Open Letter to Jennie Formby and the NEC – We Expected You to be Better not Worse than Iain McNicol

I demand that you revoke my expulsion – it’s time you expelled Labour’s genuine racists – such as Luke Akehurst, Luke Stanger – not anti-racists

Dear Jennie,

Two years ago we demonstrated outside the Labour Party conference with McNicol Must Go posters. Little did we think that his successor would preside over a more streamlined and efficient process of expelling socialists and anti-racists?

Like Neil Kinnock you came from the Left and you have acted as a cheerleader for the Right. Everytime you have ratcheted up the disciplinary process the Israel Lobby and the Board of Deputies have demanded more. In the words of Len McLuskey ‘Corbyn Has Answered Concerns On Anti-Semitism, But Jewish Community Leaders Are Refusing To Take ‘Yes’ For An Answer’.

Has it never occurred to you that the reason they refuse to take yes for an answer is that their goal is the removal of Corbyn not anti-Semitism? Why should the Board of Deputies, which told Jews not to oppose Moseley’s fascists at the Battle of Cable Street, a body which represents Zionists not secular Jews, be concerned with ‘anti-Semitism’? It never has before.

I was suspended in March 2016 for comments I was alleged to have made. I only learnt what those comments were when I read The Telegraph and Times. Details had been leaked by Sam Matthews, Panorama’s ‘whistleblower’.

The Telegraph described my suspension as ‘the latest anti-Semitism controversy to hit the Party’. The Times made similar comparisons

The process of my suspension was so unfair that I had to obtain an injunction against the Labour Party preventing them holding my hearing. I had been suspended for 21 months and then given 6 weeks to prepare my case whilst in hospital. I was not given the identities of my accusers nor was any evidence submitted that was prior to my suspension.

I was held guilty of comparing Israel’s marriage laws the Nazis’ Nuremburg Laws. Hannah Arendt, the great Jewish political philosopher and herself a refugee from Nazi Germany also made this comparison.

I was also guilty of accusing the Israeli state of waiting for Holocaust survivors to die so that they could save money. Which was a quote from Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper.

The Labour Party barrister in my case stated, in his skeleton argument that:

‘The NEC’s case is that Greenstein’s use of the term “Zio” is antisemitic, but the NEC does not otherwise allege that Mr Greenstein’s conduct was antisemitic.

Well ‘Zio’ is short for Zionist and the only people who think Jews and Zionists are the same are anti-Semites (or Zionists). There is nothing anti-Semitic about it.

I was accused of ‘Offensive posts and comments’ in particular in relation to Louise Ellman MP. The main Charge was ‘accusing Louise Ellman MP of being a “supporter of Israeli child abuse” Yet in two Parliamentary debates (6 January 2016 and 7 February 2018) Ellman repeatedly intervened and spoke in support of the Israeli Military’s abuse of children – arresting children as young as 12 in the early hours of the morning, blindfolding them, beating them and refusing access to parents or lawyers.

My description of Ellman as a ‘wretch of a woman’ was extremely mild. At the hearing conducted by witch-finder general Maggi Cosins I was told I had ‘shamed’ Ellman, to which I replied that she had no shame.

Certainly my description of Owen Jones as a ‘Janus faced whore who bears the impression of the last person who sat on him’ was strong but it was entirely merited. I was being prosecuted for free speech.

Likewise my description of Chuka Ummuna as ‘White politically” was a statement of fact. He was labelled as such by Black activist Marlene Ellis.  In other words a collaborator with White racism or an Uncle Tom.

What made the decision to expel me even worse was that one of the 3 Panel members was Douglas Fairbairn. Fairbairn makes a habit of posting sexist comments on line such as ‘Go to bed you silly woman’ ‘Big Minge’ and ‘what a Bitch’. Has Fairbairn been disciplined yet?

Just over a year ago the Labour Party adopted the IHRA definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ which conflates anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. The result has been that a whole wave of supporters of the Palestinians have been disciplined and people like Colin Monehen have been removed as parliamentary candidates.  Others, like the Jewish anti-Zionist Jo Bird have been prevented from standing for Labour.

When one comrade protested about the way you were privileging anti-Semitism above all other forms of racism she was suspended and now expelled. Yet this is exactly what you have done. This ‘anti-Semitism’ nonsense isn’t about anti-Semitism but about Israel.

If ‘anti-Semitism’ is not being privileged why it is that you turn a blind eye to any other forms of racism?

The current Deputy Leader Tom Watson is a prime example of the hypocrisy you are presiding over. He can’t rest easy whilst ‘anti-Semites’ are in the party but he doesn’t mind any other form of racist.

In 2010 the High Court removed racist Labour MP Phil Woolas from parliament. He ran an election defined by an email from his Agent that said ‘we must get the White folk angry’. Watson’s reaction was ‘I’ve lost sleep thinking about poor old Phil Woolas and his leaflets.’

This is the same Tom Watson who as Campaign Organiser in the Birmingham Hodshrove by-election issued a leaflet ‘Labour is on your side, the Lib Dems are on the side of failed asylum seekers.”

John Mann should never have been allowed to resign. This scoundrel issued an Anti-Social Behaviour Handbook that treated Travellers as a problem of anti-social behaviour. In case you are not aware, not only Jews but Gypsies too died in the Holocaust. Mann was even interviewed by the police under caution for a potential hate crime but he wasn’t interviewed by your staff. Why?

It wasn’t just Mann and Watson. In the past year Israel has murdered over 200 unarmed demonstrators in Gaza including 78 children. Imagine the uproar if a Labour member had supported the killing of 78 Jewish children? Yet racist Luke Akehurst openly defended Israel’s tactics of shooting unarmed demonstrators on the grounds that they were members of Hamas. According to this racist scumbag children are also valid targets yet you have done nothing to put him on the fast track to expulsion. Why?

Or are you saying that Israeli Jewish lives are more important than Palestinian lives

Luke Stanger was suspended on March 6^th. Among his many offences of sexism and racism is his description of Travellers as a ‘nasty blight’ on society. Imagine that someone said that of Jews. Now that would be anti-Semitism. So why has Stanger not yet been expelled? He is still abusing people on Twitter with impunity. We understand that he has been given the protection of Tom Watson’s office.

Stanger informs people that he is going to be readmitted. Is this what your commitment to fight racism amounts to?

Now that we are in a General Election campaign the Zionist gloves are off. The Jewish Chronicle has been waging a vitriolic campaign against Corbyn.

On November 1^st they described Corbyn as ‘Britain’s most prominent antisemite’. On November 7^th they said that ‘Throughout his career’ Corbyn ‘has allied with and supported antisemites’ However much you fought ‘anti-Semitism’ there was nothing you or Corbyn could have done to stop these lies because it was never about anti-Semitism. It was always about Israel. That was your fatal mistake.

Your decision in September 2018 to adopt the IHRA was utterly stupid. You played into the hands of the Zionists. 7 out of its 11 examples of ‘anti-Semitism’ concern Israel. Even the person who drafted it, American academic Kenneth Stern described it as ‘chilling’ free speech in his testimony to the US Congress.

You made a rod for your own back. And despite throwing Chris Williamson et al. to the wolves you have still been viciously attacked by the Zionists. You suspended him unlawfully and instead of reinstating him you resuspended him on trumped up charges.

You are responsible for Chris standing as an independent socialist for Derby North. Chris resigned from Labour to spend more time fighting for socialism. It should have been Margaret Hodge who was suspended. Chris should have been a Labour candidate.

Finally, I have used the term Zionist throughout this. Zionism is a political ideology based on Jewish supremacy and its creation the State of Israel is a Jewish supremacist state. The idea that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic is the opposite of the truth. Anti-Semites have always welcomed Zionism as a means of getting rid of their Jews as even liberal Zionist Peter Beinart admits.

I hope that Labour will do well in the Election however I fear the worst. If Labour does not do well one reason will be the fact that you and the NEC accepted the Zionist narrative of Labour ‘anti-Semitism’. The faster you worked to eliminate it the more vicious the attacks became.

There is an old saying that appeasement only encourages the aggressor, as Chamberlain demonstrated at Munich. It is a great pity that you have learnt nothing from history.

I look forward to not only my readmission but the reinstatement of all the anti-racists expelled or forced out in the past few years – Marc Wadsworth, Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone and all those who have been vilified by a Compliance Unit that can’t wait for the day when they see the back of you and Corbyn.

Kind regards

Tony Greenstein