From the time the labour movement began, a central principle of is has been that socialists do not run to the bosses' courts to resolve internal disputes. The foundation of that principle is quite simple and straightforward; the bosses are our class enemy, they utilise their courts and other arms of the capitalist state to further their interests and to undermine ours. Any resort to any of the bosses organisations, or organisations external to the structures of the labour movement, is, therefore, tantamount to siding with our mortal class enemy against the labour movement itself.
The right-wing of the Labour Party, be it right-wing Labour MP's, or their allies in the Lords, in local councils, or within the permanent party machinery continually talk about their desire for preserving "Labour values", yet, time and again they show that they have absolutely no clue what those values actually are. Its not just their willingness to resort to the bosses' courts, to non-governmental state bodies such as the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, or their demand, now, that some "independent panel" should be brought in to adjudicate over questions of anti-semitism, and disciplinary action against members charged with such offences, but their repeated willingness to run at the drop of a hat to the bosses' media to make their complaints and attacks on the Labour Movement, and not just any old part of the bosses media, even, but its lowest most vile, racist and bigoted representatives, such as the Daily Mail, Daily Express and the Sun.
It is indeed ironic that those Labour MP's who protest about anti-Semitism, are themselves the same people who are to be seen writing, on a regular basis, in The Daily Mail, a newspaper that regularly plumbs the depths of gutter journalism in its promotion of bigotry and xenophobia, and which in the 1930's was a prominent supporter of Hitler and of Mussolini! But, in truth, the Express, Sun, Star etc are little better, when it comes to spreading vile lies and bigotry, yet the "values" of these right-wing Labourites seems to offer no resistance to their willingness to rush to these Tory rags in order to cultivate support for their own rabid attacks on the Labour Movement they claim to belong to.
The Party had no alternative but to cooperate with the EHRC investigation into whether the party was systemically anti-Semitic, but the involvement of the EHRC at the instigation of these right-wing elements was itself simply a part of the now long standing attack on Corbyn and the Left, by the Right of the Party and their Tory associates, having failed miserably on two occasions to defeat Corbyn and his supporters. The use of the EHRC is simply a means for the Labour Right, having failed to win their case by normal democratic debate inside the movement, to enlist the support of the bosses state to achieve its ends. The involvement of the EHRC is mischievous. It is quite clear that the Labour Party, which has a proud history of fighting racism and bigotry of all kinds, is not systemically anti-Semitic. If it were, then its hard to understand why so many Jewish people have played such prominent positions within it over the years.
That there may be anti-Semitic members of the party, is not evidence of systemic anti-Semitism, any more than the fact that there have always been Labour Party members that were racist, homophobic, or misogynist was an indication that the Party suffered from systemic deficiencies in all those areas either. The main defect the party can be criticised for is a failure to deal rapidly with the allegations of Anti-semitism that have been raised over the last few years. But, most of that deficiency arose under the old regime, when the NEC and the party machinery was still under the control of the Blair-right wing of the party. It has been since those Blair-rights have been replaced in the last year or so, that far more resources and personnel have been introduced to deal with the problem. It is indeed rather rich, for some of those that were part of the old Blair-right dominated party machinery, who failed to deal with the processing of charges of anti-Semitism efficiently and promptly, to now lay charges against the Party, when it has begun to devote the necessary resources to deal with the problem they left in their wake.
Moreover, many of the large number of allegations that have been dumped on the new party machinery to deal with, are themselves thoroughly spurious and time wasting. A large proportion of the allegations that were brought were not even against Labour party members! Rather like the BBC hatchet job, Panorama mockumentary, which carried unattributed comments, and anti-Semitic statements at the bottom of the screen that were not in any way connected with Labour Party members, with written or verbal statements that could be traced, rather than simply the usual nauseous comments made by trolls on the Internet, all of these spurious charges brought by the Labour Right have no other purpose than to inflate the number of reported allegations, and to unnecessarily tie down the party machinery in weeding out such spurious allegations from real instances that need to be quickly dealt with.
The EHRC investigation might, of course, be a blessing in disguise. Occasionally, even the bosses' courts give a ruling in favour of the workers. The EHRC might itself proclaim that the demands made for it to investigate the Labour Party were spurious and politically motivated. It should, because they are. Were it to do so, the short term benefit that the Labour Right might have obtained by a media story about the investigation, would quickly turn into a much larger, longer term hit to their strategic goal of undermining Corbyn and the Labour Party. It would open the door to a Labour Movement Inquiry into those Labour MP's that demanded such an investigation, and to investigate their actual motives for bringing these charges, into their links with outside organisations hostile to the Labour Movement, with the rabid Tory press and so on. It would open the door, for Labour to demand a similar inquiry by the EHRC into Islamophobia in the Tory Party, already highlighted by Baroness Warsi and other Tories etc.
But, of course, we should not expect any such impartial inquiry by the EHRC. Such state, and quasi state bodies are not there to be impartial when it comes to dealing with the class interests of workers and the Labour movement, as against the interests of capital. They are there to protect the interests of capital in whatever way they can. In Corbyn, and his supporters they see a challenge to the interests of capital. Even though these same elements see the Tory Right, and Boris Johnson as also a threat to capital, because of their pursuance of Brexit, and despite Labour's late conversion to the idea of a second referendum, they still see Corbyn as a threat, not because of what Corbyn himself represents - he is only a social democrat in the spirit of Attlee or Wilson, with whom they rubbed along nicely in the past - but because of the forces in society that a Corbyn government could itself release, as workers again began to feel more confidence beneath their feet, were enabled to organise more effectively freed of the anti-union laws, and so on. That is why they are using every tool in their box to try to undermine Corbyn and his supporters. It is why we should not let them.
The idea that the EHRC is neutral is a naive fantasy. Even Jacob Rees-Mogg is honest enough to recognise and to say that the state is not neutral or impartial. He knows and understands with innate class consciousness that the capitalist state is there to protect and to extend the interests of the dominant section of capital, and to do so means undermining its opponents whoever they may be. What gripes Mogg is the fact that when it comes to Brexit, the interests of the dominant section of capital are counterposed to those he seeks to represent, of the small capitalists, and his desire to return British capitalism to the kind of golden era that his mentors Hayek and Mises envisioned existed in the 18th and early 19th centuries, based upon rampant free market competition. But, he is right, the capitalist state is not neutral, and all of the furore over Kim Darroch over the last week, and Johnson's refusal to back him, along with the attacks on other anti-Brexit civil servants are a part of that same narrative.
The right-wing populists like Trump, Orban, Netanyahu, and Johnson along with the reactionaries like Rees-Mogg in alliance with them, have done the Left an involuntary but valuable service by setting out this truth that the state is not neutral, but is an organ of class rule. Another example of it, can be seen in Israel today, where as Thomas Friedman of the New York Times describes, it is facing turning into a "Jewish Banana Republic", as Netanyahu has called for the Prime Minister (him) to be above the law, and unindictable, as with the US President, and has said that, if his right-wing coalition is reelected he will legislate for that. And, as with the right-wing regime of Orban in Hungary, which has stripped away the independence of the judiciary, so too Netanyahu has said that of the Israeli Supreme Court struck down such legislation, he would move against the Supreme Court, allowing the government to override it. This is an extension of the "illiberal democracy" that Orban has described, and which has been advanced by Putin. It is a common theme amongst these right-wing populists, as they resort to Bonapartism.
What this signifies is that the reactionary Right understand by their natural class instinct that the state is not impartial, and that state is hostile to the reactionary direction in which they seek to tread. They understand that to pursue their agenda they cannot be constrained by the normal rules of liberal democracy that have applied for the last half century, because those rules will see the state and its institutions undermine them at every step. So, they seek not to acquiesce in the interference of those state and quasi state institutions, but to by-pass them, to shackle them. That is what was behind the leaking of Darroch's missives, it is what was behind the attacks on the Courts over Brexit and so on.
For socialists, it is important not to be confused into thinking that just these right-wing populists and reactionaries are seeking to undermine the state for their own interests, we should drop our own criticism of the state, or our own understanding that it is not impartial. That is what the Blair-rights and other liberals would have us do, and it is why, now, they are so motivated to organise their attacks on Corbyn and the left of the party.
We should agree with the likes of Mogg that the capitalist state is not neutral, and as a consequence we should reject all suggestions that there can be any "impartial" "independent", external inquiry into the Labour Movement's procedures over anti-Semitism or anything else. Our affairs and our procedures are our responsibility and no one else's. If there are deficiencies then it is up to the Labour Movement itself, and its members to resolve, and certainly not some external body, whose membership will undoubdtedly be comprised of elements hostile to Socialism.
The Labour Right have repeatedly failed to win the political arguments and battles inside the Labour Party. The experience of the Chukas demonstrates what fate awaits them should they leave the Party, especially now that Corbyn's belated move begins to cut off the path to a realignment around the Liberals. They have only the hope of using the bosses state and its organisations to fight their battles for them. The clear hope of inserting an alien "independent" panel will be to begin with wholesale expulsions of Left-wing members of the party, and if that succeeds, a whole wave of further spurious charges against members will follow, leading ever closer to the door of Corbyn himself. As with many of those already expelled, where no charge of anti-Semitism could be made to stick, members will be expelled as with Jackie Walker on the grounds of the catch-all, bringing the party into disrepute.
Its time, for the Labour Leadership to grow a back bone and begin to take on the Labour Right. Every concession made to them has simply led to them coming forward with ever more scurrilous attacks and demands. Its time to stop the rot, and to on them, and their prince across the water, Watson.
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