Monday, April 8, 2019

The ‘Problem’ Left and Labour Party; Jewish Labour Movement expresses no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn or his leadership following party's anti-Semitism rows, it is time to end ‘identity politics’ in the Labour Party


















Dear All

One thing you would like to think when you make a complaint is that it is treated fairly and not interfered with by others, especially from higher up in the Labour Party. After all as a member, you accept you have certain rights, but it seems some others think they get special rights as well. There has been for sometime an ongoing issue within the Labour Party about anti-Semitism and how those complaints are handled.
A Sunday Times apparently said it had seen leaked internal documents which showed the party's system for dealing with complaints had been beset by delays, inaction and interference from the leader's office.

The question this begs is why anyone from the leader's office, think they have the right to act in this way, is there a rule which allows this?

I doubt it.

There should never be a question about the integrity of the complaints system in the Labour Party.

Such actions have led to the Jewish Labour Movement saying that it has no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. In order to win a Premiership, Jeremy Corbyn would need all sections of the community to back him. The damaging anti-Semitism rows in the party place his aspirations of walking into Number 10 as PM in doubt. It is pretty damaging that a no-confidence vote was passed "overwhelmingly" at JLM's annual general meeting considering that the group, has been affiliated to the party for almost a century.

At this meeting was a stern critic of Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MPs Dame Margaret Hodge along with Ruth Smeeth and Dame Louise Ellman. The no-confidence motion was passed despite a plea from Baroness Chakrabarti, the Shadow Attorney General. What is interesting about Sami Chakrabarti is how she has risen so quickly in the party without bother of a track record. She led Labour’s internal inquiry into anti-Semitism, which wasn’t seen as a great success. Anyway having been elevated personally by Jeremy Corbyn, she said the JLM should "personalise" the issue on Jeremy Corbyn.

She said:

"My plea to the JLM is to stay in the Labour movement and to tackle racism together, not to personalise it and make it about Jeremy Corbyn, because he is one person and he won't be leader forever."

In other words, keep quiet!

It appears that Jewish members will not heed Ms. Chakrabarti’s view as a motion noting the "crisis of anti-Semitism" within the party since Mr Corbyn's election as leader was passed "almost unanimously" at the meeting. The problem in my opinion stems partly from ‘identity politics’ where everyone must be put into a category in order to ascertain their ‘victim status’.

This is one of the major failures of the ‘left’ in the Labour movement.

Divide, separate and conquer in order to attain and hold onto power, of course this leads to problems such as membership falls, a failure to get involved in activism, and other measures to support the party. One of the other failures of the ‘left’ in the Labour Party is entitlement, where some people who get selected expect your loyalty and work as an activist when they have earned it. This is part of the mindset of the university educated middle class in the Labour Party.

A party spokeswoman on the JLM row:

"The Labour Party takes all complaints of anti-Semitism extremely seriously and we are committed to rooting it out of our party. All complaints about anti-Semitism are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures. We can't comment on individual cases."

She went on:

"Lines have been selectively leaked from emails to misrepresent their overall contents. One of the emails shows the General Secretary's Office ending the practice started by former staffers of asking the Leader's Office for their help with clearing the backlog of cases. This practice lasted for a few weeks while there was no General Secretary and was ended by Jennie Formby [following her appointment to the role]."

Finally, I voted for Jeremy Corbyn to lead the Labour Party, he represented the best choice for change from what has previously been in place. That being said, it appears that some of his supporters who post comments online such as "Heil Hitler" and "Jews are the problem" are bring him down. There should be one standard to adhere to in the party, and anti-Semitism shouldn’t be tolerate or people get a pass on their conduct only to get back in again when the heat dies down. If a complaint is lodged by anyone, the matter should be taken seriously; there shouldn’t be anything that interferes with it, not by anyone, no matter how high up in the party.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

1 comment:

  1. Anyone interested in this issue should be aware that the "Jewish Labour Movement" is not, as it claims to be, the representative of Jewish people in the Labour Party.
    The organisation "Jewish Voice for Labour" takes a very different line, as does the older and non-party "Jewish Socialist Group" which has much of interest on this and other questions.
    It is worth noting that most of those accused of anti-semetism by the JLM are themselves are Jewish.

    ReplyDelete