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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Has Hodge lost the plot over exaggerated claims of Labour anti-Semitism?

Chuka Umuna, Luciana Berger and Tristram Hunt

I wonder what the American playwright Arthur Miller would have made of all this crazy hysteria about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. It certainly has a touch of the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism about it. Apart from the 'Jewish Chronicle', 'Jewish News' and the 'Jewish Telegraph', does anyone seriously believe that a Corbyn-led Labour government, would pose an 'existential threat' to Jews living in Britain?

Although the Labour MP Ruth Smeeth has claimed that under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour was not a "Safe space for British Jews", a group of fifteen Jewish Labour Party supporters recently wrote to the Guardian about the furore over anti-Semitism. They denied that Jewish people were living in fear of an 'existential threat' as some have claimed and pointed out that Jewish people are not threatened with deportation in this country, death in custody, stop and search, or economic discrimination, that many black and Asian people face on a daily basis.

Yet, Dame Margaret Hodge (née Oppenheimer) the Labour MP for Barnet, who slanderously called the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a ‘fucking, racist, anti-Semite’, recently said in an interview that when she received a letter from the Labour Party saying  she faced a disciplinary investigation for her insulting remarks, it made her think - ‘What it felt like to be a Jew in Germany in the 3os.’ Hodge said she felt that - ‘they were coming for me’ and it reminded her of what her dad used to say to her as a child:

‘You've got to keep a packed suitcase at the door Margaret, in case you ever have to leave in a hurry.’

Have you ever heard anything more bleedin' ridiculous, talk about milking the holocaust! The Irish writer Brendan Behan would have perhaps understood Dame Margaret's persecution mania. He once remarked - "Others have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis." 

Despite the Nazi slur, Hodge was told that if she apologised, no action would be taken against her. Though disciplinary action was dropped against Hodge, who was a one-year-old when WWII ended - and still acts like she's a one-year-old - after  some Labour MPs threatened to leave the party, a Labour Party spokesman said: 

‘The comparison of the party's disciplinary process with Nazi Germany is so extreme and disconnected from reality, it diminishes the seriousness of the issue of anti-Semitism.’

Despite repeated claims that the Corbyn-led Labour Party, is mired in antisemitism, there has been a distinct lack of evidence to support any such claim. When Labour N.E.C. member Peter Willsman suggested that Jewish 'Trump fanatics' were making up allegations of antisemitism in the party and accused some Jews of "making up duff information without any evidence at all", Jewish community leaders reacted furiously, accusing Willsman of a disgusting rant against the Jewish community. The Board of Deputies, called for Willsman to be expelled from the Labour Party for his "Slur against the Jewish community." To ask where is the evidence? hardly seems, to most reasonable people, to suggest anti-Semitism or a slur on the Jewish community.

While anti-Semitism can be defined as "hostility to Jews as Jews", the term is being used in the most arbitrary of ways to silence critics and political opponents and free-speech. Jackie Walker who is Jewish and was Vice Chair of Momentum, was suspended twice for anti-Semitism, when she claimed that  many Jews including her own ancestors, were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade. Ken Livingstone, was suspended from the Labour Party and denounced by some as an anti-Semite, when he suggested that Hitler supported Zionism with the 'Haavara Agreement', signed in August 1933.


Corbyn has said that he's aghast at the spread of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and would "not for one moment accept that a Labour government would represent any kind of threat" to Jewish life in Britain.


What seems to unite many of those who claim that Labour is mired in anti-Semitism, is they are, by and large, anti-Corbyn. They are horrified  at the very thought of a Corbyn-led  socialist Labour government and would prefer almost anything, even a Tory government. The Board of Deputies of British Jews have criticised Corbyn's links with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and they believe that to de-legitimise the state of Israel is anti-Semitic.


Chuka Umunna, (pictured above), the grandson of High Court Judge, Sir Helenus Milmo, has accused Labour of 'institutional racism'. But he's been criticised for using the anti-Semitism row, to justify his plans for founding a breakaway political party. His former girl friend, Luciana Berger, the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree (also pictured), is a former Director of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). She once claimed that she had been spat on at a student conference for being Jewish. Ruth Smeeth, the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove, since 2015, is a former employee for the pro-Israel lobby group, 'Britain Israel Communications Centre' (BICOM).

According to WikiLeaks, Smeeth was identified by a U.S. embassy diplomatic cable as a "strictly protect" U.S. informant. Her husband Michael Smeeth, was a member of the 'British American Project' (BAP). In June 2016, Smeeth resigned her position in Corbyn's shadow cabinet. Her resignation coincided with 60 co-ordinated resignations by plotters aimed at forcing Corbyn to resign.


In 2004, the Guardian reported that BAP (possibly CIA funded), was essential in the formation of Tony Blair's 'New Labour' and described it as a Trojan horse for U.S. foreign policy. Two years ago (July 2016), Robert Stevens writing on the 'World Socialist Website', claimed that right-wing supporters of Tony Blair were spearheading an attempt to remove Jeremy Corbyn and to set up a new right-wing party in "intimate collusion" with the security services in Britain and the U.S. Stevens claimed that the plotters wanted to reverse the referendum result and re-fashion the Labour Party as a tool to carry this out.


Corbyn and his supporters, such as the union leader Len McCluskey, think that by Labour adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, they can draw a line under the anti-Semitism row. This is highly unlikely and will probably result in even more accusations of anti-Semitism.

Despite denials that the IHRA definition does not conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, this is disputed by  Stephen Sedley, a former appeal court judge. In May 2017, (London Review of books), Sedley wrote that the definition failed the first test of any definition because "it is indefinite", and posed a threat to free speech. And to talk about anti-Semitism as solely a matter of perception, is according to Sedley, likely raise more questions than it answers.


In his article Sedley wrote that policy was not law and that "criticism (and equally defence) of Israel or of Zionism is not only generally lawful: it is affirmatively protected by law."

He added:
‘Endeavour to conflate the two by characterising everything other than anodyne criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic are not new. What is new is the adoption by the UK government (and the Labour Party) of a definition of anti-Semitism which endorses the conflation.’

The Corbyn witch-hunt is not likely to end with any adoption of a new definition of anti-Semitism and only a fool would think otherwise.

See also:    www,greenswipe.blogspot.com 

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Jolly jaunt to Israel by Tameside Labour MPs causes outrage!

Tameside Labour Friends of Israel - Jonny Reynolds & Andrew Gwynne on recent trip to Israel.

A group of Labour MPs have caused outrage by taking a jolly jaunt to Israel and posting tourist-type photos of themselves, shortly after the killing of over 60 Palestinians, which included eight children under the age of 16, at the Gaza barrier on 14 May 2018. At least 2,400 people were also wounded.

The tweeted picture of six Labour MPs and a Labour peer, includes Jonathan Reynolds MP (first left), who represents the constituency of Stalybridge and Hyde and Andrew Gwynne MP (second left), who represents the Denton and Reddish constituency. Although the trip has been described as a "parliamentary delegation", the group are all members of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). Jonathan Reynolds is currently one of nine Labour LFI officers in Parliament and Andrew Gwynne is a former Chairman of LFI and is now a  LFI supporter. During their visit to Israel the group met with the Israeli Labour leader, Isaac Herzog, an advocate of disengaging with and fencing off Palestinians.

Israel is often described as the only real democracy in the Middle East. Yet it is a racist and an apartheid state, where the Israeli Prime Minister can describe Arabs as beasts, and where Palestinians are prevented from marrying Palestinians living outside Israel or from returning to their Palestinian homeland. Arabs are also prevented from living in hundreds of Jewish communities under the 'Access to Communities Act', which allows existing residents to bar Arabs from renting property there. Many Israeli settlements that have been built on the West Bank are also illegal under international law.

In 2017, a young Israeli Embassy official called Shai Masot, was caught on camera plotting to 'take down' UK MPs who have been outspoken supporters of a Palestinian state. He was filmed asking a UK civil servant Maria Strizzolo, "Can I give you some MPs that I would suggest you take down." Masot had links and was sending funds to various groups including, the 'Fabian Society', 'Labour Friends of Israel', the 'Jewish Labour Movement' and 'We Believe in Israel'. 

In what is beginning to resemble a McCarthyite witch-hunt, a number of Labour members including the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, have  been accused of anti-Semitism or of infringing Labour Party rules for criticising Israel and its policies towards the Palestinians. Jonathan Arkush, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, recently accused Jeremy Corbyn of "siding with anti-Semites." Jackie Walker, the vice chair of Momentum was removed from her position when she said many Jews including her ancestors had been the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade. Ken Livingstone was suspended by the Labour Party when he said that the Nazi's and Zionists had collaborated when they drew up the Haavara Agreement in 1933. Labour Party member, Jean Fitzpatrick, was denounced as an anti-Semite when she asked how a two-party state in Israel could be achieved in the face of the "atomisation of the West Bank."

It is highly unlikely that Shai Masot would have had Reynolds or Gwynne in mind when he talked about "taking down" certain MPs. The dynamic duo have long-standing links with LFI and are almost Zionist poster boys. Slaughter or no slaughter, both MPs have issued statements defending their decision to go on the Israeli trip.

Andrew Gwynne said that he'd been tasked with opening the debate on anti-Semitism for the Labour frontbench and the day after:

"I was interviewed alongside a holocaust survivor. She begged me...to visit Yad Vashem - the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. I agreed and this Whitsun Recess has been my opportunity to make good on my word...That I've honoured my commitment...I hope will be recognised for the right intention."

Jonathan Reynolds said that he had taken the opportunity to attend a delegation of Labour MPs to Israel and Palestine.

"This will be my fourth visit to the region since I first went in 2004. Wherever you go within Israel you see Muslim, Jews and Christians living their daily lives alongside one another. Israel is the only real democracy in the Middle East and the only country where minorities have full equality before the law. The result is a truly dire situation for the people of Gaza, as evidenced recently by their willingness to effectively walk into live gunfire in their desperation."

Unlike the Labour MP Catherine West, who demanded that her name be removed from the LFI website and utterly condemned the actions of the Israeli army in Gaza, Reynolds and Gwynne have not issued statements condemning the massacre at the Gaza barrier in May. Although reports have suggested that many of the people who were killed were shot by Israeli sniper fire, Reynolds would have us believe that the Palestinians brought about there own deaths by effectively, like lemmings, walking into live gunfire.

What Reynolds does as  a LFI officer in Parliament isn't clear, but no doubt, many of his constituents would be keen to know who paid for his trip to Israel and whether he notified his CLP of his intended visit and whether Stalybridge CLP members, endorsed the visits and the comments that he has made. It is also curious that neither Reynolds or Gwynne ever mention on their election leaflets, their involvement in Labour Friends of Israel. The public have a right to know.