Wishful thinking at Jewish News!

Jewish News story as first posted

Spot the difference!

The early posting of Lee Harpin’s Jewish News article on Jo Bird’s expulsion had the standfirst shown in the image above, which states that she had been thrown out for supporting “the proscribed group Jewish Voice for Labour”!

We’re not proscribed but why let a little wishful thinking stand in the way of reality!

Someone must have noticed the mistake as the current version on the website has the same date, time and url but an altered text – with no acknowledgement of the correction made. And there we were thinking Harpin knew something we didn’t…

It would not be the first time that the Jewish Chronicle or Jewish News has had advance information about disciplinary actions against Party members long before the individuals in question have been informed.

And we’re sure news of JVL’s proscription would be picked up eagerly by those parties.

In this case, however – according to the latest news we have received, or rather haven’t – someone’s imagination seems to have run out of control.

Jewish Voice for Labour is very much alive in the Labour Party despite suspensions and expulsions of a number of our members for – you’ve guessed it – “antisemitism” or “undermining the Party’s ability to fight racism” in some way or another.

You go figure then explain it to us!

The article in Jewish News says nothing you haven’t already seen on this JVL website, but do check it out here if you can be bothered…

Comments (12)

  • John Spencer says:

    I think you meant to say: It would NOT be the first time that the Jewish Chronicle or Jewish News has had advance information about disciplinary actions against Party members long before the individuals in question have been informed. [Thanks John. We have corrected the text – JVL web]

    Of course, one should avoid at all costs any suggestion that either of these publications was a party to any conspiracy against socialists in the Labour Party, still less against Jewish socialists.

    The Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News may be better informed than you about the plans of the Matthew Hopkins tribute band which runs the Labour Party disciplinary machine, so can I express in advance my solidarity with JVL even if it will qualify me for auto-expulsion?

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  • John Bowley says:

    ‘Undermining of the Labour Party’s ability to fight racism’ comes from the top of the Labour Party, from Keir Starmer, David Evans, the present NEC majority and most of our old hierarchy selected shallow Labour MPs.

    Heroic, fighting for the truth, lovely Jewish woman Jo Bird has been bullied, racially harassed, lied about and treated disgustingly by our Party bosses.

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  • bob cannell says:

    I fully support JVL as a non-jewish atheist? (not sure about the last word but who cares?). It would an honour to be expelled from Starmer’s LP for supporting such a fine organisation. For the LP apparatchiks scanning these comments, fishing for excuses to satisfy their master’s prejudices, I give JVL money too!

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  • Sarah Choonara says:

    Not to forget Neil Coyle’s tweet of 17 July re proscriptions “Not far enough. JVL should be gone too. And other outright Communists who have their own political party/ies they can ruin”. This vile tweet is still up and apparently acceptable to the Labour Party. I don’t know why I continue to be shocked by this

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  • William Johnston says:

    “The article in Jewish News says nothing you haven’t already seen on this JVL website, but do check it out here if you can be bothered…”

    I really can’t be bothered.

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  • John Noble says:

    Starmer is expecting us to believe his absurdities next he will ask us to commit atrocities.

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  • Kuhnberg says:

    The only wonder is why Starmer and Evans, despite making many disapproving noises in your direction, have not proscribed JVL months ago. Presumably they are simply biding their time, much as they are with Corbyn — waiting for a time when they are sufficiently confident of their grip on the media and the membership to finally silence the remaining credible voices of opposition. My guess is that they will move on both Corbyn and JVL at the same time, probably shortly before the next general election, using — what else? — antisemitism as their reason. This will be a serious error, as it will mobilise many forces against the Starmer leadership. But then Labour’s ‘new management’ team is seriously bad at politics, utterly inept at reading the public mood and knowing how to control it.

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  • George Wilmers says:

    Given that, as reported by JVL two days ago, Jewish News has recklessly published a blog by Derek Taylor stating that antisemitism on UK campuses is negligible, surely Jewish News itself should be a proscribed organisation, and therefore any member of the Labour Party who voluntarily allows themselves to be quoted in its pages, and anyone who is spotted talking to any of its journalists, should be instantly expelled for associating with a hotbed of antisemitism.

    That might have some interesting effects.

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  • Stephen Richards says:

    I live on Merseyside & have met Jo Bird on numerous occasions, the last time on a recent march in Liverpool against the ‘Arms Fair’. She appeared relaxed, confident & smiling… Solidarity Jo, don’t let the bastards get to you & shame on the Labour Party.

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  • Stephen Flaherty says:

    Kuhnberg, I think you overestimate Starmer’s ability. He’d never have the brass neck to proscribe Jewish Voice for Labour for antisemitism – the optics are too bad. Likewise, he’d never have the courage to expel Corbyn. Instead, he’s acting by stealth. He’s going to expel as many JVL members he can for supporting other organisations, or other trumped up charges, and so reduce their influence and numbers that way. And he’s going to let Corbyn’s suspension continue until the next election, whereupon he’ll announce that Corbyn can’t stand (as he’s suspended) and force another candidate on Islington. Corbyn will then be forced to either accept this or stand against this new candidate. He could likely win if he stood as an independent, but he’d be expelled if he did and few could argue with it – standing against a Labour candidate is automatic expulsion.

    In short, Starmer’s waiting for both problems to wither away. And they likely will.

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  • Kuhnberg says:

    Stephen Flaherty

    Starmer recently said that if Corbyn wants to have the whip restored in time for him to stand at the next election, he knows what he will have to do – i.e., recant, find a form of words that means that he accepts that the extent of antisemitism in the party was not exaggerated for factional reasons. Since Corbyn said what he believed, and what anyone with any sense knows to be true, recanting would be tanamount to lying. Again we see Starmer’s peculiar self-defeating sadism: he wants to humiliate the left and humiliate Corbyn most of all – something he evidently thinks would be a huge victory for him that would play well with the public. He is wrong in this as in so much else, and in any case it won’t happen – for Corbyn to recant now, after a career defined by principle and honesty, would be as terrible a climb-down as Winston Smith learning to love Big Brother.

    Perhaps what Starmer realy wants is for Corbyn to stick to his guns so that he can be removed from his seat by default. That way Starmer can claim to have clean hands – Corbyn was stubborn he did it to himself, etc. My hope is that Corbyn will resign from the party and stand in his Islington seat as an Independent. That would be such a big story the media simply couldn’t ignore it, particularly if Corbyn won, which I believe he would. Starmer would then be left looking even more of a fool than he does now. Richly deserved, and it might even pave the way for the creation of a new party of the left that would supplant Labour and provide some real opposition to the Tories.

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  • Stephen Flaherty says:

    Kuhnberg

    I’ve posted about this elsewhere on this site but, yes, I agree with most of what you said, apart from the conclusions.

    Starmer has probably figured, likely correctly, that he could withstand Corbyn standing and being elected as an “Independent Labour” (or whatever) candidate. Corbyn’s close to retirement now so it’d only last for a few elections and it’s debatable, at the very least, that the constituency would continue to elect “Independent Labour” candidates after Corbyn’s retirement. It’s at least as likely that the seat would revert to Labour, albeit with a much reduced majority.

    As for “the creation of a new party of the left that would supplant Labour and provide some real opposition to the Tories”, were we to have an electoral system fit for purpose, this would already have happened by now. But we don’t. We have FPTP. And FPTP is murder on new parties. Not going to happen. Which is a shame because, like you, I believe there is the space for a new, Podemos-style left-wing party in Britain – if 2017 proved nothing else, it surely proved that. But it can’t happen under FPTP.

    PR Now!

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