Keir Starmer’s sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey is a disgrace and we stand in solidarity with her over this issue. Her sacking is a signal that the right wing think they are now in charge and that they intend to use their position to push the party further back towards New Labourism. The sacking is another indication that Labour’s right wing are always far more ruthless than the soft left, who by comparison are compromising and weak.
As Shadow Education spokesperson, Rebecca Long-Bailey had differed with the party leader over the issue of lifting the lockdown in schools. Where Starmer’s instincts have led him to support the Tories with only minor criticisms, Long-Bailey has called for the Labour leadership to listen to the education unions on the issue. That does not sit well with Starmer’s Tory-lite philosophy so “anti-Semitism” is a handy excuse to get rid of the last remnant of Corbynism still in the Shadow Cabinet. It was always a matter of time and a pretext. In due course, Starmer will be seeking to dismantle the radical (and popular) Labour manifesto of 2019.
No Place for anti-Semitism
On the issue of anti-Semitism, it is notable that the Labour Party’s own publication, No Place for Anti-Semitism, makes it clear that criticism of Israel should not be seen as the same as anti-Semitism. In the section on Zionism, it says:
“That does not mean limiting legitimate criticism of the Israeli state or its policies or diluting support for the Palestinian people’s struggle for justice…but opposition to the Israeli government must never use anti-Semitic ideas, such as attributing its injustice to Jewish identity…” No object person could possible read Maxine Peake’s newspaper interview and think that her one reference to Israel was “attributing its injustice to Jewish identity.”
In her inquiry report into anti-Semitism in 2016, Shami Chakrabarti also indicated that criticism of the Israeli state was legitimate, adding in her conclusions only that “Labour members should resist the use of Hitler, Nazi and Holocaust metaphors, distortions and comparisons in debates about Israel-Palestine in particular”. This, again, is a million miles from the one aside made by Maxine Peake.
Content of interview is secondary
In fact, the precise content of Maxine Peake’s interview in the Independent has become secondary. As has been the case a hundred times in the past even an oblique criticism of the policies of the Israeli state are being interpreted by Labour’s right wing as “anti-Semitism”. There is no dialogue offered over the policies of the state of Israel, which is a regional military super-power with the most modern technology at its disposal. There will be no discussion about the role of Israel in training the police forces of other states. There is no questioning the role of Israeli secret services assassinating opponents overseas. There is only a knee-jerk reaction that interprets use of the word “Israel” as subscribing to a “Jewish conspiracy.” Those many Jews who are opposed to the policies of ‘their’ state are disregarded. Those Jewish commentators and politicians who write in Israelis newspapers and who are also opposed to the militarisation of Israeli society are just ignored. What we have is a simple equation: mention Israel and you are by definition anti-Semitic.
Contrast with treatment of right-wing saboteurs
As we have always argued on this website, the main thrust of the campaign on anti-Semitism in the last few years – and it has been a campaign, involving the BBC, the national press and Labour’s right wing – has had two aims. The first is to stifle criticism of Israel’s appalling policies in relation to the Palestinians. That aim, judging by Long-Bailey’s sacking, is succeeding. The other was to undermine the left and Jeremy Corbyn personally and this too has succeeded to a degree.
It was reported that Rebecca Long-Bailey had come to an agreement with Starmer on how the issue of her Tweet was going to be dealt with, but the party leader backed away from this and she was sacked. This swift retribution is in marked contrast to the treatment of those Labour staffers who in 2017 actively worked for a Labour defeat. Their treacherous behaviour, as revealed in the leaked anti-Semitism report a few months ago, is an issue that has been kicked into the long grass. The ‘inquiry’ by Labour peers that was set up by Starmer will focus on why the anti-Semitism report was written at all, who might have leaked it and as little as possible with its contents.
But as much as this sacking is a signal from the right that they are in charge, it is also a test for the left. Too many on the left of the Labour Party are ‘lino’, left in name only. When the Labour conference could have voted to change its constitution to incorporate open selection in 2018, the soft left around the Momentum and Unite leadership abandoned the principle. We know why it was done – it was a gesture to appease the right wing and avoid facing a barrage of opposition from the Tory Press. Likewise, when faced with completely spurious anti-Semitism charges, too many lefts have prevaricated and apologised, instead of standing their ground and arguing their case.
Campaign group of MPs need to…campaign
So what should happen now? The Socialist Campaign Group of Labour Councillors have expressed their solidarity with Long-Bailey and that is an excellent start. Now the Campaign Group of MPs – at least two dozen strong – ought to also publish a message of solidarity with Long-Bailey, but they should do more. They ought to reaffirm publicly the right of Labour Party members to criticise the policies of the Israeli state. They ought to arrange on-line rallies in all regions of the country, opening them to Labour party members, to give a platform to their views. They ought to seek the participation of left union leaders in this campaign to defend democracy and the right of free speech among party members. They should call on Labour Party members to commit themselves to open selection, to the retention of the 2019 election manifesto and they should dare the leadership to discipline them for doing it.
The sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey is another setback for the left, but it could have been predicted when Starmer was elected. As we said in our editorial at the time,
“Left Horizons and its supporters will not panic. We will not be fazed by this setback. We have to see the election in perspective and keep a sense of proportion. There will be other setbacks; it is inevitable. But we will draw encouragement from the fact that Rebecca Long-Bailey received a solid 135,000 vote and Richard Burgon over 92,000. We do not write off even those party members who mistakenly, in our opinion, voted for other candidates”.
Sitting in the eye of a storm
The Labour Party does not belong to Starmer and the parliamentarians around him. The right wing will not get their own way. We are in the midst of two huge political developments, both unprecedented in modern times: the coronavirus pandemic and the enormous surge of youth behind the black lives matter campaign.
Starmer and Labour’s right wing, no less than Boris Johnson, are sitting in the eye of an economic and political storm. Capitalism offers nothing but economic collapse, environmental catastrophe and, for 99 per cent of the population, unending austerity. Increasingly, working class people and especially youth, are looking for new ideas and new policies. Real socialist policies will have their day. Whatever nostalgic attachment the Keir Starmers of the world have for New Labour and the Blair years, there is no longer any social basis for those days being repeated.
June 26, 2020
