Robbed of the official Labour candidacy by Tony Blair, Ken Livingstone defied the New Labour leaders and in the summer of 2000 was elected Mayor of London. No sooner was Livingstone installed as Mayor than he created a Tory-Liberal-New Labour “popular front” government for London.
The most “left-wing” plank in his election platform had been opposition to Blairite plans to privatise London Underground.
Missing the mark on Willsman
Sean Matgamna’s piece in Solidarity 509 “A victim of panic” appears to miss the mark. Sean says that Pete Willsman “Possibly he gives credence to some form of ‘Jewish Conspiracy’ theory”. This underplays what Willsman said and in doing so seems to excuse him as a fool rather than someone who knows what they think. I would give Willsman more respect than that.
The decision of Momentum to remove their endorsement of Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) secretary Pete Willsman from the #JC9 slate for Labour National Executive Committee has exposed fractures between Momentum, its supporters, other parts of the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance, and the Labour Leader's office.
Consider Ken Livingstone and the Labour Party, Al Capone and the US government. They jailed Alphonse Capone, a multiple-murderer gangster, for tax evasion. That was odd, but I think it better they got him for that than that they didn’t get him at all.
So with Ken Livingstone’s separation from the Labour Party on antisemitism. Livingstone has for nearly four decades been a public purveyor of political antisemitism.
The labour movement should rally to the defence of Labour National Executive member and Momentum leader Jon Lansman against George Galloway’s threat to sue him for defamation.
Galloway says he has “instructed solicitors to bring a case for defamation against Jon Lansman”. That is a response to a tweet by Lansman defending Jewish comedian David Baddiel after Galloway made a tweet (now deleted) that “no supporter of the Palestinian people” would march “behind” Baddiel (apparently a reference to planned protests against Donald Trump visiting Britain).
Other articles relevant to the Ken Livingstone controversy
AWL statement on how we think Livingstone should be dealt with
Ken Livingstone and the "anti-Zionist" left
Trotsky and the Jewish question
Jeremy Corbyn, Zionist?
Ken Livingstone states he gets his evidence and ideas for his comments on Hitler and Zionism from Lenni Brenner’s books. This review of two of Brenner’s books, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators and The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir, was published in Socialist Organiser on 4 October 1984.
On one level the sudden media outcry about Ken Livingstone’s anti-semitism is being used and fed by the Labour right, especially the stupid part of the right — and, of course, the Tories — to sabotage the Labour Party in the London mayoral and other local government elections and to discredit Jeremy Corbyn.
Dan Katz compares the Socialist Worker Party′s position on the Livingstone anti-semitism row to what we say.
SWP: Anti-Zionism and anti-semitism are not the same thing.
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