I had realised this came about from the hashtag on Twitter of #ItsAScam.
Needless to say, I cannot comment on most of the allegations made about another branch of the Labour Party as I have no idea what happened there but the documentary makes no reference to the outcome of a report into one branch. I can comment about how Momentum moved to take over branches as this is what happened in Colchester. At the time this happened, I had not joined Labour, but I knew some of those in the party and in the summer of 2017, the make up of our local party was changed, quite dramatically. The Al Jazeera documentary refers to a slip of paper that had described how to take over Labour Party meetings. Comparisons have been made with Momentum and Militant, the Militant tendency being a face of Labour that was considered unelectable to many people who would not normally vote Labour. There is no reason why people should not band together to put forward candidates and organising to do so is not necessarily a bad thing, but lying about doing so is wrong. It may be that the slip of paper that was included in the dossier was not something spread by Momentum, but it is a lie if someone says that Momentum did not plan to take over branches and reshape Labour to fit what they felt was needed for the nation. Lots of people joined Labour BEFORE Corbyn became leader thanks to membership rule changes which were brought in by Ed Miliband following his election to become Labour leader over his brother. Yes, many of them voted for Corbyn, as was their right, and following his election, even more joined a party that was revitalised and offered a fresh approach to politics.
I am of the view that Corbyn was wrongly held to account for the actions of some of his supporters, an example being accusations that Corbyn was allowing Trotskyist and members of the hard left to infiltrate Labour when he did not change the rules to enable entryism. He has always been clear in his call for Kinder Gentler Politics, a value that I feel should still be present in the party of today and politics overall.
It also refers to the challenges by Paul Davies for this accusers to take a lie detector test but does not mention how he challenged them. The documentary then moves onto two other branches, one resulting in suspension of a party so that allegations could be investigated properly the other though does address the infamous and inexcusable Labour Purge.
The Labour Purge refers to how in 2015, lots of Labour members were suspended before the election into the challenge into the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. That was a disgraceful and dark period in the history of the Party, and I do not think that enough action has been taken to find and punish those responsible. I actually had forgotten this occurred, despite one of my good friends being suspended due to this (this was a factor in him leaving the party).
The “die in a hole” words of Ella Rose are inexcusable (which she accepted) though there is a difference between making a comment about someone to making comments to them. The issue of Israel and the support towards one of the few democratic nations in the Middle East is a contentious one and is one which I have addressed before. I have used language which I did not appreciate was antisemitic in the past and too many people view the issues regarding Israel and Palestine as a binary issue ignoring the grey that exists.
Towards the end of the documentary, it mentions the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn from Labour but does not explore the reasons into this. Put simply, people viewed Labour as being antisemitic, this including Nick Griffin, the former leader of the far right BNP, but in addition, anti-semites felt comfortable enough to approach Emily Thornberry to offer support! The message Corbyn put out after the report findings into antisemitism in the Labour Party did not help in shedding this image.
It also looks at abuse sent to party members. Let me be clear, making comments about people in private is different to the inexcusable behaviour of sending threats and abuse to someone.
Another part of bias in this report is the reference of Labour members on the right of the party. Labour members can be divided into those towards the centre of the political spectrum and those on the left. When it comes to Conservatives, they are not described as being on the left of the party, but instead are centrists or this on the right. Having been called a Red Tory, describing people like me as being right wing is to ignore our left wing views, just like describing Labour as being on the right when it is still a left wing party.
I am not sure how much damage this will cause before the party conference, the Conservatives can only hope and pray for another Labour civil war.
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