The decision by Labour’s recently-appointed General Secretary David Evans, a fervent pro-Zionist, to suspend Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour Party is a calculated step to break the Labour left. It followed the 29 October publication of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report into alleged anti-Semitism within the Labour Party. Corbyn’s crime had been his response to the Report that the scale of the anti-Semitism problem within the Labour Party had been ‘dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.’ The response of the Labour left as a whole has been feeble: it is desperate not to be kicked out of the Party. All it will offer is a demoralising campaign to reinstate Corbyn which will neither change the nature of the Labour Party nor do anything to defend the interests of the working class. ROBERT CLOUGH reports.
The Report itself was hardly dynamite. In summary, it:
- did not find the Labour Party institutionally anti-Semitic, although the Zionist Campaign against Anti-Semitism, which initiated the referral to the EHRC, lied that it had;
- could find only two instances where it could claim that the Labour Party was responsible for ‘unlawful harassment’ – but then said there could have been 18 others, further claiming anyway that it was but the ‘tip of an iceberg’.
- had to concede that in the final year of Corbyn’s leadership, the rate of processing disciplinary cases of anti-Semitism greatly accelerated. However, the Report condemned ‘political interference’ in the investigation of such complaints, allowing the media and Zionist organisations to falsely construe it as obstruction.
The Report’s abysmally low standard of evidence and its elastic definition of ‘unlawful harassment’ gave ideal material for a witch hunt. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer thundered ‘if you’re anti-Semitic, you should be nowhere near this party. And we’ll make sure you’re not’, adding:
‘if after all the pain, all the grief, and all the evidence in this report, there are still those who think there’s no problem with anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. That it’s all exaggerated, or a factional attack. Then, frankly, you are part of the problem too. And you should be nowhere near the Labour Party either.’
This was a declaration of open season on anyone saying that the ‘anti-Semitism crisis’ had been manufactured by Zionists to ban support for the Palestinian people and criminalise opposition to the Israeli state. It was also a green light for Evans, Starmer’s attack dog, to track down anyone who questions the Report or the leadership’s response to it, ruling that it is not ‘competent business’ for Constituency Labour Parties to discuss. This follows his previous edicts banning any discussion of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, or Labour’s abject apology to John Ware, producer of the BBC Panorama programme Is Labour anti-Semitic? and its whistleblower interviewees.
The response of the Socialist Campaign Group of left MPs has been dire. Speaking at a Momentum rally, John McDonnell cautioned ‘we have to be careful in our language at the moment. We don’t want to give any hostages to fortune to any who would use our words, distort them and use them against the left’. He called Corbyn’s suspension ‘profoundly wrong’ and that it ‘must be reversed’, adding: ‘My appeal is not the launch of some civil war or for members to leave the party and set up some other party. My appeal is for unity.’ MP Richard Burgon appealed for decency:
‘People are not going to sit idly by while the former leader of the Labour Party is expelled…It will be an uphill fight for Keir to become Prime Minister, which is what I want to see. I want to see Keir as Prime Minister, I want to see that Labour government for the good of my community and the good of all communities…Keir shouldn’t have that fight with one hand tied behind his back. So the way forward is clear. Readmit Jeremy. Unite to take the fight to the Tories.’
There is a distinct lack of enthusiasm among MPs for showing active solidarity with Corbyn, with another Socialist Campaign MP, Nadia Whittome, saying that although she is ‘saddened by the suspension’ she ‘cannot agree’ with Corbyn’s statement. Only 18 out of 34 MPs in the group were prepared to put their name to a statement demanding Corbyn’s reinstatement. Seven unions together pleaded that:
‘The publication on Thursday of the EHRC report ought to have marked a moment of reflection and repair for our party. Instead, an ill-advised and unjust suspension has caused division…We cannot comprehend why the leadership would not only compromise the opportunity to unite our party behind the implementation of the EHRC’s important recommendations so that they can be taken forward with the members’ full trust and confidence, but also undermine our party’s democratic processes and, ultimately, our party unity.’
But neither the largest union, Unison, nor the third-largest, the GMB, were prepared even to go that far. Meanwhile, joining the Starmer offensive, MP Harriet Harman tweeted Corbyn’s suspension was ‘the right thing to do: If you say that AS [anti-Semitism] exaggerated for factional reasons you minimise it & are, as Keir Starmer says, part of the problem.’ This was the Harman who, as interim Labour Party leader in 2015, instructed Labour MPs not to oppose the Tory government’s savage anti-working class Welfare Bill. Among its proposals was a four-year freeze on benefits. Not surprisingly, the most reactionary rent-a-quote Zionist Labour MPs such as millionaire Margaret Hodge and former MPs, such as Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman, were even more vociferous in support of Corbyn’s suspension.
Momentum, Labour Left Alliance, Labour against the Witch Hunt et al are urging members not to leave Labour. Some members are however saying they would join Corbyn if he were to lead a breakaway. But why would Corbyn do this? He has stuck with Labour for 40 years despite its war crimes, its racism, its defence of the City of London, its endorsement of austerity. He will keep hold of his secure seat and £80,000 a year. The same goes for the other Socialist Campaign MPs – they will not risk their well-paid, privileged positions. The truth is that the left will always find a reason however spurious to remain within the Labour Party, no matter what crimes it commits. It did so under Blair, and it will continue to do so now.
