Politics

From Ukraine. What the news doesn’t tell you

~ Urban Dandy London ~ Leave a comment

Editor’s Note

The words below were sent to us anonymously. The author is in northern Ukraine and therefore writing at risk to their own security.

The author contacted us after reading an article we published on attitudes to the Ukraine war.

As our anonymous contact expressed views that aren’t given coverage, and could be said to be suppressed, in Britain, I responded with some questions, and the article below is their answer to one of these questions.

The author is an eyewitness, a historian by education and a keen observer of legislative and political trends in Ukrainian society.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February, the prominent role of the far-right in Ukrainian politics has been carefully avoided in the British media’s coverage of the war.

Stepan Bandera, referred to throughout the article, was a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator responsible for atrocities committed against Jews, Poles and Russians during the second world war.

Recently, leaked documents from the Pentagon revealed that the UK provides the majority of NATO states’ Special Operations Forces in Ukraine. This is in addition to the UK training Ukrainian troops; the donation of 14 British tanks to fire depleted uranium darts; hundreds of British citizens joining Ukraine’s foreign legion; and the UK’s intelligence-gathering surveillance on behalf of Volodymyr Zelenskky government, among other significant British contributions to Ukraine’s war effort.

The leaks also revealed that the claim consistently made by leaders of NATO states, that Russia is struggling to defeat Ukraine, is false.

English is not the author’s first language and I made some minor edits for fluency, but otherwise the text is as they sent it, and the links are the ones they included. Where there are two links, the first is the one provided by the author, and the second is one I added if the first did not work.

Tom Charles @tomhcharles

Answers to questions about Ukrainian fascism

By Anonymous

First of all, it should be said that English is not my native language. In this regard, there may be translation inaccuracies and incorrect wording. Please take this into account when reading this document.

In addition, you raised questions that require evidence.

I am a historian by education, so I know the method of proof.

In this regard, as a specialist, I must immediately warn that it will take considerable time (weeks, months) and resources to provide systematic and comprehensive evidence on your questions.

Therefore, in this relatively short answer, I will refer to a few, but the most significant or characteristic evidence that reflects the system.

Moreover, what I am talking about, one way or another, I see with my own eyes through the media directly from the Ukrainian authorities, I personally see in the legislative acts of my country (Ukraine), I see with my own eyes on the streets of my hometown and my country, I perceive in personal communication with their friends and so on.

I also use the analytics of trusted anti-fascist authors, whose words I passed through my own internal and very strict critical apparatus and aroused confidence.

QUESTION: How are Stepan Bandera and the Azov battalion glorified today in Ukraine?

About Stepan Bandera.

One of the first, most noticeable for the whole society, attempts to glorify S. Bandera was made back in 2010 by the third President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko.

By his decree No. 46/2010 of January 20, 2010, he awarded S. Bandera the title of Hero of Ukraine (posthumously).

Link to the decree on the official website here or here.

It should be noted that later, in 2011, the Ukrainian court cancelled the above decree of the President of Ukraine. However, it was cancelled for a formal reason, since, according to current Ukrainian laws, it is only the citizens of the state of Ukraine that was created after 1991 that can be awarded the title of ‘Hero of Ukraine’. And Bandera was not formally a citizen of present-day Ukraine. On the very fact of the glorification of Bandera, the presidential decree was not appealed.

The above decree of the President of Ukraine caused a public outcry and was actively covered in the media.

Link to news for example, here.

Thus, the glorification of Bandera began.

However, one should take into account the time when this first major attempt to officially glorify S. Bandera took place – 2010. This is the period in Ukraine when the fascist ideology has not yet finally won in Ukraine and the entire repressive state mechanism had not been activated against those who do not agree with the glorification of Bandera and reasonably consider him a fascist. Such a turning point occurred after the so-called Euromaidan (Revolution of Dignity) in 2014, after which the glorification of Bandera acquired a new, comprehensive scale.

So, after 2014, the total glorification of Stepan Bandera was as follows:

• Bandera began to be glorified by the highest bodies of state power in Ukraine, as well as

their representatives;

• Streets were named after Bandera;

• Popular cultural figures began to glorify Bandera;

• They began to establish awards named after Bandera;

• Bandera began to be glorified in the media by journalists, public figures, and

opinion leaders;

• Bandera began to be glorified at rallies and in other ways.

As a result, S. Bandera began to gain popularity among the masses. In support of the above theses, I can refer to the following evidence:

As mentioned above, Stepan Bandera cannot be officially awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine for purely formal reasons. However, this does not prevent him from being glorified in the public consciousness by all other available means.

Let’s start with the highest state authorities of Ukraine, as well as their representatives.

In 2018, the highest legislative body of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine, adopted the Decree of December 18, 2018 “On honoring anniversaries and anniversaries in 2019”. Among the memorable dates was the 110th anniversary of the birth of Stepan Bandera.

Link to the official website with the specified resolution here.

It should be noted that this resolution was adopted in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by a collective majority of 450 deputies. That is, this decision is not the desire of one person, but is a conscious policy of a large group of people who have power in Ukraine.

Moreover, this resolution, as indicated above, was adopted at the time when Petro Poroshenko was the fifth President of Ukraine (2014-2019). At the moment, Petro Poroshenko is the head of the European Solidarity party and a people’s deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, that is, a representative of the highest state authority in Ukraine.

During a visit to Ukrainian volunteers on January 2, 2023 in the city of Kherson, Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, together with volunteers, sang the famous and popular song of Ukrainian nationalists, “Our Father Bandera”.

Note. The text of this song has the following line: “Our father is Bandera, Ukraine is mother, we will fight for Ukraine.” Thus, the song elevates Bandera to the scale of Ukraine itself, in fact identifying them, which praises and glorifies Bandera. To date, this song is famous and iconic in Ukrainian society.

Link to the site with this news, where there is a video of the performance of the song by the fifth President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko: here or here.

Next, let’s talk about naming streets after Stepan Bandera.

So, for example, one of the central streets in the capital of Ukraine – the city of Kyiv, is named after S. Bandera, namely “Prospect S. Bandera”.

Link to the name of this street in Wikipedia

Also, the name of this street is reflected in Google maps.

In Ukraine, mostly in western Ukraine, many streets are named after Bandera. This can be checked on Google maps.

Popularization of Stepan Bandera by cultural figures.

There is a famous singer in Ukraine, Verka Serduchka, a fictional drag character played by actor Andrey Danilko.

Verka Serduchka is extremely popular in Ukraine, Russia and other countries and in 2007 at Eurovision, Serduchka took second place.

And this very popular singer also sang the above-mentioned song of Ukrainian nationalists, “Our Father Bandera”.

Here is a link to the performance of the song on YouTube

I think it is not necessary to explain that the performance of such a song by a star of such a level could only happen at the direction of the Ukrainian authorities in the framework of the nationwide policy of glorifying Bandera.

And I pay attention to how enthusiastically the audience meets the song.

Prize named after Stepan Bandera

In Ukraine, in 2012, the Lviv Regional Council (local authority) established the “Award named after the Hero of Ukraine Stepan Bandera”.

Link to information about the award on Wikipedia or on Lviv council’s website.

The glorification of Stepan Bandera in the media by journalists, public figures, opinion leaders

In Ukraine, there is a very famous and popular journalist and opinion leader, Dmitry Gordon.

Dmitry Gordon has always taken a position that was clearly and unequivocally against Stepan Bandera without any reservations, since Bandera is an executioner and a murderer.

However, even Dmitry Gordon, under the pressure of the political situation, changed his position. Now he says that if someone in western Ukraine wants to, let them glorify Bandera; and in eastern Ukraine, if they don’t want to, let them not do it.

Note: historically, it was western Ukraine that sympathized with S. Bandera, and the east of Ukraine was his opponent.

Here is a link to a YouTube video where Dmitry Gordon talks about this.

I specifically cited these words of this particular public figure as an example, which is quite important in the context of the topic we are discussing. This example vividly shows the breakdown of the psychology of the citizens of Ukraine. Let me explain. Until 2010, the general and open glorification of Stepan Bandera was generally impossible. At the same time, the specified public figure Dmitry Gordon, as mentioned above, took a sharply negative position in relation to Bandera without any reservations or assumptions. However, after 2010, as I already said, Bandera was openly imposed on the entire Ukrainian society, at the state level, as an ideal. 

The above words of Dmitry Gordon are a reflection of this change in attitude towards Bandera. Now he speaks as a fait accompli that for at least half of Ukrainian society Bandera is a hero and such people have the right to openly honor him. Moreover, Dmitry Gordon himself changed his position towards Bandera from a sharply negative one to a position that allows him to be glorified by those for whom he is a hero.

And in this case, regarding the words of Dmitry Gordon, also make a reservation. Dmitry Gordon is clearly disingenuous when he talks about the freedom of choice in whether to glorify S. Bandera or not. Dmitry Gordon is a hostage to his publicity and his former attitude towards S. Bandera. Therefore, even under the influence of the new political situation, which glorifies Bandera, he cannot sharply change his position to the exact opposite and come out completely in defence of S. Bandera. That is why he voiced such a half-hearted position. 

Moreover, such a crafty position is nothing but an Overton Window for those who used to condemn Bandera. Such a half-hearted position is intended to remove the taboo from the personality of Bandera. And in the future, under the influence of the methods described in this document, these people will be forced to accept that Bandera is a hero. The classic Overton Window in action. Therefore, in fact, there is no freedom of opinion in relation to Stepan Bandera in our country. The denial of Bandera’s ideal is literally life-threatening.

A torchlit procession marking Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera’s birthday, Kiev, 2019. Image: Youtube/Euronews

The glorification of S. Bandera at rallies and in other ways

On January 1st 2019 in the capital of Ukraine – the city of Kyiv – the birthday of Stepan Bandera was celebrated with a torchlight procession.

Link to video of the torchlight procession on YouTube.

In this video, posters with images of S. Bandera are clearly visible, the participants in the procession give comments that S. Bandera is a hero for them.

Also, the name of Stepan Bandera was given to the home-made weapon “Bandera Smoothie” (a bottle with incendiary mixture). The name of this weapon is a play on words. During World War II, Soviet soldiers used a homemade weapon (a bottle with incendiary mixture) against Nazi tanks, which was called the Molotov Cocktail. Now the same home-made weapon that Ukrainian propaganda proposed to use against Russians (descendants of Soviet citizens) began to be called “Bandera Smoothie”.

Here is a link to a site where it is proposed to make this homemade weapon with this name. Also in Ukraine, car stickers with the inscription “Bandera Smoothie” are sold. Here is a link to a site selling these stickers.

In addition, the name of Stepan Bandera was given to a military vehicle – “Banderomobil”. 

Note. “Banderomobil” is the unofficial name of the car brand, this is folk art, but quite characteristic. The name is written in large letters on the side of the car and is a play on words, namely the addition of the words “Bandera” and “automobile”.

Link to a car site with a photo of such a car here, or here

It is also necessary to pay attention to the fact that the same fifth President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, is driving the above-mentioned “Banderomobil”. That is, he created a PR campaign with “Banderomobil” and he himself participates in it.

We move on.

Even in my professional environment, colleagues have ceased to be shy, and some of them have begun to publicly, openly congratulate each other on S. Bandera’s birthday. The author of this document personally witnessed such congratulations.

Also, the author of this document personally witnessed how on the facade of a house on the central avenue of one of the large industrial cities in the south-east of Ukraine, around 2018, a portrait of R. Shukhevych was painted (a close associate of S. Bandera, a war criminal, a participant in the “Volyn Massacre” in 1943).

Summary – the rise of Bandera in modern Ukraine

Summing up, it should be said that there are many such examples. However, I think that in the context of this short essay, these examples are weighty, characteristic and sufficient.

As stated above, the actions of the authorities (plus a clearly aggressive attitude towards those who deny the glorification of Stepan Bandera) brought results and Bandera began to gain popularity in society.

I also consider it my duty to note that the glorification of Stepan Bandera absolutely clearly coincided with the development of anti-Russian rhetoric and the incitement of causeless, unjustified hatred towards Russians and everything Russian in our country.

The author of this document has personally witnessed the incitement of such hatred in the media by politicians, journalists, public figures and so on.

As a result, personal acquaintances of the author of this document after 2014 dramatically changed their minds and began to openly speak aggressively against Russians. Moreover, these people cannot explain an adequate reason for hatred.

It is also noteworthy that many of these aggressive people are themselves Russian-speaking and have ties to Russia: some have relatives in Russia, some from Russia receive a pension, and some even teach Russian literature.

However, even they became unreasonably aggressive towards the Russians.

As a conclusion: I personally believe that the incitement of unreasonable hatred towards everything Russian is inextricably linked with the glorification of S. Bandera; glorification of S. Bandera initially pursued the goal of inciting unreasonable hatred of everything Russian.

About the Azov Battalion

Note: the Azov battalion at different times had different numbers and composition, so it can also be called a separate special forces detachment “Azov” or the regiment “Azov”.

Arguments and evidence regarding the glorification and popularization of the Azov Regiment and its militants in society are generally similar to those given regarding the glorification of Stepan Bandera.

Such evidence includes, in particular, the following:

• The official status of the Azov Regiment in the Ukrainian state;

• Rewarding the militants of the Azov Regiment with state awards;

• Popularisation of the Azov Regiment in society with the help of social advertising, celebrities, and so on.

The official status of the Azov Regiment

The Azov Battalion was created in May 2014 (after the coup d’état) as a power unit within the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.

Further, the Azov Battalion was reorganized and expanded as part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.

Link to the Wikipedia article, which indicates the creation and development of the Azov Battalion here.

Thus, the Azov Regiment initially had a legal and official status as a power unit of the state of Ukraine.

This alone already confirms the fact that the fascist military unit “Azov” is officially recognized and approved by the state of Ukraine.

Rewarding the militants of the Azov Regiment with state awards

In August 2022, Senior Lieutenant Vitaly Gritsaenko, Deputy Commander of the Azov

Special Forces Detachment, was posthumously awarded. This is stated on the official website of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. Link to the official website of the President of Ukraine with information about the award here.

Popularization of the Azov Regiment in society with the help of approving articles in the media, social advertising, celebrities, and so on

For example, I give a link to an article about one of the fighters of the Azov Regiment here:

Also, the author of this document personally in his town saw on the central avenue a lot of billboards with social advertising of the Azov Regiment (and with the image of their logo in the form of Wolfsangel) and calls to become a militant of this regiment.

In addition, the Azov Regiment is popularized and glorified by pop culture figures.

So, in Ukraine there is a famous singer, Tina Karol. She met with the fighters of the Azov Regiment, about which there is an approving article on the apostrophe.ua media resource.

Link to the article here.

Summing up, I will say that, as in the case of the glorification of Stepan Bandera, the glorification of the militants of the Azov Regiment and the creation of a positive image by them is systemic and national in nature, for which there is a lot of evidence, some of which was given above.

04.04.2023

Starmer’s Officials Lied About Antisemitism in Kensington

~ Urban Dandy London ~ Leave a comment

image from twitter / keir_starmer

Senior Labour Party officials repeatedly lied about antisemitism in the ranks of Kensington Labour Party, generating fear in Jewish communities and defaming the party’s local membership in order to neuter democracy in the constituency. Under the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer and General Secretary David Evans, unelected bureaucrats have been afforded dictatorial powers to subvert rules, supplant local candidates and silence members. In Kensington, they been ruthlessly effective.

In late 2022 we reported on senior Labour Party officials’ interventions in the democratic processes of Kensington Constituency Labour Party (CLP) to prevent local councillors from gaining the nomination to become the party’s candidate to challenge Conservative MP Felicity Buchan at the next general election. The National Executive Committee (NEC) and Greater London Region Labour Party both made decisive interventions to ensure a candidate more aligned with the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer prevailed.

General Secretary David Evans, image from twitter / labtowin

NEC blocked Cllr Emma Dent Coad

In October, Emma Dent Coad, the constituency’s only ever Labour MP, was unilaterally removed from the longlist of candidates by the NEC. Part of a purge by the Starmer regime of left-wing politicians and members, Dent Coad was called to a “due diligence” interview. The three-person interview panel was chaired by a prominent NEC member who was alone able to decide that Dent Coad should be excluded for “bad judgement.” The former MP described the accusations against her as “thoughtcrime”. Read full details and our interview with Emma Dent Coad here.   

London Region took out Cllr Kasim Ali

In November, Councillor Kasim Ali led the CLP’s longlist branch votes when London Region suddenly intervened to prevent him from securing his place on the shortlist. The previous month, Pearleen Sangha, Director of London Region Labour Party, had accused two selection committee members of openly supporting a candidate, using the accusation as a pretext to take personal control of every aspect of Kensington’s selection process.

Ali won the first of the three branch selection votes, requiring just one more branch to secure his place on the shortlist, Sangha took over the remaining two branch meetings and votes.

Circumstantial evidence suggests that London Region’s move against Ali was pre-planned. First, Sangha postponed the North West branch (Ali’s home branch) vote, which created time for a way to sabotage Kasim Ali to be concocted. On the day of the North West vote, a dubious-looking email was circulated to CLP members attacking another candidate as a supporter of Israel. The email was immediately picked up by a local blog and Jewish News, with both publications using it to attack Ali and his supporters as antisemites, offering no evidence of a connection.

This was the pretext Sangha needed. With no checks and balances against her power, the Regional Director blocked whomever she did not want to admit to the Zoom meetings, including up to 20 British Somali members at the North West Kensington Branch meeting. Sangha kept the nomination results secret and declared the winners without reference to the members’ votes, keeping Kasim Ali off the shortlist.

image from linkedin / pearleensangha

Sangha’s Lies

On the day of the North West vote, following the antisemitism smear against Ali and the local membership, Sangha emailed CLP members to explain her “serious concerns” over apparent antisemitism in Kensington Labour Party. She stated that members had been suspended and that there would be a “serious investigation” into the antisemitism that had forced her to take over of the process.

In December we contacted Sangha to ask about the events that had led to Cllr Ali being denied a place on the shortlist. A press officer replied to confirm Labour “had to” commence a “serious investigation” into antisemitism in Kensington CLP and that local members had been suspended “due to antisemitism”.

Multiple sources have confirmed to us that, to date, there have been no suspensions of party members in Kensington for suspected antisemitism. These sources include people with access to the members’ database.

Our sources also confirm that there has been no investigation of any type, let alone a “serious investigation” into antisemitism locally. Many Kensington Labour members have also separately reported to us that they have heard nothing about any suspensions or investigations.

Nothing to add

We contacted London Region again asking them how many Kensington members had been suspended and if there had been an investigation into antisemitism. A press officer replied that he had “nothing further to add” to the claims made against the CLP membership.

We understand that members have not yet raised any concerns at Kensington CLP meetings regarding the conduct of the NEC; the lies of London Region officials; the treatment of local Jewish communities; the disenfranchisement of a score of British Somalis in a local branch; the subversion of local democratic procedures and the character assassinations of elected local politicians by unelected officials.

By Tom Charles

@tomhcharles   

Complicity Felicity’s Simplicity

~ Urban Dandy London ~ 1 Comment

On Friday, Kensington MP Felicity Buchan attended a series of events locally to commemorate the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Dressed in the colours of the Ukrainian flag, Buchan smiled like a friend to refugee children and their parents, but the words she spoke revealed a simplistic view of the conflict and no appetite for doing anything to stop the death and destruction.

Virtually all 650 MPs in parliament have been in lockstep to prolong the Ukrainians’ agony as they lose both territory and population in the war against their far stronger neighbour. As Ukraine is crushed, our politicians virtue signal from a safe distance. Diplomacy is a dirty word, and we’re repeatedly told that peace is impossible. Sir Keir Starmer has banned Labour MPs from questioning NATO’s provocation of the war and Boris Johnson intervened to prevent Presidents Zelensky and Putin from holding peace talks last April, as reported in Ukrainian media (the British press ignored it).

From 2014 to February 2022, over 14,000 were killed in Ukraine’s civil war following the US-backed coup that overthrew a president who favoured close ties to Russia. In the coup, the ensuing civil war and now the war with Russia, Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups and army battalions have played a prominent role.

The situation is intensely complex and dangerous, yet Buchan pledged Kensington’s and the UK’s unwavering support for the people of Ukraine. Her platitudes and clichés masked the ugly reality: Britain will support the Ukrainians on the condition that they keep fighting the Russians in an unwinnable war.

Slava

Buchan wrote about her experience of the anniversary: “I was honoured to attend the very moving remembrance service at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral. Tragically, more than 450 children have died in the conflict. Paper angels were suspended from the ceiling in their honour. Ukraine will prevail. Slava Ukraini.”

Slava Ukraini – Glory to Ukraine. But where is the glory? And what right does a British politician have to declare glory to a country they are, knowingly or unknowingly, sacrificing?

Outside the Ukrainian embassy, Buchan declared “We will not tire, we will be there to the end.”

These words are almost unfathomably vacuous. But soundbites are all we hear from our leaders as they mindlessly provoke Russia and China, two countries that needn’t be enemies of Britain. 

“We will be there to the end” of what? Ukraine as a functioning state? Or are our rulers really set on decades of existential wars to impoverish and terrify us as they play brinkmanship over nuclear annihilation?

Outside the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain on Holland Park Avenue, Buchan told the assembled refugee children that the war against Russia “isn’t just about Ukraine. It’s about western values, good values.”

We emailed Felicity Buchan asking her to clarify what she meant, given that Ukraine is an eastern country, but at the time of writing, she had not replied.

Complicity

Dubbed “Complicity Felicity” in North Kensington due to her part in voting down the fire safety recommendations of the Grenfell Inquiry, Buchan enjoyed her moment posing as a liberal humanitarian. But her words were loaded with the complacency, fanaticism and racism of the British political establishment. Ukrainian lives mean so little that Britain sends enough weapons to keep them hanging on in the war, guaranteeing humanitarian catastrophe. This is justified through profound Russophobia and the puerile demonisation of Putin as the epitome of evil. It’s a familiar tactic, most recently used against Bashar al-Assad in Syria, a country illegally occupied by both the United States and Israel – western values? Before Assad, it was Gaddafi, sodomised to death by our allies in Libya. “We came, we conquered, he died!” squealed Hillary Clinton in delight – western values.  

All this recent history, including Russia’s intervention in Syria to prevent its fall to ISIS and al Qaeda; the Ukrainian government’s role in persecuting ethnic Russians in the Donbas; the Ukrainians’ own values, traditions and their intrinsic value as humans, is all swept away with simplistic concepts like “Western values…good values.”

Like most MPs, Kensington’s “Complicity Felicity” frames the war in babyish terms, Good West v Bad East. By shunning diplomacy but acting as a friend of the Ukrainian people, Buchan is adding duplicity to her complicity and simplicity.

By Tom Charles

@tomhcharles

Labour’s Kensington Intervention: What We Know

~ Urban Dandy London ~ 1 Comment

Labour’s National Executive Committee torpedoed local party democracy to prevent local candidates from being chosen in the marginal seat of Kensington for the next general election. Here’s what we know about how they did it…

Former MP barred

October 17th: Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) excludes Labour’s only ever Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad from the candidate longlist. Read about it here.

The three-person NEC panel that excludes Dent Coad includes two influential figures committed to Sir Keir Starmer’s purge of socialists: Luke Akehurst, director of the lobbying organisation We Believe in Israel. And Shama Tatler, co-chair of Labour to Win, a right-wing campaigning group.

NEC & London Region usurp local officers

October 20th: Regional Director of Greater London Labour Party Pearleen Sangha dismisses two Kensington Selection Committee members for “openly supporting” a candidate. Sangha speculates about “a blatant attempt to undermine the process” – the two members reject the accusation.

A more right-wing member of the Committee remains in post, despite openly campaigning for candidate Joe Powell, even appearing in his campaign video. Complaints from party members to London Region about the double standard go unanswered.

Local candidate would have been shortlisted

October 27th: Councillor Kasim Ali wins every round in the South Branch vote, meaning he needs to be selected by just one of the remaining two branches to make the shortlist. Afsana Lachaux is also nominated.

Results from the South Branch vote are circulated to members in accordance with Labour’s democratic procedures. Sangha declares that this constitutes a “leak” and runs all subsequent meetings and votes herself, keeping the results secret.

In a statement, senior Kensington Labour officers say: “In all three Kensington branch selection meetings, Sangha overruled local elected role-holders and chaired the Zoom call herself…muting all attendees. She has been unprofessional, hostile, and insulting to local role holders, often making threats and rarely responding to messages”.

screengrabs from twitter / tomorrowsmps

Intervention over Black History Month

October 31st: A Constituency Labour Party (CLP) ‘All Members’ meeting with a Black History Month theme is scheduled, but on the day of the meeting, London Region informs the CLP Secretary the meeting cannot take place during the selection process. The CLP Secretary asks if the meeting can go ahead if the discussion is limited to the Black history theme and presented by a local campaigner. London Region agrees but states that no candidates can attend. Continue reading →

Happy New Years

~ Angel Lewis ~ Leave a comment

Caveat:

Use of the word ‘we’ does not constitute ‘My self’ in a manner that makes Me complicit in the issue/subject but is used only as a formality and effort not to violate writing tradition. Even though it may appear that my use of ‘we’ means ‘us’, I reference only My self as ‘we’ in respect of the overwhelming shared sentience of the masses, of which I am but am not of, in respect of My unfamiliar peers and their ignorant acts antonymous to My autonomous weighs. I, just as all corporations do, hold My self harmless from the collective wrong that society willingly partakes and I take personal responsibility for all things that I willingly, clearly and openly consent to by clear (non-tacit) agreement, without force, duress or coercion.

I Am.

It’s now 2023 and as we step into this great unknown, I must say that ‘ignorance’ is a choice.

As abstract as it seems, knowledge is not the property of schools of education but readily available for all who genuinely search for it–the reward of the seeker. It’s just that most would rather collect pointless data steered by either peer-esteem, likes or something of the egocentric nature. This is despite the fact that, over the decade, all that seems currently unknown was previously (widely and openly) available and easily accessible to all via online. That is at least before the colonisation of the Internet in 2012 (New Hampshire RSA 193-F:4.).

The result of this pathway to policing dialogue and searches, hiding behind cyber bullying, is comparable to a mass book burning and the resulting chaos. With today’s corporations learning algorithms, our search engines can guarantee failure as we try to stick the salvaged pages back together again. This colonising of websites and the heavy concentration on child censorship, made way for key information to be available only in select jurisdictions. Even though tangible location is somewhat of a fiction in the online world, we ignorantly opened the doors to communist ideals.

Continue reading →

Starmer’s Labour Disenfranchised British Somalis in Kensington

~ Urban Dandy London ~ 2 Comments

In an unashamed assault on party democracy last month, Keir Starmer’s Labour targeted and excluded significant numbers of British Somalis from the shortlisting process for candidates hoping to become Kensington’s next member of parliament. Urban Dandy has been given details of how the party’s bureaucracy was mobilised to guarantee a result favourable to the party’s right wing.

The Kensington Constituency Labour Party (CLP) is made up of three branches: South, North East and North West. Labour members in each branch were to vote to narrow down their choice of candidates from a longlist to a shortlist of three, then to vote for one candidate to take on Conservative incumbent Felicity Buchan at the next general election. Former Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad had already been barred from standing by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) in a factional right-wing intervention.

South Branch

Next in the NEC’s sights was Councillor Kasim Ali, a prominent local politician and a British Somali with a history of community activism in North Kensington. From several Kensington Labour insiders we have heard that, with Dent Coad removed, the NEC hoped that one of their preferred candidates would secure the candidacy. But at the South Branch’s 27th October selection vote, Cllr Ali eased to a comfortable victory, winning every round.

image from Twitter / Kasim Ali

With Cllr Ali needing a nomination from just one of the two North Kensington branches to secure a place on the shortlist, the NEC took over, overriding the CLP’s democratic procedures and fixing the result. Here’s how they did it…

North East Branch

The North East vote scheduled for 1st November was postponed on the pretext of the branch not having the correct Zoom license to accommodate the number of members wishing to attend. Local Labour sources told us that a new license was hastily purchased but Labour’s London Region Executive postponed the vote until 9th November, giving the NEC time to create the chaotic circumstances in which they could guarantee victory for one of their preferred candidates.

By the day of the North West selection on 3rd November, a familiar tactic from the Corbyn era had been put in play to prevent Cllr Ali from securing a nomination at his home branch vote. A vitriolic message about one of the candidates, Mete Coban, was sent to all CLP members from an email address named ‘Danger in Kensington.’ Access to the membership mailing list is strictly limited so the email is likely to have been circulated by somebody holding a senior position within Labour at local, regional or NEC level. Two local Labour sources told Urban Dandy that the NEC’s two preferred candidates had also been provided with the membership’s contact data “months before”.

The highly dubious message was unquestioningly amplified in a vicious attack piece on Kasim Ali in a local blog, while Jewish News blamed “a group of activists” in North Kensington. There was no evidence that the councillor or any of his associates had a connection to the message and no explanation was offered as to how they could have circulated it or what their motivation to sabotage the process might have been. Labour bureaucrats seized upon the story to torpedo the CLP’s democracy, taking control of the selection process and barring Cllr Ali from standing.

Senior Kensington Labour members issued a statement that included the line “there is evidence that the racist message was written by a local known not be (sic) a Labour Party member and was initially posted on a Kensington Community Facebook page.”

There will be more on what Cllr Ali describes as a “fake antisemitism” smear in a later article.

North West Branch

On the day of the ‘Danger in Kensington’ email, Labour members in the North West branch were set to vote on who to shortlist. However, a significant number were prevented from doing so. A Labour councillor told Urban Dandy that “14 to 16 members” were blocked. Another councillor informed us that the number was closer to 20. Both told us that all the excluded members had one thing in common, they were British Somali.

By this point, the selection meetings, held on Zoom, were being chaired by Labour’s London Region Director, Parleen Sangha. According to a local councillor, Sangha told some of the British Somali members “we can’t hear you” before removing them from the meeting and not readmitting them as they attempted to re-join the meeting for an hour and a half. Others simply saw the image below when they clicked on the meeting link.

(Screengrabbed and sent to Urban Dandy by a British Somali Labour member in the North West branch)

We have been informed that an elected Labour councillor for Golborne ward (part of the North West branch and one of the most impoverished wards in Britain) received a text message from a London Region representative as voting commenced telling them ‘I don’t have the correct email for you’ as a justification for cancelling their access to the ballot. The councillor is also British Somali and was using the same email address used when registering as a party member and used to log in to all subsequent meetings and votes.

No results from the North East or North West selection votes were published, and Joe Powell will stand for Labour at the general election having easily defeated the other shortlisted candidates, Mete Coban and Apsana Lachaux on 9th November.

Racial Profiling?

Labour councillors who spoke to Urban Dandy stopped just short of accusing Keir Starmer’s NEC and London Region of racism against British Somalis. They informed us that Labour members in the North East branch, mostly from ethnic minority communities, were also prevented from participating, while former party members with favourable views of Starmer were enabled by London Region to fast-track their re-joining on the day of the vote.

We asked London Region for clarity on why Cllr Ali’s bid for candidacy was undemocratically denied. They responded that they “had to” commence a “serious investigation” into antisemitism in Kensington CLP and that local members had been suspended “due to antisemitism”.

Their reply to Urban Dandy did not mention Kasim Ali or explain the prima facie racial profiling of British Somalis.

On 4th November Kasim Ali was interviewed by the NEC over the ‘Danger in Kensington’ email. They accepted that there was no connection between the councillor or his supporters and the message. However, his right to stand was not reinstated. It is not clear if this meeting was the “serious investigation” referred to by London Region.

A Labour source told Urban Dandy that they had searched the membership database and found that none had been suspended for suspected antisemitism.

Cllr Ali told us that he asked the Labour Party to investigate the circulation of the ‘Danger in Kensington’ email but, to date, the party has not done this.

We also understand that Cllr Ali was blocked from speaking at the CLP’s Black History Month event in October following a concern raised by a rival candidate that this would give Ali an unfair advantage in the constituency selection. London Region issued a ban on longlisted Kensington candidates attending the event. Cllr Ali complained to London Region about his exclusion but has not received a reply.

Starmer’s Labour

Under the leadership of Keir Starmer, Labour has purged its left-wing, often expelling or suspending members on spurious grounds, while many others who identify as left-wing have resigned their memberships in protest at Labour’s dramatic shift to the right.

When people rose up to protest racism in Summer 2020, Starmer dismissed the Black Lives Matter movement as “Black Lives Matter moment” while the party has at times positioned itself to the right of Suella Braverman on migration.

The signs are that Labour in government would be pro-war, unreservedly pro-NATO and cement the UK’s role as junior partner and enabler of the United States’ constant war-making. US foreign policy currently includes bombing Somalia, humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen and occupation of a significant proportion of Syria.

To fulfil this agenda, Starmer and his bureaucracy must minimise the number of potentially anti-war politicians in parliament. In Kensington, once the party members had indicated a preference for Kasim Ali, the NEC abandoned any pretence of a commitment to democracy.

It can be claimed that the removal of Cllr Ali and the disenfranchisement of British Somali members was about ensuring a preferred candidate would stand, rather than a case of racism. But would Labour have done this if Ali was not a Black, Muslim, African, working-class British Somali in North Kensington?

Would an antisemitic trope have been weaponised if the targeted candidate and party members came from a different demographic? And if so, would its use have passed without comment or investigation by the party and media?

Generating fear in our Jewish community and disenfranchising our British Somali community appear to be acceptable collateral damage to the fanatical clique that has control of Labour. Starmer’s party is liberal-fascist, uninterested in the cause of labour and intent on using power to advance the class interests of the British establishment and the economic elite.

By Tom Charles @tomhcharles

The Unknown Hell of Starmer’s Labour

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photo from Twitter keir_starmer

Just over a decade ago, I was involved in producing an important political pamphlet you have never read. Its title was ‘Unknown Hell’ and it reported on a visit undertaken by several Labour politicians to Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

The pamphlet’s title was suggested by Sir Gerald Kaufman, the legendary phrase coiner who dubbed Labour’s 1983 manifesto “the longest suicide note in history.” Along with Kaufman and me, the contributors to the pamphlet were the MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Michael Connarty, reflecting a Labour party that was still a broad church. Kaufman was to the right, Connarty to the left, and Corbyn firmly on the left.

Kaufman’s ‘Unknown Hell’ title captured the fact that, despite them being the world’s largest refugee population, most people in the west are ignorant of the displaced Palestinians’ suffering. Ethnically cleansed in the 1940s and trapped in camps around the region ever since, Palestinian refugees have been re-victimised in every host country. Their legal right to return home under UN Resolution 194 has been reaffirmed by virtually the whole world every year since 1949, but the fulfilment of this right has been blocked by the United States and Israel.

The Unknown Hell pamphlet was to be circulated among Labour members to raise awareness about the world’s longest-running refugee crisis, and hopefully influence party policy. But it was blocked by people (none were Palestinian) inside the Labour party who were convinced that the Palestinian cause was better served by policies focused on supporting the corrupted Palestinian Authority. This thinking was in line with US-Israeli diktats to ignore the main problems facing the Palestinians and focus myopically on bureaucracy. A comfortable position for the faction within Labour that thinks efficient obeyance of power will produce a better world. Coincidently, the smooth advancement of their careers is also better served by taking this stance.

The MPs’ reflections on the hideous conditions in the Beirut and Tripoli camps, and their analysis of meetings with all the key players in Lebanon, were silenced. The Labour hostiles were led by Simon Danczuk, who feigned interest in justice and human rights to pick up Muslim votes in Rochdale before consuming himself with fanatical factional hatred of Corbyn.

Ten years on and politicians and officials with this belligerent mentality have full control of Labour under Keir Starmer. Their creed is the goodness of the British state, giving them much in common with security state officials who appear to be influential in deciding who should stand for the party at general elections, candidates who will ensure that Palestinians’ (and Yemenis’, Ukrainians’…) misery is perpetuated by constant war. In this setup, there is no room for those who talk the language of diplomacy and peace.

A purge of grassroots Labour members is in full effect, but, like the suffering of the Palestinians in Lebanon, it is unknown to most people thanks to the media’s determined silence. An assault on the democracy of the party that is likely to form the next government is taking place in plain sight, but you’d never know it.

Those thrown out by Labour suffer their own personal hell, gaslit with infantile explanations after giving years to grassroots causes. Criticism of NATO is proscribed by party whips, further subduing what remains of socialist resistance to war in parliament. In these perverted circumstances, members are being expelled for possessing the qualities that most people find admirable: loyalty, steadfastness, and a willingness to support the most vulnerable.

There is no hierarchy of suffering that prevents the pain of these ousted Labour members from being discussed alongside the suffering of the 9.5 million Palestinian refugees or Britain’s many other victims. These are not discrete issues, and Keir Starmer’s purge of campaigners for peace and justice means that the UK cannot elect a progressive government at the next election. This has echoes in the refugee camps of Lebanon, and the unknown hell will continue thanks to the pro-war right’s grip on Labour.

by Tom Charles @tomhcharles

Jeremy Corbyn at the entrance of Bourj al Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut

Exclusive Interview: Emma Dent Coad on Labour’s Grassroots Purge

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Emma Dent Coad, the only Labour politician to win Kensington in its true blue history, spoke to Urban Dandy about the Labour party’s decision to bar her from standing at the next general election.

Context

Architectural historian, author, activist, and local resident Emma Dent Coad was elected to Kensington and Chelsea council in 2006. She campaigned on the full range of issues impacting residents in the most inequitable local authority in Britain including housing rights, poverty, and air quality. Dent Coad’s background in housing made her an ideal choice to be Labour’s 2017 parliamentary candidate in a constituency home to oligarchs and royals yet has seen a dramatic life expectancy decline in the borough’s poorest wards once austerity economics was imposed in 2010.

The councillor’s 2014 report, updated after the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, The Most Unequal Borough in Britain, used incontestable data to lay bare the shocking inequity of the borough where at one end 51% of children live in poverty vs at the other only 6% suffer this indignity. Dent Coad’s 2022 book, One Kensington, cemented her reputation as an expert on the impact of neoliberal economics in the borough.

PosterBaraka
Emma Dent Coad at a poster design competition for children affected by Grenfell, 2017.

2017

On Friday, June 11th the final seat in the 2017 general election was declared and Dent Coad was elected MP for Kensington: a first-time Labour gain. Winning by 20 votes, Dent Coad joined the activist Labour MPs’ Socialist Campaign Group in parliament. The role of socialists diminished under New Labour, but backbenchers like Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, and Diane Abbott kept community-based democratic, internationalist socialist politics alive in parliament. Labour’s left-right, democrat-technocrat schism had widened under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, yet New Labour was confident enough in its political project to co-exist with anti-war backbenchers and their frequent rebellions.

Three days after the Kensington constituency victory, the fire at Grenfell Tower brought the local issues that Emma Dent Coad had campaigned on to national prominence, crystalizing her parliamentary priority: justice for Grenfell.

Party leader Corbyn and other Campaign Group members were supportive of North Kensington; but Labour’s bureaucracy was dominated by factional enemies, intent on sabotaging the leadership, and as came to be revealed, actively worked to deny Labour an election victory. The harassment of Diane Abbott, the diversion of funds from left-wing candidates in marginal seats to right-wingers in safe seats and smear campaigns were among the methods deployed by this group, which included Iain McNicol, Labour’s then General Secretary. In 2017, Labour finished just 2227 votes short of being able to form a government.

Internal Labour documents leaked in 2020 showed senior party bureaucrats favouring cronyism over Corbynism. They preferred Tory rule with all the misery that brings to their own party’s kinder, more equitable, leadership. As the leaks became public (albeit not reported in the mainstream news) Dent Coad revealed her campaign had received little support from Labour HQ even when it became clear that an historic win in Kensington was on the cards.

Dent Coad explained: “When the atrocity of the Grenfell Tower fire ripped through my neighbourhood, I was finally sent help from McNicol’s office. However, it quickly became clear that this was not the help requested; I needed assistance with my casework team, who were struggling to help those impacted by the fire, but instead the general secretary sent someone to police me. Continue reading →

What Corbyn has done for Britain’s Jewish Community

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Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to use fear and suffering to achieve political ends marks him out as a very different calibre politician to those currently seeking to eliminate him and his principles from mainstream British life. While others use Jewish fears for political gain with zeal, Corbyn remains a true friend of Britain’s Jewish community.

In April this year, a leaked report from within the Labour party revealed that senior officials deliberately sabotaged the party’s 2017 general election campaign to prevent Jeremy Corbyn from becoming prime minister and implementing modest socialist reforms in the United Kingdom. That year, Labour won its biggest share of the popular vote since 1997 and were just 2,227 votes short of being able to form a government. The leak also revealed that the same saboteurs deliberately slowed down the party’s investigations of antisemitism complaints made against members to create the impression that Corbyn was indifferent to Jewish suffering. Their duplicity, ignored by the entire mainstream media as an inconvenient truth, directly contradicts years of condemnation of Corbyn for being a deplorable antisemite or, at best, a man tolerant of antisemitism.

The truth is that he is neither, unlike many of his critics in the media and Westminster.

The Facts

There is “no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other political party” according to a 2016 report by the Home Affairs Select Committee.

Since 2017, according to official Labour party statistics released this year, a total of 2,178 Labour members had been accused of antisemitism. In a party membership of half a million people, this is 0.4 %. Almost all 0.4% were not genuine cases of antisemitism. A total of 56 Labour members had been expelled for alleged antisemitism at the time of the statistics being published, 0.01% of party members.

This 0.01% is what is known as Labour’s antisemitism crisis. As a “crisis,” it does not stand up to scrutiny, and that is why it receives neither any objective scrutiny nor even a factual mention, from mainstream politicians or journalists.

The Danger

These statistics, elaborated elsewhere alongside much objective evidence, help demonstrate that the antisemitism accusation levelled at Corbyn is a hoax designed to stop Labour winning a general election with a socialist leader and stifle any possibility of the UK fully applying international law and taking steps to end the occupation of Palestine by Israel. See the work of Asa Winstanley, Jonathan Cook and Jewish Voice for Labour debunking the hoax.

A danger of the proliferation of the fake news “antisemitism crisis” is that many people in Britain, including in Muslim communities, see it as the ultimate expression of white privilege, Jewish fears being treated with far more seriousness at the highest, most respectable levels of UK society than incidents of racist and Islamophobic violence and hatred. The country has an openly racist, Islamophobic prime minister and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who vow to “protect people against discriminatory treatment and hold organisations, such as businesses and government, to account for what they do,” investigated antisemitism with Labour’s ranks but refused to investigate rampant Islamophobia in the Conservative party.

Both the country’s major political parties favour Israel’s occupation of Palestine, with its subjugation and humiliation of Muslims and Christians and the longest-running refugee crisis (there are seven million Palestinian refugees) in the world.

It is unfortunate but predictable that such a situation taps into popular conspiracies about Jews controlling politics, the media and financial institutions.

The Reality

The reality is that Britain’s Jewish population do not enjoy privileged treatment, they and their history are being used by right-wing politicians (including Keir Starmer) and the pro-Israel lobby (which is largely made up of anti-Arab Zionists, Christian fundamentalists and others who favour arms sales – death – to peace) to foment hatred against Jeremy Corbyn, the symbol of socialism in Britain today.

Britain’s Jewish people have been the target of an epic fear-mongering campaign by this Faustian coalition. Not content with Labour’s crushing 2019 election defeat, this juggernaut now seeks to eliminate socialism and socialists from mainstream political life in the UK.

With no hard evidence of a Labour antisemitism crisis, the electorate is left confused. A survey revealed that, on average, the public believed that third of Labour party members had been reported for antisemitism, a direct reflection of the rhetoric used by the nation’s media and political elites.

But as with all gaslighters, the accusation they are making is the very thing they are guilty of themselves: indifference to Jewish suffering and a willingness to use it for personal or ideological gain.

Left-Wing Media

Although none of it is mainstream in terms of its reach, there are left-wing media outlets and journalists in the UK. We also have easy access to North American alternative media.

Left-wing Americans have fared better on the issue of Corbyn and antisemitism than their counterparts here. The most prolific and revered left-wing pundits in Britain, Novara Media and Owen Jones, have played along with the hoax, choosing to offer an intricate left-wing perspective, rather than simply debunking it. Their most recent coverage, of Corbyn’s suspension and whip-removal, is incoherent as they work overtime discussing internal Labour procedures to avoid pointing out the most pertinent fact: there never was a “crisis”.

Full-spectrum propaganda only works when the left participates. The logic is that if even Owen Jones, the mainstream’s designated voice of the left, isn’t denying it, it must be true.

In repeating and amplifying the lie, and ignoring the role of the Israel lobby, prominent left-wing journalists in the UK have boxed themselves into a corner. If the crisis was real, then surely the leader of the party has rightly faced disciplinary action. Had there been a real antisemitism crisis on Jeremy Corbyn’s watch, then any right-minded, peace-campaigning, anti-imperialist would want him out. The fact is, there was no crisis. So, the media’s left-wingers are playing both sides, calling for Corbyn’s return to the Labour benches but refusing to explain to their followers that it was all part of a political game. They have retained their status as representatives of the left on Sky and BBC News by abandoning their journalistic duty, to tell the truth at all costs.

Jeremy Corbyn

Some quality journalists on the left have projected their own frustration onto Jeremy Corbyn for his perceived lack of fight against the fanatics who have attacked him using the antisemitism smear. Asa Winstanley, Max Blumenthal and Glenn Greenwald are among them. They argued that Corbyn should have pushed back, and when he failed to do this as strongly as they believed necessary, they lamented him for being weak.

Yet these voices never identify exactly what he could have done. Corbyn probably predicted an unhinged response to any pushback that involved him pointing out that the idea of a “crisis” was absurd. The media would have ignored anything positive or conciliatory he said and pounced upon any hint of him not being adequately yielding. In this, he would have again stood alone against the entirety of the British establishment. More internal Labour divisions and more media focus on fiction instead of the urgent issues of the day were the inevitable result of an assertive push back.

‘So what?’ you might say, things surely couldn’t get much worse anyway, but there were two other factors. The first is 2017 when Labour almost won despite the smear campaign against the leadership. It wasn’t unreasonable to think that policy, over personality, could prove decisive in 2019. This turned out to be true, but it was the Tories, with a more coherent Brexit policy, who had the stronger hand.

The second, and I think most decisive, factor is Corbyn’s relationship with the Jewish people of Britain. Reviewing his career. Peace, justice, unity, and love are the qualities that transcend all politics for him. He is a player in the political game, but there are certain tactics he will not use, the ones that result in pain for others. Unlike those railing against him, Corbyn is sensitive to human frailties and fears. Judging that aggressive pushback would be used by some to further instil existential fear in Britain’s Jews and by others to foment hateful conspiracies, he chose to be guided by his own principles. He did not do or say anything that could have rebounded back on a minority population already being used in the most wretched way by those claiming to speak up for them.

The alternative option, preferred by some prominent left-wingers, was that Corbyn lay out all the facts of the smear campaign, call out the liars and be a warrior for absolute truth. This approach is one that ignores the realities of power in Britain. Exposing the truth has little positive impact unless it happens to match the establishment’s interests.

By choosing not to join in a sordid game, Jeremy Corbyn remains true to his values and his vision of an equitable society lives on. He has done nothing to frighten or endanger a single Jewish, or other minority, person in Britain. The same cannot be said of many other prominent political and media figures.

 

By Tom Charles @tomhcharles

Thanks to Jennifer Cavanagh for the invaluable suggestions & edits

Keir Starmer’s Middle Way

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With a civilian death toll that is likely to outdo even the Nazis’ air bombardment during world war two (70,000) we experience the full impact of the policies of the right. What of the parliamentary left? Labour wound up its foregone conclusion of a leadership contest a month ago. Sir Keir Starmer won, but who is he, politically? A smart move by the Labour electorate? Starmer steers as close to the middle of the road as possible. History will soon demand he chooses which side he’s on.

Starmer is seeking a clear break from Jeremy Corbyn while not entirely abandoning the popular policies of his predecessor. Even Corbyn’s staunchest supporters were worn down by four years of relentless, puerile attacks and the choice of Starmer was surely a relief, even for members who voted for the more leftist candidate, Rebecca Long-Bailey. Starmer is a politician whose style is approved of by the full spectrum of media commentators and the Labour backstabbers who loathed Corbyn.

Narrow Parameters

The contrasting attitudes towards the two men reflects the narrow parameters of thought in British public life. Corbyn was deemed ‘unelectable’ by most Labour MPs and harassed with media absurdities (claims that he was a Czech spy, a fabricated antisemitism crisis etc) that compromised his public image. From the right-wing (inc. Murdoch) media, this was expected. For the centrist liberal media (there is no major left-wing media in the UK) Corbyn’s unforgivable crime was that he didn’t play their game and never would. He treated journalists with respect. But he treated everybody that way, no matter their status. Never distracted by sycophancy, Corbyn wanted to change society. Keir Starmer is more malleable.

The leadership election result also signalled the narrowing vision of western Europe’s largest political party, Labour. It is worth considering the figures that have elected the party’s leaders. In 2015, Corbyn won a stunning victory with 59.5% of the vote in a four-horse race that included ‘electable’ opponents Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham. In 2016 he was forced by the right of the parliamentary party to face Owen Smith in another contest, with Corbyn securing victory with 61.8%. That contest is noteworthy only in that Smith received 38.2% of votes; a miserable defeat, but 193,229 of the Labour electorate backed him and presumably form the basis of Starmer’s support.

The switch from leftist Corbyn to ‘centrist’ Starmer suggests that a lot of Corbyn supporters, socialists, voted for Sir Keir. Labour members have tacitly agreed to a centre-right consensus in British politics: nothing too radical, with the debate framed by a media which spans the centre-left to the far right. The boundaries of what is possible have been reined in.

It is worth taking a moment to consider what might happen if members of leftish political parties just voted for their own interests rather than playing political pundit. In the UK, as in the US, people now vote for the leader they think other people might vote for, rather than for policies. Presumably, the decisive thought here is that the masses have not yet reached the level of enlightenment required to grasp what is being offered to them by straight-talking politicians like Corbyn or Bernie Sanders (who surely would have walked it in November against an incumbent president who advises the population to inject bleach into their veins).

Keir Starmer is the man for this political moment on the left. But by considering just a few of his stances to date, we see trouble brewing for the new Labour leader. He will have to concentrate to maintain his balance.

Sabotage

“The leader of the organisation carries the can, stands up for what goes wrong and takes responsibility” said Starmer during a hustings. He was criticising Jeremy Corbyn’s regime for “turning on its staff” during the so-called antisemitism crisis. This is Sir Keir taking the middle ground, making what he judges to be a politically safe criticism of his predecessor – not of his policies, but of his leadership. The problem is that we now have all the evidence we need that the crisis in the party was a fabrication, one entangled in a marriage of convenience with the Blairites obsessed with overthrowing Corbyn.

A leaked report from within the party since Starmer’s victory reveals the depth of the internal campaign to sabotage Labour’s chances of gaining power under Corbyn. The document shows that senior officials including the then Secretary, Iain McNicol, diverted money to right-wing candidates in safe seats rather than to left-wing candidates in marginals in 2017. This probably extended to Kensington where Emma Dent Coad won a historic victory for Labour in June 2017. When the Grenfell Tower fire atrocity took place days later, McNicol refused to send the help the new MP had requested, presumably for ideological right-left reasons.

The report also reveals the withholding of information from the leader’s office; officials boasting about not working professionally during the campaign; racism; sexism and more. Starmer and deputy leader Angela Rayner have ordered an investigation into the leaks, but the greatest scandal in the party’s history will need to be dealt with properly if the leadership is to retain credibility within the base – crucial if they are to keep the momentum of grassroots campaigning.

Antisemitism

Some of the disgraced officials featured in the report had been tasked with investigating cases of alleged antisemitism. The report shows that these officials deliberately slowed down the process to create the impression that Corbyn was indifferent to Jewish suffering. It worked, and a lifelong anti-racism campaigner was politically assassinated as an anti-Semite.

At root, the concocted crisis was always about Palestine, which Corbyn would have recognised as a state on day one of a Labour government. British Jews were deliberately and cynically scare mongered for political purposes, surely one of the basest tactics employed in our political history.

Starmer cannot be entirely ignorant of the reality of the antisemitism debacle. He must know that the Home Affairs Select Committee found “no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other political party.” And that official Labour party statistics released in January showed that a total of 2,178 Labour members had been accused of antisemitism since 2017, just 0.4 % of the overall membership. Almost all the 0.4% were not genuine cases of antisemitism. A total 56 Labour members had been expelled for alleged antisemitism at the time of the statistics being published, 0.01% of party members. “A third of all cases in 2019 have the same single individual as the main complainant,” states the 2020 document.

Starmer knows that the ‘crisis’ had a major impact on Labour’s public image but he did not miss a beat in declaring his collusion with the illusion in his victory speech: “Antisemitism has been a stain on our party. On behalf of the Labour Party, I am sorry” and “I support Zionism without qualification.” A strategic move, or perhaps an indication of his willingness to ingratiate himself to power. He had previously made more neutral statements about Zionism, but in victory sought to establish his credentials, sending an apologetic letter to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, promising to “root out” Labour’s “antisemitism”.

Starmer is also declared supporter of Palestinian rights, opposes President Trump’s “Deal of the Century” and has appointed Lisa Nandy, a long-term supporter of the Palestinians, as shadow foreign secretary. For justice in the Middle East, Labour is required to back Palestine’s self-determination and the right of return of seven million Palestinian refugees. Both positions contradict Zionism’s basic premise, an exclusively Jewish state in historic Palestine. When Israel annexes more land, or bombs the Gaza Strip again, Starmer will have to back the oppressor or the oppressed. He will shamefully bow to the Israel lobby while innocents die, or he will take a brave stand for peace and justice. No middle way exists.

Journalism

The new Labour leader opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but once an MP (he was first elected to the Commons in 2015) he voted against a parliamentary investigation into Tony Blair’s misleading MPs Iraq. While giving Blair a pass, Starmer has been determined to see a journalist who exposed the war crimes prosecuted. In 2010, as Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) he played a key role in the persecution of Julian Assange, editor of Wikileaks, who had just published evidence of a litany of western war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the Collateral Murder video. 

As DPP, Keir Starmer fast-tracked the extradition of Assange to Sweden (from where he could be easily extradited to the US) for questioning over the most dubious allegations of rape. Starmer advised Swedish lawyers to reject Assange’s offer to be questioned in London, presumably understanding that the Swedes would have no option but to drop their investigation (the case had already been dropped then resuscitated by a right-wing magistrate). This set off a chain of events that have seen this one journalist harassed, imprisoned and effectively tortured and made ill by the British state on behalf of the Americans.

Emails from August 2012 show a sickening betrayal of Assange by the UK. Responding to a suggestion that Sweden might drop their phoney rape investigation, Keir Starmer’s office sent the following message to their Scandinavian counterparts: “Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!”.

Julian Assange remains in squalid solitary confinement at Belmarsh, the prison reserved for the UK’s most violent and dangerous criminals. Despite his sentence (for skipping bail) having expired months ago, he is forced to stay in this maximum-security prison and wait for a judge to decide on his extradition to the US on surreal charges under the Espionage Act. A dangerous precedent will be set if Assange is sent to the dangerous president, never to be seen again. Who will dare inform the world about war crimes then?

Assange, who has a chronic lung condition, could die in Belmarsh. Perhaps this is what the British state wants, to save them the embarrassment of extraditing him. Parliament is quiet on Assange, but as leader of the opposition, Starmer is obliged to call for his release. 

With Wikileaks, the middle ground is untenable. Starmer either supports freedom of speech and the rule of law (a person cannot be extradited from the UK on political charges), or he does not.

Pandemic

With the government’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus, the Labour leader has aimed straight down the middle. He is withholding many obvious criticisms of the Johnson government, presumably until the lockdown phase is over and the public is more receptive to apportioning blame. In PMQs this week, the Labour leader challenged government claims of British “success” when the official figures, which are an underestimate, show 30,000 people have died. But by being eager to offer praise where he can, Starmer fell into the trap of repeatedly saying “hospital deaths are falling”. They aren’t falling, they rise every time somebody dies. It was a strange and possibly revealing use of language on his part.

The pandemic will end with a political divergence. A choice, austerity or socialism, will decide the future of the NHS. That Starmer abstained in 2015 on the Tories’ destructive Health and Social Care bill doesn’t auger well for us.

Jeremy Corbyn was unlucky in the sense that two national disasters – Grenfell and COVID – fell the wrong side of the 2017 and 2019 general elections. Starmer has some media support and a chaotic government that proudly declared a decline in shoplifting on a day that saw 813 people die in agony. He has Exercise Cygnus; Dominic Cummings; PPE; the list is long and growing. With these weapons at his disposal, there will be no need to abstain.

A radical change is needed – will Sir Keir seize the moment? To do so, he must break away from the deadening obsession with respectability and electability that gnaws away at the parliamentary Labour party. The middle way, centrism, is an abstraction. It has no meaning in the real world. Under a so-called centrist Labour government, the sale of parts of the NHS to the private sector was accelerated. Starmer cannot retain his pristine establishment image while delivering a revival of our health service.

Starmer

Like all of us, Keir Starmer is a contradictory person, but unlike most of us, he now holds immense power. In all the scenarios above, he faces a choice: justice or injustice; oppressed or oppressor; freedom of speech or tyranny; truth or illusion.

Soon, he must decide whether he stands for life or for death. If that seems shrill, look at the world around you and the impact of indifference.

A slogan for Keir Starmer’s new Labour? For the many, not the few For the many and the few? Not for the many, not for the few? For the few not the many? For some people, but who?

You?

 

by Tom Charles @tomhcharles