Far-Right Brighton Labour Councillor resigns from Labour Party citing ‘anti-Semitism’ as his excuse

Tony Greenstein | 23 March 2017 | Post Views:

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Cllr. Inkpin-Leissner refuses to stand for re-election as Brighton councillor

Inkpin deserts the sinking ship that is the current Labour Administration of Brighton & Hove Council

I was first alerted to the resignation of Councillor Michael Inkpin-Leissner when I was visiting the site of the McCarthyite Zionist Campaign for Anti-Semitism.  There is, as many of you will be aware a petition calling on the Charity Commission to deregister this political organisation which is almost certainly funded by the Israeli state.

Inkpin-Leissner is a councillor for the ward where the unemployed centre, which I founded, used to be based.  It is a very deprived ward of Brighton and the New Labour politics of Inkpin have done nothing to help regenerate it, quite the contrary.  Inkpin is and remains a supporter of the New Labour Brighton and Hove Council which is led by Progress supporter Warren Morgan, who was behind the suspension of the District Labour Party in July last year.

I have posted a response on Inkpin’s facebook page though I doubt it will stay up too long!  Inkpin describes himself as an ‘armed forces champion’ – in other words a militarist who will support any amount of imperialist wars using his fake concern for individual soldiers as his prop to lean upon.  As I make clear below, anyone seriously concerned with members of the armed forces would be campaigning against imperialist wars abroad, but that would go against his New Labour politics.

As is to be expected of such a person, Inkpin won’t be resigning citing ‘a lot of local residents with diverse political opinions’ who voted for him.  Of course he forgets to say that they voted for him as a Labour candidate and if he is so confident of their support then why not see at a by-election?

Statement in Response to that of Cllr. Michael Inkpin-Leissner

Your statement says nothing at all. There is no content worthy of the name. This is shallowness beyond measure and an indication of the vacuity of what is left of New Labour.
It might be quite strange to you but New Labour’s continental equivalents have not been a shining success. In the Netherlands last week a massive defeat for the Blairite Labour Party. In France the Socialist Party under Hollande is in melt down. In Germany, as you say, it is Die Linke, which is the flame for the Left. You offer nothing but the continuation of a system, yes capitalism, which plunders and despoils.

Your concern about ‘anti-Semitism’ is touching and entirely misplaced. Anti-semitism is a marginal prejudice in this society. Unlike you I am Jewish and having lived my childhood in non-Jewish working class areas of Britain I can testify that I never experienced it. Nor have I ever experienced it on the Left or in the Labour Party.
How the far-Right Zionist Campaign for Anti-Semitism sees Inkpin’s resignation
Please do not use Jewish people as an excuse for your own far-Right political leanings. The lesson of the holocaust is that all forms of racism are wrong and should be fought. Your New Labour friends pioneered Islamaphobia in this country and demonised Muslims.

With your war in Iraq and Afghanistan you brought terrorism, which we have seen today, onto the streets of Britain. What you called ‘monsters’ were summoned into being by the monstrous wars that you and your ilk supported.

What you and others mean by ‘anti-Semitism’ is opposition to Zionism and the Israeli state. A state which only recently demolished an Arab/Bedouin village Umm al Hiran, in Israel proper, in order to make way for a Jewish town. It would be futile to describe the system of military oppression on the West Bank, the shackliing and torture of children, the house demolitions etc. because you after all supported the continuing war crime that began with the invasion of Iraq.

It is incidentally no accident that in the USA, with the advent of Trump and his white supremacist friends in Breitbart and the alt-RIght, that anti-Semitism has indeed increased exponentially. That was why my anti-Zionist friends in Jewish Voices for Peace and other Jewish leftists picketed the meeting in November last year where Steve Bannon, Trump’s new Strategic Advisor and former CEO of Breitbart was due to speak. In the end hundreds of anti-racist Jews prevented him speaking. Whose was the meeting he had been invited to? The Zionist Organisation of America! It is no accident that whereas the Israeli government is happy to condemn ‘anti-Semitism’ in Britain it has failed to say a word about the very real anti-Semitism of Trump’s administration. Zionism and anti-Semitism are and always were merely different sides of the same coin.

It is a pity that you, being German, should use your guilt complex as a way of expiating Israel’s racist crimes. Some of see in what Israel does a continuation of the Nazi regime. In Israel, as under the 1935 Nuremburg Laws, a Jew cannot marry a non-Jew. Or perhaps demolishing a non-Jewish house to make way for a Jewish home is your idea of penance?

You speak of your ‘never ending support for members of the British Armed Forces’. It is no surprise that cheap jingoism and militarism is your political refuge. Patriotism always was the refuge of the political scoundrel. If your support was at all sincere you would have opposed Blair’s wars of imperialism and the war that we are currently supporting against the people of Yemen.

The British army does not have a proud record – be it in Ireland, India Kenya or indeed Iraq, where it carried out the world’s first ever bombing of civilians in 1920. When members of the armed forces have done their duty they are left, in many cases, to live in poverty, in prison or to die on the streets. That is what your ‘support’ for the armed forces really amounts to. The resources used for war could, of course be used to peaceful activities but that would defeat your whole political purpose.

I suspect that neither the Labour Party nor your own electors will regret your resignation but if you had the courage of your convictions then you would restand in your ward and give all those ‘ local residents with diverse political opinions’ a chance to decide whether to support you now that you have dispensed with the political party that enabled you to be elected in the first place!

I shall put this on other sites in case this doesn’t stay up too long.
Statement of Councillor Michael Inkpin-Leissner

Please find here my personal statement regarding my resignation from the Labour Party:

When I joint the Labour Party it was a natural choice for me as a
Social Democrat from Germany. Labour was a proud pro European Movement.

The current Leadership of the Labour Party seems to have forgotten
that. The lukewarm stance to defend the European Nationals by the
Parliamentary Labour Group ( I applaud the Lords on this occasion) made
me feel more and more uncomfortable to be a part of the Labour Party.
When I joined the Labour Party it was a centre-left Party like the German SPD.
Now it has been taken over by left-wingers and the Momentum extremists,
who are working to build an axis with former German Communists “Die
Linke”.

As a German, and you will understand, I can never support
this and never will compromise my stance against any form of
antisemitism. Unfortunately the position of the Labour Party, though
there are strong personalities standing up against antisemitism, seems
to be not really sincere anymore, proven by the lackluster investigation
of Baroness Chakrabarti. I have lost my faith in Labour fighting
Antisemitism and for Europe.

I know, fellow councillors made it
clear that I should ignore these temporary issues and focus on local
politics. But I have to strongly disagree. As a Labour Member in the
public eye I was connected to what the current leadership says and
stands for. This is why I have to walk away from this party. In my two
remaining years as independent councillor I shall focus on my local
support and activities in my ward. Some of you will state that I should
resign as a Councillor. I disagree on this as not only Labour supporters
voted for me but a lot of local residents with diverse political
opinions. I shall honour my obligations to them. I was elected to
support a Labour Administration.

Where agreed I shall support the
current administration under Warren Morgan’s leadership. As we know
from the Budget debate the Greens are politically reliable unreliable
and the Tories are… well the Tories.

Of course there was already
the usual political procedure. GMB, Unite and Corbyn supporters as well
as Tories and Greens demanded my complete resignation. Sorry to
disappoint you. This city has a stable and reliable administration. I
will not support any change to that. Brighton and Hove deserves better
than blind ideology from the very Corbynite/Green left or the Bombastic
Boris Mayhem right.

I can’t express my gratitude for so many
messages of support: members of the Jewish community and other faith
groups, members of different political parties, fellow councillors from
all over the country.

Now what’s next: I finally can speak free
on what annoyed me most as resident in my ward and elsewhere: The abuse
of the HMO system, the chaos on Lewes road,my neighbourhood, a lot of
other local issues and my never ending support for members of the
British Armed Forces, Veterans, their families and carers.

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Tony Greenstein

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