The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 7th September 2018
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 7th September 2018
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 7th September 2018
LEFT LABOUR candidates swept the board in the National Executive Committee elections this week but the decision of the outgoing committee to accept the contentious International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-semitism in full has been condemned by activists as a surrender to the Zionist and Blairite fifth column inside the party.
Corbyn supporters have won all nine of the places up for grabs on Labour’s NEC in an all-members’ vote whose result was announced on Monday. Eight were on the Momentum slate. Peter Willsman, who was kicked off the Momentum list following charges of ‘anti-semitism’, faced off the vicious smear campaign to come ninth.
Labour’s ruling body has 39 seats representing local parties, unions, MPs, MEPs and young activists. Nine are elected by lay members.
The new NEC members take up their positions after the annual party conference later in the month which left the outgoing committee to rule on the IHRA definition of anti-semitism that the party had previously accepted with exceptions to allow for genuine criticism of Zionism and support for the Palestinian people.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside Labour Party HQ in London on Tuesday to call on the NEC to take the principled stand and refuse to bow to Zionist and Blairite pressure. But the old NEC decided to adopt the IHRA definition of anti-semitism in full with all its illustrative examples, including its conflation of anti-semitism with criticism of Israel.
The NEC said: “We recommend that we adopt the IHRA in full, with all examples. This does not in any way undermine the freedom of expression on Israel or the rights of Palestinians. We re-invite organisations to engage in consultation on the Code of Conduct.”
A stronger, more specific statement, proposed by Jeremy Corbyn to protect those who describe the creation of Israel as ‘racist’, was withdrawn when it appeared it would not get enough support.
Meanwhile an attempt to set up another breakaway parliamentary party by passed-over Blairites on Labour’s back-benches continues despite the fact that there is no interest in it outside the Westminster bubble. Blairite has-beens, including Peter Mandelson, are believed to have pledged an initial £50 million to fund a new ‘centrist’ party by a group of wealthy businessmen including Simon Franks, a multi-millionaire who made his money from Lovefilm.
The usual suspects have allegedly sought the backing of dissident Tory Europhile MPs and the Liberal Democrats for this new movement which they are ludicrously calling the “United for Change” party.
Their platform, so far, is simply to say that Corbyn’s no good and that we should remain in the European Union. While this may go down well with some readers of the Guardian or the Observer it cuts no ice on the street. When Frank field, the maverick right-wing Labour MP, resigned from the Parliamentary Labour Party last week over Corbyn’s alleged “anti-semitism” no-one else joined him.
Jeremy Corbyn’s number two, John McDonnell says: “It is predictably likely that the whole escapade will degenerate into high farce. However there is also the potential that although these present day Neo-Liberal Democrats would pick up limited support, except in the media, nevertheless this could prevent the election of a Labour government, replicating the tragedy of the 1980s and the continuation of all a Tory government’s policies mean for our people.
“That’s why our task is to expose this venture for what it is. It is the establishment desperately seeking to prevent the election of a socialist government and to return to the system whereby politics is simply the rotation in government of the rich elites. I am confident that our movement has the strength and scale now to overwhelm this tedious, retrograde threat”.