Graham Bash’s response to his threatened “automatic exclusion”

Graham Bash

JVL Introduction

As “Are you now or have you ever been……” reported on this website 3 days ago, Graham Bash is threatened with auto-exclusion from the Labour Party.

His crime?

  1. We believe that you have engaged in the following acts and that these acts constitute support for LAW.
    8.1. In January 2020 you signed an Open letter from LAW. The signature included the organisations you are associated with “LRC, JVL, LAW”.

We post Graham’s response here. A copy of the full letter from GLU is posted below that.

We have also added an interview Graham gave on 23rd August on the “Not the Andrew Marr Show” – see link below at the very end of this post.


Graham Bash responds

Dear GLU,

I am in receipt of your email of 13th August and respond as follows.

  1.  The Open Letter from LAW was dated January 2020. The date of the proscription of LAW was July 2021. LAW was not a proscribed organisation at the time I signed the letter.
  2. I am not a current member of LAW. There is, to the best of my knowledge, no such category as LAW ’supporter’. I therefore deny that I am a ‘supporter’ of LAW. There is no justification for this investigation.
  3. I am in full agreement with LAW – and with several Labour Party socialist organisations, and with hundreds of thousands of Labour Party members – in their opposition to the witch-hunt of Labour Party members and to the bans and proscriptions of socialist organisations.

I oppose the factional attacks on Labour Party members carried out by the pro-establishment wing of the party. I oppose the shutting down of constituency parties, the imposition of candidates for national and local elections, the interference in the way constituency parties are allowed to run their meetings, the suppression of free speech and the suspension of party members for opposing the removal of the parliamentary whip from Jeremy Corbyn, and for holding views contrary to the faction which now controls the party.

Socialists are being removed from the party at the same time as the leader of the Labour Group in Ashford remains in post after calling for a Home Guard to repel asylum seekers!

The current leadership is endangering the very existence of our party and destroying the trust of hundreds of thousands of new members who joined us in and after 2015 in the belief that Labour could become a vehicle for socialist transformation in this country and a beacon of hope to all those fighting for justice throughout the world.

I have been a party member since December 1968 – for over 52 years – and have participated in every General Election campaign since 1970, fighting for a socialist Labour government. I am chair of my constituency party. I am political officer of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL). I am political secretary of the Labour Representation Committee. I have been a member of the Labour Briefing editorial board for over 40 years.

I fear I may become yet another Jewish victim of the witch-hunt – see JVL’s recent submission to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

I will continue to fight for socialism in Britain and internationally – inside the party if I may, outside, if I must.

Graham Bash


The GLU letter – click on the images to sharpen them


Comments (15)

  • Dave says:

    Stalin was a master at proscriptions and applying them retrospectively. The party could have proscribed and invited people to consider their position starting from now but no, that would not be Stalinist and won’t do.

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  • John D Bowley says:

    A fine, factual, honest, informative and strong response from Graham.

    The charges against Graham are contradictory and absurd but also antisemitic as they are narrowly focussed on an innocent and upstanding Socialist Jew.

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  • Tony Booth says:

    Thank you Graham for such a strong rebuttal of the bullying foolishness to which you have been subjected. In solidarity, Tony.

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  • Jack T says:

    Graham, your record as a Socialist and a fighter for fairness and equality speaks for itself, unlike the records of those in the leadership who are not fit to even belong to a Party formed out of the struggles of ordinary working people. Can anyone even remotely imagine Starmer or those around him speaking out against the establishment clique who knighted him?

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  • Jonathan Pickering says:

    Comrade you can publish anything i say. This witch hunt is a disgrace.

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  • Miriam David says:

    Thank you Graham for your clear rebuttal of the fundamentally bullying and abusive comments to you from LGU. It is now tantamount to McCarthyism in the LP.

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  • Les Hartop says:

    A powerful response Graham well done.

    What the Starmer faction are doing and have done to your partner Jackie for years is cruel and bullying, and based on a mountain of lies.

    We need some high profile Labour voices to say publicly, that when Starmer is ousted all these auto-suspensions will be automatically reversed and all the recently proscribed organisations unproscribed.

    Solidarity

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  • John Bowley says:

    Graham has been sent a notice of automatic expulsion. As explained by JVL, this extreme action was normally taken with those who had stood against the Party in an election, which Graham has not. But, Alasdair Henderson, who was responsible for the the biased antisemitism report against the Labour Party, had previously stood against the Labour Party in an election. This obvious objection to the EHRC report was ignored by Keir Starmer, who embraced the report against the Labour Party – to make use of it.

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  • Ruth says:

    Excellent Graham! if i am expelled because of my support for your sentiments, so be it. I’ll be in good company, including the historical figures the Party relies on for its fine reputation.

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  • Joyce Field says:

    How ridiculous this all is. The Labour Party should be proud to include members such as Graham Bash, Leah Levane (and others) amonst their ranks as many, many of us are. Soon there will not be any good, honest left wing members remaining. But I suppose that is the intention.

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  • Eddie Dougall says:

    Ken Loach directed a film series “Days of Hope”, written by Jim Allen, set in the period during and after the ‘Great War’ when Labour went through a similar time to the present. Similar in as much as those days of hope were dashed by the timidity and a desire to be liked by the establishment, on the part of its then leaders, followed by betrayal of the party’s principles and members. Spot the similarities?

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  • Tricia McLaughlin says:

    This witchhunt has gone on long enough. I left the Labour party, my political home for 45yrs, as I just couldn’t take any more! I have always stood with Jackie, Chris Williamson, Marc and all others- and have been proud to say so on social media. I think I was too small a potato for anyone to complain! However, 2 weeks after I left I posted on Facebook that Starmer was a shill for the apartheid Zionist state of Israel- and the Chair of my ex-CLP told me I was excluded for two years lol. Funnily enough, party hq never got around to telling me.

    I was so shocked that they had gone after Leah, her reply was a beauty to behold.

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  • Derek Brough says:

    It’s a shame that the socialist campaign group of mp’s and other so called leaders of the left in the LP have not spoken out with the same clarity as Graham instead keeping their heads down hoping for some watered down resolution to be passed at conference if it doesn’t get ruled out of order
    Continuing to be a member of what has become a vile hostile organisation has become impossible
    Yes it is a witch-hunt they are politically bankrupt

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  • Laurence Shone says:

    Stay strong Graham.

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  • Annie says:

    Excellent response by Graham here. I despair of ever having a truly social democratic Labour party to support in my remaining lifetime. Solidarity to all those caught up in this purge of anyone who is vaguely left of the leadership.

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Comments are now closed.