Dear all
It is time to talk about the elephant in the room - Labour Party suspensions. Around 8,000 people according to some. There may be many reasons some members are still suspended from the Labour Party, stuck in limbo, but a lack of useful, pertinent information to those affected is just one cruel aspect of this sorry state of affairs. Legal concerns and matters may be part of the problem but we members are just ordinary folk. We are not in it for the money, the power and the glory. We have our own life stresses and strains. When we opt to commit to a political party we deserve some respect. People join for many reasons and yes some do so mischievously. But the majority join the party to show support and pay for the privilege. In some cases they work their socks off trying to get the Labour Party message out and representatives elected. If they then respond angrily on social media using a word that the party machine has suddenly decided is off limits, such as TRAITOR, do they deserve suspension? When the party has trawled back over time following anonymous complaints regarding party members the affected member is scuppered. But as previously stated if you feel a person has betrayed you or broken a promise TRAITOR is a very fitting word. Those MPs who vowed to support Mr Corbyn when he was elected September 12, 2015, but did anything but, fit that category to perfection. But as #LabourPartyPurge2 drags on tempers are fraying and people are resigning - enough is enough and who can blame them for quitting. A sensible way forward would be an amnesty of sorts. The abuse timer reset, as after all in many cases it was simply angry debate and not abuse. That would allow a date to work from. No more trawling back over social media just a clean slate and new era following your re-election in 2016. Allowing the current situation to drag on is destructive. It means people listen to Chinese whispers and gossip. That results in more anger and the downward spiral circle continues to whirl out of control. It is not rocket science. It makes some conclude the party is still split, that a further leadership challenge could follow and it provides the mainstream media with ammunition all making Labour's electability a distant dream. For the sake of us all we need to hit the restart button. With so many factions working against each other little wonder people are 'speaking with their feet' and resigning. Who will respond to this open letter? Will anything change for the better in 2016? Or is the Labour Party just too big for its boots now. Party suspensions need putting to bed. Time to move on and work toward election success with all hands to the pumps. Note: The writer is not suspended. But she has Labour values which means she cares about those that are. Do you Mr McNicol?
Monday Jewish Labour have tweeted their decision to support Owen Smith in the 2016 Labour Party leadership race.
It is a two politician race between the incumbent Labour Party leader and the challenger Owen Smith MP. Sunday a leading Jewish Labour Party donor Michael Foster hit the mainstream media with a report damning Corbyn supporters as Nazi Stormtroopers. Some believe his report was simply a way to make some money as he faces court costs following the legal action he lost; an attempt to keep Corbyn off the ballot. Why is that important to this story? Jewish Labour's earlier tweet included a link to this story from April 13, 2016: "The Jewish Labour Movement, with help from supporters in the Labour Party will be proposing a change to the Labour Party rulebook calling for stricter rules and sanctions to be placed upon members who have made racist, antisemitic or islamophobic statements. BBC News covered the proposed change today. Jewish Labour Movement National Chairman Jeremy Newmark also appeared on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme today to advocate the rule changes which will be proposed by members across the country at local constituency meetings before the June deadline. If you you think that your CLP would like to consider supporting the rule change you can download the rule change motion by clicking here. If you have tabled the motion at your branch or CLP please let us know by emailing: [email protected] For further queries please contact [email protected] or tweet us at @JewishLabour." So what about when the boot is on the other foot? Corbyn supporters responded angrilly to Foster's damning terminolgy Sunday. But at time of writing Owen Smith, party deputy leader Tom Watson and party General Secretary Iain McNicol have been noticeable by their silence. Formal complaints have been lodged. But when vague allegations of anti-Semetisim were made earlier in the year against some party members the mainstream media were all over it like an infectious rash. So where is the outcry levied at Foster and the Mail for calling young, old or is that ALL Corbyn supporters Nazi Stormtroopers? Instead Monday the Huffington Post opts to cover the Smith nomination with "Jeremy Corbyn’s Response To Claims Of Anti-Semitism ‘Fuelled Jewish Members’ Support For Owen Smith." That may or may not be the truth. Having tweeted Jewish Labour for a responce to Foster's abusive words we await a response. Kevin Neil, Plymouth, has this to say with regard to Michael Foster's Daily Mail piece Sunday August 13: The Labour leadership election campaign needs to be about principles and policies, not about personalities. True enough I was openly critical of Michael Foster when I was invited to comment by the Plymouth Herald and Western Morning News, on the court case brought by Foster. However it's hard to comment on the actions of an individual without discussing that individual. My view was and is that nobody is bigger than the party and that donations however generous, must never buy influence. I believe too that Michael Foster has used his wealth to influence the party, when only words and ideas should do so. This article in the Daily Mail now drags the leadership debate to a new and shameful low and Michael Foster is solely responsible for this. Firstly I need to say that I was actually present throughout the Camborne event and that I played a small part in organising it. Second that I heard every speech in full and therefore can say with certainty that Michael Foster misrepresents the event and presumably willfully so. Not one speaker presented as divisive or aggressive, most being ordinary local Cornish people, giving their own testimony of life in Conservative Britain and bringing their own hopes and ambitions for a better future. Those who doubt my evidence need only to access my Facebook page and to listen to the main speeches I 'live streamed'. These are small matters though and perhaps in the politics of the current Labour establishment we should expect misrepresentation. What is more significant and quite despicable is the deeper, darker meaning, running through Foster's article. His headline itself, "Why I despise Jeremy Corbyn and his Nazi stormtroopers", is vile and despicable. I've never met Foster so cannot comment on him as a person, but his words are vile, insulting and offensive. There should be no place for language like this within the Labour Party or within the leadership campaign. If Foster thinks this is acceptable within political debate then I truly hope he never stands as a Labour candidate at any level ever again. Incidentally I had no idea that Foster is Jewish and it's of no relevance to his position in the party. It does however make it astonishing that he's chosen to use words like these. Surely he understands the difference between 'Nazi stormtroopers' and the local mums, teachers, health workers and others who spoke from the platform. Surely he can't expect to be taken seriously when he uses this label to describe the man who addressed us from his wheelchair? Even more astonishing that he chose as his vehicle the Daily Mail, the paper that once carried the headline, "Hurrah for the Blackshirts". I have no expectation that the loud mouths and bullies like Foster will tone down their behaviours during this leadership election campaign. However I do hope that they are decisively rejected by the party members when the result is announced. I also hope that in the case of Foster that he is never elected into any role within the party again. For us to heal the damage being done to the party by people like Foster, we surely need to demonstrate that we all distance ourselves from loathsome remarks like these. If he is to have any credibility at all, surely even Owen Smith must condemn Foster's remarks? Richard Burgon MP responds to Michael Foster's Nazi accusations: I and others have spoken up for the need for Labour Party members to be treated with respect. Some have - as is their right - acted with outrage at the fact I chose to do so. Today in The Sunday Mail, Michael Foster - who brought the Court case attempting to secure the outcome of denying Labour Party members the choice of voting for the elected Leader of the Labour Party in the Leadership challenge - wrote an article in which he refers to "Corbyn and his Sturm Abteilung (stormtroopers)". The Sunday Mail illustrated his article with the above photo and explanatory caption and used the headline 'Why I despise Jeremy Corbyn and his Nazi stormtroopers'. Whilst Michael Foster is supporting Owen Smith's Leadership campaign, I of course wouldn't blame Owen Smith for Michael Foster's independent activities but I do think this shows that it is necessary to speak up for decent women and men the length and breadth of the country who are Labour members because they want a fair and more equal society and who are being disgracefully demonised. It's just plain wrong. Opinion: I attended a Corbyn rally in Hull. I was accompanied by my 85-year-old neighbour, a retired teacher, and my husband aged 65. By the way I am 64 and retired.
My parents were classed as relatively old when I was a kid as people had children young in the post-war period. I never knew my paternal Grandfather as he was on a Merchant Navy vessel which was sunk by a German U Boat of the coast of Egypt in 1941. My Dad served more than seven years of his life in the infantry during WWII. Like so many men he had a tough old time, suffered health effects post-war and died when I was 17 and he just 55. As a young man Dad was with others who ran Mosley and his Black Shirts out of my city Hull during the "Battle of Corporation Fiend." That was before the second world war kicked off but at a time when the far right was on the rise in Germany and parts of Europe. So do I find Mr Foster's terminology offensive? You bet your life I do. He should be expelled from the party and NOW. After a year of crazy, sometimes false, accusations of anti Semetism againt Corbyn and his supporters his membership is obscene. Time he and his money was toast! http://www.heretical.com/british/charnley.html http://www.thejeremycorbyneffect.com/jeremy-corbyn-blog/so-called-nazi-members-of-corbyn-circus-respond-with-anger http://www.thejeremycorbyneffect.com/jeremy-corbyn-blog/michael-foster-launches-vile-attack-on-many-labour-party-members |
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