No wonder Labour antisemitism got the Panorama treatment Tory racism is too much to fit into 1 hour - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Independent wrote:Isn’t it wonderful that our governing party has such an endearing imagination? A survey revealed that 54 per cent of Conservative members believe “Islam is a threat to the British way of life”.

This is impressive when you consider most Tory members live in areas like rural Surrey, so maybe the Godalming Rambling Society is upset that its itinerary has been changed, and instead of the proposed autumn hike to Milford followed by a picnic at the Cricketers Arms, there will now be a pilgrimage to Mecca.

The string quartet that plays every summer in the grounds of the vicarage is now only allowed to perform if the first piece is Allahu Akbar glory to God peace be upon Him, in a call to prayer across the woods on the outskirts of Guildford.

And the spring garden party at the stately home in Loseley Park next year has been cancelled, because the canapes will have to be destroyed as it’s during Ramadan.

The survey showed that 45 per cent of Tory members believe there are no-go areas in Britain for non-Muslims. Even fundamentalist Islamic regions such as Saudi Arabia allow non-Muslims to enter, so these places must be really strict.

But the people about to select our prime minister can’t be stupid, so it must be true that in Sevenoaks Post Office, the residents ask: “Could I send this parcel to my grandson, it’s his birthday so I’d like to get it to him before Saturday”, and they’re told “Recite four passages from the Koran or face almighty wrath, infidel, for you have entered the Post Office of the believers in eternal holy justice.”

Forty-three per cent would not want a Muslim as prime minister, which shows how tolerant the Tory party has become, because the number saying Islam is a threat to British life is 54 per cent. So 11 per cent of the party wouldn’t mind a Muslim PM even though they think they’d be a threat to our British way of life. You can’t get more liberal than that.

This must be why certain newspapers and Panorama spend every day investigating antisemitic members of Labour – they can cover that because a few hundred is manageable. If they tried to deal with anti-Muslim members of the Conservatives, they’d have to study 54 per cent of the entire party, needing thousands of staff working around the clock.

Forty-two per cent of Conservative members believe “having people from a wide variety of racial and cultural backgrounds” has damaged British society. This will be why Conservative members idolise politicians prepared to protect the kind of British life a common person can relate to, such as wearing a monocle, reciting morning prayers in Latin and having 19 kids they never see until they’ve left Eton, giving them names like Septicaemia, and Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus Roseus).

Still, this is only the members and anyone who led the party would be vigilant in rooting out prejudice, in the same way they demand Corbyn takes on antisemitism. That’s why Boris Johnson approached the issue with stern determination, saying women in burqas look like letter boxes and bank robbers. If only Corbyn had been as thorough in opposing antisemitism, saying Hebrew sounds like the noise a car makes when the gearbox has gone, the Tories would never mention the issue again.

Fifteen Conservative councillors were suspended for comments such as describing Muslims as “cavemen” and “sand peasants”, and unlike Labour, the Conservatives acted quickly in these cases, because in a few weeks they were all reinstated. It shows the speed a party can move at if it tries.

Maybe the Conservatives could address the problem by conducting a version of the game where you have to go a minute without saying “yes” or “no”, except they have to last a minute without saying anything insulting about Muslims. “Next we have Archie Timberbatch, councillor for Ludlow. Are you ready?”

“I am.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Just a bit.”

“How was your journey?”

“It was fine, thank you, until I passed a branch of Kwik-fit and thought, ‘That will be turned into a Mosque before the day’s out, I shouldn’t wonder’.”

Then a gong goes and they say “Oh dear, it’s harder than you think isn’t it?”

But this could be part of the problem, because racism seems to have been reduced to whether individuals and their comments either are or aren’t racist or antisemitic. But it might be more subtle than that. For example, few people on the left are openly antisemitic, but the left has allowed attitudes to circulate that quite reasonably make many Jewish people feel uneasy.

This isn’t helped by the way that if you suggest some Labour members should choose their words (and thoughts) more carefully, you receive contributions from people on Twitter, who call themselves “IloveCorbynmorethanmyownkids83”, who suggest: “You trater why u become establishment Gaza-bombing prick”.

And in the Conservative Party, most members would probably insist they aren’t in the slightest bit racist, it’s just that a Pakistani was seen in the next village so they’ve hired a sniper to guard next month’s bridge night because you can’t be too careful.

And we can be assured they’ll choose a prime minister who will protect British interests, never allowing a foreign leader to tell us who to appoint.

This is why it’s marvellous that before he even enters No 10, Boris Johnson appears to have caused Ambassador Kim Darroch to resign for saying Donald Trump was “incompetent”. And that’s quite proper. Because he should have stuck up for British interests, and called Trump a narcissistic sociopathic puddle of spider’s semen, a threat to our way of life, an embarrassment not only to the human race but to the entire evolutionary process. And incompetent.

Independent


Last night's Panorama was quite unique in the history of BBC. It explicitly attacked the Leader of the Opposition with unsubstantiated claims, no evidence, and no names.

It interviewed 4-5 Jewish Labour Members some of them former employees that were responsible for tackling antisemitism who claimed that they had received antisemitic abuse in the party and that the party had failed to take action. They did not name anyone and they did not specify anything, some of them cried on camera claiming that they feel unsafe and some of them claimed that they are suffering from depression and anxiety, one of them said that he contemplated suicide by jumping out of Formby's windows just to make her feel guilty. The BBC Presenter is a pro-Israeli polemicist that picks his fights quite strategically:

John Ware wrote:2005, A Panorama edition Ware produced criticising the Muslim Council of Britain, A Question of Leadership, was described by them as "deeply unfair" and "a witch hunt".[2]
2006, Responding to complaints about another Panorama edition, Faith, Hate and Charity produced by Ware, the Charity Commission in 2009[9] dismissed its allegations that British based Palestinian relief charity Interpal was funding organisations involved in terrorism.[10] The Muslim Council of Britain described Ware as "an agenda-driven pro-Israel polemicist".[11] The programme resulted in the BBC paying undisclosed libel damages and giving a public apology to the General Manager of Islamic Relief UK, who was prominently shown while not being a subject of the programme.[12]
2010, Another Panorama edition by Ware, British schools, Islamic Rules on some Islamic teaching in Britain, was criticised by the Muslim Council of Britain as a partial and unbalanced portrayal.[13]
In 2012, Ware took voluntary redundancy from the BBC, but has continued with some freelance work.[1] Since leaving the BBC, he has published articles about its top management.[11][14] In 2015, Ware was commended for being "sympathetic to Jewish concerns", receiving a Commitment to Media Award from the Women's International Zionist Organization. Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, said "I tell our trainees at the JC, that if there is one person they should model themselves on, it is John Ware.".[15]

2015, A Panorama edition by Ware on the campaign of Jeremy Corbyn to be elected as Labour Party leader, Labour's Earthquake, attracted hundreds of complaints, including from Corbyn's campaign team, and was described by a member of Corbyn's campaign team as "containing factual inaccuracies" and "a complete hatchet job".[16]
2019, An extended Panorama edition, entitled Is Labour Anti-Semitic, was described by Labour as containing "deliberate and malicious representations designed to mislead" and the party alleged that "Panorama has pre-determined the outcome of its investigation and is relying on unsubstantiated allegations and misrepresentation to come to its conclusions." and that "No proper attempt has been made by Panorama to understand Labour’s current processes and procedures".[17]


Isn't the BBC supposed to be impartial politically? How can this be considered impartial? And did anyone learn something by watching Panorama yesterday? Labour's policies and procedures were not clarified during the show presumably for being too litigious and pro-active against antisemitism, and no-one is wiser for it. It did not suggest methods to make the procedures better. It trashed Jeremy Corbyn for supposedly not doing enough to tackle antisemitism implying that Jeremy Corbyn should personally take over the complaints procedure but then accused Jeremy Corbyn's office of interfering with the process by not letting them do their jobs, the victim employee had spotted an image posted by a Labour member in social media, the image was of a creature from Alien(the movie) on the face of the Statue of Liberty with a Star of David on its back. The employee recommended that this Labour member of the public be expelled from the party but the Head of the Department decided on just a first warning. This was "appalling, disgusting and extreme" but also "evidence of Jeremy Corbyn's interference with the complaints procedure" according to Panorama. If you are wondering why? Get in line.

The only 2 cases of antisemitism in the Party that the programme presented was the case of Ken Livingstone who referred to the Haavara agreement during a speech and was subsequently expelled from the party and the case of Jeremy Corbyn saying that this anticapitalist Mural should not be painted over, his mistake being that he had not noticed that a couple of people in the mural have enlarged noses for which he subsequently apologised. Other than these 2 cases, it mentioned Jackie Walker who is Jewish and has also been expelled from the party for being "antisemitic" because she defended Naz Shah when she made a joke by posting a map of Israel in the US, who has also been expelled for it.

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#15017563
skinster wrote:Last night's episode appears to have backfired spectacularly.


From the google news feed it looks like the corporate media is piling on. I haven't seen one criticism of the BBC or the Panorama program. If Labor is smart they'll take a page out of Trump's playbook: call it fake news and double down. But we know those spineless politicians are all gonna waffle like the bitches they are.
#15017615
Jewish Voice for Labour wrote:BBC Panorama’s “Is Labour Antisemitic?”
With the transmission on Wednesday evening of the Panorama programme Is Labour Antisemitic? the BBC has reached a new low point in its retreat from its once praised tradition of impartiality.

The BBC has entrusted a programme of great sensitivity to a muck-raking journalist whose prejudices are well known. The result quite predictably is a farrago of half-truths, distortions and outright invention.

The principle ‘witnesses’ offered by the programme were Labour Party ex-officials, appointed under Blair and deeply hostile to the members’ choice for Leader, Jeremy Corbyn. During the first years of Corbyn’s leadership it was officials working for the then General Secretary Iain McNicol who sabotaged the disciplinary process – not to protect antisemites, but so that Corbyn could be blamed for it. As described by Jewish NEC member Jon Lansman, on resigning they stole and then deleted whole tranches of correspondence – so that once again the Party could be blamed for not processing allegations effectively.

As the Labour Party has said: “These disaffected former officials include those who have always opposed Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, worked to actively undermine it, and have both personal and political axes to grind.”

There has been an outcry against the leakers of privileged correspondence from our ambassador in the United States. Yet this Panorama programme invites us to accept and praise the behaviour of staff who have abused their trust. The BBC has abandoned its professional standards.

Is Labour Antisemitic? was notable for its selective choice of additional witnesses. A small number of (unnamed) Jewish Labour party members made personal statements to camera of their discomfort at their sense of being in a hostile environment. But hundreds of statements from Jewish members entirely comfortable within the Party have been submitted to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission inquiry into the Party’s procedures. They are not difficult to find – yet none were interviewed. A whole constituency party, Liverpool Riverside, was grotesquely maligned as antisemitic and bullying, but not one member of the CLP, Jewish or otherwise, was invited to respond.

The programme was unforgivably careless with its facts. People who were expelled from the Party such as Jackie Walker and Ken Livingstone were fingered as antisemitic. In fact no charge of antisemitism was made against either of them, as it could not be sustained. They were expelled for ‘bringing the party into disrepute’, a conveniently flexible concept. Jackie Walker is Jewish. This was not mentioned. The only supposed ‘crime’ of hers referred to – pointing out the Jewish role in the slave trade – was falsely represented without noting that she had been acquitted of the charge.

The BBC is not alone in its uncritical coverage of the campaign of allegations that the Labour Party is antisemitic – it applies to the whole UK mainstream media. An expert survey by researchers from the Media Reform Coalition showed, however, that the BBC and Guardian out-did all their competitors in bias.

There is indeed a story here worthy of penetrating journalistic analysis. The public would be well served by a programme exploring how so great a moral panic came to be generated on so slender an evidence base. But that would require committed investigative journalism, and a willingness to uncover truths deeply unflattering to powerful people and organisations. The Panorama team would have benefited from watching WitchHunt, a documentary on the subject recommended by top filmmakers Ken Loach and Mike Leigh (who is Jewish).

Any allegation of antisemitism must be taken seriously – and proven cases must be dealt with appropriately. However what is obvious to many in the Labour Party, but not seemingly to Panorama or reporter John Ware, is that many of the alleged instances of antisemitism are not what they seem.

Many are quite evidently statements that members have made about the Israeli state or Zionism, twisted athletically to assert that their criticism is directed at and insulting to Jews. Many are the result of bulk allegations generated on an industrial scale by just a few organisations, prominent among them the Campaign Against Antisemitism, and Labour Against Antisemitism, set up explicitly to undermine the Corbyn leadership and to protect Israel. The new General Secretary Jennie Formby has expanded the numbers of staff and NEC members struggling to catch up with the backlog of accusations that these operations have generated. Panorama mentioned none of this.

This programme has presented a grossly simplified and utterly distorted picture of Labour’s travails with allegations of antisemitism. It is shameful that the BBC has joined in an orchestrated campaign whose principal aim is quite clearly to prevent Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister of a Labour government committed to socialism.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk ... YyV-frvlNo
#15017619
Not really sure what it is you're trying to say there but not everyone is as gullible as those who think Labour has a problem with antisemitism; most of us know these attacks are manufactured nonsense for two reasons:

1. Corbyn is a support of Palestinian human/civil rights and
2. The antisemitism attacks are a way for the British establishment to attack Corbyn and his allies for being against things like war and austerity and for things like the NHS and the working class/poor in this country, basically, leftwing. The establishment is shitting itself at the prospect of a leftwing government bab, that's what's mainly going on here.

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Kaiserschmarrn wrote:^ "But I have black friends!" :lol:

I'm sure Labour would accept that if they were on the other side.


This does not address the arguments presented in the article and it's not very nice coming from the same person who a minute ago wrote this in another thread:

Kaiserschmarrn wrote:It looks like none of those who are insinuating that the protests were fabricated by the US/west seem to be prepared to put forward a concrete case, preferring to rely on innuendo, counter questions and dismissive or flippant comments in response to valid questions.


The exact same words can be said for you here.
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noemon wrote:This does not address the arguments presented in the article and it's not very nice coming from the same person who a minute ago wrote this in another thread:

The point is that for these accusations arguments hardly matter. The taint sticks and usually the more the accused squeals, the worse it gets. Labour is just getting its just dessert, by having one of its preferred weapons turned against itself.
#15017628
Who amongst leftwing Labour employ(s) this type of smear campaign?

Anyway, you're right, it's working and didn't backfire at all with that huge support that came out for Corbyn today on social media. Name another politician in the U.K. who gets this type of positive treatment from everyday people.

I'll wait. :excited:

Also.
#15017631
skinster wrote:Who amongst leftwing Labour employ(s) this type of smear campaign?

Pretty much all of them, but a notable one would be David Lammy MP, race baiter in chief.

skinster wrote:Anyway, you're right, it's working and didn't backfire at all with that huge support that came out for Corbyn today on social media. Name another politician in the U.K. who gets this type of positive treatment from everyday people.

Labour's social media coordination is impressive, no question. Just in case you aren't aware, social media is not a reflection of the real world, with lefties being very much overrepresented. Twitter is especially skewed. Nigel Farage has better approval ratings than Jeremy Corbyn.

skinster wrote:Also.

Your habit of using random private individuals on the internet as evidence really doesn't help your credibility.
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skinster wrote:Citations needed.

Lefties do hardly anything but accuse the opposition of racism, islamophobia, sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, transphobia, white nationalism, white supremacy, nazism, faschism, far-right extremism, etc. while continuously lowering thresholds. Now one of these has been turned against Labour and how you guys are squealing. It's a delight to watch. :lol:
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Kaiserschmarrn wrote:The point is that for these accusations arguments hardly matter. The taint sticks and usually the more the accused squeals, the worse it gets. Labour is just getting its just dessert, by having one of its preferred weapons turned against itself.


The only point that should matter to you is that you have not present any evidence regarding your claims, you rely on innuendo and dismissive or flippant comments in response to valid arguments. After saying that to someones face it is quite preposterous that you would do exactly the same thing seconds later. And that when confronted with this reality instead of doing something about it, such as for example providing actual arguments and evidence for your own argument you are instead doubling down on the innuendo and flippancy. :knife:
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noemon wrote:The only point that should matter to you is that you have not present any evidence regarding your claims.

I have no opinion on anti-semitism in the Labour party. I'm just enjoying their desperation and frantic attempts to deflect (e.g. OP title) in response to the accusation.
#15017648
You have not presented any evidence on your claim that Labour are accusing their opponents with unsubstantiated hearsay against unnamed individuals. But you seem more than happy to legitimise the practice regardless, unless it’s some conservative in which case you while you will write a lot more than simply trolling a subject that has gone totally out of control. :roll:
#15017656
I've absolutely no doubt that Tories are far more anti-Islamic than the Labour Party are anti-Semitic, but until Muslim Tory MPs and members come forward with evidence, then there's nothing much to report.

There are quite a large number of Jewish MPs and members that have come forward from the Labour Party to report credited accounts of harrassment etc , however.

Nine MPs have resigned because of it.

So thats the problem. It's the true the Muslim Council of GB have asked for an enquiry based on complaints they've received, but there needs to be more.

Muslim Tory party members must come forward publicly.
#15017658
Labour are not in the slightest bit anti-semitic, that is a filthy racist lie, if anything Labour are philo-semitic. They may be anti-Jewish, but that's another matter. Jewish supremacist racists pushed the use of the term anti-Semitism, in order to encode anti Arab racism into our language. The subliminal message is that the only Semites that really matter are Jews, even when the Jews aren't even Semites. Arguably modern Israeli Hebrew has actually been de-semticised, it has been Indo-Europeanised.

Jewish supremacists are very aware of the importance of setting the terminological terrain as a good military leader chooses the geographical terrain for a battle. Its funny because normally Marxists and Cultural Marxists are hyper aware of terminology. The Palestinian nationalist movement on the other hand must one of the most incompetent "liberation" movements ever to grace the face of the earth.
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