Tony Greenstein | 18 May 2016 | Post Views:

 Labour Party is
prepared to spend nearly £30K a year on a new Compliance Administrator
We can gauge New Labour’s
attitude to civil liberties and the rights of the accused by the fact that it
has taken two whole months before Labour’s Acting Organiser in the South of
England, Harry Gregson, let me know what the basis of the charges against me
are.
Labour’s hapless General Secretary Iain McNicol – appointed by Miliband and sidelined thereafter
Of course 3 terse
lines hardly comply with the duty of disclosure.
When the Police
charged me with assaulting a violent Zionist in the course of the Sodastream protests
I received full statements, documentation, film etc.  They eventually dropped charges.  That was also my experience when charged with
the heinous offence of making an unauthorised collection on behalf of PSC (a
collecting tin on a stall!).  In that
case I was acquitted but again there was reams of paper.  Labour’s Inquisition is sparse indeed.
When it comes to the
instant suspensions from the Labour Party there is a point blank refusal to disclose
anything, other than the practice that Blair and Alistair Campbell developed to
perfection, i.e. leaking to friends in the press, in this case The Telegraph
and Times.
Out go my crimes of
referring to ‘Zio idiots’ and ‘Zionist scum’ as well as comparisons between the
Nuremberg Laws and Israel’s marriage laws. 
Preferably wiser counsels concluded that expelling me for quoting the
greatest Jewish political philosopher of the last century, Hannah Arendt, was
maybe not such a good idea.
Extracts from the press and their retractions
The 3 offences that I
am so far charged with are:
1.        
Describing the IRA attack on
Thatcher as ‘obviously legitimate’.  Well
the IRA were at war with the British and attempting to assassinate Thatcher,
the effective commander of the British forces was obviously legitimate in the
eyes of the IRA.  Let us remember that the British Army was working via its Forces Research Unit with Loyalist Death Squads who targeted completely innocent Catholics as well as people like the solicitor Demond Finucane and Sinn Fein politicians like Gerry Adams.  That was legitimate.  Given that Thatcher
personally sent 750 men to their deaths on the General Belgrano, despite it
steaming away from the Falklands and then her support for General Pinochet, who
was responsible for the torture and murder of thousands of Chilean socialists,
communists and democrats I wouldn’t have shed many tears at her demise.
2.        
The second charge that Zionism is
a form of Jewish anti-Semitism is a fact. 
That is how Jews rightly saw it.
3.        
The comment ‘spot
on re the Zionist collaboration with the Nazis.’
Gives me problems as I don’t know to who I said
this.  Was it in respect of Livingstone
or before.   But yes the Zionist movement did indeed collaborate with the Nazis.
So although this is a
step forward it is clearly not enough.
An ideal job but this fixed term contract thing seems very anti-worker to me
However given my
experience at their hands I am tempted to apply for the job of Compliance
Administrator.  Clearly given the number of
new suspensions the    Compliance Unit is
overworked and there is a need for more hands on the deck of what is, by all
accounts, an extremely inefficient department. 
I am sure my candidacy will be welcomed by all!  Clearly the Labour Party is in no need of
extra funds if it has money to waste on jobs like this.
Harry Gregson celebrating Mrs Windsor’s 90 years on state benefits – clearly no republican he!
After 2 months I’ve been given a glimpse of the pretext 4 my suspension

 
On 16 May 2016 at
09:24, Harry Gregson <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear
Mr Greenstein,
Thank
you for your letter. You were suspended from the Labour Party as it was alleged
you breached Labour Party membership rules by acting in a way that was grossly
detrimental to the Party. This specifically related to the comments below that
you were alleged to have made:
– ‘The attack on Thatcher by
the IRA was obviously legitimate. She was a military target’
– ‘Zionism is a Jewish
version of anti-Semitism’
– ‘spot
on re the Zionist collaboration with the Nazis.’
These comments were
the trigger for your suspension and will form part of the interview.
However you will also have the opportunity to respond to any other evidence
that I have discovered throughout the investigation so far.
Please
can you let me know if you are now prepared to meet for an interview? I can
come to Brighton if necessary.
Best wishes
Harry
 Harry Gregson

Acting Regional Director,
Labour South East
07872 417312
On 13 May 2016 at
16:51, Harry Gregson <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear
Mr Greenstein,
I
am writing to inform you that I will be carrying out the investigation on
behalf of the Labour Party into the circumstances that resulted in your
suspension from the Party.

I will be conducting interviews with witnesses and I will also need a time when
you are available for an interview. You are entitled to bring along a ‘silent
friend’, as am I, they must be a Party member and they cannot intervene in
the interview in any way. Please provide me with the name of your ‘silent
friend’ prior to the interview so I can ensure they meet these requirements. I
also attach the NEC advice note on carrying out such an investigation for
your information.

At
the interview you can also request I interview anyone else you deem important
to this investigation.
I
am proposing holding this interview on Saturday 21st May in Ergon
House, Horseferry Road, SW1P 2AL.

Please can you let me know if you can make this date and if so what time works
for you and I will try and accommodate it.  

Best
wishes,
Harry
Gregson
Acting
Regional Director
, Labour South East
Sent by email from
the Labour Party, promoted by Iain McNicol on behalf of The Labour Party, both
at Southside, 105 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6QT Website: www.labour.org.uk to join or renew call 0345 092 2299.
Sent by email from
the Labour Party, promoted by Iain McNicol on behalf of The Labour Party, both
at Southside, 105 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6QT Website: www.labour.org.uk to join or renew call 0345 092 2299.
16th
May 2016
Dear Mr Gregson,
At last, after nearly two months of being
suspended, I have finally been given a glimmer of the reasons as to why I have
been suspended.
I would now like to receive the full allegations,
i.e. date, time and surrounding discussions, so that I can see when these
quotations were allegedly said and what the context of these remarks
were.  In other words the full body of evidence surrounding what are bare
quotations.
I will receive this anyway via the Subject
Access Request that I have submitted so it would make sense on your part to
send me the full information now rather than waiting the statutory 40 days. 
I cannot think of any reason whatsoever to continue to withhold such
information from me.  If this were a court of law they would grant full
disclosure without a second’s thought unless you are claiming national security
considerations for so doing.
I also note that the allegations of comparing
Israel’s law on marriage to those of the Nuremberg Laws, as reported in the
Telegraph and The Times appear to have been dropped.  I would be curious to know why.
You say that these remarks were the trigger for
my suspension and that I will have the opportunity to respond to any further
evidence that you have discovered.  Again
I wish to be informed as to what evidence you 
believe you have uncovered in advance of my interview with you and again
the surrounding context.
Assuming that you
agree to a full disclosure of the information I have requested I will of course
be happy to meet with you at a mutually agreed time and place.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Greenstein

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