Fight or flight

Sadly, I understand why many people, including some I know who have devoted decades of their lives to the Labour party, have felt they have no choice but to leave. I have not yet left. After Corbyn’s second leadership win, I vowed to focus on the positive and be constructive. I intend to stay and fight, until either all hope, or all poisonous ideology, is gone.

That is why I have written this message to Momentum, on Facebook. I expect no constructive reply, I expect to have to deal with a barrage of abuse, if anything, in fact, but you have to stand up and say what you think, sometimes, don’t you?  Or what else, stand by and do nothing? Walk away in mute defeat?

Zionist conspiracy


This is what I wrote, and asked:

Your vice-chair, Jackie Walker has recently made the following claims.

1. More ‘gypsies’ (sic) than Jews were killed, proportionally, in the holocaust. This is a lie. 67% of Europe’s Jews were murdered; 25% of Europe’s Roma.

2. She also claimed that Jews were the chief financiers of the slave-trade – an easily refuted lie from a publication, by the Nation of Islam, referred to by Henry Gates, head of the department of Afro-American studies at Harvard University, as “the bible of new anti-Semitism”

3. She recently attacked Holocaust Memorial Day for not commemorating victims other than Jews and other genocides. HMD does both those things. It commemorates all the victims of the Holocaust and of genocides since then. To attack it is a display of ignorance, and an ignorance that seems, in the context of all the above – which is a selection from numerous other instances – to be motivated by a hatred of Jews.

None of the above is legitimate criticism of Israel. It is purely anti-Semitic propaganda and lies aimed at the Jewish people, with the sole aim of delegitimising and scornfully belittling their history and suffering.

Her claims: some of my best friends are Jews! a familiar retort of the racist; I can’t be anti-Semitic because I am Jewish! But this is nonsense; every misogynist has a mother – for one simple example of why this logic fails. If you repeatedly spread anti-Semitic lies, you are an anti-Semite. A claim of cultural immunity means nothing in the light of your repeated words and actions, surely?

That is how we avoid being racist. We judge people not on the colour of their skin, but on the substance of their words and actions.

I’m anti-racist! She says. But it is not enough to fight against racism for everyone, except for one group, that is – in fact – what racism is.

The leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, recently stated:

“Let me be absolutely clear: anti-Semitism is an evil. It led to the worst crimes of the 20th century, every one of us has a responsibility to ensure that it is never allowed to fester in our society again.

“This party always has and always will fight against prejudice and hatred of Jewish people with every breath in our body.”

My question to you is what are you doing to embody the leader of our party’s words?

What actions are you taking?

How you can call your movement truly one of inclusivity and fighting against prejudice when you harbour so high up in your organisation someone who is repeatedly anti-Semitic?

The Burger King

Jeremy Corbyn has taken the helm of the Labour Party and everything is going to be great!

He and Tom Watson embody some hopeful prospects. I expect they will be effective in opposition, and I would like to feel positive about Labour’s chances of being elected to power but I share the concern of the more pragmatic democratic socialists such as the Fabian society:

The quasi-religious fervour around him, this idea that he is different from other politicians, pure and good, and will be the saviour from the previous false messiah of Blair? Well that just seems naive to me. It is expected that he will somehow change politics for good. If you project so much unrealistic hope onto anyone or anything you will be disappointed. Look at Obama, the Phantom Menace or pictures of the food in Burger King.

A disappointing burger

I am willing to be cautiously optimistic but I want rid of the Tories and I would like a government that is able to implement a fairer society. I am not yet convinced there will be enough popular support across the country for this incarnation of New Old Labour.

But he’s different, you tell me, as if he was the latest closing time pick-up after a string of disastrous encounters, he has principles. Well yes, he’s principled, but he has appeared to be hypocritical, he said one shouldn’t share a platform with racists but then went on to do just that, repeatedly, with holocaust deniers and antisemites.

This is not a smear from the right-wing press, this is an observation of concern from the left e.g. Rafael Behr in the Guardian  or Left Foot Forward.

That’s not racism, you might say. That’s just legitimate criticism of Jews because they control the media, and secretly run the world, and are just more evil than well, all other humans on earth and if we could just eradicate Israel from the map the whole Middle East would be a joyous Sunni/Shia reach around. And I would take on board what you had to say, as you would have demonstrated your expertise in racism and it’s important to share a platform with racists, or isn’t…no further questions!

Anyway, I’d like to be enthusiastic about him so I hope to see him address this and to recognise – like his champion Owen Jones -that there is a problem of anti-semitism that exists in the left, embedded in, and therefore poisoning the just causes of Palestinian rights and the anti-war movement.

Particularly the Stop the War movement of which Corbyn is chair and which is very particular about which wars it wants to stop and which warmongers it wants to curb and which are just misunderstood teddy bears like Cutie-Wutie-Putin, bless him! Look at him sharing his military toys with lovely Mr Assad so that he can kill, maim and poison with chemical weapons his civilian population. Aren’t they both just adorable! Not like the awful west, urgh I *hate* them so much.

The Syrian refugee crisis is composed of people fleeing Assad AND ISIS, though Russia Today – the mouthpiece of the Kremlin, will tell you otherwise. The most appalling human rights violations have been recorded under Assad’s tyrannical reaction to mostly non-violent dissent. Read it and weep, literally. (Save the Children – untold atrocities PDF)

I understand the need to oppose ‘western imperialism’, particularly after such misguided, horrific and counter-productive wars as those in the Gulf, but not blindly, doggedly, dogmatically, excusing each and every other terrible ‘non-western’ agent of misery and terror and oppression in the process.

And further, In terms of policy – getting rid of our nuclear weapons would be something great if we could do so multilaterally with every country in the world. But if we alone get rid of Trident won’t that make us more, not less dependent, on the US?

Or is the proposed new relationship with Russia meant to supersede that? Are we to rely on Putin’s protection instead?

Ukraine had 2000 nukes and gave them up. Look what happened.

I’d like to be enthusiastic, but I’ve ordered a Whopper before, and it did not look like the picture.