Drive the Blairite-Zionist political thugs out of Labour!

Socialist Fight 9-7-19

The re-suspension of Chris Williamson after the two-day lifting of his suspension in late June is an index of the supine and treacherous nature of the mainstream ‘left’, and the complete lack of backbone of Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott themselves. With the reimposition of his suspension, the danger is that Williamson’s case will be forwarded by today’s NEC to the National Constitutional Committee for the kind of rubber-stamp expulsion previously dealt out to the likes of Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein. We demand a stop to this and Chris’s immediate reinstatement!

This attack is an incredible provocation against the left-wing majority membership of Labour The aims are clear: Williamson is regarded by many of the left as the rightful Deputy Leader to Corbyn, rather than Tom Watson who is just as crooked a liar as Boris Johnson, having gained election in 2015 by promising to loyally serve under the obvious winner, Jeremy Corbyn; he has become Corbyn’s most entrenched enemy and organiser of smears and hate campaigns against the left.

Momentum’s Jon Lansman revealed himself again to be an ally of Tom Watson in seeking to overthrow Corbyn with his denunciation of Williamson’s brief readmission on Twitter. Likewise with the joining in with this of middle-class fake left celebrities like Owen Jones, Ash Sarkar and Matt Zarb-Cousins has revealed the rottenness and scab politics of these dilettantes.

This has finally thrown Momentum’s remaining credibility into the grave, as there have been widespread cancellations of membership since Lansman’s position became known. The bulk of Labour members are opposed to Chris’s purge, as shown when the very Blairite Labour List attempted a survey of membership sentiment about it: 61% voted in favour of Williamson’s reinstatement: only 31% supported his suspension.

If Williamson is expelled we say he should stand in his own seat, Derby North, in the General Election as an Independent Anti-Zionist Labour candidate. No one on the left should oppose him, and anyone who does stand against him for Labour will be marked in advance as a Zionist stooge and should be excoriated by the genuine left. He should force his way back into Labour the way Ken Livingstone did after 2000. This could be an inspirational tactic if such an outrageous expulsion were to go ahead.

However, the purge could still be headed off by a determined campaign by a reinvigorated left within the party. Williamson’s decision to go public and fight back is indicated by his speaking at a public meeting in Liverpool on 22 July at a meeting demanding “Defend and Build the Labour Left. For a socialist Labour government … Reinstate Chris Williamson and all wrongly accused”.

A victory by Chris could lay the basis to reverse all the fraudulent expulsions of leftists at the behest of the anti-Arab Zionist racist thugs who are currently gaslighting Labour’s anti-racist, pro-Palestinian membership. It is these racists, from the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) who need to be thrown out of Labour, not the anti-racist, anti-Zionist left.

We cautiously welcome the initiative by Labour Against the Witchhunt (LAW) and the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) to call for a properly democratic, inclusive organisation of the Labour Left, even though LAW itself does not have clean hands. LAW, like Momentum to a degree, LAW has a record of falsely accusing some of its own supporters of ‘anti-Semitism’ and purging them, including supporters of Socialist Fight and LAZIR (Labour Against Zionist Islamophobic Racism). Likewise we support the call by prominent London Labour left figure Graham Durham for a new, inclusive left-wing organisation. But we are opposed to it being a mere network of local groups.

Any such body has to be democratically organised and have a central, elected body, accountable to conferences etc. to decide policies, otherwise it is danger of being subjected to the tyranny of structurelessness.

The whole left must insist on full implementation of working class democracy, which means no ideological bans and proscriptions against left-wing tendencies and full freedom of political debate. Working class democracy should be the principle which organises the left and the Labour Party itself if we are to go forward.

 One purpose of Williamson’s suspension is a blatant piece of ballot-rigging by Watson and the Blairites/Zionists. By engineering the expulsion of Williamson, his most likely challenger for the Deputy’s job – particularly now that such challenges are now easier to make if not to win! – they secure Watson’s hated tenure in his job even though he has no mandate for his attacks on the left.

The other purpose is to demoralise the left and hopefully cause large-scale leakage away of Corbyn-supporting members. Which is why no one on the left should resign from Labour. It is exactly what the reactionaries want.

It is obvious that the sentiment at the base of the Corbynite movement is that Momentum must be replaced by another all-inclusive left-wing movement, this time based solidly on the principles of workers democracy, not the corrupt anti-democratism signified by Lansman’s personal ownership of Momentum. ▲