Right so I was wondering whether I dare weigh in on the latest Corbyn bashing set of events, I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to not climb the walls in absolute fury and say a lot of very naughty words in response to the rampant dishonesty that has been displayed, but I thought to myself Damo, if the day comes when something happens and you think you’re too angry to talk about it, you might as well stop and no matter how many people comment on said videos saying they wish I would, you ain’t shutting this trap up anytime soon my loves!
And so I come to this weeks episode of Peston, the epitome of establishment enablement where Jeremy Corbyn got stabbed in the back by the odious right winger Liz Kendall. Now Liz Kendall is the reason in a way that we have Keir Starmer as Labour leader now. She ran against Corbyn for Labour leader in 2015 as the out and out Blairite candidate, further to the right than the other two candidates Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper were in the arrogant and ultimately mistaken belief that the Labour membership would never vote for an old lefty and were of course very much all Blairite’s too. After all, look at how well Tony had done? Well that arrogance delivered a shock to the system, when Kendall took just 4.5% of the vote and came last. Corbyn beat her 13 times over, because he actually stood for something and people appreciated that. You can tell just by looking at the turnouts whenever he spoke out in public. When have you ever seen Starmer try that? Of course Starmer is the product of the Labour right learning it’s lesson and going back to lying to get elected, he never would have won if we’d known who was funding him and that he’d tear up every promise he ever made to get the top job and then set about purging his own membership and going full red tory on us all.
Anyway, back to Kendall. She had the brass neck on live TV and to Corbyn’s face to tell him that he only had himself to blame for having the whip removed by Keir Starmer for refusing to apologise over Labour antisemitism. Repeating the scam, repeating the lie. You see Corbyn has on many occasions apologised for any antisemitism present in the Labour Party, after all, it is a societal ill and exists in all major bodies. The scam was that the media fixated on Labour only, as if the Tories and other parties didn’t have issues with it as well, along with any other large public organisation. It was also a scam to pretend it didn’t exist before Corbyn and doesn’t still exist now under Starmer. Tony Blair once had to pull an infamously antisemitic piece of electioneering taking aim at his then Tory opposite number Michael Howard, who is Jewish.
Whilst Corbyn readily apologised for the harm antisemitism within the Labour Party has caused, he would not accept the narrative the right wing media was desperate to propagate that it had increased under him or was anything like at the levels they implied. He wouldn’t roll over and show his belly to the Rupert Murdoch and Lord Rothermere types, nor to any Tory journo’s like Kuenssberg or Peston looking for a gotcha. On his side of course was the Forde Report, grossly underreported as it has been which agreed entirely with Corbyn’s assessment along with the EHRC who reaffirmed Corbyn’s legal right to dispute the levels of antisemitism shown. Corbyn’s initial suspension was even overturned by the party itself, by a right wing panel no less of Labour’s own National Executive. The only reason Corbyn was again suspended is because Starmer as leader had the power to do so arbitrarily and immediately did so, keeping him out ever since. His justification was that Corbyn was breaching the terms of the investigation, should give a ‘full and frank apology’ despite what the EHRC had said, by voicing his protected right to say what he had said on the scale of antisemitism. To be honest Corbyn could pledge to do a Game of Thrones style walk of shame, saying sorry over and over while the Board of Deputies fling all manner of unmentionables at him whilst ringing bells and shouting shame and Starmer still wouldn’t reinstate him. Starmer only suspended him because he’s terrified of him. Of course Starmer then repeatedly delayed, obfuscated and attempted to influence the Forde Report as it was being produced, forced to do so as he was in response to the Labour leaks report which literally was breaching the terms of impartiality of that investigation, the ban on political interference, but a control freak like Keith just can’t help himself. Incidentally, in response to the Labour leaks report and the ongoing Forde Inquiry, Starmer, instead of acting on the allegations of bullying, harassment, racism and abuse the leaks documented exposed, he was more interested in going after the people that leaked it. I mention this because just today, The Information Commissioners Office has ruled there’s no case against the three suspected leakers of that report, but Starmer has dragged this through the courts for so long and so hard, as desperate as he was to pin all of this on the left and now Labour face a multi billion pound bill which may render them unable to fight the next election! That’s the level of depravity we’re talking about in Labour now.
Antisemitism is a societal evil and where it is genuinely found it must be challenged, however those that cry wolf on such things should be vociferously challenged too, for they undermine utterly the fight against the real thing. This is exactly what the establishment media sought to do. It was a scam. It brought down a political leader in the only way they could find to, by making up a pack of lies functionally when there was no real dirt to be had on him. He threatened the status quo, that has led to our public services collapsing, a cost of living crisis, widespread loss of life due to the incompetence of the Tory response to the pandemic and also their ineptitude when it comes to Brexit. One of the most excellent pieces of documental coverage of these events was the Al Jazeera Labour Files reports, all four shows, essential viewing to really understand what went on, do watch them if you haven’t already, you will be shocked and appalled.
Now we can spout hypotheticals about how different it would have been with Corbyn in charge of the country but in no way whatsoever do I believe it would have been worse than things have turned out since he went. I don’t think so. He’d have run things for us and not them, for the many, not the few and now we have Starmer instead, who is just waiting for his turn to serve vested interests and not us, his treatment of Corbyn an audition for that, based on nothing as it is. The opportunity we lost is one of the most painful political experiences I ever witnessed, but the fact things are worse in Labour now under Starmer rubs salt in the wound all the more. More Jewish members have been purged under Starmer than any other Labour leader and all for the crime of being left wing. He even got rid of the only Jewish member of his party’s own executive under the often used trumped up reason of having spoken to a group Keith then had proscribed, had banned at a later date. Not enough is made of that ridiculous and abusive ruling that get’s inflicted on unsuspecting members pretty much daily. Kendall’s condemnation of Corbyn and ass-kissing of Keith shows they’re two of a kind and they’re welcome to each other. Labour won’t see my vote again.