Hopium's Eleven

The Misfortunate 7 from Monday, have now become Hopium's Eleven.  Labour's Joan Ryan as with the other defectors jumped before she was pushed by her CLP members.  She has covered her tracks with the similar slurry of unsubstantiated accusations about anti-Semitism, which actually comes down to the fact that others in the Labour Party do not share her love of the state of Israel, and failure to criticise it for its appalling treatment of Palestinians, its continued theft of Palestinian lands in the West Bank, and illegal building of settlements that make her professed claims to be a supporter of a two-state solution ring completely hollow.  Now, this hapless bunch have been joined by three equally hapless Tories, who have similarly jumped before they were pushed, as their Tory Associations swing behind the hard right Brextremist positions of the ERG, which reflects the fact that 80% of Tory voters back a No Deal Brexit.  The reality is that none of these 11 MP's from either party have anything of substance behind them.  Their actions and ambitions are nothing more than a pipe dream, and delusion that acts as nothing more than a means of relieving their pain and anguish that the world is not what they want it to be, and a hope that it will somehow turn out to be different.  It is nothing more than Hopium.

Ryan on Sky's Politics Live, today, claimed that anti-Semitism is something that has only occurred in the LP since Jeremy Corbyn became Leader in 2015.  That, of course, is absolute nonsense, and unfortunately for her, only minutes before, on the same programme, that other Friend of Israel, John Mann, had contradicted her, saying that he had been fighting anti-Semitism in the Labour Party for 16 years!  This hapless bunch can't even get their smear stories straight, as they approach a scattergun approach of simply throwing as much shit in the direction of Corbyn and the Labour Party as possible.  Mann, also claimed that LP members were leaving in large numbers because of anti-Semitism, but the ruth is that its not anti-Semitism causing members to leave the party, but Corbyn's failure to take an active anti-Brexit stance.  Yet, Mann hold an even more right-wing pro-Brexit position than Corbyn!

The line of attack against Corbyn and the LP over anti-Semitism shows just why the Blair-rights and their Zionist supporters sought so desperately to get Corbyn to capitulate over the addition of all the IHRA examples to the definition of anti-Semitism that the party had already adopted.  It is that, by adding the internationally disputes examples on the nature of Zionism, and criticism of the foundation of the Israeli state, it effectively makes it impossible to criticise Zionism as a nationalist ideology, or to criticise the history of the establishment of the state of Israel, as a colonial, racist endeavour, without being accused of also being anti-Semitic.  It conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, which in the process, thereby, undermines the struggle against anti-Semitism, because no decent socialist, or even consistent liberal democrat can fail to recognise that Zionism is a nationalist ideology, and a colonialist, expansionist ideology, or that the state of Israel was established by an act of extreme violence that was racially based, and which expelled 75,000 Palestinians from their homes and land, in order that it could be taken over by Jewish settlers.

Denying that fact is as deceitful as denying that thousands of Native Americans were killed and dispossessed of their lands by European settlers and colonists, or that the same thing happened with the genocide against Australian aborigines, and so on.  It is not recognition of that historical reality that is anti-Semitic, but the fact that some go from this recognition of historical fact to then demand that Israel be treated differently to the way the US or Australia, or Canada, or New Zealand and so on are treated.  No rational person demands that the above be destroyed, because they were created by acts of violence and genocide, as racist settler states, and yet some do make that demand in relation to Israel.  It is that, which is the basis of left-wing anti-Semitism.

But, the Zionists essentially want to wipe from history the facts about the creation of the Israeli state, as well as effectively denying the reality that the Israeli state today acts as a racist, confessional state, that oppresses Arabs living within its borders, institutionally discriminates in favour of Jews wherever they currently live in the world, as against non-Jewish Israelis, and permanently acts as an armed power, standing in an agressive, expansion stance towards its Arab neighbours, and particularly in relation to the Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, which it again systematically deprives of the right of the statehood it demands for itself.

It is the fact that Corbyn has repeatedly drawn attention to those facts that the Labour Friends of Israel despise, and mischaracterise a anti-Semitism, although Corbyn himself has not helped in that respect, with his ambivalent relation to reactionary, and actually anti-semitic organisations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.  It is no wonder that, as the undercover Al Jazeera investigation illustrated, the Israeli state has sought to use whatever influence it might be able to mount to undermine Corbyn, and those in Britain that have highlighted the plight of the Palestinians, and the racist nature of the Israeli state, particularly under the corrupt, Bonapartist regime of Netanyahu.  I have no time for the grotesque George Galloway, but he was right, when he pointed out to Sky news that if they had video evidence of Corbyn talking to representatives of Putin's Russia, they would play it on a loop all day long, so as to undermine him, and yet, they have failed to even show once, the evidence from Al Jazeera of Israeli Embassy officials offering £1 million to MP's to undermine Corbyn.

Ryan, who is being retained as Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, despite now openly betraying the party, claims that any suggestion that Zionist MP's have any connection to Israel, or to its officials is false.  Yet, a simple check on the facts shows that not to be true.  A look at a number of the Labour proponents of Israel, shows their connection to, BICOM, for example, whose team includes various people who formerly held position in the Israeli state.  If this was Corbyn's supporters, whose organisation was filled with people who formerly worked for the Russian Embassy, the Daily mail, the BBC and Sky would run the story endlessly with all of the associated innuendo, and every few months, they would run the story again, for good measure.

To point to these connections is not to say that the whole opposition to Corbyn is based upon some Zionist conspiracy.  That would, indeed be to step into the realms of the Protocols of Zion, and actual anti-Semitism, but any sensible person will likewise treat with skepticism the idea that the Jewish state does not try to undermine opposition to it, just as the british state attempts to do whatever it can to undermine opposition to the british state, the Russian state does what it can to undermine opposition to the Russian state and so on.  Those states would be failing in their responsibilities as states if they didn't do that.  And, likewise, it would be highly unusual if there were not some British MP's that did not act as willing agents of the Israeli state, just as their have been British MP's in the past that acted as willing agents of Moscow, or in the 1930's of Berlin.

Not all opponents of Corbyn do so because they are Zionists and certainly not because they are in some John le Carre sense simply fifth columnists acting on behalf of a foreign Israeli power.  The majority of opponents of Corbyn in the PLP are Blair-rights, for whom anti-Semitism, like "bullying" is a convenient, amorphous label to throw at him that can be used without have any real evidence to support it, but which keeps the party leadership tied up endlessly trying to respond to the accusations.  The Blair-rights would drop the anti-Semitism meme at the drop of a hat, if it suited them to do so.  They are simply using Jews as useful idiots as a battering ram to attack Corbyn, given that ideologically they are bankrupt.

And, a similar story applies in relation to the Tories that have now joined the Misforunate 7, to create Hopium's Eleven.  They do not have the anti-Semitism meme to play off, though there is undoubtedly far more actual anti-Semitism, not to mention outright racism of all sorts, in the Tory Party than in the Labour Party.  But, they still churn out the same tired mantra that they have remained the same, have retained their values - again equally invisible to sight as those of the Misfortunate 7 - whilst it is their party that has changed - what even since they stood, and were elected on those party manifestos less than 2 years ago?  And, it is that which these splinters use as their fig leaf of justification for not doing the principled and honest thing of standing down from their seats, and testing their ideas in a By Election.  They will not do that, because listening to Larry, Curly and Moe, today they had even less conviction in their words than did their Labour stooges on Monday.

They know their venture is doomed.  They know that even if they pull a few more disgruntled, soon to be deselected MP's their way in the coming days, which they will continually drip feed, so as to keep control of the newsflow, they have no chance of forming a majority in parliament, and will be decimated come the next election.  Their main function will be,as with the SDP, in the 1980's, to split the anti-Tory vote, and thereby to enable Theresa May, and whichever, Brextremist the Tories select to replace her, to win that election.  Given the fact that Corbyn has failed to position Labour as the clear anti-Brexit pole of attraction to the now hard Brexit Tories, the anti-Tory forces are already fractured, and splintering into smithereens, whilst the Tories are hardening around their core No Deal support, which accounts for 80% of Tory voters.  The Tory Remainers, were on their way out anyway.  They have only made the calculation for May that much easier.  It means she could lose a No Confidence Vote in parliament, and with no desire to risk another referendum, the days are growing fewer to when she calls a General Election to get a majority to push through a managed no deal Brexit.

Corbyn's disastrous strategy of appeasement to the Blair-rights, over the last three years, and his disastrous, reactionary adoption of Stalinist economic nationalism in defence of Brexit, means that Labour is set to lose votes and seats badly in that election, and so will end in ignominy the latest attempt to build a progressive social-democratic Labour Party.  Hopium's Eleven, and those MP's facing deselection that join them over the coming days, have no chance of forming anything stable and sustainable, but as the SDP showed, they can certainly prevent Labour having any chance of winning, and in Scotland Labour's disastrous stance is going to see them fall even further behind the SNP and Tories, at a time when it should have been enjoying a strong recovery.  Once again the reactionary ideology of Stalinism, along with its disastrous, bureaucratic and manoeuvring methodology will have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, with terrible consequences for the working-class.