Are Tameside Labour shackled to the Shekel? Trade Unionists demand to know!

Fadi Abu Salah - Killed Gaza Border Wall - May 2018

IS it any wonder that the public feel disconnected and disillusioned with mainstream politics, when their elected Members of Parliament, choose to ignore questions that they put to them.  According to research done by 'djs research' in June 2015, some 75% of people don't even know who their local MP is, the survey found, and only 6% of Labour supporters, voted for the party because of their local candidate. 

In June trades unionists in Tameside, wrote two letters to a local newspaper, about a visit that two local Labour MPs - Jonathan Reynolds and Andrew Gwynne - made to Israel in May 2018, as part of a delegation of 'Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). This visit coincided with the mass shootings of innocent unarmed civilians at the Gaza border wall by the occupying forces of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). These shooting continue on a regular basis.

They asked through the paper who had paid for this visit? Whether Mr Reynolds (Stalybridge & Hyde), had consulted members of the Stalybridge CLP about his intention to visit Israel and whether they had endorsed the trip and the comments he'd made on Facebook? To date, neither Mr Reynolds or the Stalybridge CLP have responded to their questions.  Members of the Tameside Trades Union Council, have  met with a wall of deafening silence.

Mr Gwynne issued a statement that a holocaust survivor had begged him to visit the holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Yad Veshem. He did not mention that his expenses were paid by LFI, an organisation of which, he is a former Chairman. The same applies to Mr Reynolds, who also got a free trip to Israel, his fourth visit to the region since 2004. Mr Reynolds is also a former vice-chair of LFI and is currently an LFI officer in Parliament.

According to the Electoral Commission, the cash value of these visits between 27 May - 31 May 2018, was £1,600 for each MP. The donors name was LFI and the purpose of the visit was a "fact finding visit." 

Why both MPs should be so coy about answering these questions and declined to do so, is something they find bewildering, given that Mr Gwynne has a weekly column in the same paper and Mr Reynolds is not denied access. But it does go to show the general disdain with which, the political class treat ordinary members of the public, including trades unionists, who are evidently not worthy of a response.

As to the 'facts', Mr Reynolds has stated that many of the Palestinians who died at the Gaza wall in May, were somehow culpable, because of "their willingness to effectively walk into live gunfire in their desperation..." He fails to mention in his Facebook statement that many of the dead were children, or protesters shot in the back, by sniper fire. One murder victim, was a double-amputee in a wheel chair and other victims, included medics and journalists.

Jolly Jaunt - Reynolds and Gwynne on free trip to Israel

In his Facebook statement Mr Reynolds' added - "Israel is the only real democracy in the Middle East, and the only country where minorities have full equality before the law..." Just what planet does Mr Reynolds live on?

Israel is a country where the Prime Minister can describe Arabs as 'beasts', where Palestinians are prevented from marrying Palestinians outside of Israel and where Israeli Arabs are prevented from living in hundreds of Jewish communities, because the law (Access to Communities Act) allows existing residents to bar Arabs from renting properties there. Two million Gazans, live in the biggest open air prison camp in the world, which is policed by the Israeli's. The Israeli Knesset recently passed the 'Jewish Nation State Law', making Israel officially a racist and apartheid state because only Jews have the right to self determination. Whereas, under the famous 'Law of Return', promulgated in July 1950, every Jew has the right to come to the country, this does not apply to the  Palestinians who fled the country in 1948, to escape the war and Israeli terrorist groups. Just what sort of democracy is this Mr Reynolds?

Israel's existence is predicated on the forced dispossession and expulsion of Palestinians which was, and remains, the means by which the country established and maintains its Jewish majority domination. Discrimination is the essential guarantor of that majority, the preservation of which, is an existential imperative for which reason there can be no right of return for the millions of Palestinian refugees. Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories has now reached its 51st year despite being a flagrant violation of international law and an obstacle to peace. The Israeli's continue to expand illegal Jewish settlements on the West Bank and pursue a policy of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Razan al-Najjar -Palestinian nurse- killed Gaza Wall 2018

On 23 December 2016, UN Security Council resolution 2334, condemned Israel's settlements on the West Bank  and demanded that Israel - "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and seeks a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

In January 2017, the Israeli Embassy official Shai Masot, was caught on camera plotting to "take-down" UK MPs who were pro-Palestinian. Masot had links with, and was sending funds to various groups, including the 'Fabian Society', the 'Jewish Labour Movement' and 'Labour Friends of Israel'. This undercover sting operation by the TV network al Jazeera,  showed the extent to which a foreign power (Israel), meddles in the political affairs of this nation and the influence it seeks to exert over some of its politicians.

Both Andrew Gwynne and Jonathan Reynolds, say they are in favour of a 'two-state solution' to the Israeli/Palestine conflict. But when the following motion was moved in the House on 14 October 2014:- 

"That this House believes that the Government should recognise the State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel, as a contribution to securing a two state solution", only one Tameside MP, David Heyes (Lab) Ashton-under-Lyne, voted for the motion. So serious were Gwynne and Reynolds about securing a two state solution that they couldn't even be bothered to vote for the motion. Yet, two months before the vote, on August 14, Gwynne who represents Denton and Reddish, wrote in a local newspaper:

"We need to show that we are actually serious about a two-state solution, and we need a proper discussion in Westminster about illegal Israeli settlements as well as Hamas' rocket attacks from schools." 

There have been calls for Labour Party members to end their association with LFI. At the very least, Mr Gwynne and Mr Reynolds (who are sponsored by Unite the Union) should make clear on their elections leaflets their support for LFI and also make clear, how they lobby on behalf of LFI.

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