On 3 November, RCG supporters attended a Your Party (YP) rally in Islington, where Jeremy Corbyn was a panellist. In response to a young RCG comrade’s surgical criticism of Corbyn’s appalling record on Palestine, Corbyn could produce no answer while the middle-class, middle-aged audience degenerated into an enraged mob, trying to silence her and physically eject her from the meeting.
The rally was attended by 500 people – the majority of them white and middle-aged or older, reflecting the character of Corbyn’s ex-Labour fanbase. The event featured a panel of local speakers who talked about their own campaigning careers in Islington and endorsed YP’s credentials as an electoral rival to Reform UK, the Tories and ‘Starmer’s Labour’; they were followed by their star speaker, Corbyn himself.
The chair then announced that the floor would be open to questions; this turned out to be a string of lengthy sycophantic homilies by pre-selected Corbynista loyalists, a transparent ploy to crowd out any real discussion. After several of these contributions, one impatient member of the audience called out: ‘When will you actually let the audience speak?’
At 9pm – the scheduled end time of the event – the chair finally invited audience members to the front of the room with a mic to ask questions.
A young RCG comrade stepped up to declare that the political character of any movement in Britain today would be stamped by the character of its position on Palestine solidarity. She continued that Corbyn’s stance on Palestine has placed him firmly on the side of Zionism and imperialism, listing as examples his adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism as Labour leader, his refusal to support BDS or to concede that Zionism racism, his continued support for the imperialist ‘two-state solution’ that cements the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation and his condemnation of the armed Palestinian resistance as ‘terrorists’.
The mere mention of these apparently taboo facts provoked gasps from the crowd, with only scattered applause. Our comrade continued, saying that Corbyn therefore holds a pro-imperialist and pro-Zionist position, which directly contrasts with YP co-founder Zarah Sultana’s repeatedly professed positions – they are not reconcilable. She had spoken for less than a minute when several event organisers and stewards rounded on her, demanding she immediately stop speaking. The chair weighed in, telling her to allow Corbyn to now speak. Our comrade insisted on finishing her point. Ignoring the interruptions, she challenged the audience: did they believe it is acceptable for them to fight for a party with these imperialist politics in control, a repetition of Labour, a political dead end? What would their choice be?
Unable to restrain themselves, a gang grabbed her and tried to rip the microphone from her hands while the chair frantically tried to shout her into silence. As the microphone was wrestled away, the comrade chanted ‘Free, Free Palestine…there is only one state: Palestine 48!’ but was forced back to her seat. Undeterred, she challenged Corbyn for an answer.
A flustered chair declared that this was not the time for political debate: that should be reserved for the YP Conference, and that this was about ‘calling people in, not calling people out’. Speaking at the end of the rally, Corbyn could not summon up a political response, saying only that ‘The party will have many different political views…but do not make things up about me’. It was a non-answer, so our comrade again stood up and asked him to clarify what she had ‘made up’. In a striking display of their ‘democratic’ spirit, many in the audience howled at our comrade to ‘shut up’, while the more feral grabbed her, seized her belongings and tried to eject her.
This was the second time in ten days that RCG comrades have confronted Corbyn over his abysmal stance on Palestine, and the second time he has failed to address our points, preferring to accuse us of bad faith in challenging him. He has now had ample opportunity to row back on his explicit 2016 endorsement of the Zionist state, his alliance with the utterly discredited Palestinian Authority and his ongoing equivocation over the pro-imperialist ‘two-state’ solution for Palestine – and at each time has dodged the issue. He has now made his bed and will have to lie in it.
Sultana has doubled down on her anti-Zionist position, posting on social media ‘The only just future is one democratic state from the river to the sea, guaranteeing equal rights for everyone who lives there and the right of return for all Palestinians. If that offends you, maybe ask yourself: why does equality and democracy scare you more than apartheid and racial supremacy?’ Corbyn has failed to endorse that stance, the only legitimate one for anyone who wants to claim any anti-imperialist credentials today. He fronts a reactionary alliance which is determined to drive YP down a backward electoral avenue. The positions currently being upheld by Sultana – whatever her ultimate goal – are a concrete challenge to this alliance. That is why genuine socialists and revolutionaries have to fight for them.
