Suspension of Jeremy Corbyn from
British Labour Party
The Need to Settle Scores with Britain's Decrepit Anachronistic Institutions
- Pauline Easton -
July 2014. Jeremy Corbyn participates in action
against Israeli bombardment of Gaza. (Ron F)
On October 29, the leader of the British Labour
Party, Jeremy Corbyn, was suspended from the party
because he refused to retract his reaction to a
recent report by the Equality and Human Rights
Commission (EHRC). This report alleged that the
Labour Party under Corbyn's leadership had
breached the 2010 Equality Act through a
combination of "inappropriate involvement" and
harassment in complaints procedures relating to
"anti-Semitism," and an "inadequate training
provision for those handling the complaints."
Corbyn was suspended, it was said, for refusing to
accept all the EHRC report's conclusions and for
claiming that "the scale of the problem was also
dramatically overstated for political reasons by
our opponents." In response, Corbyn declared his
intention to "strongly contest the political
intervention to suspend" him.
The uproar over Corbyn's suspension from the
Labour Party's base was such that his suspension
from the party was lifted on November 17 by a
disciplinary panel of the Party's National
Executive Committee. Despite this, the present
Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, ordered that
the Labour whip be withheld from Corbyn. In the
British party system, "whips" are the party's
"enforcers" whose role is to ensure that their
fellow political party legislators attend voting
sessions and vote according to their party's
official policy. Members who vote against party
policy may "lose the whip," effectively expelling
them from the parliamentary party benches. This
means that formally Corbyn remains an independent
rather than a Labour Party MP (i.e., he is not in
the caucus).
This too has provoked widespread condemnation
from within the Labour Party and the trade union
movement. Executive bodies of a number of unions
have passed motions demanding Corbyn's
reinstatement. Quite a few Constituency Labour
Parties -- the equivalent of local party branches
-- have passed motions supporting Corbyn and
expressing no confidence in the present
leadership, actions which themselves have led to
suspensions from the party.
A joint statement made on October 31 by the
general secretaries of the Labour-affiliated
unions -- Associated Society of Locomotive
Engineers and Firemen; Bakers, Food and Allied
Workers Union; Communication Workers Union; Fire
Brigades Union; National Union of Mineworkers;
Transport Salaried Staffs' Association; and Unite
-- condemned the suspension as "ill-advised and
unjust."
Jeremy Corbyn himself has started a formal legal
claim against the Labour Party for suspending the
whip.
Corbyn's suspension from the Labour Party by its
General Secretary David Evans and current
proceedings against him underscore how reactionary
and backward the cartel parties are, not only in
Britain but all over the world. Who sets the party
line that all party members in office have to toe
is a matter of grave concern when it is not the
party members or the people of the country of its
alleged constituency. How party discipline is
enforced is also thoroughly outmoded and
anti-democratic. All of it underscores the urgent
need for democratic renewal so as to achieve
people's empowerment.
The entire affair brings clearly to public
attention how decision-making and proceedings in
the cartel parties take place in secret to enforce
decisions also taken behind the people's backs.
Reports indicate that Corbyn has been told the
Party whip will be suspended for three months
while an investigation is carried out, and that he
has been told by the chief whip, Nick Brown, to
"unequivocally, unambiguously and without
reservation" apologize for his claims made in the
aftermath of the EHRC report.
Corbyn's response to the report read: "Anyone
claiming there is no anti-Semitism in the Labour
Party is wrong... Jewish members of our party and
the wider community were right to expect us to
deal with it, and I regret that it took longer to
deliver that change than it should. One
anti-Semite is one too many, but the scale of the
problem was also dramatically overstated for
political reasons by our opponents inside and
outside the party, as well as by much of the
media. That combination hurt Jewish people and
must never be repeated. My sincere hope is that
relations with Jewish communities can be rebuilt
and those fears overcome. While I do not accept
all of its findings, I trust its recommendations
will be swiftly implemented to help move on from
this period."
Aiming at Corbyn, current Labour Party leader
Starmer stated: "If you're anti-Semitic, you
should be nowhere near this party... And if after
all the pain, all the grief, and all the evidence
in this report, there are still those who think...
it's all exaggerated, or a factional attack... you
are part of the problem too. And you should be
nowhere near the Labour Party either."
This shows that he is in utter denial that his
party is indeed wracked with factions, with the
old establishment guard trying to impose its
positions and decisions on the rank and file,
represented by Corbyn, through mostly foul means.
All righteous talk about "whips" merely reveals
the decrepitude of the system, not its vibrancy or
relevance today. Ever since Corbyn was first
elected by a groundswell of support from the base,
the establishment forces -- which according to the
party system must swear allegiance to the
preservation of decrepit institutions -- did not
want a Corbyn government. No matter what the cost,
they have plotted, connived and besmirched
themselves to make sure it does not happen. It has
been an experience of treachery and betrayal all
down the line.
In the current case, the establishment has
attempted to use its Zionist position which
equates support for the just cause of the
Palestinian people for the recognition of their
rights and an end to their criminalization and
persecution, with anti-Semitism. However, any
attempts to implicate Jeremy Corbyn with
anti-Semitism turns truth on its head and falls
flat with the people. Of all people, Jeremy Corbyn
is known for his stands in favour of the rights of
all, from anti-fascist organizer in the seventies
to prominent anti-war campaigner in the present.[1] Before emerging as the
leader of the Labour Party, Corbyn was
particularly well-known in the anti-war movement
-- not least as chair of the Stop the War
Coalition from 2011 to 2015 during which the
anti-war movement and Corbyn himself were known
for upholding the right to be of the Palestinian
people against Zionist war crimes.
Because he clearly stood against the neo-liberal
austerity and war agenda of the British ruling
class, he enjoyed widespread support
among the Labour Party's rank and file, especially
youth and working people. Furthermore, his
election as Labour Party leader also represented
the growing demand for a new kind of politics. His
own campaign stressed the need for a fundamental
change of approach to politics. His campaign
slogan for a new "people-powered politics"
expressed the need to build a social movement
consistent with the right of the electorate to
participate in political affairs, to elect and be
elected and for their will to be transformed into
the legal will through a political system that
serves their interests.
Consistent with these features of Corbyn's
platform was his characteristic readiness to take
a stand on the important problems facing society,
rather than follow the path of expediency or the
outlook that the ends justify the means that
characterizes the neo-liberal "consensus."
Corbyn's election captured the people's
imagination and movement for change. The Labour
Party experienced a growth in membership
unprecedented in recent times, particularly
amongst young people, and democratic, peace-loving
and anti-racist people, who joined the party in
the hope of occupying the space that had opened up
for discussion on serious issues facing the polity
and turning things around.
When elected on the first ballot with 59.5 per
cent of the vote, he said: "We are a party
organically linked together between the unions and
party membership and all the affiliated
organizations. That is where we get our strength
from."
However, there was no chance that the cartel
parties would tolerate any space being used for
the independent program of the working class. Such
a development was to be foiled, no matter what.
In that context, constant allegations associating
Corbyn with anti-Semitism have been propagated,
when nothing could be further from the
truth. The progressive movements of which
Corbyn is a part and which his leadership of the
Labour Party represented have always upheld the
rights of all, without exception. The manipulation
of the issue of anti-Semitism to divert and
disorient these forces, and wrecking public
opinion to block people from forming an
independent outlook, is itself abhorrent.
Jewish Voice for Labour, Jews for Justice for
Palestinians, Jewish Socialists' Group, Jewdas and
Independent Jewish Voices have all rejected the
charge of anti-Semitism, and in February last
year, 200 Jewish Labour Party members and
supporters praised Corbyn's consistent support for
"initiatives against anti-Semitism."
Settling Scores with the Past
The issue goes beyond Corbyn and the Labour
Party. The Hitlerite "Big Lie" technique is in
operation to paint any dissenting voices which
represent the working people, and the political
and social forces which represent them as
extremist "hard left." This is equivalent to the
fiction they have erected, with state support,
which they call the "far right." This "hard left"
and "far right" are equated in every way by their
fiction of what constitutes "anti-Semitism." The
"centre ground," meanwhile, is equated with
"security," "the national interest," "balance" and
"prosperity," all evidence to the contrary
notwithstanding.
A major problem the forces of the status quo face
is that the real conditions of life defy their
fictional account of their rule and what it stands
for. This official "centre ground" touts adherence
to liberal democratic institutions which are in
total crisis precisely because they are incapable
of persuading the people to toe the line and
support, overtly or passively, the neo-liberal
agenda and its use of force to sort out problems
both domestically and internationally. While the
use of police powers has always been at the heart
of the civil society the neo-liberal forces are
trying to defend, today attempts to keep things
under control reveal an increasingly overt
dictatorial regime which is reorganizing the state
around rule via police powers, governed by a small
clique wielding those powers, and criminalizing
all thought that is opposed to official dogma.
Allegations such as the ones thrown at Corbyn to
defame and criminalize him seek to generate an
atmosphere of hysteria in a generalized campaign
to discredit and sow division amongst the people
so that they cannot organize in a manner which
favours them. Attempts to cover up the reality
that the so-called centre is itself in essence the
extreme right, where everything is put in the
service of the most powerful monopolies, are
futile. Yet far from giving up this nefarious
path, measures to make sure no organized
independent workers' opposition emerges become as
increasingly reactionary as they are
unaccountable.
Who does not understand that the burden of the
economic crisis is shifted onto the working
population through austerity measures which have
as their mainstay the deprivation of rights? An
article on Corbyn's suspension in Workers'
Weekly published by the Revolutionary
Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
clearly points out that people are denied a say in
the most important matters that affect their
lives, such as the direction of the economy, while
the polity is destroyed.
"Political problems are made problems of law and
order. Police are given further powers to act with
impunity under the spurious theory of balancing
rights against security, as opposed to the modern
conception that security lies in the defence of
the rights of all. Legislation is passed that
violates the right to conscience and attempts to
establish an official set of 'British values'
around the notion that all should line up behind
national-chauvinistic aims, aims which are
increasingly pursued through intervention and war.
"Jeremy Corbyn was seen to represent opposition
to this direction.
"Under the banner of returning Labour to
electability and making it a 'broad church,' Keir
Starmer represents cartel-party politics. To this
end, it is not enough that Corbyn be defeated.
Corbyn was never to be permitted to assume the
role of Prime Minister, and all he upheld was
blocked at every turn. No alternative is permitted
within the present arrangements. Now that he has
been removed, all vestiges of his legacy are to be
eradicated, and his character itself is to be
slandered, all with the aim of preventing such a
phenomenon as Corbyn from ever appearing again.
The ultimately futile aim is to wipe thought of an
alternative from the minds of the party and the
public at large.
"The forces of the establishment would seek to
expunge the Labour Party of all elements that
strive for the New. It is to remain a party firmly
of the Old, a cartel party that acts as part of
the arrangements of state, as a gatekeeper barring
people from decision-making power.
"Further, the clearing out of the Labour Party is
part of clearing out the opposition in parliament,
ensuring that there are no representatives of the
people in parliament.
"These attacks on Corbyn and his supporters
expose the whole party system. They serve to
underline how people cannot put their faith in
some other force, but must rely on building their
own forms of organization to enable them to speak
and act in their own name, that confers authority
to themselves directly as they strive for
empowerment and democratic renewal. Try as it
might, the ruling elite cannot kill off this
vision."
In brief, what Corbyn represents is an aspiration
to break from the cartel-party system, which the
establishment forces will not tolerate. Moreover,
they will commit any infamy against "outsiders" to
retain power in their hands. Implicit in Corbyn's
vision is that people, not parties, should capture
political power. The conditions in which Corbyn
has had to operate with a rapidly reactionary
establishment wing of the Labour Party viciously
and overtly opposing him every step of the way,
has meant that even the slightest hint of that
vision expressing itself in the Official
Opposition was never going to be accepted by the
ruling elite.
This entire experience merely confirms that
having the working people occupy the space for
change is anathema to the ruling class and their
system of governance. They stand ready to commit
any infamy to protect their rule. This has been
one of the main attributes of their system since
it was established in the 1660s following the
English Civil War, perfected in the mid-19th
century through the imposition of the European
nation-state on the peoples of the world in the
name of "peace, order and good government." Peace
in this parlance signifies the means by which the
anti-colonial rebellions can be suppressed. Order
refers to the system of crime and punishment used
to keep the working class and its demands for
rights in check. Good government refers to the
so-called democratic institutions maintained by
the system of party rule which pledges loyalty to
uphold the prerogative powers that concentrate
decision-making in the hands of the party
executive which serves the ruling class.
This system of rule intended to keep power in the
hands of a corrupt ruling elite was enforced after
World War II on the basis of Cold War ideology and
preoccupations aimed at dividing the world's
people into two camps and defeating the Soviet
Union. Today, at a time this elitist rule has no
consent of the governed whatsoever, treacherous
attempts are made to provide it
with justifications called humanitarianism,
peace, democracy, opposition to anti-Semitism and
the like.
What the working class, youth, women and anti-war
movement in Britain will do next is sure to reveal
itself sooner rather than later as they tackle the
situation from their own vantage point, in a
manner which favours their interests. The
conditions the working people face within Britain
and which the peoples of the world face as a whole
are so dire, there is no alternative but to settle
scores with British imperialism and its rotten,
elitist institutions whose decrepitude places a
huge burden on society.
Canadian working people have full confidence that
the working peoples of England, Ireland, Scotland
and Wales will reckon with what has been done and
is being done to Jeremy Corbyn in a profound
manner. The working class in these countries is
international in its make-up. It is settling
scores with all the old arrangements of this most
reactionary monstrous machine that comprises the
British ruling class, which the rulers go so far
as to call the "cradle of civilization." The
working people of Britain will yet show the world
what they are made of!
Note
1. What
Corbyn represents is a matter of public record.
He was active in the 1970s when he organized a
demonstration against a National Front march
through Wood Green. He spoke on the 80th
anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street,
noting that his mother was a protester at that
time who signed numerous early day motions
condemning anti-Semitism. In 1987, he campaigned
to reverse Islington Council's decision to grant
the planning application to destroy a Jewish
cemetery; and in 2010, he called on the UK
government to facilitate the settlement of
Yemeni Jews in Britain. He also took part in a
ceremony in his Islington constituency to
commemorate the original site of the North
London Synagogue and visited the Theresienstadt
concentration camp, calling it a reminder of the
dangers of far-right politics, anti-Semitism and
racism. Theresienstadt was a ghetto-labour camp.
It served as a transit camp for Czech Jews whom
the Germans deported to killing centres,
concentration camps, and forced-labour camps in
German-occupied Poland, Belorussia and the
Baltic States.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 46 - November 28, 2020
Article Link:
Suspension of Jeremy Corbyn from
British Labour Party: The Need to Settle Scores with Britain's Decrepit Anachronistic Institutions - Pauline Easton
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
|
