Feigned “anti-Semitism” campaign comes to Wirral. Are local Tories being genuinely anti-Semitic?

The ongoing mainstream media and BBC campaign of feigned outrage, centred around charges of “anti-Semitism”, thus far directed at the ONLY party with a very long history of speaking up against anti-Semitism – the Labour Party – reached new depths of absurdity in the last couple of days.


Let’s look at the backdrop first:

Historically, the Labour Party have led EVERY piece of anti-racism legislation in the UK.

Right wing Labour politician Margaret Hodge MP, who’s been particularly prominent in her attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and in her seemingly feigned concern for Jewish people and their faith, also failed to sign the above Early Day Motion.

Up until about three years ago, coinciding with the success of Jeremy Corbyn’s first leadership campaign, the Labour Party had never in its history been subjected to such intense, repeated and enduring volleys of pressure from a large number of individuals and organisations who are claiming to speak up on behalf of Jewish people and the Jewish faith.

The identities of those bringing the charges match almost perfectly with the same people and organisations whom many would regard as the usual suspects, those whom for many decades have been strong backers of the State of Israel and its ongoing slaughter, apartheid, and racism against the Palestinian people.

The Palestinians have been suffering the intense oppression and inequity of illegal occupation and their land being increasingly stolen by force, while the so-called “international community” looks on in silence, and is often selectively critical of other, far less entrenched conflicts occurring elsewhere in the world.

The list of individuals and organisations that are extremely loud and in your face regarding perceived anti-Semitism coincides almost exactly with the list of individuals and organisations who are extremely quiet and nowhere to be seen regarding very real and very savage US-backed, Israeli aggression.

Linked to all this are the billionaire, tax avoider-owned mainstream press and media, BBC TV radio and online services, the Blairite backers of Israel within the Labour Party and the Blairite (voted for the Iraq war) backers of Israel within the institutionally #Racist Tory Party.

Figures state that the level of anti-Semitism charges concerning members of the Labour Party stands at around 0.08% of a 540,000 membership, which is a far lower figure than would be found in the general population, a population largely made up of voters and members of the most prominent parties, Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, SNP, Green, Ulster Unionists, Sinn Fein, Plaid Cymru, et al.

The words of Councillor Jo Bird’s speech, linked to below, suggest that anti-Semitism is indeed a serious problem in the UK, but not one which is related to members of the traditionally anti-racist Labour Party.

It’s our view that Jewish people feeling under assault, would be more likely to join Labour to avoid anti-Semitism.

For comparison here’s a post we did which – in part – details reported instances of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and more within the Tory Party:

Torrents of Online Tory Hate, Venom, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Xenophobia, Racism, Islamophobia and more…

As you can see from the above post, it’s become almost a traditional endeavour for a small number of Tory councillors or MPs to dress in Nazi uniforms, and to strut around, sporting all the symbolically sinister regalia … seemingly when the fancy takes them.  I’d say this amounts to very clear anti-Semitism and I personally think our mainstream media are looking in the wrong place.  They would be serving their readers far better if they stopped creating a “safe space” for racist Tory party members to frolic in, and turned their attention to these characters, who often shamelessly appear in plain sight.

Such an honest approach might even boost their tanking sales figures and give their foul, #phonehacking reputations a shot in the arm.


Anyway, let’s move on to the subject matter of the title…

“Feigned “anti-Semitism” campaign comes to Wirral. Are local Tories being genuinely anti-Semitic??”

Jo Bird speech

Jewish Wirral Councillor Jo Bird (above), who is relatively new to Wirral Council and represents the Bromborough / New Ferry ward, has been suspended by the Labour Party for a statement she made at a “Justice for Marc Wadsworth” meeting in Manchester in 2018. 

“Jewish Voice For Labour is calling for disciplinary hearings to be paused until a due process has been established, based on principles of natural justice. What I call Jew process”.

Presumably the Parliamentary Labour Party (primarily made up of the usual suspect Blairites) will be behind this suspension, and not Jeremy Corbyn.  It will be done for allegedly falling foul of the party’s recently adopted guidelines which include the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.  This set of guidelines bizarrely conflates Zionism and its related activities and behaviours with anti-Semitism, which is a criminal offence in the UK and a centuries-old scourge of Jewish people.

So far, so bad.

Criticising Zionism or the murderous activities of the Israeli state however is certainly NOT a criminal offence and never should be.  Neither is it anti-Semitic.

Jo Bird has been lambasted by the Mainstream Media and the long list of celebrities, journalists and politicians who like to burnish their image, whip up anger amongst their followers and keep each other on message.  I won’t list them because I’d be here all day.  I’m sure you know who I mean.  But I will link to one tweet and a response.


Here’s the Wirral Council video containing Jo Bird’s explanatory speech.

After losing a vote of the whole council on a motion to silence Councillor Jo Bird by removing her freedom of speech – yes, democracy provides us with this facility under Standing Order 12 (13) – check it out…

ian lewis interruption of Jo Bird's speech

…the local Tory party, whose fellow members indulge in #racism, the deporting of the Windrush families, creating a self-declared ‘hostile environment’ for migrants, Islamophobia or often dress up as Nazis, sporting the full regalia, (see above link) showed the full extent of their feigned “disgust” by getting up and walking out of the chamber.

When you see Councillor Jo Bird talking, as she recounts her tragic family history during the holocaust and her own lived experiences of anti-Semitism – some of which occurred on that day – you can see members of the recently formed Wirral Independent Group choosing not to listen to her and to file out of the chamber.  They could have listened, heard her words, realised the error of their ways, then filed back to their seats … but no.

You now have to wonder whether the Wirral Tory and Independent Party members will be in attendance for the next Holocaust Memorial Day, given that they are now actively choosing to ignore people closely connected to those events.

The empty seats on the Tory side of the Wirral Council chamber. A concerted act of anti-Semitism?

20190309_083051


We know full well they’re sworn hypocrites, but are Tory leader Ian Lewis, the 18 (updated) Wirral Tory members, and ex-right wing Labour Councillors Moira McLaughlin and Councillor Jo Meaden – who walked out of the chamber – the real anti-Semites here?


 

About Wirral In It Together

Campaigner for open government. Wants senior public servants to be honest and courageous. It IS possible!
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

8 Responses to Feigned “anti-Semitism” campaign comes to Wirral. Are local Tories being genuinely anti-Semitic?

  1. John Brace says:

    Well there is still one Conservative councillor left in the Council Chamber in your photo above – the Mayor (Cllr Geoffrey Watt)!

    Also Cllr Adam Sykes (a Conservative councillor) wasn’t there (he had sent his apologies).

    So in your bit where it states Cllr Ian Lewis plus twenty, that’s twenty minus the Mayor who stayed and Cllr Adam Sykes who wasn’t there or just Cllr Ian Lewis plus eighteen councillors.

    Like

    • Thanks John. I also saw two “independent” Councillors walking out, Moira McLaughlin and Chris Meaden. As for Mike Sullivan, I don’t know what he did, although he voted in favour of gagging Jo Bird.

      Like

      • John Brace says:

        I can confirm that Cllr Mike Sullivan voted for (along with the Conservatives councillors (apart from the Mayor and Cllr Adam Sykes (who wasn’t there) plus Cllr Chris Meaden who also voted for (unfortunately I don’t have a record in my notes of Cllr McLaughlin’s vote but it should be on Wirral Council’s video).

        The Mayor did suggest an adjournment after the vote while councillors left the Chamber, but Cllr Jo Bird just carried on as the vote had been lost.

        Although the large number of councillors that had left was mentioned in her speech so it didn’t go unnoticed by her.

        Like

      • I think it would have panned out very differently under a Labour or Lib Dem mayor.

        Like

  2. Pingback: Wirral Tories embargo Jewish Councillor as she speaks about her family’s persecution in the holocaust | Wirral In It Together

  3. Pingback: #Antisemitism. We lodged a well-founded Standards Complaint against Tory & Independent Wirral Councillors. Here’s the outcome | Wirral In It Together

  4. Pingback: For the record 》》》The precise moment when targeted antisemitism broke out at Wirral Council | Wirral In It Together

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.