Unite Sharon Graham's plan for a new workplace politics by Brian Bamford

THE UNITE ELECTION for GENERAL SECRETARY

Playing Politics or having control in the Workplace?

At the end of June the fringe website WORKERS' LIBERTY announced:

'Unite General Secretary candidate Sharon Graham’s proposals for “a Workers’ Politics” point in the wrong direction. In many respects they are a regression from Unite’s current political strategy.

'The wider output from Graham’s campaign says little about political struggles and largely disparages political trade unionism in favour of “returning to the workplace”. She has denounced rival left candidate Steve Turner and his new backer Howard Beckett as “the Westminster Brigade” (“the Westminster Brigade versus the Workplace”). In fact Graham lumps Turner and right-wing candidate Gerard Coyne together as the Westminster Brigade, as if Coyne rather than Turner winning would not matter!'

The website continues:

'Effective working-class politics does need to be rooted in strong workplace and community organisation and struggles, as opposed to just senior union officials hobnobbing with politicians or social media output; but Graham's stance is reactionary populist posturing.'

This small leftist body WORKERS' LIBERTY focuses here upon the spirit of syndicalism in Sharon Graham's strategy and calls it 'a regression from Unite’s current political strategy'.

They argue 'Graham’s campaign says little about political struggles and largely disparages political trade unionism in favour of “returning to the workplace” and that she 'has denounced rival left candidate Steve Turner and his new backer Howard Beckett as “the Westminster Brigade” (“the Westminster Brigade versus the Workplace”).'

In her own election address Sharon says: 'I am not supported by any clique of MP's. I don't have the machine of the current regime.'

THE HISTORICAL TRADITION of BRITISH SYNDICALISM

THE program set out clearly by Sharon Graham today has roots that go deep in the history of British, and indeed, European trade unionsm. It encompasses ideas that stretch back to the foundation of the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union in the 19th century and was popular before the First World War in 1912 when 'The Miners' Next Step' was formulated and articulated as a project for workplace syndicalism and workers' control.

The Guild Socialist and historian G.D.H. Cole has described how British trade unionists tend to return to militant workplace activity in periods when parliamentary politics fails. If Sharon Graham's message today is anything to go by we may well be entering one of those phases. As I read through the addresses of the candidates for the Unite General Secretary today there seems to be an air of disillusionment with party politics and politicians.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that Sharon Graham is cynically drawing upon a 'reactionary popularist posturing' as the hole-in-the-corner Marxists of the 'WORKERS' ALLIANCE' seem to be suggesting in their critique above. Reading her address it seems to me that she is drawing upon her own insider knowledge and experience to articulate a narative of what could be called modern workplace syndicalism. It is not surprising that the politicians are in bad odour right now. They seem to lack common decency and that goes for the Labour Party as well.

Blacklisting & LABOUR'S Defence of the Boss's Right to Vet

IT not surprising that I note that the Manchester UNITE EPIU Contracting Branch North West/1400 have nominated Sharon Graham. This Manchester branch spearheaded the campaign that led to the exposure of the Consulting Association blacklist in the British building industry in 2009. The reason that the Manchester electricians would be sceptical about professional politicians can be found in a letter sent in 2008 to Graham Brady, then a Conservative MP representing one of the blacklisted Manchester electricians; in this letter dated 30th, April 2008, the then Labour Minister for Employment Relations & Postal Affairs, Pat McFadden wrote:

'Employers often vet the people they hire. It is not the policy of the Government to make it unlawful for employers to undertake such necessary vetting in a systematic way, conferring with previous employers as required. However... the Government is aware that irresponsible vetting can lead to abuse...' Then he reassures Mr. Brady MP and his blacklisted constituwent by sternly declaring: 'The Government remains vigilant in this matter and my Department monitors the evidence that information about trade unionists is being misused to discourage employers from hiring them.'

In truth we now know for sure that blacklisting in the Britsh building trade flourished under Labour Goverments because a year later in 2009, the Consulting Assocation and its blacklist files compiled bt Ian Kerr were sucessfuly confiscated by Dave Clancy, the Infomation Commisiioner. It is with our current knowledge of politicians of all governments have a habit of looking the other way and allowing lives to be ruined by blacklist files. With her knowlege of the BESNA in construction and the leverage campaigns she is able to state: 'We can't rely on politicians and I won't be signing any blank cheques for any party [and] I will stop us becoming a branch of the Labour Party, by moving beyond factions and focusing on policies.'

It is this refreshing down to earth approach to the everyday reality that makes Sharon Graham the ideal candidate for those of us who are sick of the fashionable addicion to virtue signaling and delight in someone who has the spirit of everyday reality about her. The alternative candidates Gerald Coyne and Steve Turner both seem to have a flavour of the political factionalism of current mediocre politics.

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BATLEY & SPEN IDENTITY POLITICS MESS

by Paul Stott on 'SPIKED' 24th June 2021

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde on the death of Little Nell, one must have a heart of stone to read about Labour’s campaign in Batley and Spen and not laugh. With the Conservatives making headway, and George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain targeting both Muslim voters and Old Labour Brexiteers, one opinion poll has the Conservatives ahead by four per cent. Galloway has high hopes of pushing Labour into third place.

This is a constituency twice in the national headlines for the wrong reasons: the 2016 murder of its MP, Jo Cox, by a far-right extremist and the March 2021 Islamist protests outside Batley Grammar School, sparked by a teacher showing Muhammad cartoons to his students, which led to three teachers being suspended. The teacher at the centre of it all is still in hiding. Outgoing Labour MP Tracy Brabin said little of any real substance in support of the Batley teachers, handily clearing the way for her canonisation as the inaugural mayor of West Yorkshire. Her anointed replacement as MP, Kim Leadbeater, styled herself as the candidate the Tories feared. Born and bred locally, and the sister of Jo Cox, Leadbeater seemed the ideal person to protect the Red Wall from further Tory encroachment. Instead, her campaign has lurched from disaster to disaster.

A politician of the old school who works on the stump, George Galloway initially placed the conflict in Gaza centre stage. This soon rallied Muslim activists and Workers Party canvass teams. Labour then took the fateful decision that Leadbeater should fight Galloway on his preferred territory. Labour leaflets began to stress the three core issues the party thought mattered most to Muslim voters – Palestine, Kashmir and Islamophobia. The road to Westminster was to be taken via Al-Quds and Srinagar. A letter from Leadbeater to voters, carrying the words ‘From Batley and Spen for Batley and Spen’ and the Labour logo, opened with the text: ‘As Batley and Spen’s Labour MP I will be a strong voice for Palestinian human rights and statehood.’ None of this has worked. In matters of politics, voters tend to prefer the original to the copy.

There are accusations of prejudice in the constituency – that Leadbeater’s sexuality is an issue for some voters, and even that Keir Starmer’s wife being Jewish has been raised on the doorstep. Last weekend Labour descended into an unedifying bout of infighting after party briefings to the Mail on Sunday, suggesting that it was ‘haemorrhaging’ votes in the contest because of ‘what Keir has been doing on anti-Semitism’. The reaction to this claim was one of fury. The briefings were quickly denounced as ‘Islamophobia’ by the Labour Muslim network and as ‘astonishing’ by Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain. Versi praised Angela Rayner for her ‘strong leadership’ in denouncing comments from one of her own staff.

How to analyse this? In Labour’s civil war, Hackney is now furious with Hampstead. For the Corbynistas, Labour’s heartlands are less the old strongholds of South Wales or County Durham, nor the urbane intelligentsia of Bloomsbury or Hampstead. What matters are those areas that are ethnically diverse and have activist constituency Labour parties. To those more Hackney than Hartlepool, any loss in Batley and Spen, a seat which the 2011 census showed was just under 19 per cent Muslim, is inexcusable, especially at a time of mass protests in support of the Palestinians. A leadership challenge to Keir Starmer, almost certainly coalescing around his deputy Angela Rayner, is sure to follow.

There are accusations of prejudice in the constituency – that Leadbeater’s sexuality is an issue for some voters, and even that Keir Starmer’s wife being Jewish has been raised on the doorstep. Last weekend Labour descended into an unedifying bout of infighting after party briefings to the Mail on Sunday, suggesting that it was ‘haemorrhaging’ votes in the contest because of ‘what Keir has been doing on anti-Semitism’. The reaction to this claim was one of fury. The briefings were quickly denounced as ‘Islamophobia’ by the Labour Muslim network and as ‘astonishing’ by Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain. Versi praised Angela Rayner for her ‘strong leadership’ in denouncing comments from one of her own staff.

How to analyse this? In Labour’s civil war, Hackney is now furious with Hampstead. For the Corbynistas, Labour’s heartlands are less the old strongholds of South Wales or County Durham, nor the urbane intelligentsia of Bloomsbury or Hampstead. What matters are those areas that are ethnically diverse and have activist constituency Labour parties. To those more Hackney than Hartlepool, any loss in Batley and Spen, a seat which the 2011 census showed was just under 19 per cent Muslim, is inexcusable, especially at a time of mass protests in support of the Palestinians. A leadership challenge to Keir Starmer, almost certainly coalescing around his deputy Angela Rayner, is sure to follow.

The Starmerites and the Corbynistas are both receiving a harsh political lesson. They haven ridden the tiger of identity politics together, and each happily abandoned the Batley religious-studies teachers in order to secure the party’s electoral base. They are now finding identity politics is beset with dangerous paradoxes.

Political parties, especially those on the left, once sought to deliver primarily on economic aspirations, while also recognising the importance of the nation state and its endurance. The identitarian left, on the rise in the Labour Party since at least the 1980s, has deliberately downplayed economic questions and ostentatiously rejected any concept of the national, in favour of the idea that all lifestyles and cultures are equal.

For liberal democracies to function, however, it is often necessary to politely but firmly say ‘No’ to interest groups. That is what should have happened at the gates of Batley Grammar. That it did not is now catching up with the Labour Party.

Paul Stott is a writer and commentator. Follow him on Twitter: @MrPaulStott

What chances do the Tories have in Batley and Spen by-election? A pollster gives his verdict

The Tories will be hoping to take a seat held by Labour since 1997

By Alexandra Rogers on YORKSHIRE LIVE website - 1 JUN 2021

When the Tories talk about how tough the Batley by election is going to be for the party to win, it probably isn't solely a lesson in expectations management - for once.

Batley and Spen is a highly unpredictable contest for the Conservatives, as pollsters and psephologists know despite its erroneous categorisation as a "Red Wall" seat that now forms the Tories' stomping ground.

One such expert is James Johnson, a private pollster at JL Partners who, as a former adviser to Theresa May while she was prime minister, knows all about how the party will target Batley and Spen.

Mr Johnson describes the West Yorkshire constituency as "Red Wall 2.0 - that next tier of Labour held seats... that could go Conservative".

What separates Batley from Hartlepool, where the Tories pulled of a resounding victory earlier this month, is that the Brexit party vote share in the 2019 general election was low by comparison.

In Hartlepool, it accounted for 25 per cent of the vote share. Naturally, what happened in that by election was votes transferred from the Brexit party to the Conservatives to allow the party to cross the finish line.

"One of the reasons Batley didn't fall in 2019 and is 2.0 rather than 1.0 is because it doesn't have quite as a high a Brexit party vote share, it has more people from different ethnic groups rather than people from white British backgrounds, and it is in an area that is more suspicious perhaps of the Conservatives," Mr Johnson explains.

It's in the second tier which is a much harder challenge for the Conservatives."

National issues such as the success of the vaccine rollout and the appeal of Boris Johnson will undoubtedly help the Tories, but Mr Johnson's message to the party if they want to win is "get local".

"Everything will be informed by research on the ground," he says.

"In Hartlepool, you saw such a focus on jobs in the area and on Ben Houchen, because their research was telling them that they would like more jobs in the area and that people liked Ben Houchen.

"The Tories will emphasise jobs and investment, there will be reference to the vaccine rollout and we'll probably see this message about voting for change - really positioning the Conservatives as the change candidate to residents who feel like Labour have represented them for a long time but not done much for them."

The 'get local' message might have been missed by the Tories, who have selected Ryan Stephenson, a Leeds councillor and chair of the West Yorkshire Conservatives as its candidate.

Some may believe the importance of having a local candidate has been exaggerated, but Mr Johnson is not one of them.

"The unspoken rule for successful by-elections is you are helped enormously by having a local candidate," he says.

"And that was actually one of the problems for both parties in Hartlepool. There was a lot of kick back that neither candidate was not from the area - the Labour candidate was seen as second-hand goods from Stockton and the Conservative candidate was from North Yorkshire.

"If we're in a situation where one candidate is local and one candidate isn't, that is a real advantage to whoever has got that local candidate."

Labour too faces a battle to retain Batley and Spen, where its majority has declined to number just 3,525 votes going into this election. Their difficulties could well translate into success for the Tories.

The Conservatives face one main threat in Mr Halloran, while the Labour party faces several: the Liberal Democrats, the Green party and of course, leftwing firebrand and party exile George Galloway.

"If Labour are losing votes to the Lib Dems of Greens, who had a good showing in the locals, or if Labour are losing votes to a a George Galloway candidacy, then that is going to be difficult for Labour," Mr Johnson says.

"Even if a Lib Dem or Green candidate isn't particularly good, or out there or visible, their very presence on the ballot paper does take away votes - we saw this in the 2019 general election where actually, some of the Lib Dems weren't actually campaigning that much."

Regarding George Galloway, Mr Johnson says: "Lots of people are very fed up.

"A big reason why people voted Conservative in Hartlepool was because they were fed up with the status quo and wanted a change.

"It is very easy to see George Galloway becoming that person for people who don't like Labour but don't want to vote Conservative. Although he didn't do particularly well in Scotland where he last stood, he is noisy, he is on the ground and he also puts a lot of effort in - he doesn't just sit back and pop up and do a few visits, he really goes for it.

"And he doesn't need to take that many votes from Labour to cause a problem. It really could be just a matter of a couple of thousand of votes and you would see it coming perilously close for Labour."

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Labour’s Scottish Problem. by Les May

IN the early 1970s I worked on an island in the Outer Hebrides. The people who lived there were not the ‘Industrial Proletariat’ so beloved by those of a romantic turn of mind, but small scale ‘entrepreneurs’ who made their living working on their family ‘croft’ and organised into ‘townships’ which annually allocated to each crofter strips of Machair land on which was grown a mixture of rye and black-oats which was cut in late summer to provide winter forage for a few cattle. With sheep summered on the poorer land on the east of the island and wintered on the land close to the house which had been used for hay in summer it provided a living, but not a very luxurious one. My two closest neighbours lived in two room, single story houses with a roof of thatch made from Marram Grass. One had carpets laid on the bare earth floor. Both got water from a tap outside their house

I’ve been back a few times since and, as well as paying my respects at the graves of some of the people I knew, I’ve seen the much greater prosperity enjoyed by the Islanders. The single track road with passing places has gone, there’s a causeway linking six of the islands, there are jobs for women and the two room thatched houses are museum pieces. No wonder Scots voted to stay in the EU. (Incidentally you will see the same improved infra-structure on the islands of Madeira and Tenerife.)

At the time the Scottish Nationalists were described as ‘Tartan Tories’ and the constituency returned a Labour MP. Now it returns both a Scottish Nationalist MSP to Holyrood and an MP to London . The SNP has morphed into, what is in many respects, a social democratic party. Is it possible that Labour and the SNP are fighting over much the same political territory in Scotland, and the SNP is winning? Perhaps Labour should start asking why the SNP has been so successful at invading its territory in Scotland.

Is it possible that the SNP is drawing significant support not for enthusiasm for a ‘go it alone Scotland’, but for the party’s domestic policies? Tory governments in particular have tried to force on Scotland domestic policies which have been less than popular over the border, e.g. water privatisation and the introduction of the Poll Tax a year before it was forced on England. Repeated attempts were made by the Tories to find a way of privatising Caledonian MacBrayne, the ferry service which serves as a lifeline to 22 Scottish Islands. It is now a subsidiary of holding company owned by the Scottish Government.

Social care is funded differently in Scotland than in England. If you think that’s because we English are paying for it, think again. All governments have a limited amount of money to spend; Holyrood just makes choices which are different to those made in London. That does not mean everything is rosy over the border, education and health are areas which have drawn criticism.

At some time in the not too distant future Labour is going to have to confront the fact that the Scottish Parliament may vote to hold a second referendum on independence. It has a choice, it can fly the ‘Union’ flag along with the Tories and oppose a second vote or it can support it and risk there being a ‘Yes’ vote, Scotland becoming independent and no more Scottish MPs in the House of Commons which would effectively seal a succession of Tory government for the rest of time.

Johnson is a chancer. At present he is doing all he can to bypass the Scottish Parliament by means of a veto on its scope for action and by taking on powers which rightly belong with the Scots. The signs are that he is hoping that he can block a second referendum by legal means. He may think this will ‘save the Union’, but if he does he will kill it because it will no longer be a union by consent.

It has been estimated that about a third of Scots actively support independence, a third actively oppose it and the remainder are more ambivalent. Even if these estimates are not very close to the true figures it does suggest that there is some scope for persuading more of the electorate to vote to remain part of the UK. That persuading can only be done by Labour, if only for the selfish reason I alluded to above.

It was a Labour government that in 1998 introduced the Scotland Act which led to the setting up of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Why then is Labour apparently doing so little to oppose Johnson’s power grab? By doing little or nothing it risks being tarred with the same brush as the Tories in the minds of the Scottish electorate. Labour could work with SNP MPs in the House of Commons to form a government. Without the Union and the Scottish MPs it brings there seems to me little chance that we will ever have anything but a succession of Tory governments.

Nicola Sturgeon is a demonstrably competent woman which suggests she is no fool. She must be aware that an ‘independent’ Scotland will face all sorts of difficulties; a long land border with England and the question of what currency it would adopt are just two obvious ones. There’s also the fact that much though she may say she wants to be part of the EU, it’s not a ‘done deal’ and its an aspiration for the future. Perhaps a greater degree of independence within the Union could begin to look a more attractive option. There’s an opening for Labour there.

https://theferret.scot/scottish-water-public-ownership/

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Dedicated Follower Of Fashion by Les May

I STARTED reading the then Manchester Guardian in 1960 when I started work and for the first time had the money to buy it. For forty or so years, during which it changed dropped the Manchester bit, I was a loyal reader, but somewhere around 2000 I finally tired of its increasingly uncritical feminism and stopped buying it.

The final straw was an article about a couple of women who claimed to have ‘taken on’ the builders. It turned out that one was an academic and the other a student and they had worked on a site for all of a fortnight in the middle of summer. In other words not exactly a lifetime working outside in the middle of winter. More like a fortnight in the sun and then back to a nice warm office or lecture theatre for the cold wet weather.

Though Suzanne Moore, with her ever so predictable man bashing columns, has never been one of my favourite journalists, but I certainly warmed to her comments; ‘the cult of righteousness that the Guardian embodies’ and ‘lately it has been hard to define what the Left consists of beyond smug affirmation’ in a piece entitled Why I had to leave The Guardian.

Moore had written an article which, as well as being in her usual man bashing style, complete with references to ‘the patriarchy’ and ‘who the real enemies are’ (a.k.a. Men), included the comment that some women ‘were uncomfortable with people being able to self-declare as a man or a woman – whatever their biological sex – for all sorts of reasons.’. It also referred to the ‘disinviting’ of Selina Todd, a professor of modern history at the University of Oxford, who was due to give a polite two-minute speech of thanks at an event at Exeter College, on the grounds that she had addressed a meeting of the group Woman’s Place UK, which was formed in 2017 after proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act.

This was too much for the sensitive souls at The Guardian and 338 of them took exception to it in a letter to the editor.

So long as the fashion amongst those who like to call themselves ‘of the Left’ was that women, however privileged, were to be seen as the most oppressed creatures in the world, Moore was never short of a market for her wares. But then being ‘trans’ knocked women off the top spot and suddenly Moore found some of her views were unfashionable. Hence the letter.

A friend recently suggested that Labour’s poor showing in the recent election might be because working people had no time for the world of identity politics which has become the go-to issue for many would be activists on the Left. Is it just coincidence that when they were Labour leadership candidates Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey signed up to a pledge put together by the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights? Perhaps working people just have different priorities.

You can find Moore’s original article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2020/mar/02/women-must-have-the-right-to-organise-we-will-not-be-silenced

And her version of the spat at The Guardian here:

https://unherd.com/2020/11/why-i-had-to-leave-the-guardian

For a quite different take on The Guardian look here;

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/05/05/the-ugly-truth-about-the-guardian/

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Salvaging something in the Wreckage. by Les May

THERE’s an understatement!

Last Thursday was not a good day for Labour. I’ve heard three explanations so far; Mandleson ‘It was a hangover of Jeremy Corbyn’, Starmer ‘We lost the trust of working people’, my wife ‘Labour should have focussed on Tory stinginess towards the NHS workers’.

I have a different view. My guess is that what scuppered Labour under Starmer is what scuppered Labour under Corbyn. It’s called Brexit. The people who wanted it in 2019 still want it in 2021. They associate the Tories with Brexit, Labour with being at best lukewarm about it and at worst against it. Whether its downside will have become apparent by 2024 or 2029 is unknown. Perhaps the older Brexiteers will have fallen off their perch or the young ones begun to wonder what all the fuss was about. For the moment Labour is stuck with Starmer and we are all stuck with Boris.

So what can be salvaged. Starmer is probably feeling safe for the moment because the rest of the front bench is so unprepossessing. It’s just possible that Starmer will come to realise that eventually he has to reconnect with those supporters who gave the Labour party a distinct ‘buzz’ under Corbyn and are now leaving or just drifting away from it, though I doubt it. Many of these will be the people who went out ‘on the knocker’ at election time to drum up support from Labour. They won’t be doing that in 2024.

And what about chancer in chief Boris? As we are stuck with the Tories for at least three more years what can we make of this? Curiously enough the results may have an upside. Remember all those particularly nasty sounding Tories who had such a lot to say during the Brexit debate? Remember how Boris had to find a new Chancellor who was more amenable to spending money to fund furlough during the pandemic? Waiting in the wings are a lot of ‘small state’, low public spending zealots. For the moment at least they are unlikely to be able to eject Boris.

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A Matter Of Judgement. by Les May

I DON'T ‘do’ Twitter, Facebook or any other form of ‘social media’, but last evening I had an e-mail from someone who suggested that as I live in Rochdale I should take a look at a recent post by someone called Jay Beecher. It turned out to be a picture of Councillor Faisal Rana and Andy Burnham apparently campaigning together, which inevitably throws into question Burnham’s judgement as it includes a link to the original Rana vote fraud story in the Daily Mail.

Many of the ‘tweets’ which follow are frankly nasty in tone and I know that the person who sent me the link would not want to be associated with their racial element. But this should not be allowed to distract from the fact that in 2018 Faisal Rana did fraudulently vote twice in the council elections of that year.

If the re-emergence of the story causes any embarrassment to Rochdale Labour party and the Council Leader then they have only themselves to blame. Anyone with any sense of decency would have recognised that Faisal Rana should have been asked to resign and the seat re-contested. Not to do so simply brings the Labour party into disrepute.

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Muhammad cartoon teacher fundraiser under scrutiny by Tom Belger in 'SCHOOLS WEEK'

Mon 5th Apr 2021, 5.00

A fundraising campaign for the teacher at the centre of the Muhammad cartoon row is being led by an activist accused of stirring up local ethnic tensions.

It comes as a petition demanding the teacher’s reinstatement reached almost 70,000 signatures.

The staff member’s use of caricatures of the prophet in class sparked protests outside Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire, thrusting it into the middle of a wider row over religion and free speech.

The school has now ordered an independent investigation into its curriculum after immediately suspending the teacher and apologising “unequivocally” over the materials used in RE lessons. The teacher involved is reported to fear for his life after death threats forced him into hiding.

An online fundraising page to help the teacher fight for his “job, reputation and security” secured more than £5,600 in donations within a day of its launch on Wednesday.

Creator Paul Halloran called it the “official fundraiser,” and said he was a family friend who had been asked to set it up.

But Halloran’s involvement in past local community tensions may risk further politicising divides over the issue.

Standing as a candidate in the 2019 local elections, Halloran faced claims from opponents across the political spectrum that he was stirring up ethnic divisions.

Halloran came third in the Barley West ward for the Heavy Woollen District independent party, whose only other local candidate Aleks Lukic was a former UKIP candidate.

Lukics led a controversial campaign to stop non-stunned halal meat being served in schools, with Halloran demanding the council reveal which schools did so.

Kirklees’ Labour council leader Shabir Pandor told the local Yorkshire Live news site their motives were “extreme and dangerous” accusing the pair of trying to “sow division” by politicising the issue.

Conservative leader David Hall agreed all meat should be pre-stunned to avoid animal cruelty, but condemned “those who would try to stir up community tensions” over the issue.

Halloran has also criticised the term “Islamophobia,” saying all racism should be called out. “I don’t see a lot in the Muslim community commenting on grooming gangs and terrorism…. Let’s not invent a word that will stop us debating those things,” he reportedly said, according to the Press local newspaper. He denied accusations of racism.

But Halloran told Schools Week he “wholeheartedly” rejected ‘far-right’ labels, calling them “nonsense” promoted by his political opponents to discredit him. He said he was a respected local man who belonged to no political party, and had friends of “all cultures and religions.”

But he said he remained concerned “the word ‘Islamophobic’ is used at time to stifle reasoned and respectful debate.”

Footage of protests outside Batley Grammar’s gates quickly went viral, catapulting the area into the headlines only a few years after the murder of local Labour MP Jo Cox by a far-right extremist.

Demonstrators’ anger over depictions of Muhammad, reportedly caricatures from French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and the school’s apology for “inappropriate” RE materials quickly sparked a backlash against the backlash.

Many appealed for calm but the row sparked not only fierce rows over blasphemy, schooling, free speech and multiculturalism but also reported death threats. Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi warned debate had been “hijacked by extremists on both sides.”

The DfE swiftly called the protests and threats “completely unacceptable,” and defended the inclusion of controversial curriculum materials. The teacher involved is reported to have been teaching about blasphemy.

National Secular Society chief executive Stephen Evans told Schools Week school leaders “shouldn’t allow blasphemy taboos enforced through intimidation to dictate their teaching.”

The school switched to remote learning amid the protests. The independent investigation will review the “context in which the materials [which caused offence] were used, and to make recommendations in relation to the Religious Studies curriculum so that the appropriate lessons can be learned and action taken, where necessary”.

An independent investigation panel will be appointed over the next fortnight, with the probe set to begin on April 12 and report “towards the end of May.”

,

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Twelve Months of Starmer Socialism by Cliff Jones

I AM tempted to follow the example of Len Shackleton who, possibly inspired by Lawrence Stern in Tristram Shandy, wrote a chapter in his book, The Clown Prince of Soccer, entitled, "The Average Director's Knowledge of Football". It consisted of one blank page.

My blank chapter would be titled, "The commitment of Starmer to socialism."

I ask you, I ask myself, for what possible reason might Starmer have joined a political party called Labour? People have told me that we should put to one side the humanity-based values of Corbyn in order to concentrate upon winning power. I don't believe that such values should ever be demoted. But supposing the 'power first, values second' people are right, how close has Starmer brought Labour to power?

Almost 79 I have never experienced a government of this country that was so lethally inept. Johnson is setting a standard below which it is impossible to fall. I wrote once that to watch Cameron, then May, then Johnson at work was to witness a political limbo dancing competition. Each time the bar was set so low that you were convinced the next dancer could not get beneath it, but they did.

Starmer is taking a penalty kick. The goalie is off the field trying to tie up his laces. The ref blows for the penalty to be taken. Right-winger Starmer waits for the goalie to get back between the posts and then passes the ball to him.

If politics is a game of footy why play to lose? To use good old-fashioned terminology, why take the field with no left-back, no left-half and no left-winger?

As a right-winger, Starmer ain't no Stanley Mathews.

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West Cumberland Mining by David J. Douglass

Will This Be The Last Great Fight Of The BRITISH MINERS?

IT SEEMS utterly ridiculous that the plan to open ONE very small coal mine in Whitehaven which will provide essential steel coal for the steel industry, and supply the work starved area with a total of 2500 jobs should have become such a global battleground. Given the ongoing destruction of the rain forests and jungles, the never-ending consumption of trees one would have thought the ecological warriors would have other things to focus on. Yet here we have the Labour Party as a National Institution ensuring that their Shadow cabinet, and Shadow spokespeople on all subjects took every opportunity to use the TV platforms they had been called to discuss China, or the Far East, the NHS or whatever, to dive straight in an stamp and scream about this coal mine.

Labour has made stopping this mine front and centre of its politics, it tells you that its former alleged commitment to the miners and our communities was skin deep at best and sheer hypocrisy in all probability. Now John Kerry, the architect of the global green capitalist revolution and US ambassador for the Environment and Global Warming has an urgent meeting with the Prime Minister and what is top his agenda? US coal mining, strip mining, world drought, starvation, destruction of forests and natural environments???

NO, our wee coal mine. Remember that at present the coal for British steel, comes from coal shipped from the USA, is he telling us this will now stop? Will US coal be prevented from coming here or being shipped to China or anywhere? No its our mine he wants to stop not theirs. Is American steel now going to stop production, and stop using steel coal? No of course not. So now Boris tells Jenrick to overturn his previous decision to leave the question to the Cumberland County Council who have approved it four times. The Government will now set up 'an enquiry' of course Jenrick has already studied in detail the massive reams of evidence considered at Council public enquiries which had dozens of expert witnesses. He already defacto agreed the case for the mine by not pulling the plug before.

So, its hard to know just what 'new evidence' other than Kerry and the Green hysterics, and Labour and Lib Dem's and the Climate Committee all talking out of their backsides; can look at. If he is genuinely looking at this, I hope I get the chance to speak. The 2500 people of Whitehaven who seen the chance for a new tomorrow and desperately needed jobs and new lives will have their lives left dangling over the crevasse of enduring social deprivation and poverty in one of the most socially neglected areas of Britain meantime, while the well-heeled middle class green liberals are doubtless dancing a jig.

If the mine is stopped, will steel imports and production be stopped, will all steel manufacture be stopped? No, it will not, so will any 'emissions' from coke and steel manufacture be saved? Not at all, not one once of c02 or methane will be 'saved' in fact it will increase because of the extra emissions caused by shipping the steel or coal across the Atlantic or from the Baltic or Australia. This is an exercise in self-serving virtue signalling hypocrisy with more than a touch of class hatred.

This may turn out to be the last great fight of the British miners, we ought never to forget whose side our self declared friends fought on.

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News From The Rumour Mill by Les May

EARLIER this month an article by Tom Taylor appeared on ‘The Mill’ website which contained the text of a letter from RMBC Director of Children’s Services Gail Hopper claimed that school staff had been ‘jumping the queue’ to get themselves vaccinated against Covid 19. The text is given below.

Inevitably this has been interpreted as it being teachers who are doing this and tenuously linked to Labour’s calls for these workers being prioritised over other groups.

When documents are ‘leaked’ like this it is worth asking who will gain? Certainly not the intended recipients.

This question is of more than passing interest as I am aware that the names of specific councillors who are also finding ways of jumping the queue by ‘volunteering’ at local vaccination centres have been passed to a Northern Voices editor and that at least one of the councillors named has been asked to comment on this report. Let’s hope s/he is conscientious at picking up their e-mails.

We live in interesting times!

Dear head teacher,

I am sorry to have to write to you all about this matter and hope that you will understand my purpose for doing so. It has come to our attention that a booking link sent to NHS employees to book a vaccination slot at one of the identified hospital sites, has been inappropriately shared. This was not the intention when the non-transferable link was provided and should not have happened. Not surprisingly it is now spreading widely.

This testing site in the hospitals listed are for NHS patients, staff and social care staff only. This protects community sites for the older age and high risk groups. We know that by it being shared, some school based staff (and others), who are not part of the priority groups identified by government, have booked appointments. Indeed some been [sic] vaccinated. Others are now planning to do the same. Our concern is we are fully committed, to ensuring vaccinations are directed to priority groups first. Rochdale has a tight target to vaccinate all care home residents and staff, residents over 75 years and Clinically Extremely Vulnerable residents, along with NHS and social care staff by 15th February – if sufficient vaccine supplies reach us. This is a really challenging target. For every vaccine given to someone outside the priority groups, the risk is increased of our most vulnerable residents being delayed in receiving it.

The publicity of this happening would be very damaging for the borough. It will also increase the risk that NHSE cancels future supplies until it can be assured that the borough follows the required process. This would be disastrous, given the success so far in delivering up to 1200 daily vaccinations.

I recognise that some colleagues feel unhappy that schools based staff have not been prioritised by government in the first two groups. I fully sympathise with that and if the choice was ours, schools staff would have been in the first group. We continue to lobby government about this issue. However, it cannot be right that individuals use unauthorised routes when to do so denies others with entitlement. The question that I would ask is how would any of us feel if, by one of our colleagues accessing a vaccination, our mother or father was denied.

As I’m sure you’ll recognise, we have to take action to prevent this activity. With immediate effect health and social care staff will be required to attend their booked appointment with ID and a letter that matches that ID from their employer / local authority. We have requested that anyone that cannot provide this be refused access.

We ask that you advise any colleagues who have accessed the link and plan to or have already booked an appointment not to do so. We would rather avoid the embarrassment of them not gaining admission to the vaccination site. Please ask anyone with an appointment booked to cancel it quickly, so it can be offered to those in priority groups. Could you also impress on staff the importance of not passing on this link to any others inside or outside the borough. Some may have received it from contacts in other boroughs as this link is shared with Bury, Oldham and Salford. Any such sharing undermines the efforts to ensure vaccinations are directed to priority groups first. We continue to work locally to identify how we can ensure that all schools colleagues can be invited for vaccination and will try to do this as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your assistance in addressing this difficult issue.

Yours sincerely,

Gail Hopper

Director of Children’s Services

Rochdale Borough Council

Extremists And Deniers by Les May

JUST as I don’t think it is would be particularly helpful to refer to the author of the recent article about the proposed new coal mine in Cumbria as a ‘climate change denier’, I don’t think it is helpful for him to refer to people who have opposed this new mine as ‘climate change extremists’.

Unfortunately the one substantive issue here, the fact that coal is needed as a source of carbon in the production of steel, is lost in this use of emotive language and the desire to turn this into an attack on the Labour party, along with a passing reference to Margaret Thatcher.

Providing jobs does not trump every other consideration. We would think it absurd to argue that we should not reduce the number of plastic bags being used because it will mean fewer jobs manufacturing them or that we should still be burning coal to heat our homes to keep miners in work. In both cases we recognise that there are wider issues to be taken into consideration Ditto the production of coking coal.

At present there is no viable alternative to the use of coal as a source of carbon to combine with the oxygen which is chemically bound to

iron in ores and liberate the free metal. The manufacture of iron and steel is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions and the dumping of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is the major cause of the increase in global temperatures. A warmer atmosphere and warmer oceans means more energy in the global weather system which is the driver of climate change. Nor is it just about weather; an increase in ocean temperature will cause the water of the oceans to expand resulting in a rise in sea level.

But the present lack of a viable alternative does not mean that we should not be doing all we can to mitigate the effects of this.

Producing coke from coal for use in blast furnaces is a very dirty process with a high potential for producing pollution. It is also wasteful compared with iron smelting by means of, for example, direct gasification of coal. This and similar processes would reduce the demand for coal in the production of iron, and as a consequence reduce both the amount of carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere and the number of mining jobs.

We live in a liberal democracy so anyone who wants to attack the Labour party is free to do so. But I don’t think it is a good idea to gloss over the long term effects of carrying on dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from burning coal when doing so.

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Bullying & Arm-Twisting Halts Cumberland County Council Approval of a New Mine

by David John Douglass

I AM so disappointed that the Woodhouse Mine which had passed every test and been approved by the County Council has been suddenly pulled to a halt. This Labour Council had considered the question three times over three years, with a bevy of expert witnesses and public intervention and open debates and approved it three times by substantial majorities.

Every aspect of the application had been examined in forensic detail and no fault could be found in it. Climate extremists had kept up a nonstop campaign to stop the mine. Despite a mass public consultation which overwhelmingly backed the mine, the ‘greens’ would not accept any democratic decision of the council or the locals. First, they sought a Judicial Review, and this was withdrawn by the courts as having no grounds. Then it went to the High Court on the absurd claim that the Council hadn’t considered their arguments, the court struck it down. Then they kicked and screamed and set up a national petition to get people, mainly from the middle class and from the south of England who had never seen a mine or even knew where Whitehaven was to demand a stop to the jobs. They expected Jenrick the Communities Secretary, being a Tory with no love of coal miners or coal mines to block it. They lobbied the Prime Minister to override the Council. They failed, after every obstacle had been overcome and all that was needed now was for the Council to engage in the formality of approving the application (again).

Today Council leaders came to the shocking decision that the judgement will be referred back to their Committee 'after advice from Climate Advisers' obviously with a view to reconsidering the previous overwhelming approvals of the full Council.

So what happened? There has as said been a three-year campaign of bullying, and lobbying against all of the Councillors, XR and Greenpeace moved their full time agents into the area and full time Press Officers have ensure that their friends in the TV and Radio and National Press kept up a nonstop and one sided barrage against the mine and against the Councillors. Doorstepping them, ambushing them on the street, filming outside their houses and through windows of Council meetings.

But there is not the slightest doubt in my mind where this rapid application of brakes comes from and that is the Labour Party PLP and Shadow cabinet.

Firstly, we had Catherine West MP Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Shadow Minister. Brought onto the TV news channels to discus the election of Biden and British American relations she instead launches into an attack on the new mine! Nothing to do with her brief, nothing to do with the programme but Starmer had obviously given the steer to oppose the mine and win votes from the nice liberal greens in the London elections. West was of course the PA to David Lammy who was next in line to carry the torch on Any Questions. Admitting he knew nothing about the mine and nothing about steel making he argued that it should be cancelled because ‘we don’t need coal in this day and age’ and thus proving the point he in fact didn’t know anything about steel making or the need for this mine. But the Prime Directive undoubtedly came from Ed Miliband the Shadow Energy Minister on the Marr programme on Sunday. Once again, this topic had not been on the agenda or Marr’s script but Miliband was determined to let the country in general and Cumberland Council in particular know that Labour wants Dole Not Coal. Obviously, some senior Labour Party Council leaders have been got at and warned to pull the approval. To be a fly on the wall of the calls that must have come thick and fast from London labour Party HQ would have been a great illustration of political duplicity.

Its literally physically and politically sickening. We have yet to discover the date of the Committee Meeting and whether it will be public or we will get to find out who the mysterious ‘Climate Advisers’ are and what they have said that hadn’t already been said in the last three years.

The Committee isn’t bound to withdraw consent, and the full council isn’t bound to agree with them if they did, but it all adds an impossible mental and political strain on decent Councillors men and women who had been trying to the best for their community.

I will be writing to the Council with a view to urging them to hold their nerve and stand their ground and approve the mine. I hope you will join me and do so yourselves.

So next time we think back in anger when they try to unveil the statue of Thatcher and we turn up to protest at the slaughter of our mines and robbing the miners and our families of secure futures. We should also remember that Starmer and Labour have just banged a stake through our hearts to ensure we don’t come back to haunt them. With a Labour Parliamentary Party like this who needs bloody Tories?

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From Mark Birkett further to Les May's article:

WHILST it's important that everyone in Rochdale hold their respective ward councillors to account for their WHOLESALE lack of oversight regarding Rochdale MBC Chief Executive Steve Rumbelow's pay abuse, it's important NOT to end up in cul-de-sac arguments about whether he Mr Rumbelow 'worth it' or not. Though public-sector pay at the higher echelons of Rochdale Council and elsewhere in the UK is pretty clearly out of control, that is a SEPARATE and ultimately distracting argument.

The TRULY SALIENT points regarding Mr Rumbelow's paypacket in Rochdale are:

1) NO-ONE can do two full-time jobs at once, not even Mr Rumbelow. Yet that is PRECISELY what Mr Rumbelow is being paid for. TWO full-time jobs.

2) Yet on July 18th 2018, the entire Labour and Tory councillor groups VOTED IN FAVOUR of Mr Rumbelow doing these two FULL-time jobs without giving the slightest consideration to the real ramifications of the sheer impossibility of such. Rumbelow is paid £140,000 per year as a FULL-TIME CEO, and a further £45-50,000 / year as a FULL-TIME 'Accountable Officer' in the NHS.

3) That Mr Rumbelow refuses to answer what PROPORTION of his working day is now spent working for the NHS (and thus demonstrably NOT spent on his full-time role as RMBC Chief Executive). That is a TRAVESTY of democratic accountability

.

4) Most damaging of all for Rochdale Council's tattered reputation, is that we now know that Rochdale MBC's 60 x councillors have been TOLD by the Borough Solicitor "not to respond" to constituent queries about the matter. Instead of the Borough's most senior legal advisor keeping his advice within a LEGAL remit, he has interfered with DUE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS. No explanation has been provided for him singling out THIS issue for councillors 'not to respond' to, nor even what time limit might apply to this absurd advice to them all, despite him being asked (twice).

This advice to Rochdale MBC councillors is one the key reasons no-one can get any straight answers from ANY councillor regarding their failure to scrutinise this executive pay package and associated dual duties properly, and is perhaps also why Mr Rumbelow feels ZERO obligation to tell taxpayers what he does all day long. Let's be clear: neither the NHS nor Rochdale MBC are benefiting from the so-called 'efficiencies' due to the integration of health care commissioning and social care. The ONLY person benefiting here is Mr Rumbelow.

To add insult to injury, Mr Rumbelow just received a WHOPPING 25% pay rise to the NHS element of his vast income, yet as we speak Rochdale Council is seriously proposing that care home fees to the vulnerable elderly in the Borugh be hiked by 5% next year ... all in order to 'save' the Council £80,000 per year -ironically almost exactly the same sum Mr Rumbelow has trousered since July 2018 for this impossible second role at the NHS.

It MUST be stopped.

The Budget Council meetings on 3rd and 10th March 2021 are where this appalling abuse of the public purse COULD be called into question and reviewed from scratch. But that will only happen IF councillors are all pressured to do so.

By you. Today.

And they WILL listen to you. After all, the local elections are coming soon enough (vaccines permitting). So it is VITAL for Rochdalians to threaten not to vote for ANY councillor who refuses to stop this pay abuse, or who refuses to call a motion to review Mr Rumbelow's ridiculous dual role, or who continues to take part in refusing to provide answers to legtimate queries form constituents on this matter.

Remember:

This is YOUR money at stake here. Thousands in Rochdale have lost their jobs, their businesses and their incomes due to COVID. And old people do NOT want to be forced to pay even more for their care in care homes to save the council money whilst the Chief Executive waltzes off with an eye watering pay packet AND a 25% pay rise in one year to boot .

And this is YOUR democracy at stake here too. Councillors must be FORCED to answer legitimate constituent queries, or be removed from office.

It's up to ALL of us to deal with this.

Mark Birkett, Resident, Kingsway, Rochdale

Rochdale's Reputation for Cover-ups

ON Wed 18 Mar 2015 a former editor of Rochdale's Alternative Paper (RAP), John Walker, wrote a piece in The Guardian entitled 'Our Cyril Smith story came out in 1979. What followed was a 36-year cover-up':

'Finally the hunt is on to nail those responsible for aborting police inquiries into the child sex abuse allegations against the late Liberal MP Cyril Smith and other – as yet unnamed – establishment figures from the 1970s and 1980s. But his abuses have been covered up and ignored for over 35 years. Why should the victims feel that anything much has changed in recent days'...

'I write as co-editor of the Rochdale Alternative Paper, which in May 1979 published a 2,000 word article, quoting in graphic detail from the testimonies of boys Smith had sexually abused a decade and a half earlier. The article was cleared legally by three prominent lawyers, on a pro-bono basis. They went through every word with a view to potential libel pitfalls. On legal advice we sought Smith’s comments prior to publication. We received none directly: only a bungled “gagging” writ, which failed to prevent publication...

'Rochdale council made Smith a freeman of the borough, named a room in the town hall after him and, in a ceremony attended by the current MP Simon Danczuk, put up a blue plaque in his honour – now taken down, apparently to prevent vandalism. More rubbing the noses of many victims in their misery, on their home patch.'

The conclusion John Walker came to in 2015 was:

'Smith had got away with it. He increased his parliamentary majority and, emboldened by his escape from justice, possibly continued his abuse of pubescent boys for two decades. Action in 1979 could have stopped him in his tracks, and prevented abuse and misery for future victims. Files on Smith’s child abuse were passed around police forces and the security services in the 1970s and 1980s – with no prosecutions. More covering up and inaction, instead of an end to his abuse.'

On that occasion following the emergence of the first Jimmy Savile revelations in 2012, Northern Voices and Paul Waugn then of the Politics Home site (now of the Huff Post) interviewed several of Smith's victims ultimately resulting in Channel 4’s Dispatches programme running an episode on Smith. Which Walker says 'did justice to the subject, but was allotted a ludicrous graveyard airing slot'.

Editorial Observation:

In recent times the case of the self-confessed electoral fraud Cllr. Faisal Rana and his surprising rise to power on Rochdale Council, has followed a pattern parelling the cover-ups involving Cyril Smith. A former CID officer told me that a report on Smith had been sent to the then Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) but had come back as 'Not in the Public Interest'. Similarly complaints have been ongoing about Cllr. Faisal Rana and it seems that the Rochdale police may have toned-down their report to the CPP and have failed to emphasis that it may have involved postal vote fraud which would require a prison sentence.

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LABOUR Cllr JAILED for 17 months After Committing Fraud To Win His Seat

By jaybeecher Posted on January 20, 2021

CHAUDHARY Mohammed Iqbal, 51, told election officials that he lived in Ilford so that he could trick them into thinking he met the legal requirements to run for a seat in the constituency. In doing so, he committed electoral fraud.

Mr Chaudhary then broke the law yet again after his questionable election win in 2018, by continuing to hold that seat of office based on his lies, and to collect thousands of pounds in expenses payments.

When police began to investigate, Iqbal encouraged his tenant Kristina Stankeviciute to lie on his behalf and tell officers that he lived in a converted living room at the Ilford property.

Miss Stankeviciute has since left the country and a European warrant for her arrest was issued in December last year.

Iqbal had given multiple false addresses in his attempts to run for local office and successfully sat as a Labour councillor for more than two years, claiming more than £18,000 in expenses and allowances.

The former councillor pleaded guilty to three counts of making false statements in candidate nomination papers and one count of perverting the course of justice.

Iqbal, who has since moved to Preston, appeared at Southwark Crown Court earlier this month and was sentenced to a total of 17 months in prison.

He was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £10,422.54, compensation to Redbridge Council of £10,000 for the by-election costs and compensation to Redbridge Council of £18,368 for the allowances paid to him and will not be allowed to run for office for at least five years.

EDITORIAL FOOTNOTE:

A Fashion for Fraud: How many more cases?

This case seems to have some similarities to the Rochdale case in which Faisal Rana was cautioned in 2018 for voting twice in the local elections. Some feel that the now Rochdale Labour Councillor Rana was let off lightly by the authorities. His party and the Rochdale council allowed him to remain in office despite the scandal.

At the time, in 2018, Councillor Rana told Sky News:

‘I have accepted a police caution for an electoral offence, which relates to me casting separate votes for two different wards in two different Constituencies (Spotland and Falinge, and Norden Ward) in the local elections earlier this year.

‘I legally registered my votes by providing my genuine national insurance number, date of birth and addresses and when I received these through the post I thought it would have been OK and that is why they issued me two ballots for two constituencies. ‘I did not realise this was an offence and misinterpreted the rule that says it is possible to vote in two different electoral areas. ‘As soon as this was brought to my attention I went for a voluntary interview at local police station and co-operated with police fully in this regard.’

The trouble is that Faisal Rana obtained postal votes which involved him in a seemingly illegal application, and this may yet still come back to bite him. Indeed compared to CHAUDHARY Mohammed Iqbal who has now moved to Preston; Cllr. Faisal Rana has had a charmed life rising to the top in the Labour Party despite admitting to election fraud. But then againn Rochdale's authorities overlooked the the ashortcomings of Cyril Smith for decades.

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Meet The Wrong Type of Jew, The Media Doesn't Want You To Know Exists | ...

Nothing To Gain, Everything To Lose by Les May

A JEWISH lady by the name of Jenny Manson had an interesting message left on her answerphone which went as follows, "You fucking Nazi bitch… You should burn in the gas oven. You dirty fucking bitch… Stinking, stinking swine… You deserve … to burn in acid." Even more interesting is that the police tracked down the caller and found him to be a middle-aged Jewish man. He was formally cautioned for the offence of malicious communications in May 2019.

Manson it seems is ‘the wrong sort of Jew’. Her crime is that as a co-chair of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) she draws attention to the fact that there is a diversity of opinion amongst British Jews both about the level of anti-semitism in the Labour party and about the behaviour of the government of Israel towards Palestinians.

In November she was interviewed by Kirsty Wark about the decision to readmit Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour Party. According the Jewish Chronicle there were ‘complaints logged with the BBC by Jewish campaigners angry at Newsnight’s decision to invite Ms Manson onto the show only a few weeks after the appearance of another leading figure in JVL Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi.’

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi was suspended from the Labour party a few days ago. Her crime? There were complaints that she had made some members ‘uncomfortable’ perhaps because she had said, ‘The idea that Jewish people require for their comfort that whole swathes of subjects should not be debated by the membership of this party is insulting to Jewish people.’

The Labour party bars everyone suspended or investigated from sharing any details of their cases. But we do know that Wimborne-Idrissi is not the only Jewish member of the party to have been suspended or investigated on accusations of anti-semitism. The figure now seems to be more than twenty, and includes a significant proportion of the members of the JVL committee. Commenting on the psychological impact on Labour party members who have received Notices of Investigation. She has said: ‘It is Kafkaesque, You are not told who is accusing you. And you are not allowed to discuss it with anyone. So you receive this devastating letter – and are immediately isolated.’

We can gain some insight into what is going on from a comment made about her; ‘She can marry whomever she pleases and hold whatever ideological stance she finds attractive. Naomi Wimborne was free to marry a Muslim, and become Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi... But, given her life choices, is Naomi really in a position to talk publicly as if she is representative of British Jewish identity?’

Some people might find the comment implicitly offensive or suggest it verges on ‘racism’. But the real import of it, as with the complaints to the BBC about interviewing two members of Jewish Voice for Labour on Newsnight, is that it is an attempt to silence people who will not accept that the views presented in Jewish Chronicle and by the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), are representative of those of all British Jews.

In addition to Jewish Voices for Labour there are a number of other organisations, Independent Jewish Voices, Jewish Socialists’ Group, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Manchester Jewish Action for Palestine, Free Speech on Israel, which are equally representative of the views of British Jews. The JLM organisation differs from these other Jewish organisations because it has what Jewish Voices for Labour has called a ‘profoundly Zionist orientation’ and seems to be unwilling to be in any way critical of the treatment of Palestinians by the state of Israel.

So anxious is JLM to control the narrative around accusations and definition of anti-semitism, and by inference around Labour’s attitude to the treatment of Palestinians by the state of Israel, that in April 2018 it asked for, and received, a guarantee that JLM would remain Labour's only Jewish affiliate, after suggestions that Jewish Voices for Labour might be allowed to affiliate.

The Jewish Chronicle has described JLM as a 'gathering-place for moderates concerned about the direction the party is taking under Mr Corbyn' and JLM has changed its rules to facilitate this by allowing non-Jews to have affiliate membership so providing a base for attacking him. But the fact that so many Jewish members of the Labour party have been accused of anti-semitism suggests to me that what we are seeing is Labour being the battleground chosen by the Zionist oriented JLM to drown out the voices of protest from other non-Zionist oriented Jews. Corbyn was a reluctant accessory to this; Starmer, Nandy, Long-Bailey and Rayner have jumped in with both feet and embraced it by signing up to the ‘Ten Pledges’ I have written about previously.

Is it not absurd that a definition of anti-semitism is being adopted by the Labour party which can be used against Jewish members on the basis of complaints made by other Jewish members and organisations, some of which like CAA, (Campaign Against Antisemitism) are utterly pernicious and adopt dubious tactics to discredit their opponents? Labour has nothing to gain and everything to lose by allowing this battle to be fought on its territory. Blackmailers always come back for more.

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An Appeal By David Graeber Re: Labour 'Antisemitism'

Britain’s First Socialist Film?

(and where you can watch it for free!)

by Christopher Draper

I GREW UP addicted to TV and loved “Robin Hood”, “Play for Today”, “Boys from the Blackstuff” and “The Monocled Mutineer” but kicked the habit long before the emergence of shopping channels, Ant & Dec and Jeremy Kyle. If Britain’s Got Talent it’s not evident from TV – the opium of the people.

Radical Cinema

RADICAL director Ken Loach was on telly in the 1960’s but as the medium grew increasingly idiotic shifted to cinema, where for decades he’s almost single-handedly kept alive the fragile flame of Britain’s socialist film culture. Loach wasn’t our first socialist director yet so little regarded is political cinema in Britain that lefties are more able to identify radical foreign film makers like Eisenstein, Vigo or Bunuel than any British pioneer.

Socialists and Film Makers

THERE were four decades of film making in Britain before in 1933 a trio of iconoclastic activists created the Socialist Film Council (SFC) with the intention of producing politically conscious films for public showing. The leading lights were Rudolph Messel (1905-1958), Raymond Postgate (1896-1971) and George Lansbury (1859-1940) with Messel the prime mover. Postgate was a writer and founder member of the British Communist Party and as a left-wing dissident, he was one of the first to resign in 1922 for refusing to follow the Moscow line. During WWI Postgate had been expelled from university, gone on the run and been gaoled for conscientious objection. George Lansbury was President of the Socialist Film Council and leader of the Labour Party, a role he’d accepted in 1931 when Ramsey MacDonald “ratted”, allied with the Tories, formed a “National Government” and imposed savage cuts and the “Household Means Test” on the unemployed.

As a Labour activist and accomplished amateur film maker Rudolph Messel was a key player in bringing socialist politics to the big screen. Like Postgate he’d enjoyed a privileged upbringing but was much slower to embrace socialism. At Oxford he’d participated in the notorious “Hypocrites Club” whose membership included Evelyn Waugh, Terrence Greenidge, Anthony Powell, Tom Driberg and Roger Hollis. In 1924 Messel and fellow hypocrite Greenidge jointly produced an amateur film entitled, “Big Dog”. The club was closed down by the University authorities the following year after staging an outrageous “Nuns and Choirboys” event. Messel’s friendship with Greenidge endured and in 1926 the pair jointly produced and directed “Next Gentleman, Please!” featuring their hypocritical associates in a film exhibited in Oxford’s “Super Cinema”. During the 1926 General Strike Messel, still firmly enamoured of the louche lifestyle, pitched in on the government side but educated by the experience he moved ever closer to socialism and developed a particular interest in Soviet film making. After visiting Hollywood in 1927, the following year he wrote “This Cinema Business”, described by his publisher, Ernest Benn, as “the first comprehensive and serious study of the Film in our language”. In 1929 and 1931 Messel stood unsuccessfully as a Labour parliamentary candidate and in 1932 was a member of a prestigious Fabian Research Bureau group that enjoyed a two month long “fact-finding” tour of the Soviet Union.

Socialist Film Council

RAYMOND Postgate and novelist Naomi Mitchison accompanied Messel touring Russia and on their return all three contributed chapters on their observations to a compendium volume, “Twelve Studies in Soviet Russia” edited by Margaret Cole and published by Gollancz. They also collaborated in producing the Socialist Film Council’s first film “The Road to Hell”, written by Postgate and directed by Messel. The film depicts the devastating effects of the National Government’s austerity policies upon a working class East End family. The novelist Naomi Mitchison, in the words of the Daily Herald critic “acted beautifully” in the role of the mother of the family. Postgate played the role of the father. Messel also appeared in the guise of a drunken playboy while fellow “hypocrite” Terrence Greenidge played the part of Freddy, the family’s elder son. Daisy Postgate, Raymond’s wife, and George Lansbury’s daughter, played Freddy’s girlfriend. With many of the domestic scenes filmed in Lansbury’s 39, Bow Road home it all made for an accomplished though economical production. Premiered in London on Friday 28 July 1933, Lansbury himself attended the show and a couple of months later introduced the film to delegates attending the Labour Party’s annual conference in the White Rock Pavilion, Hastings. Although the film was generally well received where shown it proved impossible to secure a general release. Cinemas were dominated by Hollywood and ultimately controlled by local authority licensing committees eager to ban Socialist Film Council films as did Birmingham Council in 1935.

Watch “The Road to Hell”

DESPITE Lansbury’s influence the labour movement gave little material support to the SFC and although it managed to complete one more film this spark of socialist cinema would have been extinguished if it had relied entirely on the organised labour movement. Fortunately a few isolated though determined and largely forgotten individuals did successfully produce politically radical films into the 1960’s when Ken Loach memorably lit the “Big Flame”. I’ll post more on these overlooked directors and studios in future NV posts but for now watch and be inspired by “The Road to Hell” on the British Film Institute website (no charge or registration required!)

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