letter was a collaborative effort of a group of Syrian writers and intellectuals and others who stand in solidarity with them. It is signed by activists, writers, artists, and academics from Syria and 34 other countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, Oceania, and South America, and appears in multiple languages: English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Greek, and Italian.]
Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising ten years ago, and especially since Russia intervened in Syria on behalf of Bashar al-Assad, there has been a curious and malign development: the emergence of pro-Assad allegiances in the name of “anti-imperialism” among some who otherwise generally identify as progressive or “left,” and the consequent spread of manipulative disinformation that routinely deflects attention away from the well-documented abuses of Assad and his allies. Portraying themselves as “opponents” of imperialism, they routinely exhibit a highly selective attention to matters of “intervention” and human rights violations that often aligns with the governments of Russia and China; those who disagree with their highly-policed views are frequently (and falsely) branded as “regime change enthusiasts” or dupes of western political interests.
The divisive and sectarianising role played by this group is unmistakable: in their simplistic view, all pro-democracy and pro-dignity movements that go against Russian or Chinese state interests are routinely portrayed as the top-down work of Western interference: none are autochthonous, none are of a piece with decades of independent domestic struggle against brutal dictatorship (as in Syria), and none truly represent the desires of people demanding the right to lives of dignity rather than oppression and abuse. What unites them is a refusal to contend with the crimes of the Assad regime, or even to acknowledge that a brutally repressed popular uprising against Assad took place.
It continues.
But they do not rightfully belong in that company. No one who explicitly or implicitly aligns themselves with the malignant Assad government does. No one who selectively and opportunistically deploys charges of “imperialism” for reasons of their particular version of “left” politics rather than opposing it consistently in principle across the globe — thereby acknowledging the imperialist interventionism of Russia, Iran, and China — does.
These writers and outlets have mushroomed in recent years, and have often positioned Syria at the forefront of their criticisms of imperialism and interventionism, which they characteristically restrict to the west; Russian and Iranian involvement is generally ignored. In doing so, they have sought to align themselves with a long and venerable tradition of internal domestic opposition to the abuses of imperial power abroad, not only but quite often issuing from the left.
Often under the guise of practicing “independent journalism,” these various writers and outlets have functioned as chief sources of misinformation and propaganda about the ongoing global disaster that Syria has become. Their reactionary, inverted Realpolitik is as fixated on top-down, anti-democratic “power politics” as that of Henry Kissinger or Samuel Huntington, just with the valence reversed. But this maddeningly oversimplifying rhetorical move (“flipping the script” as one of them once put it), as appealing as it might be to those eager to identify who the “good guys” and “bad guys” are at any given place on the planet, is really an instrument of tailored flattery for their audiences about the “true workings of power” that serves to reinforce a dysfunctional status quo and impede the development of a truly progressive and international approach to global politics, one that we so desperately need, given the planetary challenges of responding to global warming.
The evidence that US power has itself been appallingly destructive, especially during the Cold War, is overwhelming: all across the globe, from Vietnam to Indonesia to Iran to Congo to South and Central America and beyond, the record of massive human rights abuses accumulated in the name of fighting Communism is clear. And in the post-Cold War period of the so-called “War on Terror,” American interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq have done nothing to suggest a fundamental national change of heart.
But, America is not central to what has happened in Syria, despite what these people claim. The idea that it somehow is, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, is a by-product of a provincial political culture which insists on both the centrality of US power globally as well as the imperialist right to identify who the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are in any given context.
The ideological alignment of rightwing admirers of Assad with this kind of authoritarian-friendly “leftism” is symptomatic of this, and indicates that the very real and very serious problem lies elsewhere: what to do when a people is as abused by their government as the Syrian people have been, held captive by those who think nothing of torturing, disappearing, and murdering people for even the slightest hint of political opposition to their authority? As many countries move closer and closer to authoritarianism and away from democracy, this seems to us a profoundly urgent political question to which there is yet no answer; and because there is no answer, all across the globe there is growing impunity on the part of the powerful, and growing vulnerability for the powerless.
About this, these “anti-imperialists” have no helpful words. About the profound political violence visited upon the Syrian people by the Assads, the Iranians, the Russians? No words. Forgive us for pointing out that such erasure of Syrian lives and experiences embodies the very essence of imperialist (and racist) privilege. These writers and bloggers have shown no awareness of the Syrians, including signatories to this letter, who risked their lives opposing the regime, who have been incarcerated in the Assads’ torture prisons (some for many years), lost loved ones, had friends and family forcibly disappeared, fled their country – even though many Syrians have been writing and speaking about these experiences for many years.
Collectively, Syrian experiences from the Revolution to the present pose a fundamental challenge to the world as it appears to these people. Syrians who directly opposed the Assad regime, often at great cost, did not do so because of some Western imperialist plot, but because decades of abuse, brutality, and corruption were and remain intolerable. To insist otherwise, and support Assad, is to attempt to strip Syrians of all political agency and endorse the Assads’ longstanding policy of domestic politicide, which has deprived Syrians of any meaningful say in their government and circumstances.
We Syrians and supporters of the Syrian people’s struggle for democracy and human rights take these attempts to “disappear” Syrians from the world of politics, solidarity, and partnership as quite consistent with the character of the regimes these people so evidently admire. This is the “anti-imperialism” and “leftism” of the unprincipled, of the lazy, and of fools, and only reinforces the dysfunctional international gridlock exhibited in the UN Security Council. We hope that readers of this piece will join us in opposing it.
It seems to have got up somebody’s nose.
Max Blumenthal (born December 18, 1977) is an American journalist, author, blogger, and filmmaker. Blumenthal established The Grayzone in December 2015; he is the website’s editor and one of its contributors.
Achcar is an Arabic speaking francophone ( well known to a large public in France) who writes for the left wing Le Monde Diplomatique, this blogger recalls articles in the Diplo for many many years. He now teaches in London.
Achcar was raised in Lebanon where he obtained degrees in philosophy and the social sciences at the Lebanese University. He took up residence in France in 1983, and completed his doctorate in social history and international relations at the University of Paris VIII, where, in 1991, he began teaching political science, sociology and international relations. In 2003 he took up a research position at the Marc Bloch Centre in Berlin, which he maintained until he assumed a professorship at SOAS.
I note this on the French Wikipedia entry on Achcar, ” Il a participé à l’élaboration d’un ouvrage sur la politique étrangère des États-Unis avec l’intellectuel controversé Noam Chomsky: 2009 (avec Noam Chomsky), Perilous Power: The Middle East & U.s. Foreign Policy: Dialogues on Terror, Democracy, War, and Justice, Paradigm, (deuxième édition revue et augmentée).
Red-Brown Professor, Paul McKeigue, close comrade of David Miller, “fake Russian spy and the undercover Syria sting.”
Assad Apologist and Close Comrade of David Miller
Observer : The UK professor, a fake Russian spy and the undercover Syria sting
This story is the depths. One of the leading members of David Miller’s red-brown “Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media” was prepared to inform on people, with potentially life-threatening consequences, to the Putin regime. There is little doubt, had the agent been real that the Assad regime would have heard as well.
Who is this creature?
A more sceptical academic than Paul McKeigue might perhaps have wondered if the emails flooding into his inbox from “Ivan”, a purported Russian spy, were too good to be true.
The Edinburgh genetics professor – who devotes large quantities of his private time to pursuing fringe theories claiming that attacks on civilians are staged to smear the government of Bashar al-Assad – dived eagerly into his new correspondence.
Over three months he filled hundreds of pages with speculation, including accusing journalists, researchers and diplomats of working as conduits for western intelligence agencies. He revealed the identity of a confidential source, and shared information she gave him.
Ivan appeared to share many of McKeigue’s own personal obsessions, particularly his desire to discredit investigators who compile evidence of war crimes committed in Syria. And he claimed access to both ready cash and secret intelligence.
But McKeigue was not writing to a Russian spy, or even a man called Ivan. The email account was controlled by a group of staff at one of the organisations he hoped to discredit, who say they went undercover because of concerns over the tactics McKeigue and his allies were prepared to deploy in an effort to defend the Syrian government and its Russian allies.
diplomat at the Geneva embassy, first secretary Sergey Krutskikh, was corresponding with fellow members of the “Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media” on encrypted systems.
This is an alliance of far-left academics and researchers who claim western journalists, NGOs and others act on behalf of the CIA and MI6 to undermine the Syrian government, including faking evidence of civilian deaths and chemical attacks.
It includes the controversial Bristol University professor David Miller, who has been accused of antisemitism by his own students, a claim he denies, and the blogger Vanessa Beeley, who has frequently visited Syria on government-sponsored trips.
Group members have questioned the veracity of chemical weapons attacks in Syria and claimed Russia was framed for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018.
They were also part of a years-long public campaign against the White Helmets, a civilian rescue organisation that enraged pro-Syrian and Russian factions by recording atrocities as they tried to save lives, then sharing the footage.
Shiraz has an excellent report on the story, which began with a report in the Times and then the BBC and is still unfolding: Pro-Assad academic tried to grass up human rights activists to Putin.
Meanwhile fellow Red-Browner Chris Williamson retweets another pro-Assad tout; (Chris Williamson Retweeted
‘Anti racist’ groups back ‘parents’ at Batley Row.
“This is not about free speech.”
The Morning Star reports,
..anti-racism groups accused ministers of stoking divisions.
Manchester-based Ramadhan Foundation chief executive Mohammed Shafiq said: “It is alarming that the Department for Education chose to amplify those divisions by attacking the parents and pupils rather than looking [at] how we can come together to have a respectful discussion and seek an end to this issue.”
Stand up to Racism co-convenor Weyman Bennett told the Morning Star: “I think we should show solidarity to people facing Islamophobia and not allow the government the right to try and exploit divisions.
“This is not about free speech. This is about building an equal environment without discrimination.”
The Muslim Council of Great Britain said that the grammar school was right to acknowledge that the material was “inappropriate” as it is “universally understood to be highly offensive to Muslims.”
The representative body said that the case “illustrates the importance of close engagement between schools [and] parents regarding issues not on the national curriculum.”
Burley Islamists Call on ‘Entire British Muslim Community to Review Material Taught in Schools, including whether it has reference to “inappropriate relationships” and sex education.
Batley Blasphemy Protests: Suspended Teacher Receives Police Protection.
En soutien au journal “Charlie Hebdo”.
The Guardian reports:
A teacher displayed satirical cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. The teacher has been suspended pending a formal investigation.
Gary Kibble, the head of Batley grammar school, apologised to parents for the inappropriate use of the cartoons, taken from the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, during a religious studies lesson this week which sparked a protest outside the school on Thursday morning.
“Upon investigation, it was clear that the resource used in the lesson was completely inappropriate and had the capacity to cause great offence to members of our school community for which we would like to offer a sincere and full apology,” Kibble said in an email sent to parents that promised further investigation.
Images on social media showed about 30 to 40 protesters, many wearing masks, outside the school, with police at the entrances to the school grounds and the road outside. The Huddersfield Examiner reported from the school that the protests were peaceful as children arrived, with the start of the school day delayed until 10am. West Yorkshire police said that no fines or arrests were made.
However, the Department for Education spokesperson condemned the protests which it said included issuing threats and was “in violation of coronavirus restrictions”. A spokesperson described the protest as “completely unacceptable”
A demonstration that took place outside a school after a teacher showed a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed in the classroom was “disturbing”, a cabinet minister has said.
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said the protest was “not right” and that “we shouldn’t have teachers feeling intimidated”.
“That is not a road we want to go down in this country so I would strongly urge people concerned about this issue not to do that,” he told Sky News on Friday.
Mr Jenrick added that reports the teacher is now in hiding are “very disturbing”.
The National Secular Society has criticised the protests and the school’s response.
The NSS is planning to write to the school, to ask for an explanation of its rationale and urge it not to pander to demands for blasphemy taboos.
Reports suggest the teacher warned that some members of the class may find the cartoon offensive, before using it to prompt a discussion about killings that have taken place after the publication of Muhammad cartoons.
School’s statement
In a statement, the school said: “The school unequivocally apologises for using a totally inappropriate resource in a recent religious studies lesson. The member of staff has also given their most sincere apologies.
“We have immediately withdrawn teaching on this part of the course and we are reviewing how we go forward with the support of all the communities represented in our school.
“It is important for children to learn about faiths and beliefs, but this must be done in a sensitive way.
“The school is working closely with the governing board and community leaders to help resolve this situation.”
NSS comment
NSS chief executive Stephen Evans said the protest was “an attempt to impose an Islamic blasphemy taboo on a school”.
“Teachers must have a reasonable degree of freedom to explore sensitive subjects and enable students to think critically about them.
“Schools will understandably want to promote community cohesion and inclusiveness. But this cannot be achieved by pandering to religious groups who wish to dictate what can and cannot be taught.
“And the school’s weak response will fuel a climate of censorship, which is brought on by attempts to force society as a whole to accommodate unreasonable and reactionary religious views.”
Note
In October last year a school teacher in Paris, Samuel Paty, was killed after he showed cartoons of Muhammad from Charlie Hebdo magazine during a class about free expression.
Affaire Mila: Ten People to Stand Trial For Threatening Young Woman For Her Views on Islam.
Anti-Gay Hate Against 16 Year Old Who Criticised Islam.
Mila case: ten people to be tried in June for harassment and death threats against the teenager
Le Monde has just reported.
Five additional people are sent to the Paris Criminal Court for attacking the adolescent from Isère after the publication, in November, of a new controversial video on Islam.
On Monday, six people, aged 18 to 35, had been placed in police custody in Paris, Seine-et-Marne, Gironde, Isère, Bouches-du-Rhône and Bas-Rhin , in the framework of the investigations carried out by the ‘ pôle national de lutte contre la haine en ligne (national Pole against online hate,’ recently created at the Paris prosecutor’s office. On Tuesday, the custody of a man was lifted without prosecution at this stage and a minor was taken into police custody in Val-de-Marne. The latter was released “the same day for further investigation,” said the prosecution.
Two people already convicted
Five other people, aged 18 to 29 and arrested on February 9 in Loire-Atlantique, Moselle and Calvados, will also appear on June 3 for “online moral harassment”, and, for two of them, “ death threats “.
The story goes back to a young gay woman publishing a statement on social media, calling Islam a variety of colourful names. She attacked the religion, not Muslims.
Among her original remarks, she described Islam as a “religion of hate”.
“She never made any racist comments, just used teenage words that were a bit vulgar,” the lawyer said.
The BBC has had a report this year,
Five people have been detained on suspicion of making death threats to a French teenager who posted videos critical of Islam, prosecutors say.
Mila, 17, had to change schools last year after an Instagram video for her friends in which she criticised Islam was widely shared on social media.
She then posted another video on social media site TikTok last November which prompted a new wave of online threats.
This underlines just how serious thing had got,
She was getting about 30 hate messages a minute at one point, her lawyer said.
France’s online hate crimes task force took over the case.
Mila, who is known in France only by her first name, is originally from the eastern Isère region. Her story has revived debate in the country on freedom of speech as well as protection for schoolchildren from online bullying.
A schoolteacher was murdered last October close to his school near Paris, days after showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to a class discussing freedom of expression.
Mila had published in November on the social network TikTok a new video in which she sharply attacked her detractors. The teenager had shared on Twitter screenshots of the death threats received, some referring to the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty in October 2020 in the Yvelines. The prosecutor’s office in Vienne (Isère), which opened an investigation in mid-November, gave up at the beginning of December in favour of the National Pole against online hatred. Read also Delphine Horvilleur: “The Mila affair questions: what God would be upset to be so mistreated? “
A high school student in Villefontaine (Isère), Mila was forced to leave her school after having published in January 2020 a first video that went viral in which she was vehemently critical of Islam. Two people have already been sentenced in 2020 to prison terms for death threats against the girl. Others are indicted in the investigation into the death threats of January 2020 and the dissemination of his contact details.
Festival of Brexit: Morning Star and Socialist Worker to get Top Billing.
Nostradamus of the Left to get top Billing.
“The festival is said to aim to celebrate creativity and foster unity among the British public, with the event’s organiser Martin Green describing the events as “open, original and optimistic”.”
I thought this was the wits of the Internet or that April the 1st had come early, but apparently not.
A celebration of British weather and a grow-your-own food initiative will be among the festivities.
A celebration of the British weather and the largest grow-your-own food project of modern times will be among the events being staged for a nationwide festival of creativity aimed at bringing the UK together in 2022.
Organisers of the £120m festival, commissioned by Theresa May’s government and supported by Boris Johnson, announced 10 teams who had successfully pitched ideas.
Labour in Exile Network Forms ‘Ghost’ Party.
Tina Werkmann expands her fronts: In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie…
Tina Werkmann is a busy bee. She has a leading position in every one of the above groups. The former stalwart cadre of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee), Weekly Worker, has a new initiative. A ghost Labour Party. Most people think she is a well-liked person and a serious leftist, but she has, in the last few years, gone off the wall politically.
Most Cdes would struggle to call her ‘Labour’ in any sense.
In the day this was her sphere of ‘influence’
Now:
Suspended Labour members to form ‘shadow’ party to fight ‘purge’
GHOST” local Labour parties are to be formed by suspended members of the party in a fight against their purge, it was revealed today.
Since Sir Keir Starmer became Labour leader last year, scores of party officers and hundreds of members have been suspended or expelled over motions of support for former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
…….
The plan is to resist what is considered to be a purge of the left, according to Labour In Exile Network (LIEN).
LIEN member Terry Deans said the shadow party “will be real Labour, the real grassroots party working on a truly democratic basis.”
Mr Deans, who was suspended by the party last year, said: “I believe Starmer was hoping that by suspending or expelling people he would drive many others on the left to leave the party.
“But most have decided to stay and fight — many by setting up ghost Labour parties.”
Mr Deans has been suspended because Bristol West CLP passed a motion to reinstate Mr Corbyn to the Labour Party.
Following an investigation by Labour’s national executive committee (NEC), the Falklands war veteran was suspended for 12 months and denied the opportunity for a hearing.
Mr Corbyn had his membership suspended in October last year for saying that the extent of anti-semitism in the party “was overstated for political reasons by our opponents.”
His comment came in response to a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on the anti-semitism allegations.
He was reinstated by a panel of the NEC, but Sir Keir, ignoring a warning by the EHRC against political interference in such cases, refused to readmit his predecessor to the parliamentary party, leaving him to sit as an independent to represent Islington North.
LIEN is holding its first public “fightback” meeting at 7pm this Saturday (March 27). Register here for the meeting: mstar.link/LIEN
A more pathetic shambles of a group could not be imagined.
That the Stals of the Morning Star give it a puff says it all.
Bristol, “selfish, self-indulgent, self-centred violence.” Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees.
“These people were living out their fantasies of being revolutionaries.” Marvin Rees.
Last night, in French terms, the arrival of ‘casseurs’, autonomes, who smash things up at the end of marches was small Bristol beer. But If the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancellery had infiltrated the Bristol demonstration ‘Kill the Bill’ – how the Old Bill laughed! – they could not have been more delighted. We do not know if the people who carried out the acts of violence were coppers’ grasses, but they will be thanked by every backer of the government’s crack-down on protests.
Not to mention the far-right:
The greatly respected and liked Labour Mayor of Bristol said,
The violence and damage that have emerged from today’s protests are unacceptable and have nothing to do with the real work we are doing to tackle political, economic and social inequality.
I recognise the frustrations with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. I have major concerns about the Bill myself, which is poorly thought-out and could impose disproportionate controls on free expression and the right to peaceful protest. It also misses as much as it includes, such as measures that could reduce violence against women and girls. We will raise our concerns.
Smashing buildings in our city centre, vandalising vehicles, attacking our police will do nothing to lessen the likelihood of the Bill going through. On the contrary, the lawlessness on show will be used as evidence and promote the need for the Bill.
This is a shameful day in an incredible year for Bristol. We have faced times of great confrontation particularly surrounding Black Lives Matter and the events that followed. We have had numerous protests. Our police, city representatives and I have been able to point out with pride that we have faced these moments of conflict without the physical conflict that others have experienced. Those who decided to turn today’s protest into a physical confrontation and smash our city have robbed us of this.
What they have done has more to do with self gratification than it has to do with the protection and advancement of those of us from communities most likely to be marginalised and mistreated by our political and legal systems. For five years Bristol has built homes, fed its families, prioritised mental health, recruited black and Asian magistrates, organised work experience for our young people who are least likely to be able to get it. We have addressed poverty and introduced a whole new city approach to welcome in and support refugees and asylum seekers. That’s what matters, That is what makes a difference. Smashing buildings, injuring police officers and burning cars will do nothing to support the children experiencing digital exclusion, or the women, men and children looking for refuge from domestic violence and abuse.
Speaking as someone himself – and whose brothers and sisters, along with our poorest communities – would be disproportionately likely to receive injustice, today’s actions do nothing to bring us closer to justice.
This is a geezer with his feet on the ground:
Anti Labour Canary founder comments,
Mendoza is an ass.
Not to mention these toss-pots.
This is more serious comment.
Our comrades in France talk about the same actions frequently, often the Black Blocs, it happens so often they have got the word “casseur” (literally smasheruper). Look at the Comité Invisible, Lundi Matin is their latest version. This is not a mass movement like the one against Poll Tax but vanguard anarchist autonomes.
Covid Conspiracists: The ‘White Rose’.
“A virus that is less dangerous than the flu, is being used as an excuse to turn the world into a new kind of global communism.”
Pursuing our exploration into confusionist right ‘left’, and extreme right, this is the latest:
The creator of the rapidly growing ‘Sabmyk Network’ is said to be a Berlin art dealer with a record of media manipulation.
They face competition from this rival cult (Hat-To Trev).
Mask mandatory? Social distancing? Lockdown after lockdown? Loneliness and depression? Forced vaccination? Ruined businesses and livelihoods? Silent genocide through depopulation? We say NO! We have recognised that the covid restrictions are destructive and deeply dehumanising. A virus that is less dangerous than the flu, is being used as an excuse to turn the world into a new kind of global communism. For the sake of our children, and their children, we peacefully resist this evil evolvement. We say NO! to new normal because it is entirely abnormal and inhumane.
This is deeply distasteful:
In the midst of World War II a German underground movement called Die Weisse Rose (The White Rose) distributed leaflets calling on people to passively resist the Nazi regime.
One of their leaflets stated that every single human is entitled to a practical government that guarantees the freedom of every single person and the wellbeing of the community. Every human should be able to reach their natural goal, their earthly joy, autonomously and by their own accord. The White Rose spoke to people’s conscience and urged them to wake up from their dangerous lethargy.
…
Even though, we are not suffering the lack of food or the danger of bombs dropping on our homes, there are remarkable parallels in The White Rose’s appeal to the current coronavirus crisis. All around the world we have been brainwashed into panic over a virus from which the vast majority of people don’t get ill of, yet alone die of. Listen to the experts—doctors, professors, virologists and epidemiologists—who explain why lockdowns are pointless. We have always lived with viruses, and we will need to live with this one too.
Covid-19 is not more dangerous than the seasonal flu. The disproportionate and dehumanising restrictions are a disgrace to humanity. People protesting against lockdowns are being arrested and treated like criminals for gathering and exercising their right of free speech.
Claire Edwards
“COVID-19” was long pre-planned in documents and simulation exercises emanating from the eugenicist Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation. A platform with 200 detailed levels is provided by the World Economic Forum led by Klaus Schwab, a technocrat and promoter of transhumanism, in order to provide
detailed instructions on how the “COVID-19” pandemic is to be used to implement a global monetary reset1 and digital currency, technocracy and totalitarian government worldwide under the guise of socialism and environmentalism, with China as the model, and enslave humanity through a sinister vaccine conspiracy.”
She is an old Trooper,
The video shows a woman named Claire Edwards sharing numerous conspiracies about the pandemic. The caption says that Edwards worked for the United Nations between 1999 and 2017.
A U.N. spokesperson told Reuters that Edwards did work for them as a Conference Services Officer between 29 May 1999 and 28 March 2017, but confirmed she is “no longer professionally affiliated with the United Nations.”
This article will only address the primary claims in the video.
“The COVID-19 pandemic was planned by Bill Gates”
The video says: “COVID-19 was long pre-planned in documents and simulation exercises emanating from the eugenicist Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation.”
There is no evidence that the coronavirus pandemic was deliberately planned or that Bill Gates has any links with such a plan.
This conspiracy theory, along with other misinformation that references Gates, has already been debunked by Reuters here.
“5G spreads COVID-19”
The video says: “Wireless technology suppresses the immune system. 5G is implicated in COVID-19 through correlations between the locations of the 5G rollout and morbidity and mortality.”
There is no connection between the coronavirus outbreak and possible 5G health effects.
Reuters has already disproved allegations relating to 5G here and here.
“There is no pandemic”
The video says: “There is and was no pandemic…Mortality is at a lower level than in previous years.”
This is false. Reuters has debunked claims relating to annual death rates here, here and here.
As of Nov. 3, figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO) show 1,201,000 people have died globally due to COVID-19: covid19.who.int/.
Dr Vernon Coleman is a leading figure, he is also pretty well known.
Vernon Coleman (born 18 May 1946) is an English conspiracy theorist, anti-vaccination activist, AIDS denialist, blogger and novelist who writes on topics related to human health, politics and animal issues. Coleman’s medical claims have been widely discredited and described as pseudoscientific. He was formerly a newspaper columnist and general practitioner
One sign of their appearance in public:
They seem to have a network,…
11 071 members
Please post photos of your sticker sightings in the chat room (t.me/thewhiterosechat), so the admins can put them up on the main channel!
Posters purporting to be from lockdown sceptic group The White Rose appeared in parts of Middleton over the weekend
Many people will feel that their use of the name the White Rose is obscence.
The White Rose (German: Weiße Rose, pronounced [ˈvaɪ̯sə ˈʁoːzə] (
listen)) was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany led by a group of students from the University of Munich, including Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell. The group conducted an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign that called for active opposition to the Nazi regime. Their activities started in Munich on 27 June 1942, and ended with the arrest of the core group by the Gestapo on 18 February 1943.[1] They, as well as other members and supporters of the group who carried on distributing the pamphlets, faced show trials by the Nazi People’s Court (Volksgerichtshof), and many of them were sentenced to death or imprisonment.
Red Brown Front: Gamon, New Agers, join Far Right Demo Against Covid Lockdown.
T
James Heartfield, Top former Revolutionary Cadre (Revolutionary Communist Party/Spiked) Paraded with this Geezer Today.
Gammon and New Agers on the march.
The Red Brown Front:
The Red Brown Front is Fascist Front: Smash the Red Brown Front!
Far Right Plans World Wide ‘Rally For Freedom’ Against Covid Restrictions Today.
Far Right Conspiracists Try to Capitalise on Vigils for Sarah Everard.
This morning in the middle of the highly recommended Going Dark, the Social Lives of Extremists, and happening upon the Chapter about QAnon, Julia Ebener I have just got to this line, “These global networks can then be leveraged for real-world mobilisation.” (Page 170)
Most of us think that these ideas are off-the-wall claims about “red-pilling” (shedding the scales from the eyes) to enter the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. Or as Ebner puts it ““how distorted the whole online space is, and how that doesn’t reflect general opinions. The extremist voices usually get a megaphone for their posts.” (Guardian) But when it comes to Covid Conspiracy theories we have a proof not as deadly as on-line organised Jihadism, or far-right terrorism, of how extreme right wing ideas can enter the “real-world”.
They are rather shy, the British lot, about what’s happening today, at the Vigil for the Voiceless, no list of speakers, not even a time and a place.
But their American friends are not so quiet.
Stephen Hall in the Ark Valley Voice reports,
In the far-right extremist ecosystem, Saturday, March 20 is being billed as a Worldwide Rally for Freedom Day. Some may wonder – freedom from what. But far-right organizers of these rally events include grievances ranging from COVID-19 anti-vaccine sentiment, to opposition to face masks, to the continuing dispute of the 2020 election, to gun rights issues, to their perceived sense that Colorado’s governor might try to limit the consumption of meat.
……
The MeWe group Colorado Patriots, a 494 member group posting regular far-right propaganda from such media as, Us Against the Media, The Federalist, and Breitbart, have been promoting the worldwide event with commentary such as (emphasis theirs): “RED ALERT PATRIOTS, VERY IMPORTANT,… ESPECIALLY IF YOU LOVE FREEDOM AND OPPOSE INSIDIOUS LOCKDOWN REGULATIONS”
One prominent Telegram Channel (a social media favored by the far-right) that calls itself Freedom Warriors boasts that they are new “Freedom Fighters”. Their symbol, a lion’s head, is familiar: it is used in many far-right social media sites representing the Patriot Party, features dozens of variations on that image.
MARCH 20 “FREEDOM RALLY” AND “MEAT IN” DAY COULD COMBINE FOR INTERESTING WEEKEND IN COLORADO
We have also learnt that:
US: Activists to rally against COVID-19 restrictions in multiple urban centers March 20
Activists plan to hold demonstrations in multiple urban centers in the US March 20, under the global “World Wide Rally for Freedom” protest campaign to denounce COVID-19-related restrictions and vaccination rollout plans in numerous countries. The following protest times and locations have been confirmed in the US..
Global March 20 Anti-Vaccine Protests Promoted by QAnon-Linked Groups
Australia:
Hundreds converge on CBD to rally against restrictions, vaccine rollout
More:
Arron Bastani of Novara Media Hits Outrage over Peter Singer Interview.
Outrage at ‘alt news’ site Novara Media.
Arron Bastani recently cleared his busy schedule. He does not only spend his days attacking the Labour Party criticising Keir Starmer, advising the Labour Party on the Hartlepool by-election election, and making off-the-wall ‘accelerationist’ comments on China.
This was the leader of Novara Media’s venture into journalism.
This the reaction from some greatly respected activists.
Outrage over left-wing media website’s Singer interview
Disability News Service.
John Pring 18th of March.
Outraged disabled activists have criticised a left-wing media organisation for publishing an interview with a philosopher who has repeatedly advocated killing disabled babies, and for failing to challenge him on his views.
Novara Media’s video interview with Peter Singer focused on his position as one of the best-known animal rights philosophers, and almost completely bypassed his views on disabled people.
When Singer’s views were briefly touched on by Novara co-founder Aaron Bastani, there was no effort to challenge him on his past statements.
Instead, Bastani (pictured, above, left) asked him to respond to the “controversy” and “criticisms that you’ve had from people around disability activism and so on”, but he failed to challenge Singer on any of the disturbing statements he had made in the past.
Singer (pictured, above, right) repeated some of those statements.
He told Bastani that “parents of children with severe disabilities and poor prognoses should have the option of ensuring that those children do not live, that they die rapidly and humanely”, which he described as “a proposal”.
But Bastani made no response to this and made no attempt to question this “proposal”.
Anger at the interview, both the decision to publish it and the way it was conducted by Bastani, was led by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), which said it had caused “justifiable outrage”.
DPAC is set to meet with Novara today (Thursday) “in order for our members, especially those with learning difficulties, to express their dismay, hurt, and political objections to how the interview was conducted”.
Andy Greene, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, said Bastani had allowed Singer to continue “without interruption, without rebuttal, without being challenged or asked to provide evidence for claims and assertions he made.
“No attempt was made to hold Peter Singer accountable in a conversation that began with the premise that disabled children’s lives were worth less than others.”
He added: “Unfortunately, there’s nothing ‘new’ or ‘different’ about Novara Media in the eyes of many disabled people now. Only more of the same old same old.
“The same old narrative. The same old rhetoric. The same old failings.”
Another DPAC activist, Lucy Burke, said: “If you are someone who needs support in daily living, if you are someone who may not be able to engage in wage labour, if you are someone whose life is characterised by a strong difference, then, for Peter Singer, you are better off dead. (And everyone around you is better off too.)
This blogger has read Peter Singer’s best known book Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals, and can confirm that the following first statement is indeed the case, though even I was shocked to learn the more recent Singer claims.
For the last 40 years, Singer’s views on disability have shocked and angered disabled activists and allies across the world, and have led to repeated controversies over his various appointments, interviews, publications and speaking engagements.
As a strict utilitarian, Singer has previously made it clear that he believes some disabled babies should be killed after birth, including those with haemophilia, spina bifida and Down’s syndrome, because he has said they are lives “not worth living”.
He has argued: “When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed.
“The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second.”
Singer has also suggested that, if it had been his choice, he would have wanted his mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease, to be given a lethal injection in the last months of her life.
And more recently he has suggested that it might not be wrong to rape a person with learning difficulties and high support needs if they do not have capacity to consent to sex.
They state,
A DPAC spokesperson said: “We are disappointed that prior to this incident Novara had consistently failed to take up advice from individual DPAC members concerning the importance of acquaintance with the social model of disability and the particular form of oppression that disabled people face.
Disabled People Against Cuts statement on Novara interview with Peter Singer
We are disappointed that prior to this incident Novara had consistently failed to take up advice from individual DPAC members concerning the importance of acquaintance with the social model of disability and the particular form of oppression that disabled people face. This led to a situation where Singer was given a platform to express views that encourage division and hate without challenge, and at a time of rising hostility towards disabled people and the explicit devaluing of disabled people’s lives that has characterised the pandemic – which we are still living through. Either the interviewer lacked even the most basic understanding of why Singer’s views are problematic for disabled people or he chose not to deploy those arguments. We are not in a position to know which. DPAC members are currently drafting a longer statement to explain our objections which we hope to make publicly available next week.
Here some of Singer’s beliefs.
https://twitter.com/RespectIsVital/status/1369821639114977283?s=20
Speculation is growing about how long the controversial Novara Media site will go on its present journey.
The Paris Commune Commemorated Amidst Controversy.
Thursday, Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo (centre) “la Commune n’est pas morte !
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune there have been events, exhibitions and many excellent documentaries and radio programmes. There are so many articles, newly published, or re-issued books, that one risks being overwhelmed by the quantity.
This Blog strongly recommends this, from Arte (you can see it on Arte directly through Smart Televisions in the UK).
On the English speaking left worth signalling are:
The Paris Commune of 1871, Banks and Debt.
And from the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty.
The Paris Commune and the Union des Femmes
Kelly Rogers.
2021 marks the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune; the moment that the working class seized political power for the first time, and held it for 72 days. Thousands of women took part in the events of the Commune and, against a backdrop of deep-rooted sexism, championed a revolutionary vision for the transformation of working class women’s lives.
Also available at Shiraz.
There have also been intense arguments over the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune in France.
Streets named after Thiers, who led the crushing of the Commune, have been the centre of calls to have them renamed, or ‘re-baptised’.
Nowhere have the controversies more intense than in Paris itself. The right wing on the City council refused point blank the proposed celebrations of the Commune.
Yesterday,
A Paris, Mairie et manifestants célèbrent la mémoire de la Commune
Le Monde.
This Thursday, March 18, the socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo and a handful of elected officials from the left are celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune on Place Louise-Michel, at the foot of the Sacré-Coeur.
…
Fifty Parisians wore as many colourful silhouettes representing anonymous people and a few celebrities such as Louise Michel, Jules Vallès or Arthur Rimbaud, while a narrator told of the unfolding of the events and their heritage: “One hundred and fifty years later, the Commune is not dead! “
Radical leftists protested at the spectacle,
Below, blocked behind the gates, some demonstrators waved red flags and protest. “From Versailles to Paris and Hidalgo, always the same!” They shouted. ‘Down with Macron, down with Castex! “ Their voices disturbed a little the official show, but the accordion amplified by the PA is more powerful. Especially when the singer sang the Internationale, “Arise ye wretched of the earth…”, and continued with Le Temps des cerises, and selected people recited lyrics. “I know my classics” laughed Anne Hidalgo.
Earlier this year there had been a violent debate in the City Council Chamber.
On February the 3rd, at the municipal council, Anne Hidalgo and her rosé (Socialist)-red-green team received violent criticism from the right, very hostile to the idea of glorifying the event, “this sad moment of civil war “. For the right-wing party Les Républicaines there should have been no question of transforming the Communards into into heroes ” who took hostage and murdered” religious figures, and killed gendarmes, or for “those who chose to burn the Tuileries, the Palais-Royal, the Palais d’Orsay , the synagogues and our City hall ”.
Here is a detailed article on that row: « Légende noire » contre « légende rouge » : la difficile commémoration des 150 ans de la Commune de Paris.
There is a video to accompany it:
The BBC also reports on the issues,
A century and a half on, the Commune continues to divide.
For three months from today, Paris’s left-run city hall has prepared commemorations focusing on what it sees as the movement’s great social advances: equality for the sexes, disempowering the Church, participative democracy.
But the right-wing opposition says that Socialist mayor and presidential hopeful Anne Hidalgo is “instrumentalising history” for political ends.
“You can summarise the Commune in one word: violence,” says Rudolph Granier, a member of the centre-right Les Républicains (LR) on the city council.
“It was a populist movement. And in the current state of France and the world – when in Paris we have the yellow vests and in Washington they’re storming the Capitol – I do not think we should be celebrating people who burned down our city hall.”
or another LR councillor, Antoine Beauquier, “the left-wing majority is doing its usual thing of mixing up history and politics”.
“Of course there was an event called the Commune which we should remember. But we should remember what it actually was – not the fantasy of the Communist Party (PC). They think every Communard was a hero. But many were also killers.”
According to the right, by allowing them to run the Commune commemorations Anne Hidalgo is throwing her PC allies a bone in the hope that they’ll support her in the race for the French presidency next year.
The left has retorted by accusing the right of being “sectarian” and failing to see the justice behind the Communards’ cause.
“It is a sign of the times – the French right is getting more and more hardline,” says Laurence Patrice, Communist deputy mayor of Paris.
“They never used to care that much about the Commune. But now with Emmanuel Macron, the French have a president who has abandoned his centrism and is in fact more and more right-wing.
“And that is forcing the traditional right into positions that are ever closer to the extreme.”
Galloway Back in the News Charged with ‘Race Baiting’.
Celt.
Some people on the left have “gone on a journey” in recent times, from backing Brexit to defending China’s human rights record.
There are some who have gone even further on a voyage into the twilight.
The dapper gent in the fedora is back in the news today:
Humza Yousaf hits back at George Galloway’s ‘race-baiting’ comments
Evening Standard.
Mr Galloway tweeted ‘You’re not a Celt like me’.
Scotland’s justice secretary Humza Yousaf has said voters will show George Galloway the cat flap in May after the former MP posted a “race-baiting” tweet.
Mr Yousaf thanked people for their solidarity after Mr Galloway tweeted: “You’re not a Celt like me.”
Mr Galloway drew criticism on social media after he posted a message on Twitter which appeared to be directed at Mr Yousaf.
He has adopted the strategy of stout denial.
Mr Galloway later tweeted: “As the father of five mixed-race children I treat #Humza’s accusation that I’m a racist with contempt.”
One day the SWP, Counterfire and all Galloway’s other allies in Respect will tell the inside details of what happened i their Party. For the moment, it seems, they think the world is not prepared for the full story of the Giant Kitty of Dundee.
David Miller: Bristol University Launches Formal Investigation
Leading Miller Supporter….
Bristol University has launched an investigation into a professor who called Jewish students “pawns of a racist regime engaged in ethnic cleansing”.
The institution has come in for severe criticism from communal organisations for not taking action against the academic. After the announcement, Jewish students said the probe was launched “far too late”.
The BBC reports,
An investigation has been launched over comments made about Israel by a University of Bristol professor.
Prof David Miller accused the country of wanting to “impose [its] will all over the world”, according to the Jewish Chronicle.
Dozens called for action claiming the comments were “inciting hatred against Jewish students”.
In a statement the university said it recognised the “deep concern” the comments had caused.
“We can confirm that the university has already initiated an investigation into this matter.
“The investigation is being carried out in accordance with the university’s internal process,” adding the process was “confidential”.
The problem many people have is that far from just defending Miller’s right to express an opinion, his defenders are hell bent on defending his ‘academic’ work based on this account of ‘Zionists’ and Agents of Israel operate in the UK.
In particular they’ve done this through inter-faith work, pretending that Jews and Muslims working together will be an apolitical way of countering racial misunderstandings. No, it’s a Trojan horse for normalizing Zionism in the Muslim community.
Chicken Soup,
We saw it in [the] East London Mosque, for example, where the East London Mosque, unknowingly, held this project of making chicken soup with the Jewish and Muslim communities coming together. This is an Israeli-backed project to normalize Zionism within the Muslim community. And they’re doing that at the same time as they were doing the attack on Corbyn and the continued attack on the left to normalize Zionism on the Left.
You said they were successful – and I think we can debate the extent to which they were successful – but they did manage to peel off a certain section of the left. And we saw that in the beginning – we didn’t maybe realise [that] at the time – with what happened to Jackie [Walker] who was in the calls? just now, who was peeled off from Momentum and then elements of Momentum peeled off.
So, even elements of Momentum became turned by a kind of left-Zionism, by elements of the [Jewish Labour Movement], partly no doubt to do with the pro-Zionists in the AWL, the Alliance for Workers Liberty, pro-Zionist left. (I believe ‘Trotskyist’ is the appropriate term for them as well.) And so that, I think, is a real issue. And the Israeli Government, of course, have been involved in this from the beginning.
This chap won’t be around to defend him at present.
INDEFINITELY POSTPONED: Zionism: past, present – and future? with Tony Greenstein
This, from the above ‘pro-Zionist’ left, the AWL, looks a better way to approach some of these issues:
For real free speech on campuses!
Cathy Nuget.
Unclear
On the IHRA, universal adoption on such an unclear basis may produce a febrile atmosphere where both a backlash against campaigning for Palestinian rights and anti-Zionist witch hunts are possible.
Many Jewish students and staff will want the IHRA text adopted, not least because universities can do much better at tackling bullying, harassment and abuse. We have to campaign for more resources to support students and staff who are victims of abuse. We need clearer and more effective university codes of conducts — ones which allow students and staff to seek redress without recrimination.
There are real problems with free speech at UK universities. They are not as the government defines them. The marketisation of universities has seen the suppression of postering, paper-selling and leafleting, students being subject to surveillance through Prevent, and the use of police against students on campuses.
A broad freedom of speech and organisation for all should be guaranteed, other than for clear-cut fascists and where there is immediately dangerous incitement.
Student unions and activists tend now to argue for administrative bans on reactionary speakers, when a better response is denouncing and organising protests against them. There has been some raising of “no-platforming” from a tactic to a principle of too-wide application.
That has depoliticised student politics. We want political challenges and protests against the views we disagree with to be the norm. Debate from students in all contexts — in lectures and seminars as well — with rules for respectful conduct of debate without fear of recrimination, should always be what we aim for.
Mila: Young Gay Woman still getting daily threats of death, rape and torture for ‘Insulting Islam’..
A Year Ago Mila had to leave her Secondary School, she and her family now live in hiding and under police protection.
France-Inter. 16th of March 2021.
L’affaire Mila ou la fatwa numérique
For more than a year, a young woman has received daily threats of death, rape and torture. Her first name: Mila. His age: 17 years old. His fault: having insulted Islam in a video on Instagram.
Whether or not we approve of what she said and the way she said it, Mila is, from a legal point of view, guilty of nothing. In France, the crime of blasphemy has not existed for nearly 150 years. But the question of criticism of religions and in particular of Islam had resurfaced, with dramatic results, on January 7, 2015, 12 people were murdered in the Charlie Hebdo attack on the pretext that the newspaper had published caricatures of Muhammad; On October 16, 2020, teacher Samuel Paty was assassinated after showing cartoons in class. Mila , heroine of freedom of expression or some, disrespectful and Islamophobic for others, has also revived this controversy.
L’affaire Mila est une affaire médiatique et judiciaire française qui commence le lorsque Mila, une adolescente de 16 ans, critique l’islam de manière virulente sur Instagram. Elle venait de refuser les avances d’un internaute, qui dès lors l’accusait de racisme et se montrait insultant contre les lesbiennes.
The Mila affair is a French media and judicial affair which begins on when Mila, a teenager of 16 years , criticised Islam virulently on Instagram . She had just refused the advances of an Internet user, who therefore accused her of racism and was insulting against lesbians .
This is an appalling case, many might have thought that Mila was now safe. The racist misogynistic defenders of ‘Islam’ have not, apparently, gone away.
The radio broadcast is heart-rending. She called Islam a religion of hate and fanatics arseholes. For that she got extreme threats of violence, and graphic attacks on her lesbianism. One of the leading Muslims in France said of her, a 17 year old girl that, Celui qui sème le vent récolte la tempête. (‘who sows the wind, reaps the whirlwind, As you sow, so shall you reap’) . Threatened by Islamist racists in the street she still lives under their menace. Listening to the insults and vivid threats to murder her, anybody will be deeply shocked.
Communist League runs ‘national slate’ of candidates in both Manchester and London.
Communist League’s Andrés Mendoza Plans to Build on Past Success in New Electoral Campaign.
Here’s one for the die-hard Spotters,
BY ÖGMUNDUR JÓNSSON
The Communist League is running a national slate of candidates in both Manchester and London.
At the end of a successful day of campaigning in the Moston area, campaigners spoke with Vartan Lloyd Morris, an agency nurse who first met the CL at a protest following the killing of George Floyd. “I’m not surprised the bus drivers voted to strike,” she told Mendoza. “It’s no secret that they’ve been unhappy about the way they’ve been treated for a long time.”
Lloyd Morris endorsed the Communist League campaign. “This is the right time for a working-class campaign,” she said. “People’s minds are open because of what’s happening all around them.”
Seven people subscribed to the Militant and five endorsed the election campaign over the Feb. 20-21 weekend here.
The CL campaign is reaching out across the country, including to working people in small towns, to farmers and other small proprietors.
Not just ‘farmers’, an important base for a future worker-farmer government in the UK, but fisherfolk.
Solidarity with fishermen
On Feb. 12 rail worker Pamela Holmes, CL candidate for London Assembly, travelled to England’s south coast to meet with fishermen, who are being hit hard by a drop in the wholesale price of fish.
The Communist League enthusiastically backed the Bosses’ Brexit.
The Communist League is a British political party that was formed by a group of members expelled in 1988 from Socialist Action. Those members had joined the American Socialist Workers Party‘s Pathfinder tendency. It maintains a bookshop in London, originally in The Cut but now in Bethnal Green Road. The League’s members sell The Militant, the paper of the American Socialist Workers Party. The group claims that many of its members work in the meat-packing industry.
The Communist League is standing Pamela Holmes as a candidate in the 2021 London Assembly election, Peter Clifford in the 2021 Greater Manchester mayoral election and Andrés Mendoza in the 2021 London mayoral election.
2017.
Tony Greenstein up before the Beak charged with “intent to destroy property.”
Greenstein’s Friends Have Yet to React.
What was the leader of Labour Against the Witch hunt/Labour in Exile Network/Labour Campaign for Free Speech/Walmington-on-sea Home Guard/Brighton against Zionism, doing so far from the South Coast in the Midlands?
Had he too many pints of the excellent Bank’s Mild?
Tony Greenstein charged with ‘possessing an article with the intent to destroy property’
Greeny’s favourite news outlet reports,
The anti-Zionist activist Tony Greenstein has been charged with possessing an article with the intent to destroy property after being arrested by police in the early hours last Tuesday morning.
The JC understands that Mr Greenstein was arrested along with other individuals by West Midlands Police officers.
Following an appearance at Wolverhampton Magistrates Court, the 67-year-old was remanded in custody.
His bail application hearing is now scheduled to take place at Wolverhampton Crown Court this Tuesday morning.
A statement issued to the JC by Staffordshire Police on Monday confirmed: “A 67-year-old man from Brighton has been charged with possessing an article with the intent to destroy property after being arrested by colleagues at West Midlands Police in Walsall in the early hours of Tuesday 9 March 2021.
“Anthony Greenstein of Little Crescent, Rottingdean, has been remanded in custody following an appearance at Wolverhampton Magistrates Court on Wednesday 10 March.”
The wits are already out there, but where are Monster Raving’s mates when he needs them?
This Blog hopes the screws will treat Cde Greenstein, “historic criminal convictions for theft and dishonesty“, kindly when he does porridge.
Socialist Worker Calls for an End to Violence Against Women.
SWP Protests Today Against Violence Towards Women.
Rage against the sexist system returned to the streets on Sunday as around 4,000 people protested in central London.
The protest was called by Sisters Uncut after the Metropolitan Police broke up a vigil for Sarah Everard on Clapham Common the previous night. Angry crowds gathered outside the Metropolitan Police’s headquarters, New Scotland Yard, to protest against the cops’ behaviour and the Tories’ draconian policing bill.
Socialist Workers Party leadership under fire over rape kangaroo court
2013.
A woman has claimed she was subjected to a series of offensive questions about her sexual past and drinking habits after bringing an allegation of rape against a senior member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
The UK’s most prominent far left organisation is already facing a major showdown over previous handling of separate rape accusations against a senior party figure – identified by the party only as Comrade Delta. This weekend up to 500 members could quit the Marxist group over the alleged whitewash.
The SWP’s leadership is under fire for setting up a “kangaroo court” to hear allegations of rape and sexual misconduct dating back to 2008 against the man. The allegations made at the party’s disputes committee were dismissed by a panel of seven and never passed on to the police.
One alleged victim claimed that during the hearing, she was asked if she “liked to have a drink”.
A transcript of the SWP’s annual conference in January, leaked to the Socialist Unity blog, revealed that senior officials pleaded with hundreds of activists to trust in the committee’s verdict and reminded lay members that the party had “no faith in the bourgeois court system to deliver justice”.
On Sunday, scores of party members will gather in London after the leadership was forced to call a special conference to deal with the growing “In Defence of Our Party” faction which wants to challenge the way the allegations were heard and the organisation’s democratic structures.
Another woman – who cannot be named for legal reasons – has told the Guardian that she also faced a welter of inappropriate questions during her own disputes committee hearing after she reported being raped by another man in the party.
The young female member in the latest case says that the senior party member had physically abused her in front of other party members. Then, she claims, in early 2011 the male organiser pressured her into meeting and then raped her in her bedroom.
She felt that if she’d gone to the authorities, she would have be expelled from the party, because of the SWP’s hostility to the police. “If you go to the police you get kicked out automatically,” she said.
Following the incident she quit the party but a local organiser then persuaded her to take her allegations to party’s internal disputes committee.
The senior party member, who could not be contacted, has previously denied the allegations. However when she arrived at the hearing in late spring that year, she says the two judges in the case, Amy Leather and Pat Stack, were from the central committee.
She described the line of questioning during her hour long cross examination as offensive. “[They asked me] had you been drinking? … Are you sure that you said no, and are you sure you didn’t consent. Was he drunk? Because it would be different if he was drunk.”
She says she was also interrogated about her previous sexual history.
During the hearing two other women made allegations against the senior figure including attempted rape and sexual impropriety.
She says she was called back that afternoon and told the verdict. The committee did not rule on the truth of the rape allegation, she said.
She claims she was told the alleged rapist was going to be suspended and encouraged to read up on women’s liberation. She then says she was warned against speaking about the hearing.
“They said, if you go around calling him a rapist, you’ll be in trouble. If you tell anyone, you’ll be in trouble … They didn’t elaborate. They’re not the kind of people to get on the wrong side of.”
She added that she was coming forward two years later because she believes the SWP is a dangerous environment for women: “I want people to know it’s a systemic thing. They’ve done this a few times, covered things up in the interests of the party and it’s a dangerous environment to be in.”
The SWP has denied a cover-up and says they do not recognise this account of the hearing.
But participants in the disputes committee hearing described the line of questioning as “disgusting” and described the suspension as a travesty. “The fact that he got basically a slap on the wrist was just appalling.”
“They [the SWP leadership] are putting the interests of the party above the interests of the women … which I think gives a green light to people to behave in an appalling way to women because there’s now been two signals that you’ll get away with it.”
Responding to the allegations of mishandling an investigation, Charlie Kimber, the party’s national secretary said: “The SWP strongly contests major elements of this account of the disputes committee hearing. The woman concerned brought serious accusations to our attention, we investigated, found against the accused and took prompt action. Those are the facts of this case.”
Kimber said the SWP had taken effective action but said that he couldn’t go into further details as the matter was confidential.
He added: “I hope that after the party’s conference [on Sunday] we can move forward united.”
Here is ‘Comrade Delta’, Martin Smith, living the life of Riley:
Labour to Vote Against Policing Bill that Curbs Right to Protest.
Fall out: Labour to Vote Against Policing Bill
David Lammy has announced Labour will vote against the government’s new policing bill, claiming it imposes “disproportionate controls” on the right to protest.
It comes as MPs prepare to debate the government’s police, crime, sentencing a courts bill, which contains contentious new powers for officers and the home secretary to impose conditions on public processions.
Labour’s shadow justice secretary David Lammy said the party would be whipping its MPs to vote against the Bill at second reading, claiming: “This is no time to be rushing through poorly thought-out measures to impose disproportionate controls on free expression and the right to protest”.
Everybody has been deeply affected by these events.
Rather than comment it would be better to let women speak for themselves.
Labours decision, b backing the right to protest ans speak, is a step in the right direction.
h
Charlie Hebdo Sparks New “Fury”.
Britain’s leading anti-racist daily, The Express, has led Outrage.
CHARLIE Hebdo has sparked fury after publishing a cover featuring a caricature of the Queen kneeling on Meghan Markle’s neck, in a shocking recreation of George Floyd’s death in the US last year.
Woke Central the Sun joined the chorus.
Snowflake Sensitives the Mail have had a melt-down.
People who have not shown the slightest interest in the trial of people involved the massacres at Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher, which reached its end in December last year, (Charlie Hebdo: Fourteen guilty in 2015 Paris terror attacks trial) have suddenly discovered to their rage that Charlie still exists. They, members of the warring religious cults, The Firm, and the HerWellness Foundation©, left wing critics of laughter, and royalist beefeaters, have been foaming all day about this.
Apparently Charlie should have learnt from its errors:
The above continues,
Animation:
We await outrage from this quarter.
That is surely an unwanted attack on the far-right, or rather ‘identity’.
The Labour Campaign for Free Speech has yet to comment.
The present Blog’s take that the front cover of the latest Charlie is about mocking the dispute in the Royal family by comparing it to something serious.
Here is the same cartoonist, Juin, bing rude about another head of state.
And anotther:
Here is what the new alliance of the Royalist woke would like Charlie to be:
Brexit, Whatever Happened to the Lexit ‘Left’?
British Economic Breakthrough.
This is the Brexit News today:
Voters worried that Brexit has been bad for economy, as official figures show massive slump in trade
Independent.
Major shock’ from 40 per cent fall in exports to EU in January
The majority of Britons believe Brexit has been bad for the economy and trade, according to new polling for The Independent.
The findings offer the first indication that the damage caused by leaving the EU’s single market and customs union in January is cutting through with voters.
Official statistics showed on Friday a precipitous 40.7 per cent fall in goods sales to the EU in January, with experts blaming Brexit for a large chunk of the lost exports.
The slump – which also saw imports from the EU decline by 28.8 per cent – represented the largest monthly decline in trade with the UK’s largest commercial partner since records began in 1997.
One of the most prominent ‘left’ supporters of Brexit, the Harvard Professor Richard Tuck wrote in 2017,
I think Brexit would help the Left is more fundamental. It was that the essential character of the EU, as Wolfgang Streeck has powerfully argued, is hostile to traditional socialism of the mid-20th-century variety. If Britain left the EU, the space available to left wing policies would suddenly expand, and all sorts of possibilities, including such things as thorough-going nationalisation or differential regional taxes, would be on the table again.
In October 2000. this appeared.
In his new book, The Left Case for Brexit, the Harvard-based British historian of political thought Richard Tuck goes even further. Rather than merely finding a silver lining in the referendum vote, he instead presents a full-throated defence of ‘lexit’ – i.e., Brexit for the left – that treats leaving the EU as the opportunity that democratic socialism has been waiting for since its heyday in the years immediately following World War II. By reinvigorating the sovereign powers of Parliament in Westminster, Tuck concludes that Brexit is desirable per se, as it will once again make socialist policies based on nationalisation possible in the UK: ‘The great prize awaiting the Left in Britain…is genuine Brexit followed by a Labour government
He is still at it,
Here are some tips retweeted by the Red-Brown Full Brexit site.
Sailing, sailing away….
H
Welcome Sign of Unity on French Left.
This is extremely good news.
A “grand slam” to ensure the return of a left that has disappeared from the region under pressure from the extreme right: representatives of Europe Ecologie Les-Verts (EELV), the French Communist Party (PCF), La France insoumise (LFI) and the Socialist Party (PS) announced, Thursday March 11, that they had reached agreement to unite in Hauts-de-France for the regional elections.
Negotiated for months, this agreement “unique at this time in France” places the Green MEP Karima Delli as head of the list, specifies the text, signed by the Communist, and Socialist leaders, the deputies of the North Fabien Roussel (PCF) and Ugo Bernalicis (LFI) and the North Senator Patrick Kanner (PS). The objective “is to ensure that history does not repeat itself” and “to seek an exemplary victory for all of France,” Ms. Delli told Agence France-Presse (AFP) .
Hauts-de-France, whose capital is Lille, could in many respects to former industrial and mining areas in the North of England. Like one time Red Wall seats which voted for the hard right Brexit and Tories in the last election, some parts of it has moved to the extreme right Rassemblement National.
Les territoires de la région Hauts-de-France sont plutôt ancrés à gauche, toutefois au cours de ces derniers années, on remarque une montée du vote pour l’extrême droite ou populiste de droite, notamment dans les anciennes cités minières .
The territories of the Hauts-de-France region tend to be on the left, however in recent years, it has been marked by a rise in the vote for the extreme right or populist right , especially in the former mining towns.
There are hopes this example may spread, although in other regions the left is far from negotiating a parallel united front. The General Secretary of the Parti Socialiste Olivier Faure has called for regional lefts to face up to their responsibilities. In the Huffington Post political scientist Bruno Cautrès has noted that the electorally winning strategy of left unity began at a local level in the 1970s. For the moment this looks unlikely for next year’s Presidential elections.
Régionales: la gauche unie dans les Hauts-de-France, laboratoire ou exception?
Skwawkbox: Has Steve Walker Left the Labour Party?
Skwawky, Steve Walker, has been in the firing line again.
TEN SALFORD COUNCILLORS TO RETIRE AT MAY LOCAL ELECTION
The Labour Party nationally responded by accusing Skwawkbox of “gratuitous innuendos and assertions about various Party members, as well two Labour MPs“…without providing evidence to the contrary.
What is the future for this alt-news site?
It has become a sterile factional instrument for tool Walker and his little band.
Now we hear:
Breaking, Exclusive.
This now doing the rounds:
Skwawky has yet to respond.
This is the kind of support he’s got these days,
Labour Briefing Defends David Miller Against Zionist ‘Trojan Horses’ and Momentum ‘Left Zionism’.
David Miller, If you follow the links you never know what Zionist Trojan horses will jump out.
This is Briefing’s defence of David Miller..
Here’s the full transcript of Miller’s comment during a Brighton Labour Left Alliance zoom meeting held in June 2020:
The comments which have most upset Miller’s critics in the past concern the activities of the pro-Israel lobby in Britain. These are clearly not anti-Semitic.
However, one comment does show Miller criticizing a Jewish-Muslim community initiative to distribute chicken soup to homeless people. At first glance, this does seems both ridiculous and even perhaps anti-Semitic. But, when looked at in context, it appears rather different.
This is the “context”.
DAVID MILLER’S COMMENTS ON THAT ‘SOUP KITCHEN’: THE FACTS
For some bizarre reason Briefing thinks it makes it all better to read the full rant.
It’s a question of the attempt by the Zionist movement in this country – also it’s happened in France and Germany prior to this – to normalize Zionism on the left in those countries, yes, but also to normalize Zionism within the Muslim community.
Here’s the lowdown,
The reason that they’re doing this, of course, is that the only two forces which can threaten them are the Muslim, [the] organized Muslim community, and the left. And they are panicked – as have been the leaders of our country, of our state, in the intelligence services – panicked by what they saw in 2003, and for a few years after that, of the organized Muslim community coming together with the organized left, to march against the Iraq war.
The eminent historian of this ‘threat’ to the ‘Zionist movement’ in this country continues,
I don’t know if you all remember, but there was a moment which happened of unity there, where the Muslim Association of Britain and [the] Stop the War Coalition, which of course is a coalition of various other groups along with CND and others, came together. And MAB said: ‘Look, the theme of this demonstration should be Palestine. It shouldn’t just be about being against war, about Iraq, it should be Palestine.’ And there was, kind of, opposition in parts of the left and from some parts of the Stop the War coalition etc. to that. But it was agreed in the end. And that was a breakthrough moment for pro-Palestinian politics.
Skipping over MAB’s background in the hard right Muslim Brotherhood, and ties to he far-right Hamas, few can recall the ‘pro-Palestine’ issue at stake in the invasion of Iraq,
And that scared the Israelis, it scared MI5 and MI6 and, in the [United] States, it scared the security establishment there. And they’ve been operating since then to attack and dissolve the possibility of Muslims and the left working together on questions of imperialism.
Wisely Miller does not continue to describe the adventures in the ‘left’ party ‘pro-Muslim Respect led by George Galloway and its own alliance with MAB, That seemed to have done a pretty good job of fucking itself up without any help from outside.
Against Western interventions George Galloway of course remains against Western action in Syria.
Perhaps Miller could have talked about how that is helping the Palestinian cause….
He is an ‘expert’ on Syria..
Zionist Trojan Horses.
This is how they operated…
In particular they’ve done this through inter-faith work, pretending that Jews and Muslims working together will be an apolitical way of countering racial misunderstandings. No, it’s a Trojan horse for normalizing Zionism in the Muslim community.
Chicken Soup,
We saw it in [the] East London Mosque, for example, where the East London Mosque, unknowingly, held this project of making chicken soup with the Jewish and Muslim communities coming together. This is an Israeli-backed project to normalize Zionism within the Muslim community. And they’re doing that at the same time as they were doing the attack on Corbyn and the continued attack on the left to normalize Zionism on the Left.
It takes some special gift to see the link between attacks on Corbyn and broth making. But if you open that Pandora’s Box, you never know what Trojan horses will jump out.
Peeling off,
This is how the same Zionist operators worked on the left…
You said they were successful – and I think we can debate the extent to which they were successful – but they did manage to peel off a certain section of the left. And we saw that in the beginning – we didn’t maybe realise [that] at the time – with what happened to Jackie [Walker] who was in the calls? just now, who was peeled off from Momentum and then elements of Momentum peeled off.
So, even elements of Momentum became turned by a kind of left-Zionism, by elements of the [Jewish Labour Movement], partly no doubt to do with the pro-Zionists in the AWL, the Alliance for Workers Liberty, pro-Zionist left. (I believe ‘Trotskyist’ is the appropriate term for them as well.) And so that, I think, is a real issue. And the Israeli Government, of course, have been involved in this from the beginning.
The Two Strategies of You Know Who..
- “They prepared the ground, going back to the early 2000s, by redefining anti-Semitism to include anti-Zionism: the creation of the new ‘new anti-Semitism’.”
- “And then, on the other hand, they sent in their undercover operatives, and money from the [Israeli] Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which, of course, Asa [Winstanley] you’ve have written about extensively. And I’m sure there’s much more information to come about that. They sent in Shia Masot who was seen in that undercover documentary to spread money around. Many of these new Zionist hawk organizations, Sussex Friends of Israel, North West Friends of Israel, Glasgow Friends of Israel, Lawyers for Israel etc. etc., [and] a whole range of other groups that sprung up, in part, due to direct subventions from Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then the Ministry of Strategic Affairs.”
Most people would say that the anti-Zionist’ ultras did a pretty good job all on their own in pissing off their one-time allies on the left.
They are still at it:
Please note this interesting education series organised by the Labour Left Alliance. All five sessions will be introduced by Tony Greenstein, member of the LAW steering committee. All sessions start at 6pm.
Zionism: Past, present – and future?
March 12: Introduction to Zionism
March 19: Zionism and anti-Semitism
March 26: Was there such a thing as socialism Zionism?
April 2: Zionism during the holocaust
April 9: What does Zionism mean in the context of the Israeli state?
Register here for the whole LLA education series:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_EL5W0TIvTCyBvH-OYWR8ig
Here is Greenstein’s latest target, Caroline Lucas:
The Briefing Office ends the piece with this:
“Miller needs to be defended from very real attempts to have him removed from his academic job. Academics wishing to join Noam Chomsky and many others in showing support for David can sign this petition”.
Samuel Paty: Student Admits Lying Over Accusations of Islamophobia Against Beheaded Teacher.
Tragedy Originated in Lies.
This story is getting wider attention:
French schoolgirl admits lying about murdered teacher Samuel Paty
The Independent.
A French schoolgirl has admitted lying and fabricating a story about her teacher, who was beheaded last year after her accusations against him.
The 13-year-old pupil, whose father started a hate campaign against Samuel Paty by filing a legal complaint, says she lied to please her father, and she was not even at the class in which the teacher was alleged to have shown a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.
The girl, who has not been identified, had originally claimed that Mr Paty had asked Muslim pupils to leave the class before he showed “a photograph of the Prophet naked” to children during a class on free speech.
Her claims led to a dramatic chain of events, including death threats against the teacher and outrage among Muslims.
Ten days after her comments, the teacher, 47, was beheaded by 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, who was later shot dead by police.
“This lie with tragic consequences is part of a wider family context: made more complex by the academic success of her twin sister, Z. would not have dared to admit to her father the real reasons for her exclusion shortly before the tragedy, which were in fact linked to her bad behaviour.”
French schoolgirl admits lying about decapitated teacher
A 13-year-old schoolgirl whose Muslim father led a hate campaign against secondary school teacher Samuel Paty for showing a class on free speech cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and who was attacked and decapitated in the street, has admitted lying to her father about the details of the class in which she was in fact not present.
Socialist Worker said at the time,
Paty had shown his school class an image produced by the Charlie Hebdo magazine of a naked caricature of Mohammed. He had told Muslim children to turn their backs or leave the roomIt was rightly seen as an insult. “
h
New Left Review, Oliver Eagleton attacks Owen Jones, “tough action on antisemitism is a proxy for antisocialism…”
A New Generation of Struldbrugg Socialists.
As New Left Review (NLR) enters its 61st year, while still publishing valuable articles, the political content has become dominated by Struldbrugg socialism. These long-living inhabitants of the land of Luggnagg, Jonathan Swift discovered in Gulliver’s Travels, show not not only all the “follies and infirmities” of other elderly people , but they are also extra-opinionated.
NLR founding figure, Perry Anderson, writes in his Parish journal, the London Review of Books this week, “The letters objecting to my account of the European Union, offer a range of criticisms, none without an intelligible rationale.”. (Vol 43. No5) The Struldbruggs are supporters of national sovereignty, or sovereigntists, but they tolerate imports, like a hefty shaft of rare and curious words, to remind us of our Bildungslücke.
The peevish, the morose, the covetous,, and the vanity of those those claim to challenge power from their laptops, are hallmarks of those who wrote, as present Editor Susan Watkins did in 2016, welcoming the vote to leave the European Union,” Critics of the neoliberal order have no reason to regret these knocks to it, against which the entire global establishment—Obama to Abe, Merkel to Modi, Juncker to Xi—has inveighed.” Anderson indeed repeated this happy phrase in 2020,’critics of the neoliberal order have no reason to regret these knocks …” (Ukania Perpetua. NLR Second Series. 125).
Enter a new voice: Oliver Eagleton, whose work has appeared in Jacobin, The Article, Novara and openDemocracy, as well as Counterfire and Verso.
For the latter he wrote this hatchet job, which has disappeared from the archives:
Now there is this:
A review of , This Land: The Story of a Movement
This is not really a review of Jones’ book, one written by somebody, Owen Jones, with serious experience and respect in the broad labour movement. It is a polemic against something Eagleton calls “McDonnellism”, against left internationalists who stood against Brexit, and a pretty good effort at aping his Struldbrugg elders.
The first thing that strikes the reader is that Eagleton follows the NLR line that Labour should not have opposed Brexit. He fails to mention that his journal actively backed the vote to Leave, with Editorial Board member Tariq Ali appearing on public platforms to cast the ballot on the same side as the European Reform Group, the Tory hard right, and Nigel Farage. As he himself wrote in 2020, “Labour will never be the Party of Remain. It’s time it stopped trying.”
Eagleton focuses on the movement for a second referendum, widely backed by the Labour grassroots, and the force behind million strong marches protesting against Brexit.
While autopsies of Corbynism invariably identify the Brexit polarization as a fatal turning-point, This Land is unique in detailing how Corbyn’s ambiguous position was partially responsible for creating that chasm in the first place. His protracted indecision generated a political vacuum that enabled the arch-centrist Remain movement to grow throughout 2018, winning over previously sceptical figures like Starmer and McDonnell.
……
McDonnell thus formed a second referendum pressure group inside the shadow cabinet, swaying the perennially indecisive Corbyn after purging the Leave faction from his office. Jones acknowledges the disastrous electoral fallout of this policy, but he concludes that ‘Labour had no real choice’. ‘Whatever decisions the party made’, he writes, ‘it would not have ended well’.
In this ‘review’ the idea that opposition to national neoliberalism, and to the hard right fantasy of the ‘anglosphere’ was behind this turn occurs not once.
Less interested in a political analysis of why Labour failed in 2019 – the obvious point being that Corbyn did not connect with the electorate, that there was gulf between the enthusiasm of the Corbynistas and the dislike of the majority of voters – Eagleton spares no words against Owen Jones, “a self-described ‘participant-observer’ in the Corbyn experiment”, marked by “instinctual conformism”, and takes a few side swipes at other highly regarded Labour people, including “Clive Lewis, the chest-thumpingly pro-nato Afghan war veteran..”
This paragraph, discovered in the thickets of ire. follows the main thrust of the book, “less a history of Corbynism than a prolonged apologia for McDonnellism.” One that refuses to challenge the idea that there was a crisis in the Party about antisemitism, and, Eagleton underlines, “. Alongside such incoherent formulations is a summary of Israeli history which ‘could have been written by Shimon Peres’, as one critic has remarked. ” Or that, “‘tough action on antisemitism’ is a proxy for antisocialism…”
Over it all there is the dark figure of John McDonnell….
Just as This Land’s timeline is manipulated to indict Milne… , “The same double-standard is evident in Jones’s disinclination to criticize his political mentor. In order to sustain the representation of Milne as obtuse Stalinist and McDonnell as master strategist, the latter’s political misjudgements must either be neglected or downplayed. Like Jones himself, McDonnell warned against Corbyn’s leadership bid; opposed the leader’s anti-imperialist agenda (including his widely popular response to the Manchester bombings); advocated ihra; cosied up to New Labour leftovers like Alastair Campbell; and pushed the party towards Remain out of an irrational fear of Change uk. A serious account of Corbynism would recognize the damaging effect of these climbdowns. “
For Eagleton, “Starmerism is the end-point of McDonnellism, the logical result of Jones’s prescriptions. ”
The Struldbruggs nod, and nod and nod.
Not any of them have a clue about getting the left into power in this country.
We hear on good authority that the person Oliver Eagleton attacks in this review has also written a reply….
‘Left’ Lockdown Sceptics.
Tweet by ‘left’ Lockdown sceptics.
Some people obviously have more time on their hands than is good for them (H/T David).
BUILD THE ANTI-LOCKDOWN LEFT. Left Lockdown Sceptics.
We are a group of socialists in the UK who oppose lockdown policy on the basis that it doesn’t work, is based on bad science and causes unnecessary harm and deaths to society. The impact of lockdown is most severe on the working class and vulnerable people, including children.
We are committed to the scientific method and evidence-based health policies and medical practice. We thoroughly reject the rise of ‘scientism’, an appeal to the unimpeachable authority of science and scientists who happen to promote the government line, which is used to attack any person criticising lockdown as ‘dangerous’ or a ‘crank’. No one scientific practice, theory or consensus can ever represent absolute truth. All scientific theories, especially those that affect people’s lives to a large extent, should be subject to questioning on the basis of evidence and theory that follows rigorous scientific standards.
As it stands we are a handful of socialists, almost alone on the Left in our rejection of lockdown policy and the slide towards covid-fascism. It would be foolish and pointless for us to construct grand programmes and proclamations of what we think people should do, given the extreme minority we find ourselves in. Therefore, our main priority at this time is to popularise and extend our analysis among socialists and the wider public, and to convince people that lockdown is wrong and that opposition to this sociopathic policy is the correct course of action.
Amongst their core members are former members of Marxist World. the Scottish Socialist Party, and look clearly shaped by the ‘Militant’ tradition. One is a present member of the Galloway CPBG (M-L) vehicle the Workers Party of Britain.
Reflecting the priorities of their past they have published this attack on the small but with big pretentions group, the hardline pro-Brexit Socialist Party.
Comrades, Roll up your Sleeves!
(Extract)
Martin Powell-Davies, an SP member, is running to be National Education Union (NEU) Deputy General Secretary. He is campaigning against the early reopening of schools, citing the warnings of the gurus of SAGE. On his website, Martin Powell-Davies-teacher-trade unionist-socialist [9], he calls for blended faux learning, social distancing of pupils and wearing of masks in all classes for all school students, primary and secondary! Basically he supports the psychological abuse of children who are at essentially zero risk from covid. Quite frankly he is a disgrace! A disgrace to teaching, trade unionism and socialism.
Comrades, don’t be downhearted as we can still take the struggle to the bosses, says The Socialist, via an online workers’ rally [10].
In between, pop down to the vax centre and roll up your sleeves. It’s in the interests of everyone, workers and bosses.
I wonder what the Swappies are saying?
Here are more of their tweets,
Many will rightly say that this group is irrelevant, but others comment that it does reflect the boneheaded ‘scepticism’ of a layer of the confusionist left. They do not have the conspiracist dramas of Piers Corbyn, bu the not helpful, and it is hard to see the point of launching a platform on this issue.
*$tarmers notion of socialism is the same as the Conservatives ,,, only for themselves and their cronies Rob the 99% , never has the corruption been more blatant.
….
*The Chumocracy is no longer the sole representative of The Conservative & Fascist Party, enter the little dragon, The Labour & Zionist Party.
….
*Was this dodgy software systems in operation and used for the election of Sir keir Rodney Starmer?and others We know that both Evans and starmer are into rigging and I have always thought somthing was not kosher with the vote for the knight??..These two characters have shown that they are capable and devoid of any form of human decency.