Letter

More Palestine Protest Arrests 

Dear HIP,

I fully support the views and actions expressed by C and by H in HIP 300.

What Keir Starmer and two Home Secretaries under this Labour Government have done is an affront to humanity and to justice and sends a clear message to Palestinians that their lives are worthless and to Israel to carry on slaughtering. Shabana Mahmood and Yvette Cooper are authoritarian, and I despise them. I will never vote Labour because of them and Starmer, and a lot of people I know feel the same way. I have written a letter of condemnation to Jo Shiner the Chief Constable of Sussex about the decision to allow heavy handed policing in Hastings and the decision by the local force to arrest here, whereas in Truro where there was a similar peaceful protest, no such arrests were made for exactly the same type of protest. Disgraceful. This is the same Hastings force who tasered and pepper sprayed a very elderly man in a home who had dementia and couldn’t walk. He was confused and bewildered and waved a butter knife. He died three weeks later in hospital. Do you trust a Police force capable of doing that and getting off lightly? Lots of people in this town were outraged by that and will be by this.

Rosie Brocklehurst Franczak

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The political whirlwind engulfing the government swept through Hastings last Thursday morning (5 February) as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer arrived at a wet and windy Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards. He was there to deliver a speech ostensibly launching the new Pride in Place initiative, but the assembled premier league press pack were there to report on a very different story.

The Prime Minister was introduced by Kevin Boorman in his role as Chair of the Hastings Neighbourhood Board, the body that will decide how the £20m allocated to Hastings will be spent under the Pride of Place initiative.

Mr Boorman retired as a Council officer in 2023 after more than a quarter of a century of service to the town, and he recounted how his Great Uncle George Moon was cox of the Hastings lifeboat Cyril and Lilian Bishop, which was used to evacuate troops from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.

In opening his speech, the Prime Minister thanked Kevin, “or I should address you as Mr Hastings” for giving his “heart and soul” to the service of the town. He also went on to praise Bernard Stonestreet for his “24 years of distinguished service in the Royal Marines” and for his “tireless works for Sussex and for Hastings”, including opening the East Sussex Veterans’ Hub on Robertson Street and helping homeless veterans who have fallen on hard times.

The Prime Minister went on to confront head-on the contentious appointment of Lord Mandelson as US Ambassador – the issue now threatening to derail his premiership. He repeated his claim that the former ambassador deceived him regarding the Epstein connection and insisted he had “no reason to disbelieve him” initially.

Sir Keir Starmer apologised directly to the Epstein victims who, he said, “have lived with the trauma that most of us can barely comprehend, and they have had to relive it again and again.” He went on to say that he was “sorry for having believed Mandelson’s lies and appointed him, and sorry that even now you’re forced to watch this story unfold in public once again.”

He added: “I also want to say this: in this country, we will not look away, we will not shrug our shoulders, and we will not allow the powerful to treat justice as optional. We will pursue the truth. We will uphold the integrity of public life, and we will do everything within our power and in the interests of justice to ensure accountability is delivered. That is what the public expects. That is what the victims deserve, and it is what I will do.”

Turning to the reason for his visit to Hastings, the launch of the new Pride in Place initiative, the Prime Minister said the programme would “help disadvantaged areas across the country empower local communities to revitalise their high streets, manage derelict assets, and boost local pride.”

The Prime Minister concluded his speech referencing all local heroes, who make a “huge difference, and change how we feel about our town, our future, and even our country. Through their examples, each of us can look out of the window and see that people care. Wouldn’t politics be better if we truly backed that kind of pride?”

Under the Pride in Place plans, residents can apply to join the independent board that will help decide how to spend £20m in funding for the town over the next decade. The board’s chair, Kevin Boorman, is currently looking to recruit “passionate, community-minded individuals” to review and approve local projects which “genuinely reflect our communities” and “help shape a Hastings for everyone.”

Local MP Helena Dollimore described the government’s Pride in Place fund as a “once in a generation opportunity to change our town for the better”, sentiments echoed by Cllr Julia Hilton, deputy leader of Hastings BC and lead councillor for shaping places and local government reorganisation. She said she wanted the neighbourhood board to “reflect the full diversity and experience of our town.” She added that she was “particularly keen to hear from people from minority ethnic backgrounds and from residents with lived experience of the challenges many in Hastings face every day.” 

Residents interested in joining the Board need to complete a short application form and submit it by Thursday 19 February 2026. For more information and to apply:

hastings.gov.uk/regeneration/pride-in-place/new-board-members

Why did I risk arrest and a possible jail sentence by joining the demonstration in Parliament square earlier this month? Instead of fulfilling its legal obligations under the Genocide Convention and ending all UK arms sales to Israel, the UK government has instead chosen to allow the ongoing sale of British arms to Israel – most importantly, the supply of vital spare parts for the F35 planes used to bomb Gaza’s population – and to misuse anti-terror powers to repress nonviolent protest and freedom of speech about these sales.

On 3 July, Amnesty International condemned Israel’s ‘continued use of starvation to inflict genocide against Palestinians’. This followed: Amnesty’s earlier (Dec ‘24) finding that Israel is ‘committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza’; Human Rights Watch’s finding (also in Dec ‘24) that Israel had ‘intentionally deprived Palestinian civilians in Gaza of adequate access to water since October 2023, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths and thus committing the crime against humanity of extermination and acts of genocide’; the issuing of an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (in Nov ‘24) for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for ‘the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts’; and the Jan ‘24 ruling by the International Court of Justice that there was plausible evidence that Israel was carrying out genocide in Gaza.

Today, though, it is apparently perfectly legal to endorse Israel’s ‘right’ to deprive Gaza’s population of power and water–as Keir Starmer himself did in Oct ‘23–or support its bombing of Gaza into oblivion. There is only one legally-permitted answer to the question: ‘Do you support Palestine Action–yes or no?’

Surely this is one of the worst attacks on free speech and the right to protest in the UK in the last thirty years.

Meanwhile, though our local Hastings’ MP, Helena Dollimore, is prepared to cry crocodile tears about the Israeli government’s ‘appalling’ actions and the ‘intolerable’ human suffering in Gaza, she has never once acknowledged that these crimes have been taking place – and continue to take place – with the active support of her government through continued UK arms sales and RAF overflights of Gaza.

I call on her to disavow her recent vote to ban Palestine Action, to acknowledge that Israel’s actions clearly fit the legal definition of genocide and to join other Labour MPs in signing Early Day Motion 1310, calling for the immediate suspension of UK arms sales to Israel.

Read how a Hastings 12 year old raised nearly £2,000 for Gaza families. Letters 4

Labour’s first 100 days in office has been dubbed ‘worst start in living memory’, with six out of ten Britons disapproving of the government’s record. Indeed, within a short space of time Labour has managed to cloak itself in sleaze, make it harder for pensioners to access winter fuel allowances, leave millions of children in poverty, and tell the long term sick to get back to work. The party now takes millions in donations from private business and billionaires, while removing desperately needed benefits from people who rely on them most. As ‘Austerity 2.0’ is now being rolled out by the government, I’m left wondering, are Labour any better than the Tories?

In the week Labour scrapped winter fuel allowances for most pensioners, senior Labour politicians including Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner have found themselves embroiled in ‘Gift Gate’, accepting luxury freebies for things like clothing, glasses, accommodation, gig tickets, as well as football and tennis matches. Labour cabinet members have reportedly received £250,000 in free gifts with Sir Keir reportedly pocketing £100,000 worth.

Lord Waheed Alli – ennobled by Tony Blair in 1998 as Baron Alli of Norbury – has been a major Labour donor. During this year’s general election campaign he donated £10,000 towards Liam Conlon’s successful campaign to win Beckenham & Penge. Conlon is the son of former Labour Chief of Staff Sue Gray. Following the election Alli was given the keys – or at least a free pass – to Downing Street – a move apparently sanctioned by Ms Gray.

Another example of Labour sleaze is the case of the party’s then shadow business secretary. According to the Open Democracy website, Jonathan Reynolds, his senior parliamentary assistant (who is his wife), and Keir Starmer’s political director all attended the Glastonbury festival in June 2023 as guests of YouTube, which is owned by Google. Reynolds estimates his Glastonbury package for two including accommodation and ‘hospitality’ was worth £3,377 – significantly more than the cost of two regular tickets, at £335 each. Until then, Labour was promising to increase the digital service tax from 2% to 10%, which would bring in billions from giants like Google and Facebook. Literally the day after the festival, it emerged that Reynolds had ditched the policy. Voters, not tech-firms, would have to accept austerity instead.

Two years ago Labour were heavily critical of the Tories during ‘Party Gate’ and ‘VIP Covid Contracts’, and promised to take the sleaze out of politics. Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting defended the recent gifts, likening them to a “charitable donation which was saving the taxpayer”. From what, exactly? Having to buy Labour Politicians Taylor Swift tickets?

I would argue Labour are no different to the Tories. A recent YouGov poll suggested most Britons thought the Labour government was ‘sleazy’, while an Opinium poll reveals that Starmer’s approval rating has plunged below that of the Tory leader Rishi Sunak, with a huge 45-point drop since July. After the government’s first 100 days, YouGov found half of Labour’s own voters were disappointed by Starmer’s government, with four in ten Britons feeling the country is in a worse state than before the election. Perhaps most alarmingly for the government, nearly half (47%) of those who voted Labour in the election say they had positive expectations of Starmer’s government but feel let down so far, with only three in ten (30%) feeling Labour has done as well as they had hoped.

‘Gift Gate’ came in the same week as Labour’s egregious decision to cut the Winter Fuel Payment for most pensioners, a policy which suggests Labour would prefer to make accessing heating for poor pensioners a near impossible online task instead of a few pensioners who don’t need the allowance receiving it. Last week Starmer floated his proposition that those who have been long term sick need to get back to work!

Meanwhile, here in Hastings, Labour members on the council have voted to keep the two-child benefit cap, despite figures from the Department of Work and Pensions showing that a quarter of all children in the borough were living in relative poverty. In fact all seven Hastings Labour Councillors and the MP have voted to continue with ‘austerity 2.0’ leaving the children of this town in poverty. This leaves Hastings residents with the obvious question, if the Labour Party continues with its pre-election plan to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP “when funds become available”, why can’t they also pledge to lift the two child cap “when funds become available”? 

In May 2024 Labour received its biggest ever donation – £4m – from Quadrature Capital, a Cayman Island hedge funder who have shares in fossil fuels and the arms industry. The donation was made just after the general election was called but has only just been declared.

Labour politicians locally and nationally appear to have sold out and are clearly showing they are looking to run the country through public and private partnerships, meaning public infrastructure will be used to support private business. Sadly,Labour’s 100 days of talking down the country, having no real or convincing fiscal plan (other than blaming the Tories) has had the opposite of the desired effect to energise the British market and economy. Instead foreign investors are sceptical about investing and more likely to drive harder deals and worse terms and conditions for workers.

Labour now receives more in private business donations than trade union donors, receiving approximately £13m since 2022, while the three biggest union affiliates in the same period donated less than that, around £12m. Donations are obviously a clear reflection of policy priority and who has the ear of elected representatives.

Within less than 100 days in Government, Labour have shown they are no different to the Tories, preferring to punch down at the poor, rather than punch up at the billionaires. Instead, they have cosied up to the rich with freebies and donations, clear evidence of who Labour now listens to and, moreover, who they now represent and whose interests they prioritise.

Amidst a flurry of news about cross-channel migration, including stepped-up border security and multiple drownings, there has been no word from Sir Keir Starmer’s government about the future of Northeye – the former prison premises outside Bexhill which the Home Office purchased last year for the stated intention of detaining illegal immigrants. 

Progress towards this prospective usage seemed to have stalled under previous Home Secretary James Cleverly while Rishi Sunak put all his energies into pursuing the policy of deportations to Rwanda. Sir Keir made it quite clear on his accession as prime minister that the Rwanda scheme had been abandoned. It has been replaced, at least in the new government’s rhetoric, by the launch of a new Border Security Command which will enrol “hundreds of new specialist investigators” and use counter-terror powers  “to smash criminal boat gangs”. 

However, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced on 21 August “a major surge in immigration enforcement and returns activity”, claiming that the government has new plans for the next six months “to achieve the highest rate of removals of those with no right to be here, including failed asylum seekers, for five years (since 2018)”.  This will entail “increased detention capacity”, according to Ms Cooper, as well as an increase in the rate of determination of asylum claims and negotiation of agreements with foreign governments to accept returns. 

EXPANSION OF DETENTION CAPACITY

In her speech she identified the reopening of two former detention centres, one at Campsfield House in Oxfordshire, the other at Haslar outside Gosport, to serve her immediate purpose as Immigration Removal Centres. Together these would accommodate an additional 290 detainees on top of the current capacity across the country of approximately 2,300. But with over 23,000 would-be immigrants arriving by small boats across the Channel this year as of 15 September – a slightly higher rate than the total of 29,437 (according to Home Office figures) over the whole of 2023 – the government is also reported to be “studying options” for further expansions of detention capacity. 

With regard to Campsfield, closed since 2019, a Home Office spokesperson said they “have held discussions with local councillors and other stakeholders to ensure the impact of the plans on the local community and environment is fully taken into account”. However, newly elected Liberal Democrat MP for Bicester & Woodstock, Calum Miller, and leaders of both Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council all publicly oppose the plans to reopen. Councillors on Cherwell District Council, which is the local planning authority, have complained in a letter sent to the Home Secretary of “a complete lack of parliamentary scrutiny”. 

The plan to reopen the Haslar site seems, on the other hand, to meet with the approval of at least local Conservative MP, Dame Caroline Dinenage. AVID, a national network of visitor groups to people in immigration detention, has pointed out that it was closed in 2015 after numerous reports of mistreatment and inhumane conditions. But Dame Dinenage praised the removal of asbestos from the site during the period of closure, and earlier this year welcomed the plan, describing the refurbishment as “high quality” and remarking positively on “the 200 jobs” which reopening would bring.

OPPOSITION TO NORTHEYE

Asbestos has been identified as a problem at Northeye too.  And the local MP (Dr Kieran Mullen, newly elected in July) is also a Conservative, unlikely in principle to oppose the government’s detention programme. However, at the beginning of August he was reported by the BBC to have called on the government to “let people know what is going on”, and to have stated that “bringing in hundreds and hundreds of people” into “a quiet residential road in a town that’s already struggling with infrastructure” wouldn’t be “the right decision”. 

In this view he aligns with his Bexhill constituents who opposed the use of the site for migrant accommodation and/or detention purposes in demonstrations and counter-demonstrations last year – from the Stand Up To Racism pro-asylum activists on the political left to No to Northeye local residents concerned at threats to indigenous security and property values on the political right. Any Home Office move to revive the original plan will no doubt be responded to with a dusting out of respective placards and renewed marches. Another local campaigner Jeff Newnham, who raised nearly £20,000 from a crowdfunder appeal to bring a legal case for judicial review, has indicated that he still intends to proceed with it in this circumstance. 

On the other hand, newly elected MP for Hastings & Rye Helena Dollimore endorses Labour’s policy as committed to restore order to the system so that it is “swift, firm and fair – with the rules properly enforced”. The new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill announced in the King’s Speech in July, she said, “will bring in new replacement arrangements, including fast track decisions and returns to safe countries”.

And the Home Office is indeed reported to have signed new return agreements with Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Serbia and Georgia to follow a previous fast-track removal deal with Albania. But the fact is that the majority of illegal entrants, at least those arriving in small boats crossing the Channel, are from countries which can hardly be described as “safe” – apart from Vietnam, the five most common nations of origin being Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey (highly oppressive and discriminatory as far as many Kurds are concerned), Eritrea and Iraq. How is Ms Cooper going to negotiate safe return for dissident nationals from these?

AMNESTY  CRITIQUE

Steve Valdez-Symons, refugee and migrant rights programme director at Amnesty commented: “It’s dismaying to see the new government reheating the last government’s rhetoric over ‘border security’ and ‘smashing gangs’ even while neglecting the pressing need to provide safe asylum routes and a clear guarantee of asylum to refugees arriving here.

“People in urgent need – including those fleeing war and persecution in places like Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran – will keep coming to the UK and other countries, and the government needs to establish safe routes that reduce the perils of dangerous border crossings and the risk of exploitation by ruthless smuggling gangs.

“This ‘securitised’ approach to asylum and immigration will simply deter and punish many of the people most in need of crossing borders, people who are therefore often most vulnerable to criminal exploitation.”

Keir Starmer’s task on 4 July is being widely compared to Tony Blair’s in 1997, but a more apposite parallel might be with Clement Atlee’s battle in July 1945. Then Churchill had been in power for five years, heading first the coalition War Ministry, and for a few months afterwards a caretaker administration.

However bad things are today, there’s no doubt they were far worse almost 80 years ago, following six years of fighting. Food was still rationed, Britain had spent close to £7 billion, or a quarter of its overall wealth, on the war effort. The national debt had risen by nearly £3 billion and there was a desperate need for housing. Yet a Labour leader took his party into a general election with a really radical agenda and won a landslide 145 seat majority . So perhaps Keir Starmer should re-read what his predecessor promised the nation in the 1945 manifesto.

To begin with the document, with a large red V emblazoned on the cover, outlined the scale of the task ahead: ‘The nation needs a tremendous overhaul, a great programme of modernisation and re-equipment of its homes, its factories and machinery, its schools, its social services.’ The 2024 manifesto could import that sentiment wholesale. Atlee’s Labour party recognised that, as today, there simply wasn’t going to be enough money to pay for all their aspirations straight away and so proposed a National Investment Board to determine ‘social priorities and promote better timing in … investment in essential industries and on houses, schools, hospitals and civic centres.’  This would be a useful concept to revive.  Rather than policy being subject to immediate political expediency, Labour could allow the Investment Board to determine priorities – and to regulate private investment.  

This, though, was but a preamble to radical proposals that were to follow: ‘There are basic industries ripe and over-ripe for public ownership and management in the direct service of the nation. Public ownership of the fuel and power industries … gas and electricity … will lower charges (and) prevent competitive waste.’

Given the price cap that even a Conservative government has been forced to impose on fuel bills, this doesn’t look too radical.  Nor, indeed, would the next commitment: ‘Public ownership of iron and steel.’ Yes, re-nationalise Britain’s steel industry. Only last year the Tories handed private steelmaker Tata £500 million in what they said was ‘one of the largest UK Government support packages in history’. Rather than give the money away, let’s invest in our own steel-making capacity.  It’s never likely to be profitable, but would save millions on foreign imports.

Housing was at the centre of the 1945 Labour manifesto, proposing the ‘centralising and pooling of building materials and components by the State, together with price control’.  But that didn’t then, and wouldn’t today, guarantee enough available land.  And thus came the really radical proposal: ‘Labour believes in land nationalisation and will work towards it, but as a first step the State and the local authorities must have wider and speedier powers to acquire land for public purposes wherever the public interest so requires.’

This policy was not just to free up building land, but to regulate agriculture to increase food self-sufficiency in food production.  Although it never happened, it’s another policy that could gain traction today. 

Finally, a proposal that wasn’t in the post-war manifesto but one that could certainly help Labour win now: a national programme to fill in potholes and resurface our crumbling roads!  In 1945 Labour wasn’t afraid of radical proposals and believed state ownership was nothing to be ashamed or scared of.  Would that Starmer might grasp that nettle.

The brutal Hamas terror attacks of October 7 seem destined to become what commentators call an ‘inflexion point’ in Middle East history. It wasn’t just Israel caught flat-footed by the attack, many of our own politicians seemed disorientated and overwhelmed. They defaulted to predictable mantras whilst weighing short-term political calculations. Even over the cries of human pain and the crash of bombs, I fancied I heard cans being kicked down the road.

This time, however, politicians must rise to the occasion. As South Africa’s motion in the International Criminal Court forces Israel to rebut charges of genocide, a compassionate British public is paying more attention to the long-standing plight of Palestinians and looking to our parliamentarians for some moral leadership.

In the wake of the attacks, Sir Keir Starmer was first through the mill. His raison d’etre in previous years has been to remind us that he’s not Jeremy Corbyn. This obsession confounded his response to Israel’s increasingly disproportionate assault on Gaza, placing him at odds with swathes of his own party and a growing constituency beyond. He was so fuddled as to claim on LBC that Israel had the right to impose collective punishment on a civilian population. I’m glad to say the Lib Dems were amongst the first to call for a ceasefire, and Layla Moran, in particular, led the conversation in Parliament and nationally. With honourable exceptions, the Conservative position was predictable, but frankly, this is bigger than party politics, and consensus should be sought.

Compassion aside though, why should we care about what happens in Gaza? Well, because it really does touch our lives, and its part in the fracturing of Hastings Labour Party is but one minor example.

COLONIAL BAGGAGE

Connecting the dots though, Britain helped give birth to the State of Israel, and our colonial baggage influences relations with all countries of the region, not least Iran. We’re also a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the ‘arbiter’ of international peace, law and security.

We trade with Israel too. In the Spring of 2023, James Cleverly, busking as Foreign Secretary, signed the UK-Israel bilateral ‘roadmap’, which signalled a deeper trade and security alliance and, incidentally, seemed to endorse Israel’s far-right government – some of whose ministers live in illegal settlements and are vocal opponents of the ‘two-state solution’:a position which fundamentally contradicts UK policy. Trade with Israel is worth about £3bn a year – not inconsiderable given the UK’s straightened circumstances. Britain has strong religious and social connections to Israel too, via 350,000 British Jews, who represent one of our oldest minority groups – one that has been traumatised and tormented by the scenes in Israel and by some words and deeds at home. Lastly, Tel Aviv’s close political and defence ties with the US are also of significance to the UK.

So Israel is important to us. As, by extension, is its treatment of the five million Palestinians over whom it presides. Their plight is felt acutely by British Muslims, and with over 20,000 Palestinian men, women and children killed since October by the Israeli Defence Force, it begins to corrode social cohesion here and provide narratives to the radicalisers.

But there are other consequences of letting this fifty-seven-year-old sore continue to suppurate. The displacement of two million Gazans from their homes would not seem to me to lessen the global problem of migration – a cause presently dominating British politics. Similarly, allowing the conflict to escalate will ultimately hit hard-pressed families in Hastings and elsewhere. Few give much thought to trade through the Suez Canal, but they may when its interruption begins to inflate the price of goods or fuel.

Another corollary is defence spending. As the MoD decommissions destroyers and recruitment falls, can we afford Grant Schapps’ threats of military action against Houthis in Yemen? The Iranian-sponsored militias have weathered years of Saudi bombing. Like Hamas and Hezbollah, their dark light has not been dimmed. Islamic State are getting in on the act too. So, what’s the scope of this operation and where’s the money coming from? Plunging Britain into open-ended counterinsurgency would suit Iran just fine. Tehran is shrewd enough to know further escalation is unnecessary if it can simply bleed Israel, Britain and America physically and financially through proxy wars. Putin would be delighted too.

CYNICAL ASSERTION 

A deeper context is that, for many, October 7 highlighted the fallacy of Netanyahu’s cynical assertion that Israel’s occupation could be managed into mundanity by military means. A succession of British politicians have accepted this prospectus because it was easier than taking tough moral decisions, even those which accorded with our own values, policies and legal obligations. Now it’s painfully clear there’s no military solution, and it’s not in Britain or America’s interest to support Netanyahu’s endless war – or his ultra-nationalist coalition.

Our political leaders cannot apply short-term electorally expedient logic to long-term foreign policy issues. We cannot afford to continue to give an increasingly immoderate ally diplomatic cover when it threatens our social cohesion, compromises our principles and corrodes the public’s faith in the rules based international order which complements our democracy. If we endorse the basic tenets of international and humanitarian law, we have to uphold them – and promote them most powerfully to our friends. But, I’m not naïve. That’s easier said than done.

Do we expect Israel to talk with the people who murdered over a thousand civilians? Do we expect Palestinians to sit calmly round the table with their ears still ringing and their dead unburied? The answer is no. Not now at least. But, in the long term what’s the alternative? Both sides need to take a huge leap of faith. As does the international community and its partners in Turkey, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi and Egypt. That’s what diplomacy is for. It’s hard, but the alternative is endless suffering and a denial of self-determination. And the truth is, in the cause of peace, we do talk to terrorists, nationalists and insurgents.

The greatest aid we can provide to our ally is wise counsel. We must convince Israel that peace is incompatible with occupation. The ‘day after’ cannot just be the status quo. It must acknowledge Israel’s security needs and, finally, realise Palestinian sovereignty and statehood. It’s in our interest and in Israel’s to cease the violence, and find honest brokers to free surviving hostages, advance peaceful coexistence and free both peoples from their own history.

In this book, Asa Winstanley takes the reader on a meticulously researched 7-year journey to demonstrate how accusations of anti-Semitism have become ‘weaponised’.  The driving force for the research was a need to document what happened in the Labour Party during that time, and how the weapon was used to overthrow Jeremy Corbyn. If this sounds an exaggeration or misleading you only have to look at the Forde report. Martin Forde KC was appointed by Sir Keir Starmer to investigate racism and bullying in the party, and concluded: “some anti-Corbyn elements of the party seized on anti-Semitism as a way to attack Jeremy Corbyn.”

Winstanley chronicles the array of actors, groups, media reporting and events that fabricated a false ‘crisis’ of anti-Semitism, which actually began before Corbyn became Labour Party leader. He pinpoints the year of 2010 when, to assuage the groundswell of support for the Palestinians’ human rights, the Israeli think tank the Reut Institute urged Israel’s “intelligence establishment” to “drive [a] wedge between soft and hard critics” abroad. The former should be subject to “sophisticated engagement strategies” while the latter should be subject to “sabotage” and “attack”. The purpose was to divide and rule and build a firewall against Israel’s critics. And that is exactly what happened in the Labour Party – those who supported Palestinian human rights were pitted against those who supported Israel’s Zionist project. This book shows how this happened using a text that is thoroughly referenced and underpinned by hundreds of footnotes.

ISRAEL BLURRING THE LINES

So, what constitutes the ‘Israeli lobby’ that was able to create this ‘crisis’ that became so influential in UK politics? Prior to the Reut Institute exhortations, BICOM (British Israel Communication and Research Centre) had been set up in 2000 to ‘bring about a significant shift in opinion in favour of Israel amongst the general public, opinion formers and the Jewish community.’ Moreover, Winstanley shows that Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, had their eyes on Corbyn before he became leader.  In addition, pro-Israel actors had strong links with the Israeli Embassy. These links were sometimes more sinister, for example the spy Shai Mascot, exposed by Al Jazeera documentary The Lobby, was fixated on bringing down MPs sympathetic to Palestine.

Israel, says Winstanley, seemed to be ‘blurring the lines between pro-Israel lobby groups overseas and its own espionage operatives.  It was developing a network of front groups in the UK and passing them off as Jewish community organisations’. The CST (Community Security Trust) frequently acts as an intermediary between the Embassy and the Home Office. So in reality, the CAA (Campaign Against Anti-Semitism), the JLM (Jewish Labour Movement), the LFI (Labour Friends of Israel), the Israeli Embassy and Tel Aviv government act in unison, both covertly and overtly.  All sing from the same hymn sheet in an attempt to shut down the growing BDS (Boycott Disinvestment Sanctions) movement, that highlights the apartheid nature of Israel.

The adoption of the faulty IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, the sacrifice of good comrades – Ken Livingstone, Marc Wadsworth, Jackie Walker, Chris Williamson, Tony Greenstein, members of JVL (the Jewish Voice for Labour) – were all part and parcel of the weaponisation. Glasman of the CAA called JVL ‘the Jewish Voice for Stalin’.  Here, Winstanley asks a really pertinent question: ‘what if Corbyn had stood up to this purge?’  Livingstone and Corbyn together would have made such a strong team to create a different, truthful narrative. 

THE DEMONISING OF CORBYN 

Winstanley chooses 2018 as the tipping point for Corbyn’s demise.  Finding old Facebook comments, usually taken very much out of context, is a favourite way to smear the Left, the post is then screen-shot on Twitter, the mainstream media takes up the baton, and it gets repeated by BBC Radio 4 on their Today programme.  For example, Jonathan Goldstein of the Jewish Leadership Council said Jeremy Corbyn, by liking a post, was the ‘figurehead for an anti-Semitic political culture based upon an obsessive hatred of Israel’. Media hysteria is then fanned by the MSM; Jewish newspapers and the Daily Mail are to be expected but the Guardian has also been complicit in inaccurate and/or dishonest reporting.  

The demonising of Corbyn continues, as does the purge of left-wing Palestine supporters in the Labour Party. Winstanley has said recently that the Israel lobby has been gifted ‘this false, weaponized anti-Semitism as a really useful political weapon against the left’ and ‘It’s going to be used over and over again, it can’t be swept under the rug, it will never go away. It can only be defeated’.  

 As my Jewish friend, who features in this book, says, there are only 300,000 Jews in the UK and the BoD (Board of Deputies) which is the go-to organisation when the BBC wants a comment, does not represent all of the Jewish community. This book is a must-read for all concerned with accurate reporting in the 21st Century; it reveals the dark underbelly of our political environment.

Not those people, these people

At the conference a couple of days later a great deal of focus had been placed on a competing set of motions, the motion favoured by Jeremy Corbyn put forward by Labour’s National Executive Committee to avoid committing to back either leave or remain in any upcoming general election, and a motion to adopt a position of campaigning to remain in the EU. 

The NEC motion was passed by a show of hands. A result which caused remain supporting attendants to immediately call for another vote counted by cards to give an accountable record of the difference, which was denied by the Chair. 

The Remain motion, which stated that, “Labour must reflect the overwhelming view of its members and voters, who want to stay in the EU. Labour will therefore campaign energetically for a public vote and to stay in the EU in that referendum, while recognising the rights of those members who want to argue another view”, failed to get enough votes from members and associated-members to pass.

The result of these two votes prompted accusations of ‘fence sitting’ by activists heavily invested on either side of the Brexit camps, especially Remain supporters who had been campaigning to get Labour behind their position. 

Fence sitting

The decision to adopt a neutral Brexit stance in an upcoming election has been cast as a cynical attempt to pursue both halves of a nation divided. The idea that the nation is divided into leavers and remainers, requires some scrutiny. For example, by looking at the surprisingly low turnout for the 2019 European Elections, which was 37%, up only 1.4% on the 2015 European elections. This suggests that there are a great number of people for whom Brexit is not an issue worth coming out to vote for, 63% of the population by this measure. 

The political metaphor of ‘fence sitting’ is by its nature divisive. The image conjured is two spaces, divided by a fence. People populate one of two defined areas with no space between. There are many divides, many identities: there are fences between leavers and remainers, socialists and conservatives, ecologists and industrialists, nationalists and internationalists. Within the metaphor of fence sitting, we soon find ourselves entirely isolated, staring at nothing but fence. In the case of the EU, where ultimately, we are either a full-member state or not, the leave/remain divide lends itself to this sort of language.

As local Labour supporter, Chris Anthemum, put it, “Some people will never be satisfied and are obsessed with Brexit to an insane degree, on both sides.

“The EU will not build social housing, fund the NHS, cap rents, improve education, renationalise the railways or solve any of the other dire problems which led to the Leave vote in the first place. Brexit won’t solve any of these problems either.”

The neutral position adopted by Labour may be an attempt to pursue the largest electoral demographic, those for whom Brexit is not the biggest political issue. There is still a heavily populated path open between the camps of leave and remain. In fact, the path is bigger than the two camps. Walking this road requires careful considered language and respect for both sides. It means acknowledging that invoking ‘the people’ also includes people with whom you disagree entirely, and those who just don’t care.