Labour’s response to the attack on two of its Black female MPs is a f**king disgrace

Keir Starmer, Diane Abbott and the Board of Deputies of British Jews logo


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The Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD) has called for the Labour Party to take “swift and decisive action” against two of its Black female MPs. The BoD’s gripe with the MPs in question – Diane Abbott and Bell Ribeiro-Addy – is that they appeared at a Zoom meeting where suspended Labour members were in attendance.

On 1 May, the Labour Party’s shadow home secretary explained what ‘decisive action’ the party has now taken on BBC Radio 4‘s Today programme. Suffice to say, it’s a fucking disgrace.

Wrong. And wrong.

BoD president Marie van der Zyl said of the Zoom meeting, which the group ‘Don’t Leave, Organise’ arranged:

As soon as we learnt about this we raised it with Keir Starmer’s office and with the Labour whips.

It is completely unacceptable that Labour MPs, and even ordinary members, should be sharing platforms with those that have been expelled from the Party for antisemitism.

There are numerous issues with this statement. Firstly, attending a Zoom meeting doesn’t necessarily put anyone on its ‘platform’. Hundreds of people can dial in to such meetings, but they don’t automatically get a ‘platform’ on the event.

Secondly, the BoD president claimed people on the ‘platform’ were “expelled from the Party for antisemitism”. Both the Jewish Chronicle and Politics Home named activist and writer Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein – both Jewish – as attendees of note regarding the BoD complaint. But as Walker noted:

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Worse and worse

Now, Labour has revealed what ‘decisive action’ it’s taken against the MPs in question. Speaking on the Today programme, shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said:

they’ve been spoken to, I understand, very firmly about this… I think that the leader of the party was right to do that and to remind both the MPs of their responsibilities, and clearly no Labour MP should be sharing any platform with people who have been expelled from the party.

As people pointed out, Labour’s effective response then was to treat the MPs like schoolchildren who warranted a ticking off:

Meanwhile, some wondered whether the ‘no sharing a platform’ rule will be extended to all previously expelled members of the party:

Others also noted the disconnect between the BoD’s call for swift action against the two MPs and its apparent inaction on a recent report that identified people in the party who were “responsible for the failures in handling antisemitism complaints”:

Anti-Black racism and misogynoir

The leaked Labour report exposed “anti-Black racism” within the party. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed that, in its complaint, the BoD criticised Black Labour MPs who are women:

But rather than showing solidarity with the party’s Black female MPs, and calling out this cynical attack for what it was, the current Labour leadership near instantly gave the MPs a scolding. As The Canary‘s Kerry-Anne Mendoza pointed out, this was the new leadership’s “first showdown” with the sort of antisemitism smears against the party that were a constant during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure.

Starmer’s leadership team failed these Black female MPs, badly. What a fucking disgrace.

Featured image via ITV News/YouTube, Sky News/YouTube and BoardofDeputiesPR/Wikimedia

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  • Show Comments

    1. It’s bloody disgraceful how they still attacking these bame MPs disgrace it is but stammer the spammer has signed up to those ten rules made by who they being controlled look out if you blame a Israel government its curtains for you

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    4. I was brought up to believe that freedom of speech was an inalienable right in this country.
      It appears that is increasingly no longer the case.
      I am getting close to the point of leaving the party as sadly it seems that criticism will be much easier ‘outside the tent pissing in’.
      A new socialist party or organisation is very much needed and if I were younger and less committed to other activities, I would be helping to start one.

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    5. Be clear about what this is: thoughtcrime. The B o D is Big Brother. You are not permitted to THINK anything negative about Israel or Zionism. That is the implication: because DA and BRA appeared at a Zoom meeting with people the B o D assume to be anti-Semitic, it follows that they too must have anti-Semitic thoughts. People have to be punished before they have done anything wrong. They have to be punished if they are accused by the B o D or some other far from impartial body or individual. Of course, they have to be punished because it is assumed they share the thoughts of those who have been expelled for anti-Semitism, even though they haven’t. Thus, you are guilty of anti-Semitism by association even though those you associate with have not been proven guilty of anti-Semitism. Big Brother Zionism watches you and decides whether or not you are guilty. Big Brother Zionism reads your thoughts. You need do nothing wrong. You are guilty because Big Brother Zionism says you are. That the leadership of the Labour Party cedes to such totalitarian nonsense is pathetic. The ticking off should be directed to the B o D. They should be told to mind their own business. It’s important to understand just how much this is central to the doctrine of ethno-political Zionism. Spiritual Zionism is, of course, another matter. Consider this, for example, from Mordechai Nisan, an erstwhile lecturer at the Hebrew University: “…the presence of non-Jews in the country (ie Palestine) is morally and politically irrelevant to the national right of the Jews to settle and possess the land…..Dwelling in the Land is the Jewish priority….(the view that rejects this assumption is) a direct denunciation of Abraham, the first Jew, the father of the Jewish people…..In the democratic age we live in, it is a difficult task to openly adopt what seems like a non-democratic position. But it is nowhere provided that non-Jews will enjoy full equal rights as a national community…the Land is the eternal possession of the Jewish people alone…The task of politics, often involving the use of violence, can at times only be achieved by sacrificing the purity of the soul….pouring Western liberal ideas into Jewish vessels, and serving them up as Jewish, is dishonest and dangerous.” There you have it. This is what Zionism stands for: Jewish superiority, denial of rights to non-Jews, anti-democracy, the use of political violence and opposition to the Enlightenment values which underpin “Western liberal ideas” such as the unity of humanity and the defence of human rights. Everyone who does not agree with this miserable farrago of delusion and distortion is, according to the Zionists, an anti-Semite. Either you agree that Palestine was given to Abraham ( for whose existence there is no archaeological evidence) or you are an anti-Semite. Either you accept that Jews are superior or you are an anti-Semite. Either you accept that non-Jews should not have equal rights (notice that doesn’t just mean Palestinians) or you are an anti-Semite. Either you accept that Zionists have the right to pursue their politics through violence or you are an anti-Semite. Either you accept that Western values such a democracy do not apply to Jews or you are anti-Semitic. In other words, almost everyone in the UK is an anti-Semite. Big Brother Zionism says so. Just as there is no evidence for the existence of Abraham, just as Palestine can’t belong to the Jews eternally because the planet will not exist eternally, so there is no evidence that DA and RBA are anti-Semitic. Or that Tony Greenstein is. Or that Chris Williamson is. All that has happened is that Big Brother Zionism has accused them. That’s all. And Starmer goes along with it. We need to teach him what democracy and freedom of thought and speech look like.

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    6. For the above reasons, with a heavy heart have resigned from the BOD (Labour) party. I know it’s exactly what these Zionist want, but the party has now gone beyond the pale. Inaction from Starmer is a warning to anyone who disagrees with this Israeli government. Alas the sharks are already in the harbour.

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    8. The BOD or the Jewish Chronicle (as they claim – or always arrogantly assumed) have never been the voice of all British Jews. And yet the Labour Party cow-tows to these frauds and their continuous smears around anti-semitism -often as fictitious as this latest pathetic attempt. I thought a lot of Jeremy Corbyn when leader and genuinely believed he could take the party back to its roots (social justice for everyone). But what continually frustrated me was the party and Jeremy himself continually apologising for anti-semitism in the party, when the problem was and still is miniscule – Thirty percent of those anti-Semitism accusations were brought by one person. Less than one percent of the membership have been reprimanded for AS – Even though there has been a concerted agenda by MP’S who are affiliated and supported ‘Friends of Israel’, along with the BOD and Jewish Chronicle to dictate party policy on Israel and any criticism of it, usually in the form of outrage at anything and everything – a tactic which they’ve adopted from the beginning. In essence the BOD and that piss-poor excuse for journalism the ‘Jewish Chronicle’ are in essence right-wingers, attempting to dictate Labour policy by vilifying any left-leaning members and MP’s – Or pressurising them so much that they are silenced and maginalised. It didn’t take long for Keir Starmer to continue this appeasement. He talks of party unity but his shadow cabinet appointments and the parameters he’s outlined for the upcoming leaked report enquiry – screams he’s going after the people who released it – rather than those who constantly undermined and betrayed the party, over several years of Corbyn’s leadership.

      So expect more of this smearing. It is what these two organisations are set up for. They’ve had some success at doing it – Ludicrously labelling Corbyn a racist is their best yet. As stupid and as false as that accusation was – They (with the help of the MSM) got people to believe that. And of course refusing to campaign for the party and subverting party election funds also didn’t help. But as other prominent and ordinary members of Jewish community have said – “They don’t speak for me.” And just to emphasize how deliberately faux and shallow all of this is – The Jewish Voice For Labour nailed their current accusations by saying:
      @JVoiceLabour
      “You put two black women and three Jews in your sights. That looks like a full house”.

      Now if people can’t see through that – then we get the politics and politicians we deserve.

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    9. The BOD is fully in charge of the Labour Party most certainly .
      I’d bet the BOD would howl in rage if they were kicked out, banned. The resulting antisemitic howl would be deafing by these creatures from the underworld.
      BOD is your new human created virus having taken over the mind of the Labour Party.
      Life has so many surprises in store for us.
      It makes the Coronavirus look silly. and pathetic in its scope in its aspirations on how it is to survive,

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    10. If the BOD are trying to increase anti-semitism, they’re succeeding. I’ve never been anti-semitic in my life. However, I reserve the right to criticise a political state (including my own). Israel is a political state and if I criticise its actions, that’s because of those actions not because of a religion.

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    11. I have recently read a heartbreaking report on the human rights abuses taking place in Venezuela. Torture beatings internment without trial etc. I hope the Canary will see fit
      to condem these appalling abuses and also condem
      the brutal thuggish regime that is responsible.

      Report comment

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