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The Healthcare Nudge Tax – Hubert Huzzah

· 4 Comments ·

Mary Seacole was a British-Jamaican business woman and nurse who set up the British Hotel in the Crimea during the Crimean War. Not as well known as Florence Nightingale, she essentially spent all of her fortune tending to the British Wounded. She was Florence Nightingale’s copay. There are a wide range of reasons why Seacole ended up going from successful Businesswoman to Poverty but the cost of nursing care was a significant contributor.

The National Health Service (Co-funding and Co-Payment) Bill 2017-2019 is seen, on the Left, as introducing something new to the National Health Service: co-funding and co-payment. This is untrue: whenever someone pays for spectacles, dental treatment or a visit to the chiropodist, that falls, broadly into co-funding-co-payment. There is no need to legislate for these things. What the Bill is seeking to create is something a lot more than simple co-payment.

Seacole paid for treatment and facilities for British Soldiers in Crimea. She lacked the social connections in Britain to do anything other than pay the full economic costs for her efforts. The important point is that Seacole was co-funding and co-paying the Healthcare provisions of Florence Nightingale. Lacking the connections of Nightingale, Seacole was obliged to pay in full, up front, the market price of nursing care. Unlike Nightingale, Seacole was not economically supported in delivering nursing care. When the Crimean War ended, Seacole came to Britain and was both well known and sympathetically received but poor. Her fortunes were only really restored by patronage and public subscriptions to her.

Sir Christopher Robert “Chopper” Chope OBE son of a Judge, pioneered the sale of Council Houses – with such aggression he became known as Chopper. As Chairman of Conservative Way Forward he has been vocal in promoting the extremes of Thatcherism even to the detriment of his own Party. As a Private Landlord, in 2014, Chope filibustered a Liberal Democrat bill, with cross party support, seeking to make revenge evictions an offence. Again, in 2015, he filibustered a private member’s bill seeking to restrict car parking charges on Carers at hospitals. His vision is resolutely Thatcherite: he steered the Poll Tax through Parliament; and, his chosen tool is the Private Members Bill. Which helped to ensure the Referendum on European Membership took place. What he does not like he talks into the ground.

Which all begs the question of why a Thatcherite former vice-chairman of the Tory Party would be presenting a bill for co-payment and co-funding since the NHS already operates a co-payment system. Indeed, why would a Member of Parliament waste time on something that already happens when there are so many other issues demanding attention. Across Europe there are a variety of ways in which Healthcare is funded. All involve some degree of co-payment.

1. No co-payments: The Netherlands and Malta.

2. Flat-rate co-payments: Austria, Italy.

3. Implied ceiling flat rate co-payment (prepayment certificate): UK.

4. Percentage rates co-payment: Belgium, France, Greece, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.

5. Percentage rate co-payment with annual ceiling: Finland.

6. Uniform percentage co-payment: Cyprus, Germany, Norway.

7. Co-insurance, with percentage decreasing with accumulated expenditure over a given period and with a ceiling: Denmark and Sweden.

8. Deductible co-payment: Ireland, Sweden.

9. Many countries have explicit exemptions for certain products, as well as for some patient and socio-economic groups.

The only places with zero co-payments are the Netherlands and Malta. Co-payment is the usual European model. Co-payment intrinsically limits the amount paid and allows for exemption. Even in Belgium, France, and so on, the percentage co-payment is open to reduction by negotiation, prepayment or even poverty. Importantly, co-payment takes place at the point of delivery. There is always a way to avoid the refusal of treatment with co-payment. The Economists explanation of co-payment is that it provides an entry cost into the Healthcare Market for the Healthcare recipient which avoids moral hazard. Moral hazard occurs when someone increases their exposure to risk when insured because they are insured. It is the accusation placed against the Banks in 2007. When there were claims Banks were ‘too big to fail’, the claims of moral hazard disappeared. Moral hazard only applies if you are, economically, small, according to policy makers. Fundamentally, co-payments across Europe have been about ensuring equity that is fairness not avoiding moral hazard.

Co-payment as a mechanism for ensuring fairness have always been viewed with suspicion by health economists because co-payment leads to value based pricing of healthcare. Value Based Pricing is distinct from Cost Based Pricing in placing a price onto goods or services based on the value to the purchaser not the cost to the provider. Cost Based Pricing determines how much the time and materials a service or goods cost, a profit margin is applied and the buyer charged.

Buyers of Cost Based Pricing products can always push prices down towards cost. The slogan Think like a patient, act like a taxpayer is being repeated, mantra-like, by close friend of Boris Johnson and former president of United Health Group Inc. – an American commercial health company – as the head of NHS England. It is intended to justify the moving of 36 treatments out of the NHS into a purely co-funded basis. Unlike co-payment, co-funding is never waived. Co-funding ensures that there is a fundamental shift in the relationship between Doctor and Patient.

Since 1948, the NHS has operated on the basis that a Doctor makes a decision about the treatment for a Patient and the Patient receives that treatment from the NHS. The decision involves no third parties. Under a co-funding healthcare model – the decisions about the value of the therapy are made by the Third Party Payee. That Third Party Payee both determines the pricing and the availability based on assessments of value. The Third Party explicitly shapes prescribing decisions through various guidelines and incentives. This is the general system that operates in the US where people think like a patient and act like a premium payer – because the tax paid is a premium paid to an Insurer. The difference between the experience of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole is the difference between co-payment and co-funding.

Florence Nightingale could decide on any treatment she wished to give to the Troops. When she did so, she could appeal to sponsors and donors to pay for those treatments. Mary Seacole recommended the treatments that she was experienced with which were particularly around communicable diseases such as cholera. Unless she could find an approving donor, she was obliged to pay out of her own funds. Lack of social connections and her acceptance of the need for Soldiers to have a social existence kept donations at a distance.

Both Nightingale and Seacole were operating on a cost based pricing model and the outcome for both were, economically, different. Both Nightingale and Seacole were accepting payments from those they treated but Seacole would waive fees for those who could not pay or if it served the health of others around that person for them to be treated. She was forced into co-funding of treatments because failing to treat cholera simply because someone cannot pay promotes the spread of cholera. It was that utilitarian compassion that made Seacole a national hero. It was also the success of her approach – that of broadly socialised medicine – that helped to galvanise the Far Right of the Conservative Party into demanding Seacole was removed from the national curriculum and to rabid opposition to her statue being erected as a memorial on NHS Property.

Legitimately, there are those who point out that the Tories are racists who have a problem with Black People from the Caribbean in the Health Service. That point is hugely important but ignores that Seacole was obliged to be a completely commercial healthcare provider which bankrupted her. The fundamental problem was not simplistically racism but that private healthcare simply fails to work. Which illustrates the kind of smokescreen that the Tories adopt: nudging people into an argument about one thing when the real issue is elsewhere: talk about racism and lose the NHS or talk about the NHS and suffer racism.

There is no mistake in saying that the Cosmopolitan nature of British society outside Whitehall and the Establishment is what created the NHS, and that Mary Seacole was an important step along the path to the 1948 Act; but, that distracts from what the National Health Service (Co-funding and Co-Payment) Bill 2017-2019 sets out to achieve.

Mary Seacole illustrated what happens when co-payment and co-funding coexist: someone goes bust. Co-payments are limited and, despite being almost universal in their enforcement, can be waived. Poor people should not die because they are not poor. Introducing co-funding ends the capacity to waive a co-payment. Co-payment is a gateway to full co-funding. Co-payment establishes a threshold price and the result is a shift from Cost Based Pricing to Value Based Pricing. Healthcare co-payment, connected to co-funding, nudges policy from Cost Based Healthcare to Value Based Healthcare by claiming that a Value Based Price should be “largely consistent with the values and preferences of the vast majority of the insured population”.

Value Based Pricing sets a prices according to the value of a product or service to the Payer rather than according to the cost of the product to the Seller. There needs to be no connection to cost based prices or even historical prices. The aim is simply to increase profitability without a need to increase sales volumes. Which is essential in commercial healthcare where successful treatment reduces the need for treatment and failed treatment removes customers from the market.

Value Based Pricing principally works in to the benefit of the Seller. It relies on the perceptions of the Buyer which leads right back to Nudge Theory. For Value Based Pricing the single most valuable emotion is not desire but fear. Realistically, it is Fear Based Pricing that relies on the Buyer being in fear of not obtaining the product. Co-payments create low level fear yet co-funding not only creates low level fear in the short term but reinforces that fear in the longer term. Which creates the environment for perpetual nudge. Value Based Pricing leads to such things as Surge Pricing as operated by Gig Economy Apps such as Uber. Surge Pricing raises price when there is higher demand because there is higher fear of not being able to obtain the service. For the Health Service that kind of Surge Pricing would be apparent around “flu season” or communicable disease outbreaks.

Value Based Pricing is not only about maximising profit but also acknowledge to be associated with high levels of fraud. Co-funding creates a purely Value Based Pricing market place, meaning that co-payments are, at best, a loss leader. With the current Co-payment system in place, it would be possible for a Pharmacist to look at a prescription and tell the Patient that a cheaper over the counter alternative exists. The same would be possible with a General Practitioner: it would be possible for a General Practitioner to recommend a box of generic paracetamol at twenty pence instead of a prescription at three pounds eighty.

Under a system where Co-funding and Co-payment are both present, it is normal for both General Practitioners and Pharmacists to be contractually unable to give any pricing advice whatsoever. Indeed, the American Medical Association, found that 28% of prescriptions for generic drugs included an element of overpayment and 6% of branded drugs included an element of overpayment. The prescription has become, for a good many Americans a nudge into purchasing. The General Practitioners and Pharmacists have terms and conditions dictated by a third party: which is the outcome of marketplace healthcare.

Overpayment at the point of dispensing is counted as healthcare fraud. The FBI estimates that Health Care Fraud costs American tax payers $80Bn/y. Of this amount $2.5Bn was recovered through the False Claims Act in the Financial year 2009-2010 at the cost of paying out $0.3Bn to whistle-blowers. Prescription fraud is not the only source of fraud. Wherever there is a mixture of co-payment and co-funding, there is an elevated level of fraud. This includes Billing for services not rendered, overcharging services and items through computer coding, duplicate charges for items, unbundling treatment packages and charging for individual items, excessive and unnecessary services as well as bribes and falsified medical records.

In fact, where there is fraud in any Healthcare System there is a reduction in life expectancy for Healthcare users. This is particularly evident where medical records are falsified for any reason. The single biggest source of fraudulent activity is around Third Parties being involved in the Patient-Doctor relationship.

The annual cost of Fit To Work assessments, in general, was expected to rise to £579m in 2016-17, it did so. Part of that rise was due to Atos walking away from a contract as Third Party to the Doctor Patient relationship for sick and disabled people. Each employment and support allowance (ESA) test had a price hike from £115 to £190 in order to continue doing them. This was hailed as being contracting out of public services when, in fact, it was the invention of a whole new service, already carried out by General Practitioners, in order to create a Third Party to the relationship between Doctors and Patients. The track record of that relationship has been abysmal – the majority of decisions based on the Third Party are overturned by an appeals process. The important thing is not to be distracted by the large, growing, literature and documentation of rising death rates, suicides and failed decisions but to focus on the entire Work Capability Assessment (WCA) being a government contract with Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that drive organisational behaviours.

By walking away from the contract, Atos demonstrated that the DWP were locked into a Value Based Pricing contract and so the 65% price hike from £115 to £190 is perfectly understandable. The simple reason that the Government paid up was that the assessment price was a co-funding arrangement.

The National Health Service (Co-funding and Co-Payment) Bill 2017-2019 sets out to achieve the institutionalisation of co-payment and co-funding into the NHS. Currently Co-payment exists but there is no lever to be pulled that can nudge Patients into behaving as Consumers. In articles about the frequency and magnitude of co-payments exceeding prescription costs, there is frequently expressed the concern that Consumers are prevented from knowing the full nature of the relationship between themselves and the Third Party. For example, Pharmacists and General Practitioners can be placed into a non disclosure relationship with the Third Party where they cannot be told of a better and cheaper treatment. Because the Third Party manages the relationship between Doctor and Patient. Surveys among US Independent Pharmacies indicate that, despite denials, this is common practice. Which makes perfect sense in an economy that is being pushed into Value Based Pricing even if it is reprehensible behaviour.

The promotion of Value Based Pricing into UK Healthcare is not simply about making a profit. It also seeks to promote behaviour change. To change the behaviour of all NHS Patients into being NHS Customers. Without institutionalised co-funding and co-payment as paired policies, turning Patients into Customers becomes an uphill struggle. Christopher Chope navigated the Poll Tax through the Commons, changing a property based taxation into a person based taxation. It turned out badly, yet neither he nor his opposition dwell upon the fundamental change of relationship between Electorate and Local Authorities that it created. The National Health Service (Co-funding and Co-Payment) Bill 2017-2019 has a far bigger impact.

Martin Shkreli, infamous for hiking the price of Tiopronin (trade name Thiola) from $1.30 to $30, caused outrage demonstrates the power of Value Based Pricing. In 2015, in Shkreli’s company acquired Daraprim: an out of patent drug with no generic version available. The price of a dose of the drug in the U.S. market increased from US$13.50 to US$750 per pill. In interviews, Shkreli explained that co-payments would be lower for patients as the new owner of the drug ensured many patients would get the drug at no cost, through a free drug program, and that it sold half of its drugs for one dollar. Which were all technically correct statements.

What they actually revealed was how dysfunctional co-payment becomes in the presence of co-funding. Co-funding introduces the Third Party to the Doctor Patient relationship. Which is already understood to be dysfunctional from the outcomes at the DWP. Importantly co-funding introduces a Choice Architecture into healthcare which makes future healthcare subject to the Libertarian Paternalism of Nudge.

Value Based Pricing is generally acknowledged to lack intellectual honesty. In reality it is a matter of charging what you can get away with not what the product or service costs. Organisations who deliver a product on a Value Based Pricing basis often push Cost Based Pricing onto their supply chain resulting in inflation of profits. In a commercial environment this is poor treatment but in a Healthcare environment it unsustainable poor treatment that kills the customer base as well as the supplier base.

Combined with co-funding, it locks new market entrants out and so ends the possibility of the NHS reducing costs. In that sense, locking co-payment and co-funding together is little more than an invitation to fraud. While Value Based Pricing is controlled by, for example, the National Institute Of Clinical Excellence (NICE), the advocacy is in favour of the Electorate. NICE might well make unpopular decisions but the are decisions that are rational and internationally respected. Passing Value Based Pricing decisions to a Third Party – as happened at the DWP – changes the advocacy to be for the owners of the treatment.

The National Health Service (Co-funding and Co-Payment) Bill 2017-2019 sets out in a deceptively simple amendment to Section 1 followed by an equally simple looking amendment to section 12E of the National Health Service Act 2006. The overall impact is to change the relationship between the NHS and the Patient:

“the making and recovery of charges is expressly provided for by or under any enactment, whenever passed”

Allows the Government to introduce charging by Statutory Instrument. A process that takes a week or so. This would allow for charges to be put in places for any treatment, drug, appliance or activity of the NHS by placing a document with the preamble: “In exercise of the powers conferred on me by The National Health Service (Co-funding and Co-Payment) Bill 2018, I hereby make the following Order:” At which point any charge can be placed into effect. The Statutory Instrument simply needs to remain unchallenged for 40 days and it becomes Law. The last occasion that the House of Commons annulled a Statutory Instrument was in 1979. So, whenever a Statutory Instrument is passed into law, NHS Charges to the Patient could be changed. Which simply means that all that is required is an active Lobbying Group and any NHS Tariff could be amended or even new ones created.

Which is not simply about nudging people to eat less sugar or cease smoking. It is about nudging Legislators to slavishly implement Value Based Pricing decisions of a wide range of goods, products, services, treatments and activities of the NHS. While this seems localised to the UK, the truth is the pricing of Drugs and Treatments in the NHS affects purchasing decisions in 40% of the World’s Health Services. Value Based Pricing in a global market is easier if your product is being sold at a premium in an influential local market. The creation of an institutional nudge has immense, global, commercial value. Lobbying in the UK would avoid scrutiny in, for example, the US but the outcome would be the same: Value Based Prices could rise in America. By nudging Legislator rather than end Customer, the cost of nudging is significantly reduced and the impact is far greater. Not only is the nudge guaranteed to work but it has the force of law to prevent it being dismantled.

The NHS has one of the price drug regimes in the World. Co-payment already exists and needs no legislation to be introduced: it is as simple as asking a General Practitioner to prescribe and asking the price. The National Health Service (Co-funding and Co-Payment) Bill 2017-2019 is not about kite flying or testing the waters or increasing choice for patients but about ensuring that Lobbyists are the Third Party getting between Doctors and Patients not only in the UK but right across the World.

What The National Health Service (Co-funding and Co-Payment) Bill 2017-2019 will promise is more choice and better, cheaper care. The experience in the US where co-payment and co-funding is in place is that Health Tourism increases – people find it cheaper to travel to Canada to get a prescription filled – and fraud rises; but, much more importantly, Healthcare ceases to be about health and becomes a significant way for Third Party Investors to manage social behaviour. The biggest Nudge possible: locking everybody into your marketing plans.

In the same way as Martin Shkreli could claim a price rise was a price fall on the basis of complex Value Based Pricing calculations that are commercial secrets, The National Health Service (Co-funding and Co-Payment) Bill 2017-2019 makes commercial secrets obligatory through Statutory Instruments, which not only ensures the NHS is privatised but that the Privatised NHS promotes healthcare cost rises across the planet.

It has been suggested that The National Health Service (Co-funding and Co-Payment) Bill 2017-2019 should be filibustered into oblivion. That would not end the drive toward Privatisation. It would also not prevent the Bill from being presented again in a similar but different form. This is the experience of the Poll Tax: it was never popular but it was navigated towards legislation by careful use of procedure. Similarly the progress of the European Referendum was navigated by the careful use of Private Members’ Bills. The National Health Service (Co-funding and Co-Payment) Bill 2017-2019 is simply another example of the well tried technique of Thatcherite MPs. This time it embeds nudge into a central Institution of Society: the NHS. The Bill should be utterly repudiated and, along with it, the underlying presumption that the entire population can be nudged and deceived and their health manipulated for profit.

Article by Hubert Huzzah

Picture: Statue of Mary Seacole (Grounds of Saint Thomas’s Hospital London). Martin Jennings 2016.

 

Related

Private bill to introduce further charges to patients for healthcare services is due for second reading today

 

 

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A response to a critical response to my recent article about antisemitism

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Image result for antisemitism

Jim Denham has written a response to my recent article about antisemitism – Antisemitism on the left and in Labour: a reply to Kitty S. Jones. Jewish Voice for Labour published my piece on their site last week.

I’ve written a response to Jim’s response, as there was a strong element of straw man rhetoric in his article – a technique where someone distorts or oversimplifies their opponent’s propositions, reasoning and arguments, in order to make it easier to attack them, and there was an identifiable ad hominem type of “guilt by association” fallacy in play, too. 

I responded with the following: 

Hi Jim,

Good to see we do have some common ground [in that we agree that Marc Wadsworth should not have been expelled from the Labour party].

I just want to raise a couple of points here.

Firstly, you say “what terrible arguments these are for a left winger to be using”. Well I cited RESEARCH, which is evidenced to verify my comments. That isn’t a “terrible argument”, it’s a reasonable one. There is other research too, which says the same thing. Facts matter, inferences, moralising, value judgements and wild assertions reflect someone’s beliefs and assumptions, not facts.

There are a couple of separate issues here that I want to highlight. One is that there is antisemitism within the Labour party. Another is that there has been growing antisemitism within our society in the UK, and wider Europe for some years – and by 2014, it had reached the highest level since records began here. It was quite widely reported in the media at the time.

Back in 2014, I was also raising concerns in my own work about the dangers of racism, antisemitism, a general growth in social prejudice – including a rise in hate crime and discriminatory policies directed against disabled people – and how toxic the encroaching political parochialism and narratives entailing strategic group divisions are for our democracy, how potentially dangerous and devastating for citizens’ wellbeing. I referred to Gordon Allport’s work a lot, too, which was based on his study of the cultural, social and political processes that resulted in the Holocaust.

Labour have the highest party membership. Among that membership are people with antisemitic views. I have seen some of the conspiracy types of antisemitism myself during the 2015 GE campaign among the left. However, a group of those were then in the Green party (as members). Going off research and the most recent parliamentary inquiry, there is no evidence that antisemitism is any higher in the Labour party than it is in society. That’s despite a high level of scrutiny that none of the other Parties have been under. Again rigorous evidence is important rather than opinion. Demanding rigorous evidence does not mean I am denying a problem exists. To imply that is the case is absurd.

The evidence is very important because it is needed to support the Party in addressing how to best deal with genuine and bogus complaints. We have already seen Marc Wadsworth expelled from the party, and we both agree that from the footage, he did not make an antisemitic comment, as he was originally accused. His expulsion does nothing to help us address antisemitism. Nor does the continued jeering, smearing and discrediting of the Party, members and in particular, the leader.

My saying that does NOT mean 1) I don’t care about antisemitism 2) I’m denying it exists or 3) I am trivialising it. It’s a logical fallacy to make those accusations of reasonable and evidenced observations and to make such irrational inferences from them. This is an ad hominem fallacy, a variant of “guilt by association”: informal inductive fallacy of the hasty generalisation or red-herring type and which asserts, by irrelevant association and often by appeal to emotion, that qualities of one thing are inherently qualities of another.

For the record, I feel very strongly about antisemitism, I challenge it wherever I see it, and treat other kinds of prejudice in the same way. I simply don’t tolerate prejudice. Ever.

I care very much about antisemitism and those people in the Party who have antisemitic beliefs must be dealt with, as they have no place in a Party that is founded on principles of equality and diversity. [That does require a Hearing process, where allegations and evidence are considered objectively and fairly, followed by appropriate, commensurate action]. 

Yesterday, someone flagged up a person on Facebook who claimed to support Jeremy Corbyn. He had attacked one of my friends (a Jewish writer), making offensive antisemitic comments. A group of us found a few Facebook accounts by the same person, and on further examination, it turns out he was previously a Margaret Thatcher supporter. He is very racist, and was clearly setting up accounts to troll people. I reported him, nonetheless, to the Party, but doubt very much that he is a member.

He blocked me when I challenged him. I reported him to Facebook, too, and warned others about him via a status update. I’m wondering how many more fake accounts there are on social media, claiming to support Labour, but who aim to discredit the Party instead.

Another important issue is that the debate about antisemitism IS being politically exploited. By the government, by the complicit media and by several Progress MPs. Saying that does NOT entail denying antisemitism exists within the Party. I have already acknowledged it exists. It is a discrete issue. These two propositions do not contradict or negate each other, they co-exist.

Both propositions are equally true. However, the way this has been played strategically – and you’ve done it yourself, Jim – whatever the response is from the Party and members, it is immediately put into the same contexts of either “denial”, “justification”, “whataboutery” or “trivialising”, and even worse, people are being accused of “collaborating” or of  being an “apologist” for antisemitism.

Yet those are emotive, deeply personal attacks, based on fallible inferences with no empirical grounding and large logical gaps. They are not rational and evidenced arguments. They are also, all too often, politically loaded and motivated.

The truth is that 1) antisemitism exists within society 2) antisemitism exists within the Labour party 3) the response we give, no matter how reasonable or well-evidenced, is strategically condemned 4) the antisemitism is being used politically by those who don’t approve of Corbyn’s left of centre politics. ALL of those things are discrete truths. They are co-existing facts. 

Pointing these issues out does NOT mean I am denying that antisemitism exists in the Party, and how dare you or anyone else imply I don’t care about it.

Those who don’t like Corbyn have bent over backwards to make all of this somehow his fault. Yet the problem existed before Corbyn became Party leader. Again, that is evidenced. It seems to me that both Corbyn and members are being bullied into “confessing” that the Party is “rife” with antisemitism. If we present rational debate and evidenced, reasoned comments, we are then accused of denying the problem. If we focus on discussing what we are doing about antisemitism, both personally and within the Party, that is taken as an admission of guilt – that antisemitism is “rife” in the Party.

 

It’s been reduced to an either/either. Either way, the outcome of all this is being manipulated, and no matter what the Party does or says – no matter what evidence arises, too, that supports what is said and proposed – we are still condemned. The narrative does not change, nor do the allegations. There is no outcome that does not entail a condemnation of Party and leader. There are many people making sure of that. 

It’s a form of political entrapment and bullying [as I outlined in the original article]. This is being carried out on the basis of political beliefs. People on the left ARE being attacked and bullied on social media and in the mainstream media. Apparently this behaviour is acceptable for some people, who are claiming to condemn others for the same behabiours. However, attacking people on the basis of their political beliefs is NOT OK. Our Human Rights Act – Article 10 – outlines this. One form of prejudice, discrimination and harassment does nothing to address another.

My article also explores how all of this has split Jewish communities further, too. That split is marked by ideological differences, and I have seen right-leaning Jewish groups going out of their way in discrediting and outgrouping left-leaning ones. I have seen moderates and media commentators make antisemitic comments about left-leaning Jewish groups in order to discredit and silence them. I provided examples as evidence in my article.

That kinda evidences my key point.

Hope I have clarified my thoughts on this a little more. If you need any more evidence – I found an article about Luciana Berger’s experiences of antisemitism on social media, dated 2014, for example – let me know.

Best wishes, Jim.

Sue.

A further reply

I haven’t touched on the Israel/Palestinian conflict in my own piece. It’s an article, rather than a book… (!) However, I will say that I have observed the conflation of “Zionism” with the conflict. Whenever I encounter this, I point out what Zionism is, and why it is wrong to equate the actions of the Israeli government and military with Zionism and with Jewish people more widely. Some people don’t understand what Zionism means. I’ve found that simply explaining it helps address the lack of understanding better than attacking someone for what they do not know.

I think in your haste to portray some on the left as “uneducated”, with no grasp of Marx and capitalism, you have also stereotyped working class people on the left more widely, and as I said previously, you cannot fight assumption, prejudice and stereotypes by presenting more assumption, prejudice and stereotypes.

We have to take a prefigurative position – you know, be the change you want to see. If you want to live in a world that values diversity, where people are treated with equal respect and each is regarded as having equal worth as human beings, regardless of their group membership and characteristics, you have to practice those principles yourself, first.

Related

Marginalisation of left leaning Jewish groups demonstrates political exploitation of the antisemitism controversy by the right wing – Politics and Insights

 

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Telegraph made to pay £30,000 in damages over defamatory article

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Jeremy Corbyn and Mohammed Kozbar.

Jeremy Corbyn with Mohammed Kozbar last summer following the far-right terrorist attack near the north London mosque. Photograph: Hannah Mckay/Reuters.

The Sunday Telegraph has been made to pay “substantial damages” to the general secretary of Finsbury Park mosque after it falsely portrayed him as a supporter of “violent lslamist extremism”, as part of yet another attempt to smear and discredit  the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, as well as Mohammed Kozbar, the vice-chair of the Muslim Association of Britain. This was an attempt by the Conservative Telegraph to discredit someone using “guilt by association” – a type of ad hominem fallacy. Use of this type of association fallacy in the media is often used to generate fear as well as to discredit someone.

On 13 March 2016 the newspaper published an article headlined: Corbyn and the mosque leader who blames the UK for Isil.” The story tried to connect the Labour leader to “extremist” views, which the Telegraph alleged were held by Mohammed Kozbar, who also runs the mosque in Corbyn’s Islington North constituency. The Telegraph claimed that Kozbar “blames Britain for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [Isil]” and had “called for the destruction of Israel and appeared to praise the recent wave of terrorist stabbings in that country”.

Kozbar issued a libel claim in relation to the article, written by Andrew Gilligan, and a UK court ruled that it had defamed him. A statement, issued by Kozbar and his solicitor, was shared on Twitter by the Muslim Council of Britain’s Miqdaad Versi, who has himself challenged inaccuracies around Islam in the national press.

Kozbar said that he “regretted the lengthy and attritional process” rather than “the newspaper simply apologising and admitting fault.” He added: “I felt that a defamation claim was the only option in order to protect my community at the Finsbury Park Mosque from continued Islamophobic media coverage.”

Kozbar added that he was “falsely portrayed by the newspaper as an individual who supported the use of violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict”.

He said: “I was also falsely described as someone who blamed the UK for Isil. The truth is that I abhor and condemn the use of violence in any situation.”

Kozbar’s lawyer, Jonathan Coad, who took up the case after Kozbar was unsatisfied with a ruling by the press regulator Ipso, said: “While there are many responsible elements of the press, the demonising of Muslims in some parts of it is incredibly destructive.

“These legal proceedings should never have been necessary. The article should not have been published.”

Kozbar said that the article was defamatory and the Sunday Telegraph has now removed the article from its website, published a ruling accepting the article was defamatory, and paid damages understood to be in the region of £30,000 to settle the case. This does not include the newspaper’s costs.

“It was not just myself who was the target of this article, it was Jeremy Corbyn,” said Kozbar, following the verdict. “The aim was to damage the reputation of Jeremy and make his progress with the Labour party more difficult.”

In a correction statement issued by the Telegraph on 9 May, the newspaper said: “The  Telegraph has accepted an offer to settle the claim by payment of substantial damages and his costs to be agreed.”

Related Stories

Telegraph sorry over travel article that repeated ‘anti-Semitic trope’ ruled inaccurate by IPSO

Sunday Telegraph pays £20,000 in libel damages to man wrongly described as ‘Islamist activist’

 

I don’t make any money from my work. I’m disabled through illness and on a very low income. But you can make a donation to help me continue to research and write free, informative, insightful and independent articles, and to provide support to others. The smallest amount is much appreciated – thank you.

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Private bill to introduce further charges to patients for healthcare services is due for second reading today

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NHS charges

Christopher Chope, a Barrister and the Conservative MP for Christchurch, has proposed a private bill that would make provision for co-funding, and to extend the use of ‘co-payment’ – charges – throughout the National Health Service (NHS); and for “connected purposes.”

Though there are already some charges for health services such dental treatments, eye tests and prescriptions already, experts have warned that if the bill gains assent, it would open the floodgates to charging for a range of other services including GPs appointments and minor operations.

The National Health Service (Co-Funding and CoPayment) Bill would “make provision for co-funding and for the extension of co-payment for NHS services in England” and this will be the second reading of the bill.

MPs are set to debate the proposed bill today.

Recent changes to NHS prescribing guidelines has shown that the co-payment system is far from perfect. Controversial limits to the kind of conditions for which GPs can prescribe medication. Instead, patients will be given advice on what medications to buy from the pharmacy. 

Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England, said: “Across the NHS our aim is to: ‘Think like a patient, act like a taxpayer’. The NHS is probably the most efficient health service in the world, but we’re determined to keep pushing further. Every pound we save from cutting waste is another pound we can then invest in better A&E care, new cancer treatments and much better mental health services.” 

John O’Connell, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance approved the changes, adding that “It’s great news that NHS England will save a vast amount of taxpayers’ money by curbing prescriptions for basic items that are much cheaper to buy in the supermarket than they are to prescribe. Taxpayers should not be footing the bill for items like anti dandruff shampoo or athlete’s foot powder, so cutting out wasteful spending like this will mean that precious resources can be focused on frontline services. Patients too must remember that these items are not “free” – the money comes out of taxpayers’ pockets, so NHS England should be applauded for this move.”

However, someone should remind Stevens and O’Connell that everyone pays tax and national insurance. This kind of rationing is a steep and slippery slope to a health service that is no longer free at the point of delivery. 

However, NHS has always been free at the point of delivery – that’s one of the founding principles on which it was created. Millions of ordinary people rely on this principle. Under no circumstances must we permit the government to take us back to the time when had to sell their household belongings to see their doctor. Citizens in a civilised  and democratic society should not be penalised financially for being ill and needing NHS services.

Justin Madders MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, said: “Once again we see the Tories’ true colours.

“At a time when the NHS is going through the biggest funding squeeze in its history and more than four million people are waiting for treatment, Tory MPs are proposing a two-tier system where those who can afford it get treated first.

“Labour’s first priority will be to give the NHS the funding it needs to protect an NHS free at the point of use for everyone who needs it.”

Chope has previously tabled a range of other controversial bills.

He was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Peter Brooke, the Minister of State at the Treasury in 1986, before being promoted by Margaret Thatcher to serve in her government as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for the Environment later in the same year, where he was responsible for steering through the immensely unpopular “Community Charge” (best known as the Poll tax) legislation.

In June 2013 Chope was one of four MPs who camped outside Parliament in a move to facilitate parliamentary debate on what they called an “Alternative Queen’s Speech” – an attempt to show what a future Conservative government might deliver. 42 policies were listed including reintroduction of the death penalty and conscription, privatising the BBC, banning the burka in public places and preparation to leave the European Union. 

Chope helped to lead backbench support for the motion calling for a European Referendum. He has also been heavily involved in the use of private member’s bills to achieve this aim. Chope came under fire in January 2013 for referring to some staff in the House of Commons as “servants”. Parallels were drawn between this opinion and his views on the minimum wage – which he has called to be abolished.

On 28 November 2014 Chope, a private landlord, filibustered a Liberal Democrat bill with cross party support intended to make revenge evictions an offence.

In 2014 Chope along with six other Conservative Party MPs voted against the Equal Pay (Transparency) Bill which would require all companies with more than 250 employees to declare the gap in pay between the average male and average female salaries.

He came under criticism in late 2014 for repeatedly blocking a bill that would ban the use of wild animals in circus performances, justifying his actions by saying “The EU Membership Costs and Benefits bill should have been called by the clerk before the circuses bill, so I raised a point of order”.

You can read Chope’s latest controversial and draconian bill: The National Health Service (Co-Funding and Co-Payment) Bill here.

GP and NHS campaigner, Bob Gill, says:

“Ever wondered why Government wanted to spend a fortune on the charging infrastructure for collecting relatively insignificant sums from illegal immigrants using the NHS?

Well that was the cover story. Reality is that charging was always intended to apply to everyone.

Here is the Bill to extend charging to all.”

Please tell your MPs to attend the debate and to argue and vote against it, whatever party they are.

Here is how to contact your MP.

Template emails are downloadable from the 999 Call for the NHS website.

Let’s not let the Conservatives get away with privatising our NHS by stealth.

Image result for MPs with a vested interest in NHS

 

Update

The bill did not get through the second reading, as it ran out of time. However,  the Conservatives have rescheduled the bill for another attempt, on Friday 15 June.

Related 

Rogue company Unum’s profiteering hand in the government’s work, health and disability green paper: work as a “health outcome”.

 

I don’t make any money from my work. I’m disabled through illness and on a very low income. But you can make a donation to help me continue to research and write free, informative, insightful and independent articles, and to provide support to others. The smallest amount is much appreciated – thank you.

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BBC’s ‘churnalism’ and the government’s PR and ‘strategic communications’ crib sheet

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The comment below is from Marcus Moore, a former fellow BBC scriptwriter who has worked for the last three decades as a freelance writer, theatre practitioner and arts consultant. It’s a summary of how Conservatives have corrupted the BBC

The Duke of Hazzard – a flashback to the Thatcher era

I also used to write scripts for the BBC’s Community Programme Unit when I was very young, green and unreservedly creative. I witnessed Marmaduke Hussey’s appointment as Chairman of the BBC’s Board of Governors in 1986, following the death of Stuart Young. His appointment – which was not so much about cleaning out the Augean stables, but rather more about downsizing and refurbishing them – was thanks in part to his close connections to Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party. He “steered” the corporation through a period when there was pressure from the Conservative government to do so – it was being heavily criticised for its perceived left wing bias.

Conservatives always make this claim, Boris Johnson and Iain Duncan Smith more recently in 2012, set about “monitoring” the BBC for “left wing bias”. For Conservatives, the more things change, the more they must be made to stay the same.   

What we are left with is reporting that is simply structured along the lines of government announcements. That’s not analysis and news, it is a publicly funded PR and strategic communcations service for an authoritarian government, which clearly sidesteps public interests and any idea of democratic accountability.

September 1986 Hussey received a call from the then home secretary, Douglas Hurd, offering him the chairmanship of the BBC governors.

The corporation was  under constant attack from right wing politicians such as Norman Tebbit and Jeffrey Archer and apparently a constant goad to Margaret Thatcher, infuriated daily by the alleged “pinkoes” running the Today programme.

Only those close to the newspaper business had heard of this former chief executive of Times newspapers, he was notable for leading the company into a confrontation with the trade unions, with the support of William Rees-Mogg, then editor of The Times. They decided on a “big bang” solution, shutting down the newspapers in an effort to bring the unions to heel. Convinced that such shock tactics would cause almost instant capitulation, Hussey and his colleagues had devised no strategy on how to proceed if that did not happen. The closure lasted 50 weeks and, when the papers did finally return, the basic issues remained unresolved. The confrontation ended in ignominious defeat, and eventually, to the acquisition of The Times and Sunday Times by Rupert Murdoch. 

An anonymous briefer at Conservative Central Office said at the time that Hussey’s job was “to make it bloody clear” that change was urgently required; he was “to get in there and sort it out”. Hurd subsequently denied issuing a brief, telling Hussey he would find out what he had to do when he got to the BBC. All the same, Duke went in the BBC awaiting further instructions. 

Within three months of joining the BBC, he had forced the resignation of the director-general, Alasdair Milne – father of Guardian journalist and Corbyn advisor, Seumas Milne – following a series of rows between the BBC and the Conservative government. Milne wasn’t a socialist by any means, but he had represented the more independent spirit of BBC programme making at that time. 

In the 1990s, Hussey also ended up in conflict with director general John Birt over his management style and Panorama’s controversial interview with Diana, Princess of Wales in 1995. It was said that Thatcher had installed Hussey to “sort out” the BBC. Such is the language of authoritarians who don’t like to be held to account. 

Those of a less constrained New Right Conservative view saw Hussey as an illiberal Frankenstein and John Birt as his pet monster. They were devastated by the chairman’s lack of interest or skill in intellectual argument and his readiness to make big decisions on a basis of ignorance or prejudice. Conservative through and through.

Toeing the party line: Conservative bias

In 2016, a study by Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies revealed that the BBC has a “high dependency” on the Conservative Party for statistics. The study was used by the BBC Trust to conduct a report called ‘Making Sense of Statistics’, and confirmed that the Conservatives are responsible for three-quarters of the statistics that the BBC receives (and thus presents to the public) from political sources. This is extremely problematic as the Conservatives have been formally rebuked by the UK Statistics Authority on many occasions for using misleading or manufactured statistical data to justify ideologically driven policies, which reflect a neoliberal hegemony.

The BBC Trust report once again calls the impartiality of the BBC into question, and states that the corporation should not be so content with reporting statistics “straight from a press release”. It also concluded that the BBC has failed to “go beyond the headlines”.  The report went on to say: 

“The content analysis demonstrates that there is an especially high number of political figures providing statistical information on BBC [output],” said the report. “And Conservative politicians represented nearly three-quarters (73%) of these statistical references.

And that:

“BBC journalists need the confidence and skills to go beyond headlines, and to challenge misleading claims.”

“It is reasonable to expect the BBC to cover statements which the UK or devolved governments make. […] However, as Cardiff’s content analysis points out, it does make it vital that those statements are challenged where necessary so that the impartiality of the BBC’s coverage of political affairs is not affected.”

The analysis by Cardiff University found that there were “many instances” where quotes and statistics given to the broadcaster from the Conservative government were simply reported with a complete failure to fact-check and scrutinise the information or even question and challenge it on “any fundamental level”. The Conservatives are effectively handing the BBC a script to read from.

At the same time, the Government has perpetuated a myth that the BBC has a “left wing bias”. It’s a claim that has allowed the Conservatives and right wing to police the corporation and set the wider political agenda. For its part, the BBC has become fearful of crossing certain lines, and so remains generally complaint, and toes the party line.

Many of BBC journalists have Conservative party connections and most of its panelists are from the neoliberal centre right. They not only fail to comprehend and appreciate Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-neoliberalism and promise of policies that provide long overdue priority and support for ordinary citizens, they seem to loathe and fear it. 

The BBC’s political output has long had more than its fair share of Conservatives in prominent roles – none more so than Andrew Neil, who previously worked for the Conservative’s Research Department and who now chairs the holding company that owns the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator. It is unusual for any broadcaster, whether left or right wing, to dominate political coverage as much as Neil does on the BBC, who fronts the weekday Daily Politics show and presents his own programmes on Sunday mornings and Thursday evenings.

The appointment of Robbie Gibb as May’s director of communications was unsurprising; he was treading a well-worn path, after all. May’s predecessor David Cameron appointed the then head of BBC TV News, Craig Oliver, to be his director of communications and before him the then Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, appointed Guto Hari, a BBC political correspondent, to head of his media team. 

The news that two BBC men were lined up for those positions came at a time when the BBC faces unprecedented criticism from the left for its heavy Conservative bias. Quite properly so. While the Labour party naturally expect negative reporting from a press that is overwhelmingly aligned to the Conservatives and owned by billionaires, many of us have been shocked and appalled by the poor, inaccurate and often hostile coverage the party have received from the BBC, which is now seen as a pro-status quo, pro-establishment organisation.

A succession of senior BBC journalists have accepted that the Corporation’s political coverage struggles to escape the Westminster bubble, which is perhaps one reason why the BBC’s coverage of the last two general elections and the Brexit referendum failed to adequately reflect the national mood (though the BBC was far from being alone in this failing).

The BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, has been a particular focus of criticism from Labour party supporters, and was found to have breached the BBC’s impartiality rules in an early and important report on Corbyn. This was intentional, and designed to mislead the public. The broadcaster’s regulator concluded that a Kuenssberg report for the News at Six programme in November 2015 breached the broadcaster’s impartiality and accuracy guidelines, in a ruling that triggered an unreasonably angry response from the corporation’s director of news. 

The News at Six item included a clip of the Labour leader stating: “I am not happy with a shoot-to-kill policy in general. I think that is quite dangerous and I think can often be counterproductive.”

The person who made the complaint is not named, but clarified that it was from neither Corbyn nor “anyone else on his behalf”. The complaint said that the news report misrepresented the Labour leader’s views on the use of lethal force and that it had wrongly suggested he was against the additional security measures which the item had said the Government was proposing. The Trust found that the inaccuracy was “compounded” when Kuenssberg went on to state that Corbyn’s message “couldn’t be more different” to that of the prime minister, who was about to publish anti-terrorism proposals.

Kuenssberg had disgracefully presented that as Corbyn’s response to a question put to him on whether he would be “happy for British officers to pull the trigger in the event of a Paris-style attack”, but as the Trust also concluded, Corbyn had been speaking in a different context. Kuenssberg intentionally edited an interview to give the incorrect impression that Corbyn disagreed with the use of firearms by police in incidents such as that month’s terrorist attacks in Paris. His purported answer to a question as broadcast in the report was in fact his reply to a more general (unbroadcast) question, not specifically about that terrorist attack.  The Trust said that accuracy was particularly important when dealing “with a critical question at a time of extreme national concern.”

It’s impossible to see this as anything other than an attempt to deliberately mislead the public regarding Corbyn’s views. That she wasn’t dismissed indicates just how little the BBC prioritizes and values accuracy, genuine “objectivity” and “impartiality”.  Furthermore, the doctored interview was not taken down from the BBC‘s site for some time, with Conservative MPs continuing to Tweet it.

Sir Michael Lyons, who chaired the BBC Trust from 2007 to 2011 and is a former Labour councillor, said that there had been “some quite extraordinary attacks on the elected leader of the Labour party”.

In 2016, he told the BBC’s The World at One: “I can understand why people are worried about whether some of the most senior editorial voices in the BBC have lost their impartiality on this.

“All I’m voicing is the anxiety that has been expressed publicly by others … We had here a charter review process which has been littered with wild kites flown which, we can’t see the string is held by the secretary of state, but the suspicion is that actually it’s people very close to him.

“His own comments have suggested that he might be blessed by a future without the BBC. Is the BBC strong enough to withstand a challenge to its integrity and impartiality?”

Lyons said there were “very real suspicions that ministers want to get much closer to the BBC, and that is not in anybody’s interests”. Corbyn told grassroots supporters that it was necessary for Labour to use social media to communicate with the public, because right wing media were censoring political debate in an unprecedented assault on the party. He is absolutely right. 

The commodification of politics and the PR narrative

Vance Packard’s influential 1957 polemic, The Hidden Persuaders, described how “political hucksters” were now treating voters as spectator-consumers, not much  interested in politics or its content, able to be roused only by controversy, stunts and personality. This approach seemed justified, Packard wrote, “by the growing evidence that voters could not be depended on to be rational. There seemed to be a strong illogical or non-logical element in their behaviour, both individually and in masses” (Packard 2007). 

As Packard discovered in his research, this had been happily accepted by the commercial world which was abreast of the new approach – and which was exporting its techniques to the political communicators. He quotes an editorial in an early 1956 edition of the  magazine The Nation’s Business, published by the US Chamber of Commerce, which reported: Both parties will merchandise their candidates and issues by the same methods that business has developed to sell goods […] no flag-waving faithfuls will parade the streets. Instead corps of volunteers will ring doorbells and telephones […] radio spot announcements and ads will repeat phrases with a planned intensity. Billboards will push slogans of proven power […] candidates need […] to look ‘sincerely at the TV camera’. (Packard 2007).

It was an early intimation of the replacement of political parties (the “faithfuls”) by public relations, a movement which has since advanced. Politics has been reduced to brand, reputation management and ‘strategic communications’.  

More recently, the Leveson inquiry concluded that politicians “developed too close a relationship with the Press in a way which has not been in the public interest.” Public relations professionals are charged with organising media space, engagements and ensuring that their political candidate’s public profile stays positive. 

Robbie Gibb, who headed the BBC's political team at Westminster, is Theresa May's new Director of Communications

Robbie Gibb, who headed the BBC’s political team at Westminster, is Theresa May’s new Director of Communications ( Robbie Gibb/Twitter ).

In its election manifesto in 2010 the Conservative party promised to give the National Audit Office “full access” to the BBC‘s accounts in order to make the corporation more accountable for the way it spends the licence fee.

Jeremy Hunt said that the BBC Trust, which replaced the corporation’s board of governors in 2007, had to change and that the Tories were considering “ripping up the charter” ahead of its expiration in 2016 to achieve its plan.

The encroaching government influence on the BBC became more visible to the public in 2016, when the then culture secretary was accused of attempting to “bend the BBC to his political will” after it emerged he planned to have the government directly appoint most members of a new body to run the corporation. 

Despite the early rhetoric about abolishing the trust, the then Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said he would only act “within the envelope set by the Royal Charter”, so major changes were not possible until the Charter expired after the end of 2016.  Hunt had instead expressed his support for changing the name of the Trust and installing a new non-executive chairman on the BBC’s Executive Board. 

The proposal to scrap the Trust was officially presented to Parliament as part of a charter review white paper on 12 May 2016. Governance of the BBC was transferred to the new BBC Board in April 2017. Sir David Clementi became the new Chairman of the Board.

John Whittingdale said only two or three members of a 13-strong unitary board, which would replace the ‘discredited’ BBC Trust model, would be BBC executives while the rest would be government appointees.

In 2016, the BBC’s director general, Tony Hall, had already flagged his concerns about the Clementi proposals for replacing the BBC trust with the unitary board. In a speech , Lord Hall pointed out that unlike any previous governing body, the unitary board would set the editorial direction of the whole BBC. Neither the trust nor its predecessor – the BBC governors who oversaw the corporation from its founding until 2005 – had such powers.

Hall warned: “It will make key decisions on programmes and services, and it will work with me – as editor in chief – on how we manage our impartial journalism. It doesn’t feel to me that these tasks should be undertaken by government-appointed board members. The BBC is one of the world’s great public service broadcasters – not a state broadcaster. A strong, sustainable BBC needs new safeguards for independence, not yet more erosion.” 

It’s another symptom of how oppressive the government has become, and how apparently acceptable it is to attack, discredit and threaten anyone who even looks as though they may presents a challenge, a criticism or an alternative perspective to threaten an increasingly authoritarian status quo.  

Churnalism and the PR-isation of the news and public affairs

One time BBC Economics Editor Robert Peston – regarded as being among the most authoritative journalists in the UK – publicly lamented his profession’s increasingly “hideous and degrading” reliance on PR material. 

“When I worked on the Sunday Telegraph a decade ago, the fax machine was strategically placed above the waste paper basket so that press releases went straight into what we called the round filing cabinet. Now newspapers are filled with reports based on spurious PR generated surveys and polls, simply to save time and money … More disturbing, perhaps, PRs seem to have become more powerful and effective as gatekeepers and minders of businesses, celebrities and public or semipublic figures … today’s PR industry has become much more machinelike, controlled – and in its slightly chilling way – professional (Peston 2014).

Roy Greenslade, professor of journalism and former Daily Mirror editor, reports similar tensions when he writes, in 2012, that “if the current trends [of more PR practitioners] continue, we will end up without the essential ‘media filter’ [of journalism] that … acts at its best on behalf of a public deluged with self interested public relations material”. He continues: “What we’re talking about here … is an assault on democracy”.

Both of these sentiments capture a zeitgeist of the state of journalism and PR in neoliberal democracies such as the UK and USA, and represent an issue that has moved up academic, public and professional agendas of concern in the last 10-15 years. This is commonly described as ‘churnalism’, which is characterised by a swelling PR industry, blurring job roles and a growing colonization of PR mindsets amongst journalists.

Here, churnalism – the use of unchecked PR material in news – is an outcome of the broader process of structural and professional change, and conflicting interests. PRs want the best possible news coverage for their paying clients, the occupational ideals of journalism are inter alia, “focus on truth, social reporting and democratic education”. Or at least they were.

Add to that the neoliberal turn: an economic model that has led to the marketisation of news and in turn, of journalism practices. What we witness is less original investigation, and more reactive journalism by way of writing up agency copy or PR material. The now habitual incorporation of media releases and other PR material into the news by journalists is not a new phenomenon, but the change in the scale and regularity in which this is now happening is.

A number of recent studies in the UK and US have established the success of PR practitioners in placing subsidies with news media to influence the media agenda, in turn influencing public opinion and the public agenda. There is significant political power to be exercised in both agenda setting and in the framing of news. Power is present in conceptions of agenda-building in media narratives and public discourse. 

There is a climate of growing concern about ascendant PR and journalism in crisis. It should be of central concern that there has been a rapidly growing influence of PR and ‘communication’ professionals in the newsgathering and reporting process, and the consequent diminution of editorial independence and watchdog journalism in the UK.

Studies describe government and political press officers as “increasingly assertive in their relationships with journalists”, not just in terms of information management, but often, to the point of manipulation and aggression.

In truth, the BBC struggles to maintain independence from governments, who set the terms under which it operates, they appoint its most senior figures, who in future will be directly involved in day-to-day managerial decision making, and they set the level of the licence fee, which is the BBC’s major source of income. So given this context within which the BBC operates, it hardly amounts to independence in any substantive sense.

Critics can also point to a number of senior BBC figures with known Conservative associations. The Today presenter and former political editor, Nick Robinson, is a former president of Oxford University’s Conservative Association. James Harding, who as director of news has reputedly centralised the BBC’s news operations, is a former editor of The Times, and the BBC’s high profile political presenter, Andrew Neil, is well known as a right-winger, having briefly worked for the Conservative Party before making his name in Murdoch enterprises.

Robbie Gibb, the frontrunner to be the Tories’ new Alastair Campbell, is Andrew Neil’s editor at the Daily Politics. He is also the brother of Tory Minister Nicholas Gibb. Two senior Tory Ministers are also ex-BBC: Chris Grayling and Michael Gove.

Then there are the declared interests of the Westminster bubble journalists. For example, Andrew Gimson, who is contributing editor of Conservative Home, is a commentator for the BBC, Associated Newspapers, the New Statesman, and he is also an associate  consultant for a PR and political lobbyist consultancy, Lodestone Communications. He specialises in interviewing Cabinet ministers and other Conservative politicians, and wrote Boris Johnson’s biography.  He started his career in the Conservative Research Department and has served as Deputy Editor of the Spectator, political columnist at the Independent on Sunday, and Berlin correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.

BBC political editor/commentator Laura Kuenssberg’s declared interests are: Journalism for The House Magazine. Speaking for Credit Suisse and Ernst and Young (registered July 2017). Chaired events for Intelligence Squared (debate/think tank) and Mischon (law firm), speaking for Healthcare Management Association (membership organisation) and JP Morgan (bank) (registered March 2018). 

Timothy Shipman of the Sunday Times, and also commentator for Sky News, BBC Daily Politics and Sunday Politics, Radio 5 Live, LBC and Talk Radio. Paper Reviewer for BBC News Channel.  Freelance journalism for The Spectator and the New Statesman. Under contract to Kirby Jones, a speaker agency, for public speaking. Fees received from the following for speaking engagements, most arranged via Kirby Jones: Artemis Asset management, Association of British Insurers, Axon Moore, Bain & Co, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, British Bookmaker’s Association, Housing 2017, Independent Schools Bursar’s Association, the Legatum Institute, Oakhill Communications, Owen James Group, Policy Connect, Portland Communications, the Publishers Association, Westminster Policy Institute.

Then there is Andrew Neil. His declared interests are as follows: Chairman, Press Holdings Media Group (The Spectator, Spectator Health, Life, Money and Australia; and Apollo, the international arts magazine). Chairman, ITP Magazine Group (Dubai). Chairman, The Addison Club (London). Director, Glenburn Enterprises Limited (provides media and consultancy services). Fees for speaking at, hosting or chairing an event were received from the following organisations: IBC (annual trade fair for global broadcasters); Credit Services Association (industry body for credit services and debt collection); Jefferies (investment bank); Pega Systems (Boston-based software provider); KPMG (global financial services); Construction News (publication for the construction industry); British Growth Fund (provides long-term capital to fast-growing UK companies); Association of Pension Providers (trade body for pensions industry); Retail Motor Industry Association (represents vehicle dealers); Chairman’s Group (private association of company chairmen); HSBC (global bank); White & Case (city law firm); Aberdeen Asset Management (global asset management); Exponent (private equity company); Christie & Co (property advisory service); Mayer Brown (global law firm); Titlestone (property finance company); Knight Frank (global estate agent); EY (global accountancy and consultancy service); Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (trade body which provides support for procurement and supply management); Pipeline Industries Guild (trade body for pipeline industries); SES (European satellite provider); Barnet Waddington (provider of actuarial, administration and consultancy services); Digital TV Group (association of digital TV broadcasters); BNP Paribas (global banking group); Philadelphia Committee on Foreign Relations (group of private individuals based in Greater Philadelphia area interested in foreign policy); Raymond Jones (financial services company); Incisive Media (information and events business). (Registered June 2017).

Holders of photo-identity passes as lobby journalists accredited to the Parliamentary Press Gallery or for parliamentary broadcasting are required to register:

‘Any occupation or employment for which you receive over £760 from the same source in the course of a calendar year, if that occupation or employment is in any way advantaged by the privileged access to Parliament afforded by your pass.’

When the global financial system went into meltdown, BBC interviews were dominated by City voices such as stockbrokers and hedge fund managers, rather than critics of a sector that had plunged the country into disaster. It’s not much of a surprise, however, in view of some of the listed interests of BBC personnel. 

A certain kind of political-economic ‘common sense’ is constructed and negotiated amongst the political-media elite. The fact that this elite often share common private interests is also problematic. This raises serious questions about the capacity of the media to hold the government to account, to understand contemporary democratic politics, let alone entertain the idea of public interests. 

Recent BBC coverage of the local elections was essentially a one party state broadcast. Labour were presented as “failing” to take seats. Yet the figures tell us a different story. While the results could have been better for Labour, the party did not do badly at all. Labour gained 77 seats and the Conservatives lost 33 seats overall.

There is no demarcation between corporate, media and government interests. Nick Robinson, former president of Oxford University’s Conservative Association, Kuenssberg and Neil are often held as the conspicuous examples of those promoting neoliberal-Conservative norms. However, those interests are reflected throughout the BBC’s reporting, including those who regularly make editorial decisions, which as study after study has shown, overwhelmingly defers to officialdom and upholds powerful private interests at the expense of public interests. The revolving door between consultancy/strategic communications/ PR companies, the media and the Government indicates the existence of a set of shared narrow norms and an ideological crib sheet.

The narrowly shared understanding of ‘politics’ among an elite of Conservative politicians, big business, the communications and PR industry, news maker sand opinion shapers is not only enormously unrepresentative of the public, but it also displays an increasingly tenuous grasp on broader democratic political reality. 

Image result for BBC bias

The BBC was accused of “extreme bias” after it featured the altered image of Jeremy Corbyn against the Kremlin skyline during a segment about escalating tensions between the UK and Russia on Newsnight, despite presenter Evan Davies’ attempts to justify its use. The Labour leader was depicted wearing a Russian Bolshevik cap against a red-tinted backdrop of the St. Basil’s Cathedral while Ayesha Hazarika, former special advisor to Ed Milliband, and Corbyn ally Chris Williamson MP, were being interviewed about the Government’s response to the Skripal poisoning.

The BBC backdrop embeds a codified message to viewers that is almost subliminal, especially as it was presented on the same day that newspapers like the Daily Mail ran with such headlines as ‘CORBYN, THE KREMLIN STOOGE’.

The image that the BBC claimed to have used and not edited, was taken in 2016 and if you compare the two, there is certainly a red hue that has been applied along with lowerng the contrast and tightening the aspect ratio, which make Corbyn’s clothes appear darker.

This changes the look of the hat he is wearing, which makes it look more like a Russian ushanka hat, whilst there are noticeable differences in the ‘Newsnight’ image and an ushanka, to those who aren’t paying a massive amount of attention to the backdrop or are unable to see a comparison, it would certainly look like one on first look.

The BBC have rejected the criticisms of their programme while acknowledging they did edit the image, by saying that they previously did a similar mock up of Gavin Williamson on the same programme. 

However, it is the context and framing that matters, as I am sure the BBC is very much aware.

Recently, the BBC disclosed a shocking revelation, in an article titled: ‘The vetting files: How the BBC kept out ‘subversives’’ .  Left wing individuals were actively vetted by MI5 and barred from holding positions of influence within the Corporation.

The article says that the purpose of the MI5 vetting candidates for political roles within the BBC was to prevent the formation of a left wing government, stating: “The fear was that ‘evilly disposed’ engineers might sabotage the network at a critical time, or that conspirators might “discredit” the BBC so that ‘the way could be made clear for a left-wing government’”.

Portraying Her Majesty’s opposition as “subversives”  and “conspirators” has some profound implications for democracy.  However, it is still happening – the Labour party are portrayed by the incumbents as pathological, rather than as an essential mechanism of a wider functioning democracy.

For decades the BBC denied that job applicants were subject to political vetting by MI5. But in fact vetting began in the early days of the BBC and “continued until the 1990s”. Paul Reynolds, the first journalist to see all the BBC‘s vetting files, tells the story of the long relationship between the corporation and the Security Service.

“Policy: keep head down and stonewall all questions.” So wrote a senior BBC official in early 1985, not long before the Observer exposed so many details of the work done in Room 105 Broadcasting House that there was no point continuing to hide it.

By that stage, a policy of flatly denying the existence of political vetting – not just stonewalling, but if necessary lying – had been in place for five decades.

As early as 1933 a BBC executive, Col Alan Dawnay, had begun holding meetings to exchange information with the head of MI5, Sir Vernon Kell, at Dawnay’s flat in Eaton Terrace, Chelsea. It was an era of political radicalism and both sides deemed the BBC in need of “assistance in regard to ‘communist’ activities”. 

Vetting file

“Formalities” was the code word for the vetting system

A memo from 1984 gives a run-down of organisations on the banned list. On the left, there were the Communist Party of Great Britain, the Socialist Workers Party, the Workers Revolutionary Party and the Militant Tendency. By this stage there were also concerns about movements on the far right – the National Front and the British National Party.

A banned applicant did not need to be a member of these organisations – association was enough.

Over the years, some BBC executives worried about the “deceptive” statements they had to make – even to an inquisitive MP on one occasion. But when MI5 suggested scaling back the number of jobs subject to vetting, the BBC argued against such a move. Though there were some opponents of vetting within the corporation, they had little influence until the Cold War began to thaw in the 1980s

These revelations completely dismantle the idea that the BBC has ever been a passive, impartial, politically neutral entity. 

Of course, as I’ve outlines, the undue political influence on the BBC becomes clear when we investigate the backgrounds of prominent and influential BBC political figures. There’s arecurring pattern, with direct links to the Conservative party. 

Owen Jones says “The main thing I’ve learned from working in the British media is that much of it is a cult. Afflicted by a suffocating groupthink, intolerant of critics, hounds internal dissenters, full of people who made it because of connections and/or personal background rather than merit.”  

The Intellgience services have always worked to prevent a Labour government. Who could forget the fake Zinoviev letter, which was engineered by the establishment using the military and intelligence services to destabilise the first Labour government. 

Britain’s most senior security and intelligence officials discussed the smearing of the Labour party just as it was emerging as a major political force according to previously secret documents. The potential repercussions of attempts by the intelligence agencies to damage the Labour party were debated at length by the little-known Secret Service Committee, later research – now released at the National Archives – shows.

Noam Chomsky once said: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.” It’s going down.

Dr Lawrence Britt wrote about the defining features of authoritarianism, fascism and totalitarianism. He outlined that among the key characteristics of a fundamnetal shift away from democracy is political censorship through a controlled mass media. He says that the media is either directly controlled by the Government, or indirectly controlled by government regulation, sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. 

It’s a very sobering thought that the British Broadcasting Corporation currently fulfils all of those criteria. 

Democracy has been profoundly compromised and corrupted by its colonisation. Lobbyists, professional private interest propagandists, corporate and financial power have merged with the state, and are all singing from the same crib sheet.

—

Related

The BBC’s disgraceful attempt at a McCarthyist-style shaping of public perceptions and flouting impartiality rule

BBC’s Stephen Sackur accuses Tories of spreading propaganda about Jeremy Corbyn, and of being unaccountable and undemocratic

David Dimbleby says Jeremy Corbyn is treated unfairly by a biased right wing press

From the Zinoviev letter to the Labour party coup – the real enemy within

I don’t make any money from my work. I am disabled because of illness and have a very limited income. But you can help by making a donation to help me continue to research and write informative, insightful and independent articles, and to provide support to others. The smallest amount is much appreciated – thank you.

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Marginalisation of left leaning Jewish groups demonstrates political exploitation of the antisemitism controversy by the right wing

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Ruth Smeeth, shown here, is surrounded by right wing journalists, Kevin Schofield, editor of Politics Home, (he used to work with the Sun), Richard Angell, bullying executive director of the moderate group Progress, who oppose Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Senior Political Correspondent at The Telegraph, Kate McMann, and John Adrian Pienaar, who is currently Deputy Political Editor for BBC News, and presenter of Pienaar’s Politics on BBC Radio 5 Live. It is the right wing journalist Kevin Scofield who says clearly on the video that Marc Wadsworth’s comments constitute “antisemitism”. 

Marc Wadsworth, a former BBC journalist and member of the Momentum Black Connexions group, had been suspended by the Labour Party since the 2016 row with Smeeth at the launch of Shami Chakrabarti’s report into antisemitism, where he accused the MP of “working hand in hand” with the Daily Telegraph to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. That a group of so-called moderates in the party have worked with the right wing press – and at times, even with Conservative MPs – to attempt to discredit Corbyn, isn’t open to dispute. They have.

See for example, John Woodcock’s comments on Pienaar’s show. Woodcock is the only Labour MP to state publicly that, if re-elected, he would not support Corbyn as Prime Minister. It’s a well established fact that the plots by so-called moderates to marginalise Corbyn and his supporters have been going on since he became party leader. To pass a comment on this is not remotely “antisemitic”. The fact that Ruth Smeeth is Jewish does not make the comment antisemitic. 

In his statement, Wadsworth says “At the Chakrabarti event, I handed out a press release in defence of him. I was dismayed when I saw journalist Kate McCann, from the arch anti-Labour Daily Telegraph, hand it to a member of the public. That person told me brusquely she was ‘Ruth Smeeth Labour MP’.

“So, I suspected an unhealthy cosy relationship between the two of them. I later found out the MP was one of Corbyn’s dissident frontbenchers who had resigned to damage him.

“Anyway, after being called out by McCann in a hostile question about me to the Labour leader, I responded by saying what I genuinely thought I had spotted. The MP walked out filmed by the cameras of news media uninterested in the important issues covered by the Chakrabarti report and looking for an anti-Corbyn scoop. I mainly spoke about the lack of black people at the event aimed at combatting racism and, sadly, the journalists were not interested in that. Corbyn sympathetically supported my observation and said the party needed to do better to improve black representation. I didn’t know the MP involved was Jewish.”

Wadsworth also says: “As a black activist, I’ve fought racism and antisemitism all my life. The Hitler-worshipping Combat 18 paramilitaries put me on a death list after I founded the Anti-Racist Alliance in 1991, and helped Doreen and Neville Lawrence set up the Justice for Stephen Lawrence campaign. After I was able to introduce Stephen’s parents to Nelson Mandela, the campaign became the cause célèbre it deserved to be. This April marks the 25th anniversary of black teenager Stephen’s brutal, racist murder.

“I’ve been on the frontline, side by side with Jewish, black and other anti-racist campaigners, opposing the fascist BNP, including on the Isle of Dogs when one of their members was elected a councillor. Together we managed to shut down the BNP’s “Nazi bunker” headquarters in south east London, close to where Stephen was murdered.

“Despite my history of anti-racist campaigning, Labour expelled me by email the very same day of the June 2016 launch of the party’s Shami Chakrabarti report into antisemitism and racism I attended. I was shocked, thinking it must be a practical joke. I was caught up in what’s been called a “media concocted firestorm”.  

“Since then I’ve been pilloried and had my reputation trashed. Most painful has been the non-stop trial by media – print and online.”

Smeeth didn’t look to be in tears when she left, as the media reported: she glanced at the cameras and rather pointedly stormed out. That was following Schofield’s smirking comments about alleged antisemitism. 

What is telling about this whole series of events, is that Smeeth’s statement at the time claims the comment Wadsworth made was definitely antisemitic, leaving no room for doubt when there clearly IS room for doubt. Furthermore she uses this to call for Corbyn to stand down, yet again, claiming unreasonably that Corbyn is “unfit” to be leader. Given the large, unjustified logical leap there, it’s very difficult to see these events as anything other than staged. 

Corbyn did not hear an antisemitic comment because it wasn’t clearly an antisemitic comment. It’s rather difficult to put aside the previous attempts by Smeeth and other moderates – the neoliberal party within our party – to deliberately attempt to discredit the twice-elected left leaning, anti-neoliberal leader of the party.  The comment made Wadsworth simply highlights this, in my view. 

Travesty: Marc Wadsworth exclusive interview on week of his expulsion from UK Labour party.

You can support Marc Wadsworth’s appeal campaign here.

Is antisemitism worse in the Labour Party than in others?  The evidence of the Home Affairs select committee strongly suggests it’s not. 

commons select committee antisemitism
This finding is in spite of the fact that no-one appears to be affording other parties the same level of scrutiny.

Julie pierce plant QT

Julie Pierce, pictured in the centre (above), a Conservative plant in the audience on Question time this week, asked why Labour have a “problem with antisemitism”, and why the Labour party only “attack Israel”, the only Jewish state”, rather than other countries in the middle east.

As a matter of fact Labour have consistently also criticised Saudi Arabia’s history of human rights violations in Yemen. I thought John Bercow’s response in his interview with Alastair Campbell was even handed and spot on. Bercow has know Corbyn for over twenty years. He states clearly that Corbyn is not antisemitic. Bercow has said he never came across any antisemitism in the Labour Party but plenty from the Conservatives.

The comments were made at the launch of an autobiography from Edgware-born Bercow, 57, himself Jewish, who represented Buckingham as a Conservative MP for 20 years and was Speaker of the House of Commons for the last ten.

Linguistic entrapment

I have pointed out elsewhere that there is a basic frame composed of an over simplistic, false dichotomy regarding the Labour party’s alleged antisemitism, which the right wing (including so-called centrist neoliberals within the Labour party) and their allies in the media have also rolled out. The frame itself is a trap. It runs like this: If the Labour party confirm that they are “addressing” an antisemitism problem, regardless of whether that problem is real – then it is read as an admission of guilt. However, if the party says there is no problem – regardless of whether there is or isn’t – that will simply be read as a denial of “guilt” and the action of a party that “doesn’t care” about antisemitism more generally.

The phrasing of accusation is designed to make the party and members look bad either way. However, as a person who has warned and written extensively about the dangers of growth of social prejudice since 2012, again, I won’t ever claim that antisemitism is eradicated or negligible. It isn’t either, unfortunately. I will maintain, however, that it is no greater problem within the Labour party than it is in wider society. That is NOT the same thing as saying there is no antisemitism within the party membership. The rise of social prejudice within the UK is partly because of a toxic, divisive, intolerant right wing authoritarian political culture and a media that acts a PR service for Conservative rhetoric, amplifying their racist values.

Antisemitism reached its highest level since records began in the UK back in 2014, before Corbyn was party leader, and before Momentum formed. Yet the media and moderates are using Corbyn’s reasonable commitment to address antisemitism as “proof” that antisemitism is now “rife” in the party. However, a survey of anti-Semitic attitudes in Britain, published last September by the respected Institute for Jewish Policy Research — an organization with no ties to any political party — contains several findings that are worth considering amid this uproar. First: Levels of anti-Semitism in Britain are among the lowest in the world. Second: Supporters across the political spectrum manifest anti-Semitic ideas. Third: Far from this being an issue for the left, the prejudice gets worse the farther right on the political spectrum that you look.

There are two issues here, which I hope I have made clear. One is the justified concern regarding antisemitism in the UK and within the Labour party among members, the other is how that is being politically exploited. This does little to genuinely address antisemitism. Furthermore, it has caused further division among Jewish communities, with left leaning Jewish groups being marginalised in this debate. See, for example, Jewish and Black activists united in support of antiracist campaigner Marc Wadsworth, which is Jewish Voice for Labour’s statement on this issue.

The accusations of antisemitism have been redesigned for use as a political stick with which to beat Corbyn. Again, I would not claim there is no antisemitism within the party. If there is, it must be addressed. However, mine is a question of proportionality, and whether the media focus and comments of right wing commentators are reasonable and justified. This is the same branch of the media that displayed no qualms in systematically dehumanising migrants and asylum seekers in their drive to force the EU referendum.

The comments made by Wadsworth were certainly not overtly antisemitic. Comment about the party moderates’ relationship with the press include people who are not Jewish, too. Furthermore, he says that he did not know Smeeth is Jewish. Nor did I until she spoke about it in parliament. I didn’t know Margaret Hodge is until very recently, either.

The fact remains that the group – which includes Jewish and non-Jewish people alike – are bound by the same neoliberal ideology, and have systematically set out to destablise the party and discredit the twice-elected leader, using the right wing press to do so, as well as opportunities for parliamentary commentary.  I don’t believe commenting on that is antisemitic. Exploiting Jewish suffering to prosecute petty vendettas, wage factional warfare and discredit legitimate criticism of Israel is however, dismally nasty. In the process, this is poisoning relations between British Jews and movements for social justice; fomenting antisemitism while claiming to combat it.

Most of the moderates are indistinguishable from the Conservatives in terms of the policies they support, which are underpinned by a neoliberal ideology. Graham Jones for example, said in 2015: “I want to see [Corbyn] change some of his policies. I think we need to be fiscally more responsible. We’ve got to stop turning our back on the debate on immigration. On welfare, are we just leaving people to a lifetime on benefits?”

And then there is this:

proamber rudd

The responses from Labour party members to this ill-conceived but revealing Tweet categorically demonstrated that the Labour party has no common ground with Rudd whatsoever.

Labour policies under Corbyn have been formulated using public consultation, it’s clear that the right of the Labour party are out of touch with what the public actually want. After seven grinding years of targeted austerity – a plank of neoliberalism – and the ever-lower standards of living under the Conservatives, the wider public have had enough. 

The divisions being fostered between left and right leaning Jewish groups demonstrates the political exploitation of the antisemitism controversy

Jewdas was recently denounced by the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jonathan Arkush, as “a source of virulent anti-Semitism.” The board, which has claimed to speak for British Jewry since the 18th century, usually keeps its head down and avoids the headlines. In the 1930s, it held back as other Jewish groups, mostly on the left, led the struggle against a nascent fascist movement on the streets of London, in the battle of Cable Street. An inglorious role, perhaps, but one that has allowed the Board of Deputies to appear nonpartisan and impartial. However, Arkrush has openly expressed that he supports the Conservatives and DUP. He is not impartial:

“If the governing party, which is a strong supporter of Israel, loses so much ground, then of course it has to be something of a loss for Israel and the Jewish community,” Arkush, who was in Israel at the time, told The Times of Israel in an interview.

“And that loss is compounded when it comes to the gains by Labour. Corbyn’s party has policies that are supportive of Israel, supportive of the two-state solution, but will see its “far-left faction, which is far less sympathetic to Israeli concerns, bolstered by the strong showing.”

Interviewed on TV, Arkush proposed that Jewdas’s members “are not all Jewish,” as if he were in a position to make authoritative pronouncements on the subject. 

This part of the controversy marked the turning point from serious debate about repugnant antisemitism into fabrication, political point-scoring and abuse. Jeremy Corbyn attended a Passover meal with Jewish left-wing group Jewdas in his constituency, an engagement that had been made well in advance of the controversy. Jewdas is a collective of left leaning Jewish people that focuses on diaspora Jewry and giving UK Jews a space outside of the self-appointed “mainstream” to meet, pray, learn and party. The group is generally anti-Zionist, but support the view that Zionism in itself is not a problem since Zionism is a movement that had as its original aim the creation of a country for Jewish people, and that now supports the state of Israel. That support, say Jewdas, does not entail condoning “land grabs” and the murder of Palestinian civilians. 

Jewdas is famed for its satirical takes on UK Jewish communal life, and its thoughtful and humorous political and religious resources. 

Those attempting to discredit this group on the grounds that they are left wing should read Article 10 of the Human Rights Act. They should also consider that it is always under the conditions of political intolerance, right wing authoritarianism, and a toxic culture of discrediting and persecuting political opposition, that the conditions for a divided society and the growth of social prejudices arise.

The Nazis – who, despite the title they adopted to win working class votes – were right wing authoritarians, who brutally murdered socialists, trade unionists, anarchists, disabled people, as well as Jewish people and other groups. Yet those groups are currently becoming increasingly divided in their fight for social justice, because of poisonous right wing political manoeuvering and the political exploitation of a very serious issue. As it is, the Labour party – her Majesty’s opposition – are now portrayed by the right as pathological – we have become political dissidents in what was once a democratic state.

Jewdas, who are a liberal, diversity-embracing group, say: “We campaign against fascism, and against antisemitism on the left and on the right, running workshops and creating educational materials to help other people and organisations do the same. (And we’ve been campaigning against antisemitism on the left since before it became ‘cool’.)

“We also participate in solidarity campaigns to support other oppressed minorities, including sustained pro-Palestine activism, interfaith events with the Inclusive Mosque Initiative, and yesterday’s rally at East London Mosque to counter the so-called #PunishAMuslimDay.

It was particularly galling to see the moderate Labour MPs use the communal fight to intentionally marginise and isolate left wing Jews from their own community.

The “moderates” didn’t like Corbyn’s meeting with this Jewish community in his constituency, and made a somewhat incoherent claim that meeting with the Jewish group somehow “dismisses” the case for tackling antisemitism:

Smith Jewdas

In a supreme act of discourtesy, Smith also refers to the Passover Seder as “seber”.

In 2016 Smith backed a vote of no confidence in Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in events which led to a leadership election in which Corbyn was re-elected as leader.

John Woodcock, who is not a Jew, takes it upon himself to decide which Jewish groups are “mainstream”, apparently, and which are not.

Jon woodcock judas

Apparently, it was the “wrong” seder and engagement with the “wrong” Jews. Before the event was finished, Guido Fawkes (a trashy gossip-mongering, hard right wing blog) had posted about Corbyn’s meeting. 

Labour MPs of the “moderate” kind had condemned Corbyn’s Passover. Joined by the Jewish Board of Deputies, of course. And the usual suspects in the media, who not only come off as antisemitic, in their parsing of “good Jews” and “bad Jews” based on their political beliefs,  some even managed to insult people with their diversity blind comments about mental health status:

andrew neil antisemitic

I posted that comment, along with the one below from moderate supporter Dan Hodges, on Twitter, and asked the moderate MPs who express their “concern” about antisemitism, to actually condemn the antisemitic statements. I tagged the MPs in the post. 

Not a single one has condemned the comments made by two right leaning pundits. Yet the comments are very clearly antisemitic and also openly express political intolerance. 

Finally, here is a statement from the Jewish socialist community, which is not a view that you will see fairly represented in the right wing media, who are stage-managing our democracy and repressing the right to political expression from the left:

“The Jewish Socialists’ Group expresses its serious concern at the rise of antisemitism, especially under extreme right wing governments in central and Eastern Europe, in America under Donald Trump’s Presidency and here in Britain under Theresa May’s premiership. The recent extensive survey by the highly respected Jewish Policy Research confirmed that the main repository of antisemitic views in Britain is among supporters of the Conservative Party and UKIP.

This political context, alongside declining support for the Tories, reveals the malicious intent behind the the latest flimsy accusations of antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. These accusations have come from the unrepresentative Board of Deputies and the unelected, self-proclaimed “Jewish Leadership Council”, two bodies dominated by supporters of the Tory Party.

Between now and the local elections the Tories would love to divert the electorate on to accusations of antisemitism against the Labour Party rather than have us discussing austerity, cuts to local authority budgets, the health service, and social care. Many Jews within and beyond the Labour Party are suffering from these policies along with the rest of the population, and oppose them vehemently.

Jonathan Arkush, the President of the Board of Deputies, was one of the first to congratulate Donald Trump on his election as President of the United States on behalf of the Board. This action was harshly criticised by many Jews he claims that the Board represents. He also gives unqualified support to Israel’s pro-settler Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who enjoys good relations with the very far right political forces in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic who are fanning bigotry against minorities, including Jews.

Until very recently the Jewish Leadership Council was chaired by Sir Mick Davies, who was appointed Tory Party treasurer in February 2016 and is now the Chief Executive of the Conservative Party.

The Jewish Socialists’ Group includes many members of the Labour party, and we know many Jews who have joined or re-joined the Labour party enthused by the progressive leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

Labour is the party that brought in anti-discrimination legislation at a time when many Tory members were open supporters of and investors in apartheid South Africa. The Tories are the party that have dished out the harshest treatment to migrants and refugees, especially when Theresa May was Home Secretary. Shamefully, they are still refusing to accede to the proposal of Labour peer, Lord Dubs, who came to Britain as a Jewish refugee on the Kindertransport, to take in a small but significant number of unaccompanied child refugees from Syria.

We have worked alongside Jeremy Corbyn in campaigns against all forms of racism and bigotry, including antisemitism, for many years, and we have faith that a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn and Labour-led councils across the country, will be best placed to implement serious measures against all forms of racism, discrimination and bigotry.”

Related

Left wing Jewish groups don’t agree with right wing ones, surprisingly enough

Promoting social solidarity is a positive way to address antisemitism and the growth of social prejudice

Antisemitism and the growth of prejudice and oppression in the UK

UKIP: Parochialism, Prejudice and Patriotic Ultranationalism

Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t got an ‘antisemitism problem’. His opponents do – Jamie Stern-Weiner

I don’t make any money from my work. I’m disabled through illness and on a very low income. But you can make a donation to help me continue to research and write free, informative, insightful and independent articles, and to provide support to others. The smallest amount is much appreciated – thank you.

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Amnesty International express grave concerns about UK government’s outsourced ‘back to work therapy’

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THE BRIGHTON AND HOVE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL GROUP NEWSLETTER.

January / February 2018. Page 4:

Mental Health and “Return to Work”

It’s not just the introduction of Universal Credit which is affecting the Human Rights of too many citizens of the UK. As part of the drive to force physically disabled people into work under the “Work and Health Programme” often via cursory “interviews” those facing mental health issues are being targeted as well.

Image result for equality is the best therapy

This is based on an article by Kitty S Jones. 

In 2016 she wrote: “Last April, more than 400 psychologists, counsellors and academics signed an open letter condemning the profoundly disturbing psychological implications of the government’s austerity and welfare reform measures. The group of professionals said that over the past five years the types of issues causing clients distress had shifted dramatically and now include increasing inequality, outright poverty and that people needing support because of structural problems, such as benefits claimants, are being subjected to a “new, intimidatory kind of disciplinary regime”. 

The signatories of the letter, published in The Guardian, express concern over chancellor George Osborne’s plans, laid out in the latest budget, to embed psychological therapy in a coercive back-to-work agenda. Osborne said the government will aim to give online CBT to 40,000 recipients of Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, people on the Fit for Work programme, as well as putting therapists in more than 350 job centres. 

The letter stated that the government’s proposed policy of linking social security benefits to the receipt of “state therapy” is utterly unacceptable. The measure, casually described as “get to work therapy,” was discussed by George Osborne during his last budget (2015). 

The letter’s signatories, all of whom are experts in the field of mental health, have said such a measure is counter-productive, “anti-therapeutic,” damaging and professionally unethical. The intimidatory disciplinary regime facing benefits claimants would be made even worse by further unacceptable proposals outlined in the 2015 budget. 

The proposals are widely held to be profoundly anti-therapeutic, potentially very damaging and  professionally unethical. With such a narrow objective, the delivery will invariably be driven by an ideological agenda, politically motivated outcomes and meeting limited targets, rather than being focused on the wellbeing of individuals who need support and who may be vulnerable. 

A major concern that many of us have raised is regarding consent to participation, as, if benefit conditionality is attached to what ought to be a voluntary engagement, that undermines the fundamental principles of the right to physical and mental care. Such an approach would reduce psychologists to simply acting as agents of state control, enforcing compliance and conformity. 

That is not therapy: it’s psychopolitics and policy-making founded on a blunt behaviourism,  which is pro-status quo, imbued with Conservative values and prejudices. It’s an approach that does nothing whatsoever to improve public life or meet people’s needs.

The situation seems to be getting worse. Despite the recent Carillion fiasco over outsourcing public sector work other agencies have been given the contracts to deliver the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy component of the Return To Work programme. Of these, G4S (“We are saving the taxpayer £120 million a year in benefit savings.” Sean Williams – Welfare to Work, Managing Director, G4S.) have published the criteria for applicants as therapists to deliver “return-to-work” advice in Surrey, Sussex and Kent. 

The Role Description:

Manage a caseload of Customers and provide return-to-work advice and guidance regarding health issues. 

Targeted on the level, number and effectiveness of interventions in re-engaging Customers and Customer progression into work. 

Focus on practical techniques that enable them to manage their conditions to enter and sustain employment. 

Work with Customers on a one-to-one basis and in groups to provide support on a range of mental health conditions. 

Refer clients to relevant external health or specialist services as required. 

Conduct bio-psychosocial assessments via face-to-face and telephone-based interventions and produce tailored action plans to support Customers in line with contractual MSO. 

Deliver specific health for employment workshops and input into delivery models to support achievement of MSO.

Build relationships with key stakeholders including GP’s, employers and relevant NHS bodies. 

Identify and build relationships with other organisations that contribute to the successful delivery of the programme. 

Expected to contribute substantially to the development of the service. Including the routine collection, review and feedback of activity/data, ensuring that activity targets are adhered to.

Basic Requirements

Experience of delivering CBT. 

Evidence of understanding of Welfare to Work and the issues that unemployed people face.

Amnesty say: “Should this delicate and sensitive work be entrusted to the likes of G4S? It behoves us as, Human Rights activists, to be aware of the grave potential for Human Rights abuses in our country and to act to monitor non governmental agents such as G4S who have already got a very poor track record in Human Rights matters.” 

I listed some of G4S’ Human Rights abuses in my original article, which you can read in full here.

I have also written more than one article about my concerns regarding the related government claim that “work is a health outcome”, and about the political pathologising and stigmatising of people claiming social security.

Please read Amnesty’s newsletter, you can also sign up here, the national and international websites are listed at the foot of the newsletter.

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Left wing Jewish groups don’t agree with right wing ones, surprisingly enough

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Image result for antisemitism

Parsing Jewish groups on the grounds of their political beliefs and preferences is deplorable. I have seen the right-slanted media going all out to discredit and denigrate left wing Jewish groups in particular this past few weeks. The general theme has been that Conservative Jews are “good” and left wing Jews are somehow “bad”. In their haste to portray the entire left of centre as dangerous “cultists” and “antisemites”, some of media commentators have inadvertently displayed their own antisemitism for all to see.

Antisemitism on any grounds is an affront in a so-called civilised and democratic country.  Abuse, discrimination and oppression directed at people because of their political beliefs is also contrary to our human rights legislation. Our freedom of expression – protected by Article 10 of the Human Rights Act – is fundamental to a functioning democracy. It means we’re free to hold opinions and ideas and share them with others without the State interfering – which is crucial to keeping our government accountable and transparent. 

Article 10 covers:

  • political expression – including peaceful protests and demonstrations.

The thing about human rights is that they apply to everyone. They would be pretty pointless if they only apply to Conservatives or Centrists. As it is, those of us who oppose neoliberalism are being targeted not only by Conservatives, but by the neoliberal faction within the Labour party. 

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Antisemitic comments from pundits that target left wing Jews

Over the last few weeks, I have witnessed abuse and experienced it myself from those on the right, and some of the so-called “moderates” in the Labour party. I have written about and campaigned against prejudice for a number of years, and discussed the dangers of a divided society where prejudice and discrimination are permitted to grow – including racism, antisemitism and other expressions of prejudice. These are issues I feel very strongly about. My support of the Labour party is based on principles of solidarity inclusion, equality, valuing diversity, mutual aid, and its antidiscriminatory, human rights-based policies.

I believe that when division and prejudice are permitted to grow within a society, many groups are systematically stigmatised – prejudice “multitasks”. These are invariably groups that have been traditionally marginalised from societies, and most vulnerable to political abuse – disabled people, Jewish people, other ethnic groups, poor people and those deemed to be political “dissidents”, among others. I belong to two of those groups.

In 2014, the UK witnessed the highest level of antisemitism since records began. It does not begin to address this serious problem when it is simply used as a political weapon by the right and centre to discredit the Labour party leader. That is not the same thing as saying there are no antisemitic Labour party members. I have witnessed antisemitism on the far left on two occasions over the last few years. The people concerned were actually Green party members. I challenged it and I always will. Where there are allegations of antisemitism made, the Labour party must be permitted to investigate those allegations and the evidence fairly. Once that is done, the party must then act.

In a world where people can set up fake accounts and troll groups to disrupt discussions, and discredit commentators, it is best to check if the allegations are also genuine. Having experienced this from trolls or shills on the far right and far left, I know that this happens. 

The accusations of “smearing” are not a statement that antisemitism does not exist on the left. It exists throughout our society. That isn’t “whataboutery”, it’s an evidenced statement of fact. I am convinced that the antisemitism debate has been politically weaponised by the right and centrists because of the abuse I have experienced myself – including from the executive director of Progress.

Those left of centre – including Jewish groups – are also experiencing abuse in the mainstream media and on social media. If antisemitism in the Labour party was “rife” as the right are claiming, the left leaning Jewish groups would most certainly have been among the first to raise this serious issue. As it is, their accounts are being marginalised, discredited and stifled by the right. 

There has never been a more oppressive, dnagerously authoritarian culture within UK politics as there is right now.

Jewish opinions from the left

Many Jewish groups who are left wing have pointed out that their voices have been marginalised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and other right leaning groups.

The chair of the Jewish Voice for Labour group said on Radio 4’s Today programme:  “None of us in my group has ever experienced any antisemitism within the Labour Party.”

In an interview this morning ahead of Jeremy Corbyn’s meeting with the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, Jenny Manson said evidence of the “very worst” antisemitism “has always been” on the far-right.

Asked about Margaret Hodge’s comments, suggesting she had never known antisemitism in Labour to be as bad it was now, Manson said that Hodge would have been better advised to “go to the Labour Party rather than complain to the media about it”.

Dismissing claims that antisemitism was “rife” within the party, Manson said: “In my area I talk to other Jewish people in my acquaintance and that’s the general consensus.

“What we are saying is it is a misery and a tragedy that Margaret Hodge and other Labour MPs have received nasty antisemitic comments.

“I suspect most of these have been on social media and I suspect nobody has actually worked hard to find out who this nasty stuff is coming from.

“If they do I think it’s much better to go to the Labour Party than to complain to the media about it.”

Discussing Jeremy Corbyn’s attempts to deal with the issue, Manson added: “What we can’t have is a witchhunt. What the Board of Deputies and the JLC seem to be demanding far too often… is that people should be expelled from the Labour Party without due process.”

Manson also referred to a survey conducted by the Campaign Against Antisemitism group saying: “Evidence including very recent evidence commissioned by a Jewish body suggests the very worst antisemitism is still on the right, on the far right and always has been.”

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From The Jerusalem Post – UK JEWISH LEADER: KINGMAKER DUP IS FRIEND OF THE COMMUNITY AND ISRAEL

Last year, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jonathan Arkush, told The Jerusalem Post that he and his colleagues met in Belfast with DUP leader Arlene Foster and the party’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds, whom he described as having been “exceptionally warm and friendly.”

The DUP has strong links to Protestant churches and is staunchly pro-Israel. It has also publicly stated its support for the Board of Deputies’ “Ten Commitments” – a part of its Jewish Manifesto that includes requests to parliamentarians regarding policy on issues that affect British Jewry.

The DUP defends Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom and takes a conservative approach to social issues. The party’s 10 seats would give May a fragile but workable partnership.

While Arkush said that an arrangement between the two parties would promote the UK’s strong friendship with Israel, he also noted that “May is clearly a strong friend of Israel and her authority and her government’s ability to govern has been weakened, so that is not something our community can take lightly.”

Back in 2016, it was reported that the British Jewish community responded angrily after Jonathan Arkush, the president of the Board of Deputies, publicly congratulated Donald Trump on his election win.

In a statement published on the Board’s website, Arkush said: “I would like to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory.

“After a divisive campaign, I hope that Mr Trump will move to build bridges and ensure that America’s standing as a beacon of progress, tolerance and free-thinking remains strong.”

Arkush’s statement sparked a wave of negative responses on social media. Aaron Simons was one of the first to respond to the announcement, and his reaction set the tone for much that followed:

Dr Ruvi Ziegler, law lecturer at the University of Reading, tweeted: “What does an organisation representing British Jewry congratulate this vile man endorsed by the KKK? #NotInMyName”

Rachel Wenstone, a former National Union of Students vice-president, responded: “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?! Why did you think this was at all necessary? You do know that you’re congratulating the KKK-backed candidate?”

Ivor Caplin, a former British Defence Minister and ex-MP for Hove, was personally critical of Mr Arkush, saying:  “Arkush should have kept quiet but he seeks publicity instead of reflecting concerns of Jews.”

Arkush did not escape criticism from fellow Board members.

“I don’t think it’s @BoardofDeputies job to congratulate Donald Trump on his election, and I’m sure the Jewish community will agree with me”, said Tal Ofer, who is on the Board’s executive committee and defence division.

Other members echoed that sentiment:

Ella Rose@ellarachelrose
 
 
 

No words for how badly this statement is judged. I’m embarrassed to be a Deputy.

 

Board of Deputies of British Jews

✔@BoardofDeputies

President Jonathan Arkush congratulates Donald Trump – http://www.bod.org.uk/president-jonathan-arkush-congratulates-donald-trump/ …

The Republican’s final campaign advert before yesterday’s poll was widely criticised by Jewish groups for its alleged antisemitic overtones.

Jay Stoll – who is a member of the Jewish Labour Movement executive, said:

“The Board has misjudged the anxieties that many have over the election of a racist demagogue to the highest office in the world. I not only question the necessity of the statement, but believe it is actively harmful to our relations with other faith groups who are deeply fearful of the election’s outcome.

“The Board should not be congratulating a candidate endorsed by a range of white supremacists, including the KKK, and it is mind-blowing that this even needs pointing out.”

More than 90 young British Jews had put their names to a letter addressed to Arkush, expressing their concern at the Board’s decision to congratulate Trump.

The letter was signed by members of the Board of Deputies including Amos Schonfeld, Liron Velleman and Ben Lewis, as well as members of the Jewish Labour Movement and workers from Jewish youth groups including Habonim-Dror, RSY-Netzer and Noam.

“We do not welcome the ascendancy of Donald Trump and Mike Pence,” the letter said.

“We urge the Board of Deputies to retract their congratulations and show their support to American communities that have been targeted with Trump’s incendiary rhetoric throughout this campaign.

“It is beneath contempt to congratulate a candidate who was censured by the ADL for using antisemitic tropes, who has enabled mainstream antisemitic abuse and who has secured the endorsement of the KKK and other white supremacists.

“This message of congratulations is contrary to our community’s best interests and is an affront to our ancestors and contemporaries who have stood against racism and fascism in all its forms.”

I posted this article on Twitter, with the comment that Jonathan Arkrush supports the DUP and Conservative coalition. I was immediately attacked by the executive director of Progress, Richard Angell, who ludicrously called me a “liar”, a “racist” and said the post was “whataboutery”. I did point out to him that the article wasn’t actually mine. I’ve also been called a”cultist”.  I have strongly opposed and campaigned against racism, antisemitism and other forms of prejudice, discrimination, exclusion and oppression for a number of years. There was nothing in my comment that was untrue or even remotely “racist”.

The “whataboutery” charge also doesn’t hold, since the political preferences of Arkrush are relevant in that they have some influence on his motivations and narrative. Pointing out someone’s political preference is in no way denying antisemitism. As it is, there are different, sometimes contradictory perspectives and narratives being presented from the left and right wing Jewish communities. Highlighting that does not mean I either endorse or deny antisemitism within the Labour party.

The Jewish Socialists’ Group statement – Oppose antisemitism and malicious accusations by supporters of the Tory Party – says:

“The Jewish Socialists’ Group expresses its serious concern at the rise of antisemitism, especially under extreme right wing governments in central and Eastern Europe, in America under Donald Trump’s Presidency and here in Britain under Theresa May’s premiership. The recent extensive survey by the highly respected Jewish Policy Research confirmed that the main repository of antisemitic views in Britain is among supporters of the Conservative Party and UKIP.

“This political context, alongside declining support for the Tories, reveals the malicious intent behind the latest flimsy accusations of antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. These accusations have come from the unrepresentative Board of Deputies and the unelected, self-proclaimed “Jewish Leadership Council”, two bodies dominated by supporters of the Tory Party.”

The rest of the article is also worth a read. (Link above).

 

Related

Promoting social solidarity is a positive way to address antisemitism and the growth of social prejudice

 Institute for Jewish Policy Research – Antisemitism in contemporary
Great Britain

 

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Antisemitism and the growth of prejudice and oppression in the UK

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Political context

The Labour party’s strong inclusion, equality and diversity principles are being used to undermine the party by the neoliberal right, as part of an ongoing propaganda war. Jeremy Corbyn throughout his leadership – and particularly before elections – has been accused of “siding” with variety of state constructed and reconstucted ‘enemies’. However, every Labour leader with the exception of Tony Blair, who was conveniently neoliberal, has been accused of having some kind of ‘sympathy’ with Russia.

It’s a Conservative idée fixe that began with the fake Zinoviev letter and should have ended with Ben Bradley’s libellous attempt at combining Conservative malice with bon mot. The Conservatives are creatures of  tradition and habit, no matter how much the world moves on, they try to pull it back to where they stand. 

The Conservatives’ McCarthyist leitmotif of ‘enemies and the traitor’ reveals a lot about their own operant bullying, emphasises their divisive and hierarchical perspective of societies and their outdated colonialism, ethnocentrism and nationalist understanding of the world.

One of Corbyn’s finest qualities is his mature internationalism, and his inclusive and respectful vision of the world. Corbyn sees people first, and does not differentiate their human worth and value on the basis of their group identities and individual characteristics. This is why he is an outstanding diplomat, and champion of social justice.

In an era of nuclear first strike posturing, which indicates the international breakdown of the principle of nuclear deterrence, I’d personally prefer a leader who has such skills and qualities, rather than someone who has no regard for the lives and safety of citizens.

The Conservatives have said that they “wouldn’t hesitate in some circumstances to launch a nuclear attack, even if we weren’t under threat.” The government throw scorn at Corbyn for his reluctance to incinerate populations, and some of the UK public don’t seem to realise that they too face the same fate due to the mutually assured destruction which comes free with the nuclear retaliation principle.

Corbyn has publicly condemned the vilification and abuse of Labour MPs who attended Monday night’s demonstration against antisemitism in the party.

Leaders of the Jewish organisations that staged the protest told him that they would not meet him until he intervened to halt the attacks on social media, Corbyn said he was profoundly concerned by any abuse. It’s difficult to know who is making the attacks on social media, since many fake accounts exist for the purpose of creating disruptions, discrediting political opponents, and harassing them. Furthermore, it would be impossible for the Labour leader to monitor social media, given his work load. No-one expects the Conservative government to end the abusive trolling of Conservative supporters, yet I have encountered MANY of them.

“People have the right to speak out and the right to demonstrate,” Corbyn told the Jewish News in an interview. “I will not tolerate abuse of people for their beliefs.”

“Any abuse that’s done is not done in my name,” he added.

He also rejected the idea – put forward by a rival demonstration by the Jewish Voice for Labour on Monday – that the reason for the main protest was to smear Corbyn himself.

“Of course it’s not a smear, it’s perfectly reasonable to raise any question about one’s public profile activities,” he went on. “I don’t see that as a smear.”

He is right of course. However that doesn’t quite explain the vitiolic and often irrational comments from some of the right wing pundits over the last few weeks. As a person who has written extensively about prejudice, I won’t ever claim that antisemitism is eradicated or negligible. It isn’t either, unfortunately. There are two issues here. One is absolutely genuine concern about antisemitism. The other is how that concern is being used politically, outside of the Jewish community. 

Yesterday, Corbyn condemned Israel’s killing of at least 27 Palestinians on the Gaza border as an “outrage” and attacked Western silence about the deaths. In a message read out at a demonstration outside Downing Street, the Labour leader quite reasonably demanded that Theresa May support the United Nation’s call for an independent international inquiry. He also said that Britain should also consider stopping the sale of arms to Israel that “could be used in violation of international law”. Israel has faced very little criticism over the killing of civilian Palestinians. 

The latest deaths came a week after 18 Palestinians lost their lives when Israeli soldiers opened fire at similar demonstrations in support of a “right to return” to land lost to Israel in 1948. The UN human rights spokeswoman, Elizabeth Throssell, has suggested the shootings could amount to wilful killing of civilians – a breach of the fourth Geneva Convention.

Corbyn spoke out after at least nine more Palestinians were killed, and hundreds more injured, by Israeli gunfire, some reportedly shot in the head or upper body.

He said “The majority of the people of the Gaza Strip are stateless refugees, subject to a decade-long blockade and the denial of basic human and political rights.

“More than two thirds are reliant on humanitarian assistance, with limited access to the most basic amenities, such as water and electricity.

“They have a right to protest against their appalling conditions and the continuing blockade and occupation of Palestinian land, and in support of their right to return to their homes and their right to self-determination.” 

“The silence from international powers with the responsibility of bringing a just settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict must end,” he added.

The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has said nothing since the first killings on 30 March, although his deputy, Alistair Burt, issued a statement saying he was “appalled by the deaths and injuries”. Burt said: “There is an urgent need to establish the facts, including why such a volume of live fire was used and what role Hamas played in the violence.”

Israel came under pressure after a video was released which showed a protester being shot in the back by an Israeli soldier as he walked away from the fence separating Gaza from Israel. In other footage, Palestinians were shown being killed or wounded as they prayed, walked empty-handed towards the border fence, or simply held up a Palestinian flag.

According to reports in the Israeli media, the Israel Defence Forces’ rules of engagement allow live fire to be used against anyone who approaches the fence. Justifying its response, the Israeli military said: “Several attempts have been made to damage and cross the security fence under the cover of the smokescreen created by the burning tyres that the rioters ignited.”

Corbyn has been loudly condemned previously by the Conservatives because he wanted to include all parties in discussions to bring about a peace process in the region. However, it is worth noting that Corbyn has never made any demands that Jewish communities publicly repudiate the actions of  Israeli settlers and extremists. People who make this demand are assuming that Jewish people more generally are undeserving of being heard out unless they “prove” themselves acceptable by non-Jewish’ standards.

Nor is it acceptable to demand that Palestinians publicly repudiate the actions of Hamas in order to be accepted or trusted, either.

It’s also worth noting that although people in power in Israel are Jews, not all Jews are Israelis (let alone Israeli leaders). There are many people left and right who don’t understand what Zionism is, and it has frequently been used as a derogatory label. However, Zionism is simply the belief that Jewish people should have a country in part of their ancestral homeland where they can take refuge from the antisemitism and persecution they face elsewhere.

It does not, however, mean a belief that Jews have a right to take land from others, or a belief that Jews are superior to non-Jews. Using the word “Zionists” in place of “Israelis” is inaccurate and harmful. “Zionists” includes Diasporan Jews as well (most of whom support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and pretty much none of whom have any influence on Israel’s policies).

Misunderstanding of Zionism is used to justify antisemitic attacks outside of Israel.  Many of the Jews in Israel who are violent against Palestinians are actually anti-Zionist – they believe that the modern state of Israel is an offense against God because it isn’t governed by halakha (traditional Jewish religious law). We must be very careful with the labels we use. The problem with labelling is that it is often used to create negative stereotypes, denying us our complexity and diversity. Labelling creates stigma and prejudice.

Now, with this clarified, I am not going to claim there hasn’t ever been antisemitic Labour party members or that no problem has ever occurred. Antisemitism is a prejudice arising in wider society. Few people would deny that some people joining the Labour Party may harbour antisemitic prejudices. It’s not possible to know in advance if a person joining the party is prejudiced, however, until that prejudice has been revealed in some way. It’s also important to keep in mind that condemning the murder of Palestinians is not antisemitic.

I want to make this clear: I absolutely condemn any form of prejudice, including antisemitism, regardless of where it arises. 

The party has taken action in addressing these arising issues by vowing to implement all of the recommendations in Shami Chakrabarti’s 2016 report (PDF) into alleged antisemitism in the party. Corbyn has also told the party’s newly appointed general secretary Jennie Formby “that her first priority has to be the full implementation of the Chakrabarti Report and there has to be an appointment of an in-house lawyer, a legal team, to ensure that there is a proper approach to these cases.”  

Corbyn has always been a consistent and reliable opponent of racism in all of its forms and he has committed Labour to dealing robustly with the allegations of antisemitism.

Antisemitism is profoundly disturbing, as is any other kind of prejudice and discrimination in democratic, civilised societies. If it is happening, I want to see it addressed just as I want to see prejudice and discrimination against disabled people and other socal groups in the UK addressed. People seem to forget that disabled people were the first social group to be murdered by the Nazis – the Aktion T4 “euthanasia” programme. 

Perhaps at this point it’s worth reflecting on the many deaths and suicides among the disabled community over recent years, and that a correlation with the Conservative welfare “reforms” has been established several times over. The government have persistently denied that there is any “causal relationship” between their policies and the distress, harm and fear experienced by disabled citizens, and furthermore, have refused to investigate this issue any further. There has been relatively little media attention concerning this issue and no public outcry. Yet disabled people are living in fear for their future.

Each case of premature mortality or suicide linked with welfare policy that has been presented to the government has been disregarded, described with contempt as “anecdotal evidence”. Each academic study that shows a clear correlation between policy and harm has been dismissed. The complicit media are by and large far more interested in anything that may be used to smear and criticise Corbyn than in holding the government to account for the terrible consequences of their draconian policies. 

Framing and entrapment 

The allegations regarding Labour’s “problem with antisemitism” are framed using the same kind of psycholinguistic entrapment tactics that we have seen deployed in trying to frame Corbyn as a “Russian dupe”, and by implication, a “threat” to UK security.  This propaganda process was projected onto a basic McCarthy-styled, over-simplistic and  false dichotomy frame: “You either agree with our very narrow terms, or you’re ‘siding with the enemy'”.

As it turns out, Corbyn was absolutely right to exercise caution in stating that Russia was “irrefutably” behind the attack. It would have been more appropriate to claim “on balance of probability” it is likely to be a Russian attack – because of the context and history. However, it now emerges that Boris Johnson lied about the information Porton Down provided the government. Regardless of whether or not Russia were actually behind the poisoning of the Skripals, the UK has lost its international credibility.   

Armin Laschet, the leader of North Rhine-Westphalia and a deputy chairman of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), took to Twitter after the UK’s Porton Down government laboratory announced on Tuesday that it could not link nerve agent samples it had collected to Russia.

“If you force almost all NATO countries to show solidarity, shouldn’t you have sound evidence?” Laschet said. “You can think of Russia what you want, but I have learned a different way of dealing with states from studying international law.” 

The international law framework is designed, after all, to ensure that inadequately evidenced allegations and knee jerk political responses don’t lead to the collapse of diplomatic relations and a descent into a catastrophic, escalating war among nuclear states. As a citizen, I’d prefer a leader who is skilled in diplomacy and international law,  who regards the safety of the world’s citizens as a key priority. Instead we have a group of blundering elitist authoritarians in office who, not content with creating monstrous social and economic divisions in the UK, want to extend their dystopic neoliberal vision on a global scale.

It is the same kind of simplistic false dichotomy frame regarding the Labour party’s alleged antisemitism, which the media have also rolled out. It runs like this: If the Labour party confirm that they are “addressing” an antisemitism problem, regardless of whether that problem is real – then it is read as an admission of guilt. However, if the party says there is no problem – regardless of whether there is or isn’t – that will simply be read as a denial of “guilt” and the action of a party that “doesn’t care” about antisemitism more generally.

It’s an accusation designed to make the party and members look bad either way. Note that word – designed. However, as a person who has written extensively about prejudice, Again, I won’t ever claim that antisemitism is eradicated or negligible. It isn’t either, unfortunately. There are two issues here, which I hope I have made clear. One is the justified concern regarding antisemitism, the other is how that is being politically exploited.

The accusations of antisemitism have been redesigned for use as a political stick with which to beat Corbyn. Again, I would not claim there is no antisemitism within the party. If there is, it must be addressed. However, mine is a question of proportionality, and whether the media focus and comments of right wing commentators are reasonable and justified. This is the same media that displayed no qualms in systematically dehumanising migrants and asylum seekers in their drive to force the EU referendum.

There is an element of irrationality and unreasonableness in trying to blame Corbyn for every allegation made of party members, since any member of the public is free to join the party of their choice. Political parties have no way of knowing of the prejudices of each new member in advance. There has also been a surge in membership over the past couple of years. The Labour party has put in place measures to deal with allegations of antisemitism among members. Nor can party leaders be omnipresent in social media groups to monitor offensive antisemitic comments made. The important issue is that it is addressed when it does arise and is brought to party leader’s attention.

In my own experience of Facebook political groups, there are recognisably active trolls and shills who are present simply to discredit Labour activists and derail discussion. There is always a marked increase in their activity prior to elections.

Unfortunately, even vetting people who wish to join groups doesn’t seem to stop this happening, as some of the profiles are very credible, with no indication they are fakes. If this sounds too “conspiracy theory” for you, perhaps it’s worth considering the implications of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and the uncovered psychological profiling and “strategic communications” element that was revealed in its’ wake. The Snowden leaks before that also revealed that a variety of covert actors, including the state, infiltate groups to manipulate and derail discussions, and to discredit critics and opposition.

I am not, once again, arguing that no Labour party member or supporter holds antisemitic views. And again that must be addressed. However, there is an intense focus and constant, irrational and negative commentary aimed at Corbyn in particular, which is also based on orchestrated and purely politically motivated attacks. There is a lack of openness and reasonableness on behalf of some of the more aggressive critics as to how the party have been permitted to respond by the government, the media and by some of the centrist neoliberals within the party to an array of issues, including the allegations of antisemitism. 

Corbyn and Labour party members have been the target of severe criticism, with allegations being made that left wing members are more prone to antisemitic opinions and behaviour – and of course that Corbyn has “not done enough to prevent this.” 

However data commissioned by a leading antisemitism charity strongly suggest that this narrative is not only inaccurate but counter-factual. YouGov carried out two surveys which may be compared, and the findings are that since Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader, the party and its supporters have become significantly less antisemitic on every metric used in the survey. (YouGov’s full datasets: 2015 and 2017.)

Concerns among Jewish communities about antisemitism are absolutely valid and absolutely must not be minimised or dismissed. However, it does no-one any favours when those concerns have also been distorted by the media, misused as a propaganda tool and weaponised for political gain. 

Antisemitism quite rightly draws horror from the public because of the terrible atrocity of the Holocaust, the process that led to it, and the historical consequences. It was founded in part on social Darwinist and eugenic ideas.

Those same ideas also underpinned the ideology of competitive individualism in the US and UK. Whenever we have socioeconomic systems that create hierarchies of human worth (based on meritocratic notions of ‘deserving’ or ‘talent’), we also have social prejudice and that is perpetuated by the use of political justification narratives regarding inequality. 

These usually place responsibility on individuals for their low socioeconomic status, rather than the system, which inevitably creates a few ‘winners’ and many ‘losers’ – because that is the nature of any system based on competition. However, inequality is a fundamental feature of the neoliberal system of organisation. Justifying inequality creates stigma, outgrouping and hierarchies of worth.

Prejudice and oppression

Prejudice is a form of oppression which operates to establish a “defined norm” or standard of “rightness” under which everyone is judged. This defined norm is enforced with individual and institutional violence which makes and sustains the oppression.

Oppression may be defined as a pervasive system of supremacy and discrimination that perpetuates itself through differential treatment, ideological domination, and institutional control. At an individual level, oppression is expressed through beliefs (stereotypes), attitudes, values (prejudice), and actions (discrimination) used to justify unfair treatment based on distinct characteristics of one’s identity, real or perceived. These can be internalised and directed towards the self or externalised and directed towards those we interact with on a day-to-day basis. 

Oppression expresses itself through default positions of power within an organised group, both formal and informal. Specifically, it is the denial of accessing and holding positions of power based on the belief that one lacks experience in and/or is incapable of fulfilling (or learning how to fulfill) certain roles and responsibilities based on assumptions related to identity. This also includes the assumption that someone sharing identity with a dominant group is automatically capable, regardless of experience, skills  or talent.

On an institutional level, oppression expresses itself through the denial and limitation of resources, agency and dignity based on one’s social identity. This includes policies, laws, and practices that are enforced in and by an institution, such as governments, made for the benefit of the dominant group with little to no consideration for the longer term harm inflicted on marginalised individuals and groups. In turn, institutions have the power to shape and control cultural narratives that reach individuals on a global scale, regardless of whether they directly interact with such institutions. Narratives are used to normalise oppression, which are shaped by the ruling class. 

Antisemitism is not the only form of oppression. Saying that does not minimise it, however. We currently live in a society where prejudices more generally has been politically encouraged and permitted to flourish. Prejudice tends to multitask. I have written a lot about this over the last few years, as a witness. 

We live in a society where racism has grown over the last few years. We have witnessed profoundly socially divisive rhetoric from an authoritarian government and that has been amplified by a largely right wing, compliant media. As a consequence of that, the far right was given a public platform. The same thing happened under the Thatcher administration, we saw parties like the National Front and the British National Party flourish. This is because the context provided by a such socioeconomically divisive governments leads to the creation of political scapegoats to justify their own prejudices and authoritarianism, draconian policies and wider inequality –  this always leads to racism, as well as other forms of prejudice, too.

The scale of social prejudice

Various forms and systems of oppression are not separate, and can’t be isolated into distinct categories, to be addressed on their own. Oppression is a network of intersecting and related forms of domination and the oppression of one group must be resisted alongside the oppression of others. We must stand side by side to address oppression in solidarity.

Image result for allports ladder of prejudice

Jo Cox was murdered by a far-right supporting individual who gave gardening tips and services to his neighbours, with a secret festering hatred of some groups of citizens. No-one knew about his monstrous prejudice and intention until he murdered a British MP, who staunchly opposed racism.

This is what political propaganda and scapegoating does to susceptible individuals – it shapes their perception of others and permits them to hate. Some social groups have been marginalised and dehumanised by the government, including disabled people and those needing social security support. It’s no coincidence that hate crime directed at these groups has risen in the UK.

The government have violated the human rights of disabled people, and such acts serve as a role model of behaviours that indicate prejudice and discrimination is publicly acceptable. It also sends out a message that emphasises the differential status and implied devaluation of social groups.

This is how moral and rational boundaries are being pushed: casual comments from more than one Conservative minister about disabled people, who are not “worth the minimum wage”, from a chancellor who claims that national productivity is reduced because more disabled people are in work; a Conservative councillor who called for the extermination of gypsies, and a Conservative deputy mayor said, unforgivably, that the “best thing for disabled children is the guillotine.”

These weren’t “slips”, it’s patently clear that the Conservatives believe these comments are acceptable, and we need only look at the discriminatory nature of policies such as the legal aid bill, the wider welfare “reforms” and research the consequences of austerity for the most economically vulnerable citizens – those with the “least broad shoulders” –  to understand that these comments reflect how Conservatives think. It is only when such comments conflict with our collective moral norms that we see the process for what it is, and wonder how such comments could ever be deemed acceptable. However, those moral norms are being intentionally transformed. 

This is a government that is creating and using public prejudice to justify massive socioeconomic inequalities and their own policies that are creating a steeply hierarchical society based on social Darwinism and neoliberal “small state” principles. We have already seen the introduction of a clear eugenic welfare policy – only the first two children in families needing social security support will be provided with any support. Aside from the frightful human rights implications of this, the fact that it was announced and introduced to “change the behaviours” of the poorest citizens – regardless of whether they work – indicates a political prejudice and active discrimination regarding poor citizens, and a political intention to limit the number of children they have. 

The political creation of socioeconomic scapegoats, involving vicious stigmatisation of previously protected social groups, particularly endorsed by the mainstream media, is simply a means of manipulating public perceptions and securing public acceptance of the increasingly punitive and repressive basis of the welfare “reforms”, and the steady stripping away of essential state support and provision. It also indirectly justifies low and exploitative wages and insecure employment, since these issues are no longer considered to be part of the problem of poverty. Instead the poverty debate is reduced to a political narrative of “incentives” and individual behaviours.

The state is informing the public that poor people can simply be punished out of their poverty. Regardless of the incoherence of that narrative, the media have been complicit in amplifying this dogma. The pathological socioeconomic structure of our society, the market place Darwinism and the growing imbalances of power relationships remain hidden in plain view, obscurred by linguistic behaviourism and normative manipulation.

The political construction of social problems also marks an era of increasing state control of citizens with behaviour modification techniques, (under the guise of paternalistic libertarianism) all of which are a part of the process of restricting access rights to welfare provision, which is being steadily dismantled. The mainstream media has been complicit in the process of constructing deviant welfare stereotypes and in engaging prejudice and generating moral outrage from the public:

“If working people ever get to discover where their tax money really ends up, at a time when they find it tough enough to feed their own families, let alone those of workshy scroungers, then that’ll be the end of the line for our welfare state gravy train.” James Delingpole 2014

Those the government perceives to be the weakest are carrying the burden of austerity to cover the tracks and guilt of the wealthy and powerful people, who are actually responsible for the global recession. Scapegoats. If you read any social psychology, you will know that this is how social prejudice grows. It’s an incremental process, where normative boundaries are pushed until what was once perceived as unacceptable suddenly becomes a reality. 

Gordon Allport wrote about the advancement of that process – by almost inscrutable degrees – in Nazi Germany. It starts with dehumanising language and scapegoating, it progresses to open prejudice and political discrimination, violations of human rights, social and economic isolation, hate crime, murders then, if left unchecked, it results, ultimately, in genocide.

Antisemitism exists in our society. It isn’t a “Labour” problem, it is a SOCIAL problem. It flourishes in a context of extremely divisive political rhetoric. That rhetoric is in part to justify a socioeconomic system that leads to massive social inequality. That inequality is being politically justified by the creation of political scapegoats and the Othering of already marginalised groups. Neoliberalism is a system that leads to the growth of wealth and power for those who already have wealth and power – it sustains an elite.

For citizens, it results in a decline in our standard of living, disempowerment, growing poverty and because it requires an authoritarian regime to impose it – see the history of Pinochet’s neoliberal experiment in Chile, for example – it also profoundly erodes our democracy. The media and right wing ideologues are now simply the PR agents for more neoliberalism. The answer to the disastrous socioeconomic problems created by neoliberalism is apparently, to apply more aggressive neoliberalism. That also means the steady erosion of human rights, citizen freedoms, massive inequality and the removal of any democratic alternative. That is where we are at, as a society. This is happening, and we are the witnesses.

When Corbyn met with a Jewish group recently, commentators on the right – Andrew Neil and  Fraser Nelson, for example – ranted about how this left leaning Jewish group weren’t “representative of Jews”. Fraser Nelson dismissed anyone who disagreed with his views as members of a left wing “cult”. This displays a kind of totalitarian thinking, in that it portrays Her Majesty’s opposition as somehow non-legitimate, and emphasises the sole legitimacy and hegemony of neoliberalism. It also undermines the very notion of democracy. 

It’s reasonable that a left leaning leader would meet a left leaning group. The right leaning Jewish groups have not exactly been particularly accommodating in meeting with Corbyn. However, Andrew Neil actually commented on Jewdas: “who are all these ‘nutters'”. Now THAT is antisemitism. Neil was implying that some groups are “acceptably Jewish” and some are not, defining by his own prejudiced criteria which are “acceptable”. 

These mainstream media commentators on the right are so caught up in a clear ideological crusade and propaganda war that they really don’t see their own prejudices. And furthermore they are furious that Corbyn has allies in the Jewish community. Hence the irrational and diversity-blind rage. And there is this to consider: the criticisms of Corbyn and allegations of antisemitism being rife in the party because of him are coming almost exclusively from the right. 

andrew neil antisemitic

This tweet is so offensive and displays prejudice on more than one level. 

Of course Jewish people reflect a variety of political preferences. Political debate is an essential Jewish tradition that allows no section of opinion to set itself up as the only acceptable one. But the UK right wing don’t particularly value democratic principles, and treat every opposition leader with an outrageous loathing and sneering contempt. They oppose antisemitism only on condition that Jewish groups do not show any support towards the left, and in particular, for Corbyn. 

Image result for daily mail support for nazi germany

Yesterday I saw a comment from Dan Hodges –  who writes for the Daily Mail, that Labour are “irredeemably racist”. This is simply untrue. He never responded to the comment I left him, reminding him of the Daily Mail‘s constant anti-immigration rants, in a series of shots of toxic Daily Mail headlines.  I explained that most Labour supporters were not up for taking lectures on the value of inclusion and diversity from Daily Mail journalists. 

Dan Hodges

I posted this to remind him of the significant contribution the Mail has made to the growth of racism in the UK. 

Image result for daily mail immigration front pages

And this was very offensive, antisemitic, irrational and dangerous comment:

The right have manipulated a concern for social justice on the left – and particularly that concern regarding the murder of Palestinian civilians – and have intentionally pathologised it, weaponising it as a propaganda tool. This has been going on for a long time. 

Jon woodcock judas

Which “mainstream Jewish community” is that, John? How does a meeting with a Jewish community “bait” the Jewish Community? Why are Corbyn’s critics okay with marginalising a Jewish group and deliberately attempting to discredit them when it suits them to? This is absolutely atrocious hypocrisy and completely unacceptable antisemitic behaviour. 

It is telling that some of the Labour “moderates” used right wing gossip-mongers and bloggers – Paul Staines and Alex Whickam – to criticise their own leader. These people should be ejected from the party, since all they do is damage it and support another Conservative term. They don’t care about the misery and despair of citizens living in escalating poverty because of Tory policies, the suicides and deaths of disabled people, or those children living in poverty with their futures and human potential stolen from them, by an authoritarian government.

Shame on them. This is not what the Labour party are about, and until Blair, it never was. The neoliberals’ time has been and gone, the party has moved on and realigned itself to the majority of its members demands for a democratic agenda that reflects their values of inclusion, equality and diversity. That’s how it should be.

Corbyn is one of the leading anti-racists in parliament – one of the very least racist MPs we have. So naturally Corbyn signed numerous Early Day motions in Parliament condemning antisemitism, years before he became leader and backed the campaign to stop Neo-Nazis from meeting in Golders Green in 2015.

Before being elected as Labour party leader, Corbyn chaired Liberation (formerly the Movement for Colonial Freedom) in succession to Stan Newens, who is the President of , Liberation. Liberation, founded in 1954 on the initiative of Fenner Brockway, was in the forefront of the struggle against all forms of racism.

When Jeremy took the chair it was accepted that one of our continuing fundamental purposes was opposition to racism – including antisemitism. Liberation has been critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians – and often had Israeli or Jewish speakers at meetings arguing the case.

Newens says “It is patently obvious that criticism of Corbyn and the Labour party on grounds of antisemitism is being encouraged by individuals who – unlike the Labour leader himself – have rarely participated in the general struggle against racism. Most are motivated by opposition to Labour under Corbyn and any excuse to harass him will be taken.”

Joseph Finlay, writing for the Jewish News online, says: “The Labour party has thousands of Jewish members, many Jewish councillors, a number of prominent Jewish MPs and several Jewish members of it’s ruling council. Many people at the heart of the Corbyn team, such as Jon Lansman, James Schneider and Rhea Wolfson are also Jewish. Ed Miliband, the previous party leader, was Jewish (and suffered antisemitism at the hands of the press and the Conservatives). I have been a member for five years and, as a Jew, have had only positive experiences.

“Jeremy Corbyn has been MP for Islington North since 1983 – a constituency with a significant Jewish population. Given that he has regularly polled over 60% of the vote (73% in 2017) it seems likely that a sizeable number of Jewish constituents voted for him,  As a constituency MP he regularly visited synagogues and has appeared at many Jewish religious and cultural events. He is close friends with the leaders of the Jewish Socialist Group, from whom he has gained a rich knowledge of the history of the Jewish Labour Bund, and he has named the defeat of Mosley’s Fascists at the Battle of Cable as a key historical moment for him. His 2017 Holocaust Memorial Day statement talked about Shmuel Zygielboym, the Polish Bund leader exiled to London who committed suicide in an attempt to awaken the world to the Nazi genocide. How many British politicians have that level of knowledge of modern Jewish history?”

He goes on to say: “Because all racisms are interlinked it is worth examining Corbyn’s wider anti-racist record. Corbyn was being arrested for protesting against apartheid while the Thatcher government defended white majority rule and branded Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Corbyn was a strong supporter of Labour Black Sections – championing the right of Black and Asian people to organise independently in the Labour party while the Press demonised them as extremists.

“He has long been one of the leaders of the campaign to allow the indigenous people of the Chagos Islands to return after they were forcibly evicted by Britain in the 1960s to make way for an American military base. Whenever there has been a protest against racism, the two people you can always guarantee will be there are Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. Who do you put your trust in — the people who hate antisemitism because they hate all racism or the people (be they in the Conservative party or the press) who praise Jews whilst engaging in Islamophobia and anti-black racism? The right-wing proponents of the Labour antisemitism narrative seek to divide us into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ minorities — they do not have the well-being of Jews at heart.

“Let’s return the story to the facts. Antisemitism is always beyond the pale. Labour, now a party of over half a million members, has a small minority of antisemites in its ranks, and it suspends them whenever it discovers them. I expect nothing less from an anti-racist party and an anti-racist leader. If the Conservatives took the same approach to racism they would have to suspend their own foreign secretary, who has described Africans as ‘Picanninies’ and described Barack Obama as ‘The part-Kenyan President [with an] ancestral dislike of the British Empire’. 

“From the Monday club, linked to the National Front, to MP Aidan Burley dressing up a  Nazi, to Lynton Crosby’s dogwhistle portrayal of Ed Miliband as a nasal North London intellectual it is the Conservative Party that is deeply tainted by racism and antisemitism.

“There are many threats to Jews – and we are right to be vigilant. These threats come primarily from resurgent nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment and a Brexit narrative that seeks to restore Britain to a mythical age of ethnic purity. The idea that Britain’s leading anti-racist politician is the key problem the Jewish community faces is an absurdity, a distraction, and a massive error. Worst of all, it’s a bad story that we’ve been telling for far too long. Let’s start to tell a better one.”

The Labour party has prided itself on its inclusion, equality and diversity principles since its inception. Corbyn has always been one of the most inclusive MPs and this is being used to undermine him. His idea of a “broad church” Labour party was based on an assumption that the neoliberals within the party shared the same equality, diversity and inclusion values, and supported a social justice agenda.  It was assumed that they had principles in common with the wider Labour party.  They don’t.

These are MPs that would prefer another Conservative term, further damage to our society, and more suffering of poor and disabled citizens than see a party they consider ideologically “inpure” take office. Their comments and actions are vile. The implications are vile. They are contributing to the sabotage of our party just in time for the local elections. Again. 

I have thought carefully these past months about these issues, and explored the evidence. I haven’t commented on it all until now because I needed to see evidence, analyse and evaluate. The hypocritical outrage from the likes of Hodges, Nelson, Neil and Lord Sugar, along with the sheer rage, incoherence and unreasonableness of their attacks has convinced me that this is a serious strategic propaganda war, nothing more or less.

However, I also agree with Jonathan Freedland, who says “Yes, you can make a strong case that plenty are acting in bad faith, trying to use this issue as a stick to beat Labour – but if you do that, you need to exempt Jews themselves from that charge.” I absolutely agree, and for many of the reasons he has laid out. 

I don’t, however, agree with his assessment that Corbyn represents the “hard left”.

He goes on to say, however, “Less tangibly, it’s the cast of mind, the way of thinking, that antisemitism represents that we should fear. Conspiracy theory, fake news, demonisation of an unpopular group: what happens to our politics if all these become the norm? This is why Jews have often functioned as a canary in the coalmine: when a society turns on its Jews, it is usually a sign of wider ill health.

“Put another way, hasn’t history shown us that racism never stays confined to mere “pockets”? Once the virus is inside, it does not rest until it has infected the entire body.”

As I discussed earlier in this article, the symptoms of an increase in social prejudice have been there for some years, he seems to have overlooked the fact that it has been the disabled community who were the “canary in the coalmine”, and still are.

I agree that prejudice multitasks and grows. Freedland has overlooked that racism has already become the norm, not least because the oppression of others has remained invisible and unacknowledged by the media. In fact the media has tended to amplify it. Furthermore, political prejudice and legislative discrimination directed at already marginalised social groups is causing absolute poverty, harm, distress, death and suicide. Those are visible, real consequences of political prejudice which the media have chosen to ignore. It seems that some prejudices are considered more important than others, even when outright political discrimination and its tragic consequences are evident for all to see. You see, this is how the Holocaust began. 

This poster (from around 1938) reads: “60,000 Reichsmark is what this person suffering from a hereditary defect costs the People’s community during his lifetime. Fellow citizen, that is your money too. Read ‘[A] New People‘, the monthly magazine of the Bureau for Race Politics of the NSDAP.” 

Here the political portrayal of German disabled people as a “socioeconomic burden” is being used to justify the AktionT4 extermination programme. 

The UK government prefers a wall of private bureacracy that extends a system on their behalf, which simply leaves many disabled people without the means to meet their basic living requirements, while making a profit at the expense of those people in doing so.

This said, Pfannmüller also advocated killing disabled people by a gradual decrease of food, which he believed was more merciful than poison injections. Most of the Nazis were eugenicists, nationalists and antisemites. Carbon monoxide gas was first used to kill disabled people, then its use was extended to other groups of people. The methods used initially at German hospitals such as lethal injections and bottled gas poisoning were expanded to form the basis for the creation of extermination camps where the gas chambers were built from scratch to conduct the extermination of the Jews, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs, Spanish Republicans, Romani and political dissidents, including many leftists, socialists and communists. 

The Nazis promoted xenophobia and racism against all “non-Aryan” races. African (black sub-Saharan or North African) and Asian (East and South Asian) residents of Germany and black prisoners of war, such as French colonial troops and African Americans, were also victims of Nazi racial policy.  In Germany, gay men and, to a lesser extent, lesbians, were two of the numerous groups targeted by the Nazis and were also, ultimately, among the millions of Holocaust victims.

The role of propaganda and the media

Propaganda can be defined as biased information or misinformation designed to shape public perception, opinion, decision-making and behaviour. It simplifies complicated issues or ideology for popular consumption, is always biased, and is geared to achieving a particular end. Propaganda is often transmitted to the public through various media, drawing upon techniques and strategies used in advertising, public relations, communications, and mass psychology.

The real danger of propaganda lies when competing voices are silenced. When democratic dialogue, legitimate criticism and valid opposition is systematically pathologised and dismissed as a “cult”, “the loony left”, “Marxists” “leftards”, “virtue signalers” and so forth. Using the internet as well as mainstream media outlets, propagandists have been able to transmit their messages to a wide audience. 

Propaganda served as an important tool to win over the majority of the German public who had not supported Adolf Hitler and to push forward the Nazis’ radical program, which required the acquiescence, support, or participation of broad sectors of the population.

In 2016, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) took aim at some British media outlets, particularly tabloid newspapers, for “offensive, discriminatory and provocative terminology”.

The  report said hate speech was a serious problem, including against Roma, gypsies and travellers, as well as “unscrupulous press reporting” targeting the LGBT community. The ECRI’s report also concluded that some reporting on immigration, terrorism and the refugee crisis was “contributing to creating an atmosphere of hostility and rejection”.

It cited Katie Hopkins’ infamous column in The Sun, where she likened refugees to “cockroaches” and sparked a blistering response from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the same newspaper’s debunked claim over “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for jihadis”. 

“ECRI urges the media to take stock of the importance of responsible reporting, not only to avoid perpetuating prejudice and biased information, but also to avoid harm to targeted persons or vulnerable groups,” the report concluded. Yet this international condemnation has not encouraged more journalistic responsibility in the UK.

The Nazis used propaganda successfully to increase their public support and appeal. They spent huge sums of money on newspapers, leaflets and poster campaigns with simple slogans encouraging people to support the party. The military style of the Nazis also involved using large political rallies to gain support. Joseph Goebbels began to build an image of Hitler as a great leader. Goebbels manipulated people’s fear of uncertainty and instability to portray Hitler as a man with a great vision for “prosperity and stability.” Germany’s economy was in such a poor state that Hitler’s promise of “strong government” and stability was widely supported.  

I do maintain that our own media are being controlled by the government, and are being used to stage-manage our democracy. The recent history of sustained and vile smear campaigns, lies and unchecked fury directed at the last two labour leaders is pretty clear evidence of that, as is the blatant scapegoating project dressed up as the divisive stigmatising rhetorics of xenophobia, bigotry, prejudice and open discrimination directed at disabled people and other groups who need social security support.

Prejudice multitasks. This is a point made very well by Martin Niemöller, who was a Lutheran minister and early Nazi supporter who was later imprisoned for opposing Hitler’s regime. Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) emerged as an outspoken public critic and foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.

Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

The quotation stems from Niemöller’s lectures during the early postwar period. Different versions of the quotation exist. These can be attributed to the fact that Niemöller spoke extemporaneously and in a number of settings. Some controversy surrounds the content of the poem as it has been printed in varying forms, referring to diverse groups such as Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, Trade Unionists,  disabled people or Communists depending upon the version. Nonetheless his point was that there had been what he saw as a cowardly complicity through the silence of the church the media, academic institutions and citizens regarding the Nazi imprisonment, persecution and murder of millions of people.

The UK media are at best compliant, paralysed by bystander apathy, and at worst, directly complicit in extending political prejudice, justifying discimination and manipulating social divisions. Unless we actually want to live with an authoritarian one-party state, it’s time to research, think and analyse these issues for ourselves, and quickly.

If not for ourselves, then for our friends, neighbours and loved ones. And especially, for our children.

May there be peace, justice and unity in our days.

 

 

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DWP is facing investigation following the suicide of 42-year-old mum of nine

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Jodey Whiting’s mother, Joy Dove, with Jodey’s daughter Emma Bell (Image: Ian McIntyre)

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is facing a legal investigation after a mother of nine took her own life “because the DWP stopped her benefits”. 

Jodey Whiting, who suffered severely disabling medical conditions, ended her own life in February 2017, shortly after the DWP stopped her disability support payments. The payments stopped because it was claimed by the DWP that Jodey failed to attend a work capability assessment (WCA).

However, her family claims that she never received the appointment letter and are blaming the Government for her suicide.

The 42-year-old grandmother was diagnosed with a brain cyst and curvature of the spine and could barely walk to her own front door, but an inquest has heard that despite her  considerable disabilities, Jodey Whiting faced a distressing battle with the DWP for lifeline support.

Supported by volunteers from the Citizens Advice Bureau, Jodey appealed the DWP decision to end her claim, but was told that due to a backlog in appeals it could take up to sixteen months before her case was reviewed.

Her mother, Joy Dove, who assisted her daughter in claiming the lifeline support she was entitled to, has taken up the battle with the DWP following her daughter’s death. She told Gazette Live: “To have to wait another 16 months is devastating, but we can’t do anything about the fact there are so many cases that need investigating.

“I’m glad they’ve taken the case on. We will always fight for justice for my daughter.

“She has kids and grandchildren left without a mum, and I’ve been left without a daughter. I want to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

The case will now be investigated by an Independent Case Examiner (ICE), who will look at the circumstances surrounding Jodey’s death and whether the DWP’s decision to stop her benefits affected her psychological state at the time of Jodey’s suicide.

The ICE will looks at five key parts of the case against the DWP:

  • The Citizen’s Advice Bureau sent a letter to the DWP regarding Jodey’s health issues on February 15, six days before her death, but it failed to act on it until March 23.
  • Despite being made aware of her death on February 23 using the ‘tell us once’ system, the DWP issued a claim to Jodey about her Employment Support Allowance claim on February 25.
  • The DWP failed to take appropriate action to upgrade their computer systems until March 1.
  • The DWP continued to call Jodey’s phone and leave her voicemail messages until May, despite knowing of her death.
  • The department failed to respond to Mrs Dove’s letter of April 13, 2017 until June 14, 2017.

Jodey had been sent a letter that instructed her to attend a work capability assessment on January 16 last year, but missed the mandatory meeting while being in hospital because of a brain cyst. She knew nothing about the appointment.

On February 6, the DWP ruled that Jodey had not ‘provided sufficient evidence’ for missing the appointment and stopped her disability benefits. Jodey raised concerns about the decision on February 10 and made a formal appeal on the 13th. She took her own life on February 21, before a different DWP decision maker had reviewed her case and decided on February 25 – just four days after her death – that she should have continued to receive disability benefits.

A message about the ruling was sent to Jodey’s mobile phone inbox after her death, despite the DWP being informed of her death.

Joy has also started a ‘Justice for Jodey’ petition, with the aim of persuading the DWP to look again at how it handles social security claims. You can sign it here: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/justice-for-jodey

She said that messages of support there have helped her as she struggles to overcome her grief: “We’ll never stop battling. The messages I get on the petition, and from people who have been in similar situations, are incredible.”

The DWP did not respond to requests for comment.

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