Vote for the Left Slate at this 2016 AGM! 29-10-16

Defeat the witch-hunts! Reinstate Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone and all expelled and suspended in the Labour party!

The LRC has become a pusillanimous body, split between a section who want to maintain the organisation and fight to win the leadership of Momentum to a clear socialist programme and a section that either wants to dissolve the organisation or reduce it to uncritical supporters of the Corbyn /McDonnell leadership with little political independence. As John McDonnell is proposed as the Honorary President we expect the candidates we are supporting to turn the LRC into a fighting, activist organisation to inspire the new Labour party membership and the rank and file of Momentum to fight for real anti-austerity mobilisations and socialism.

The LRC National Executive Committee cancelled the 2015 Conference in breach of its own constitution. A fighting socialist body would have been delighted with the opportunity to give a lead to the new membership and influence Momentum in adopting the type of democratic structures it had itself. But, appalled by the prospect of this new membership surge coming under too much left wing and socialist influence, they cancelled the Conference and called a Special Conference on 20 February to water down its own democratic structures lest it put undue influence on Momentum and the new Labour leadership.

To our knowledge the Labour Party Marxists (LPM), the Grass Roots Left (GRL), The Irish Republican Prisoners Support group (IRPSG), Socialist Fight (SF) and many others had been refused affiliation on the basis that the NEC were not “satisfied that your organisation represented a body with a national membership base”. So, like Ian McNichol and the Compliance Unit, judgement was passed without a hearing and we could later appeal, after we had lost our votes and delegates at the conference, as expelled/suspended Labour members had in September at Labour’s Conference.

For the past several years the GRL has proposed motions on vital trade unions issues, the IRPSG has proposed motions defending the democratic rights of Irish Republican Prisoners and most of these motions have passed and enriched the political culture of the LRC, likewise with the LPM and others. It is true some motions by SF and other groups tended to be more controversial and many were defeated but it is vital to protect minority leftist views in workers’ organisations; they may prove correct and indispensable for the whole movement later as it develops.

Certainly the LPM, the GRL and the IRPSG have a national membership base, GRL Chair Jerry Hicks got 80,000 votes, almost 40%, for Unite GS in 2013. Jerry lives in Bristol, Treasurer Ian Scott lives in Birmingham, Secretary Gerry Downing in London. We must elect a press officer from Inverness to be recognised as truly national, presumably. We will  appeal all these political bans and proscriptions.

We are all aware the Corbyn leadership comes under tremendous pressure to compromise with the capitalist establishment and their neo-liberal representatives in the PLP and the LP NEC. Despite the relatively good Chakrabarti Report the anti-semitism witch-hunts continue. Thousands were arbitrarily suspended or expelled, including Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker, for spurious and baseless charges.

Right wing PLPers and their supporters can issue death threats to Corbyn in public without sanction. Birmingham Yardley MP Jess Phillips, said, “I won’t knife you in the back – I’ll knife you in the front”. Of course, such a threat, if issued against Angela Eagle, would result in immediate suspension and expulsion.

A defence that it was only a metaphor would be contemptuously rejected. Ukip and Tory members can switch to Labour without any trawls for past or present racist attitudes or genuine anti-semetism. Yet the response from Corbyn and McDonnell to all this is muted, to say the least.

Because of the continued domination of the party structures by the right wing the Labour party conference decreed that it is now a disciplinary offence for Labour councillors to actively oppose austerity, service decimations and job losses in Local Authorities.

Momentum made no serious attempt to organise for this conference in line with its pathetic outlook of not upsetting the right wing. Consequently, the right-wing Zionist Mike Katz, National vice-chair of Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), and the treacherous Deputy Tom Watson got standing ovations. That is an indictment of the cowardice of Momentum’s top leaders.

The LRC and, with LRC assistance to democratise it, Momentum must provide the very necessary counter pressure on the Labour leadership to take a strong stance on these questions. Unless the movement of both Corbyn surges begins to win some real victories for itself or at least engage in serious struggle it will wither and eventually die. We must seek to assist it to win these victories and thus inspire its forward momentum; it must begin to feel its own strength and relevance and we must not relegate it to the status of a stage army just to get Corbyn elected in 2020.

In April 2013 the Employment Tribunal judge Anthony Snelson said the evidence given by Jeremy Newmark (above) to it was “false, preposterous, extraordinarily arrogant and disturbing”.

To win it must become ideologically coherent itself. Therefore it cannot have the likes of Jon Lansman as an LRC NEC member or as the leader of Momentum. His victimisation of Jackie Walker with the disgraceful assistance of the Zionist Alliance for Workers Liberty, because his friend Jeremy Newmark was “upset” is intolerable. In April 2013 the employment tribunal judge Anthony Snelson said Jeremy Newmark’s evidence to it was “false, preposterous, extraordinarily arrogant and disturbing” after the failure of the attempt to sue the University College Union for harassment and institutional antisemitism.

Such condemnation by a judge would destroy the careers of most but the Jewish Chronicle stoutly defended the witch-hunter and, with others, promoted him to become the National Chair of the racist Zionist JLM. Now this ‘preposterous’ man is a constant presence on TV and  the columns of the national press, all universally hostile to the new Labour party members and Corbyn.

Jon Lansman, who wants us to stop using the word ‘Zionist’ lest we offend Zionists, was not at all bothered about offending the Black Jewish woman Jackie Walker on the say so of this scoundrel. She was then subject to an appalling racist twitter storm and vile racist insults when she appeared in public.

We must elect more militant and revolutionary leaders who are prepared to inspire and lead the vanguard of the class, the 600, 000 + Labour members who might not have an advanced understanding of Marxism or the tendency of the rate of profit to fall but who can recognise the class enemy when they see it and were clearly advanced enough to reject the universal hostility of the entire capitalist establishment and their allies within the Labour party to vote for Jeremy Corbyn twice in a year.

They deserve a better lead than that given by the current LRC compromisers. The Momentum rank and file need assistance to democratise that body. Momentum’s prime task should be winning wards and GCs, electing Conference delegates, etc. and deselecting the Blairite MPs and councillors. With this must go the struggle to democratise the TUs by rank and file bodies and defeating the Blairite bureaucrats there.

Then we can have a left wing NEC actually supporting the leader and members. Corbyn will then be elected by a mass movement growing ever more confident in their demands for socialism because of victories won. Holding back so as not to frighten the middle-class conservatives and the capitalist establishment is a cowardly outlook and a sure receipt for defeat.

 Tweet from Jeremy Newmark: EU reject EUMC definition of anti-semitism  but the #sensibletrots of the AWL still do Zionism’s dirty work for Jeremy Newmark during the failed attempt to sue the University College Union for harassment and institutional antisemitism..