Another Labour activist has had enough…

JVL Introduction

Another long-standing Labour party member has had enough.

Dr Gillian Yudkin has given her life to working as a GP in the NHS and as a committed activist in a variety of causes that have always attracted socialists to the Labour Party making it the force for progressive social change it has so often been.

No longer, in Gill Yudkin’s view.

Her disappointment and anger are magnified by her first-hand knowledge of the situation on the ground in Israel-Palestine where, as chair of the British Shalom-Salaam Trust, she has been instrumental with others in trying to repair some of the damage caused by Israel’s policies, fostering positive relations between Jews, Palestinians and other communities living in Israel and Palestine.

If only, she writes, “the Labour Party [w]ould start looking outwards to the appalling state of the UK rather than indulging in unjustified purges of those who truly have socialist values.”


        London N7
7 May 2022

 

Dear Sir Keir

It is after considerable thought that today I am resigning from the Labour Party.

I have received many communications from you saying you speak for me. But you don’t.

Over the past couple of years, I have watched and listened as my friends and colleagues have been caught in the Kafkaesque machinations of the NEC and have been expelled from the Labour Party or threatened with expulsion for being antisemitic. These friends are all elderly, long-serving Labour activists, whose misdemeanour has been to be opposed to the Israeli government policies and to support Palestinian Rights. They are all Jewish and you clearly do not understand how painful the accusation of antisemitism is for a Jewish person.  I am one of those “wrong type” of Jews.

You, a human rights lawyer, have clearly stated that Israel is NOT an apartheid state. So why do highly respected organisations, some Israeli, deem it to be so?  Have you travelled in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and seen for you own eyes the way in which Palestinians are treated by the Israeli State?  Clearly not, but I have. I have many friends both in Israel and the OPT who work tirelessly to expose and try to counter the many abuses, humiliations and attacks which Palestinian people, including many children, suffer on a daily basis.

Your colleague, Rachel Reeves, has said she is delighted that so many Labour Party members have resigned from the party because they have the wrong values.

What are those values? They obviously do not include honesty as you yourself have been so dishonest. I voted for you as leader as you stood on a platform of supporting many of the manifesto objectives of Jeremy Corbyn, my MP, and uniting the party. You have rejected those manifesto objectives – clearly good social democratic objectives – and replaced them with …….I’m not sure,  as I don’t know what your objectives are except to disunite the party by expelling people who are too far to the left, probably Jewish and probably believe in human and civil rights for the Palestinian people.

You have treated Jeremy Corbyn appallingly, by refusing to restore the whip to him after he was readmitted to the party.

The Labour Party is now an unwelcoming party of the right, disallowing any difference of opinion and not allowing debate. I sadly feel I have no political “home”. I need somewhere where I can discuss issues such as the rapidly increasing privatisation and deprivation of my beloved NHS. I worked all my working life as a GP and am horrified but what I see happening today. The Labour Party should start looking outwards to the appalling state of the UK rather than indulging in unjustified purges of those who truly have socialist values.

Yours, in sorrow as well as anger

 

Dr Gillian Yudkin

Former membership number A914866

Cc David Evans

 

Comments (29)

  • Liz Griffiths says:

    Dear Gillian , I couldn’t have put it better myself . This is exactly how I feel . I too have resigned from the Labour Party . I am not Jewish but have been to Palestine a couple of times and have witnessed the behaviour of the Israelis towards Palestinians. It is definitely an apartheid state .
    So very sad .

    With best wishes
    Liz

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  • Jonathan Rosenhead says:

    Gill Your reprimand of Sir Keir is all the more telling for being so restrained. What mode of expression can best convey the outrage so many feel? Anger? Despair? Determination?

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  • Rita Craft says:

    Dr Yudkin has expressed every single reason for dismay, anger and sorrow that I too feel about the current Labour Party. I feel politically homeless now.
    Dr Yudkin has put it so well, particularly as she knows Palestine so intimately.

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  • Kevin Harrison says:

    With you all the way madam, I’m 81 and voted Labour all my adult life and been a member till last year when I left in disgust.

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  • Diana Neslen says:

    Gill You have with grace and finesse eviscerated this establishment prop. His stewardship of the party has been nothing short of disastrous. You are not alone. I wonder how many people were out canvassing for labour during the local elections. Not too many I wager. But on second thoughts if one looks at the local council result it would seem that labour would rather lose an election than confront the reality of the decay of this country. Thank you for telling it as it is. Sadly it looks like it will have little traction where it counts.

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  • Tony says:

    “I voted for you as leader as you stood on a platform of supporting many of the manifesto objectives of Jeremy Corbyn, my MP, and uniting the party.”

    Yes, but just how likely was it that Corbyn’s legacy would be safe in the hands of someone who had twice sought to oust him as leader?

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  • David Hawkins says:

    We should look at our history. Everyone reading this should research the Putney Debates. The Levellers (Jeremy Corbyn) had a lot of public support but they were outwitted by Oliver Cromwell (Keir Starmer) and eventually this led to the return of monarchy (Boris, the Tories whatever). Britain so nearly became a democratic Republic but Oliver Cromwell (Keir Starmer), thought he knew best and didn’t trust ordinary people to decide their own fate.
    We (the left) were hopelessly disorganised, divided and not ruthless enough so in the end the Tories won (as they always do in forelock tugging Britain)

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  • What an amazing well put letter
    I congratulate you Dr Gillian Yudkin on enclosing in your letter to the leader of the labour party just how we all feel about the leader and the Labour party.
    The way he has treated good long serving hard working members by his and his party’s actions is disgracefull

    This is not the labour party we have voted for most of our working lives Because all of the values the party stood for have gone since he was made leader And then went back on all he based his leadership on in order to become leader

    He has taken the labour party to a new low which now makes it a party that the leader only allows in those who do as he tell s them . And that makes it a party I will never support in its present undemocratic state

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  • I have not resigned from the “Labour” party yet. My only reason that I do not resign is that I hope to cause as much trouble as humanly possible for Sir Starmer and David Evans.
    JVL MAY not wish to publish this as it is almost completely negative but I think that JVL should allow me to express myself as I am convinced that I am only saying exactly what so MANY others really want to say!!
    If Starmer or Evans want my Labour Party number I will not hesitate to supply it.

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  • Adam Watt says:

    Labour is dead. Sad as that is, it is. Corbyn and the rest of us need a newhome. The future, if there is to be one, is Green.

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  • Steve Griffiths says:

    Gillian, like so many others, I absolutely support everything you say. I have been a serial resigner, but this time I am staying put. If Starmer can employ an Israeli spy, I don’t see why I shouldn’t read the CLP minutes. I am briefly fascinated by what the rump has to say, consisting as it does locally of little more than two couples – they’ve had to combine three branches and they’re still inquorate. What saddens me is the huge scale of the good energy that is now lost. I quite agree that Labour is not a vehicle for progressive democracy, and appears irredeemable: a historic achievement. Given that election after election is decided by the ownership of the media, I think we need to step back and put our energy into a movement to restore our democracy. Such a movement exists in fragments, committed and admirable, but that’s not enough. We need an entity that will attract some of the 150,000 and no longer counting who have understandably bailed out. We need something that will focus our values and immense experience into a non-party campaigning body, from the corner shop to the Commons and at every point between. I think we have the capacity in waiting to frighten the hell out of the Labour Rump and the rest of the political establishment. I think we know that they are easily frightened.

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  • Pete Winstanley says:

    A succinct and damning indictment of the Starmer/Evans party, which does not deserve to call itself the Labour Party.

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  • Bernard Grant says:

    I feel for you Gillian, like all us true Socialists, we are suffering. I’ve stayed a member, so that I can fight from within. Apart from supporting the Palestinians, I also support the NHS, which is being destroyed as we look on, the Tories Lie every day, with their pretence to support the NHS, often quoting on how much they a putting into the NHS but what they aren’t saying is, how much of those £billions are going to Private Companies and an army of privatisation experts and to Private Companies, like all the dentist surgeries run by private companies.
    Last September I made this complaint against Starmer, apart from telling me, my complaint will be going to the NEC, I’ve heard nothing. Here’s the Complaint.
    My official complaint to the LP, that I made against another LP member (Sept 2021)!!
    The form asks, who is the person you are complaining about, ‘Kier Starmer’, it goes on, some questions are impossible to answer, obviously because it wasn’t set up so we could complain about the Leader. In the end they accepted the complaint and it will be investigated, I did receive an email saying it would be going before the NEC. be interesting to see what comes of it.
    As evidence, I pasted in my email to Starmer and Ashworth, saying he never answered or said anything about it in public, this is why I’m complaining. I added that I posted it on his Twitter account and his Facebook page, I even used it as replies and as a comment many times.

    [JVL web says: the email to Starmer and Ashworth was send to us with this comemnt but it is too long to include here.]

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  • Jeff Gillett says:

    A superb letter that should be – but won’t be – widely disseminated and read. Certainly, every member of the Labour Party should read it (although they might also take note of the comments by Jay Henderson and Steve Griffiths).

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  • Nigel Haines says:

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I was raised in a loyalist Labour Party family, both parents city councillors and supporters of the right-wing Party leader Hugh Gaitskell. In the early 1960’s as unemployment began to rocket, the Party’s youth movement of which I was a member campaigned against unemployment but faced hindrance at every stage by the local Party right-wing big-wigs, indeed our local MP, who was the chief whip in Westminster at the time, later received the obligatory life peerage and also joined the renegade SDP. Politically this opened my eyes to the machinations of Labour’s right-wing and I left in disgust.
    With the revolt of the Party membership and election of Jeremy Corbyn in 2015 which shook the Party establishment careerists to their core, I rejoined but wasn’t surprised at the level of treachery which these right-wing time servers rapidly got up to. The sad thing was that Jeremy and those around him, knowing the motivations of these careerist scoundrels, should’ve rallied the rank and file to oust these Tory 5th Columnists in the Party, not attempt to co-opt them in an alliance to satisfy a false feeling of “unity” for parliamentary purposes.
    If the police investigation into Starmer’s alleged coronavirus rule-breaking attracts a fine, then Starmer’s promise to resign will throw the battle for the leadership into sharp relief once again which may open up opportunities the Left should take advantage of in the struggle to oust the old brigade.
    So, my advice? Hold one’s nose, temporarily delay Party resignations to await the outcome of Starmer’s investigation and if he goes, take the opportunity to renew the battle. If he stays and carries on with witch hunting the Left, then bail out, look to set up a viable alternative before you get tarred with the same political brush as this Tory wolf in Labour clothing.

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  • Really excellent letter from Gill. I reached my tipping point in February and left. I don’t regret it for a moment but it is important to recognise how close the politics are of left-wingers who leave and those who choose to stay in. So we need to ensure that we maintain contact and can continue to cooperate in broader initiatives for progressive change. Yesterday Starmer showed us who the Jews are that he likes to talk and listen to when he met with the Chief Rabbi Ephriam Mirvis,. Rabbi Mirvis did his rabbinical training in a yeshiva in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (as did his four sons), that he maintian contact and support for, is a right wing Tory, and has not been among the dozens of rabbis who have made collective statements criticising the Tories’ horrendous policies and plans re refugees!

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  • S Tate says:

    I agree completely with the sentiments expressed. Attitude to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is the litmus test by which I judge any politician’s moral compass. Sadly, Keir Starmer’s compass is pointing in completely the opposite direction to mine. The expulsion & resignation of so many principled members is shameful and mirrors the demise of the Labour Party and its core values. I have never felt so politically homeless.

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  • Teresa Grover says:

    Dear Dr.Yudkin
    I have read so many letters now of resignations & disappointments & sad & angry letters to a man who has no integrity, no courage or passion that would ever convince me to vote for Labour while he & his mob of traitors remain.
    He has trampled on Labours original values, decieved & used us.
    His advisers are all evil, grasping with dangerous ambitions.
    Some faces like Lammy, Rayner etc now show something so different, so frightening.
    Starmers defence of Hovotely showed exactly who his Master is abroad, Blairs & Mandelson’s imput is horrendous as is Murdochs.
    Starmer & Evans must never be trusted.
    Dr.Yudkin thankyou for words you are not alone thousands of us never wore blinkers so we saw who the trouble makers really are.

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  • colin says:

    You and me both Dr Yudkin.

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  • iankemp says:

    well put Jill but very sad I to am politically homeless, I did not vote for Starmer but hoped that he would carry out his pledges on which he was elected as leader. He did not and proceeded to destroy the LP as a party for progressive change. Who is directing this man. How can the LP return to its roots as a progressive force for good.??

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  • Stephen Richards says:

    Ephraim Mirvis often brags about his dislike of Socialism & politicians such as Jeremy Corbyn & Bernie Sanders. He recently told Sir Keir Rodney Starmer in a meeting, that Israel had to use force against Palestinians. I am a catholic, not a jew, but I understand why some of my jewish friends are fearful when any ‘leader’ advocates violence. in the Holy Land.

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  • Pam Laurance says:

    I know people have many reasons to feel frustrated and leave but I really wish they would not. How can we ever hope get the sort of representation, NEC, Councillors, Conference delegates, GC delegates, M.Ps, etc all the things that members can vote for, if all the “lefties” are gone?

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  • Barrie Lambert says:

    As Gillian say so eloquently (and with such patience), basically we ain’t got no home. But we could have if we formed a new party of the Left. If Jeremy Corbyn accepts that there will never again be a home for him in the Labour Party and decides to create a new home for us, we could have a Party with a rival Parliamentary candidate in the majority of English constituencies.

    The point is, in addition to being the British Zionist Lobby’s favourite scapegoat, Jeremy is the most charismatic and persuasive politician in the UK and we can make the need to reduce Israeli influence in the three main English parties a key foreign policy issue and deal with the antisemitism issue at the same time.

    But at this point in this Parliament, a new party can only succeed in providing a new home if Jeremy agrees to lead it, at least until it is firmly bedded down in the majority of constituencies.

    Imagine… If Macron could do it in a presidential system, what is now a strong contingent of Labour Party old-timers could do it in a parliamentary system headed for a hung parliament anyway, but only if Jeremy leads.

    Jeremy’s got the recognition, a strong backstory (the cold, dead hand of Labour MPs and Party officials and their role in the Zionist antisemitic manoeuvring against him), and he’s not visibly a shifty bastard trying to avoid answering every question he is asked. Just imagine what possibilities do exist. And hope.

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  • Jon says:

    Anyone know who the Arsenal fan is? Good to know someone else shares political views and love of the team

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  • robert wilkes says:

    Couldn’t have put it better!

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  • Angie Birtill says:

    Excellent letter , Dr Gillian Yudkin.

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  • Ann Kirby says:

    How tragic that the Labour Party has lost yet another loyal, committed member. She has expressed my feelings exactly and that is why I too left the party after many years

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  • Julie Smith says:

    Dr Yudkin has expressed exactly how I feel. I’ve voted Labour all my life for Harold Wilson when I was 22. I joined the LP and my first post was collecting subs weekly. I went on to hold various posts from ward sec, Conference delegate eventually CLPChair. I have supported the Party through thick and thin. I am heartbroken at how Starmer has destroyed Our Party. He is shameful .I stopped paying subs in January probably a shameful way to leave but I couldn’t bare to talk to anyone at headquarters. I’m 80 now and I hope to see Jeremy Corbyn with the whip restored Starmer has no right to deny him as a Labour MP, he was mine for 12 years and he is everything Starmer is not. Sorry to be longwinded but needed to get it a out.
    ps I did resign when Blair refused to accept the million strong march.
    I’m happy to say I have got 4 children 7 teenage grandchildren – ALL Socialists

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  • Martin Read says:

    Such powerful and heartfelt words! Another sad loss to a formerly decent Party.
    Solidarity to Gillian.

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