‘Thuggish’ MP Ian Austin has quit the Labour Party blaming antisemitism. Yet his behaviour to a Jewish guest advising Parliament on antisemitism was described as a ‘full frontal assault’ by the shocked author
This article was originally published in July last year and is being republished to put Ian Austin’s excuse for leaving the Labour Party into context:
West Midlands Labour MP Ian Austin is the subject of at least two formal complaints by fellow Labour MPs Ian Lavery and Chris Williamson relating to at least three instances of alleged abusive conduct described as at extremely close quarters and extremely aggressive.
The outburst toward Lavery, as eyewitnesses reported to the Mirror’s Kevin Maguire, contained no political point. One of the two at Williamson has been described as:
an incoherent rant accusing [Chris] of all manner of things relating to racism and sexism.
In spite of this, Austin has spoken on BBC News and elsewhere denying he was abusive and claiming he was simply upset about antisemitism.
This prompted Jewish author Michael Rosen to relate an incident involving Austin’s behaviour toward him during a session of the Commons Education Committee, at which Rosen was asked to share his perspectives on antisemitism and the Holocaust.
In a series of tweets and responses to questions, Rosen outlined what he described as a ‘full frontal assault’ by Austin against him for making a point Austin didn’t want to hear – and when one correspondent described Austin’s behaviour as ‘thuggish’ (a word that has been used about him before), Rosen did not disagree:
Mr Rosen was right – the session, which took place in December 2015, was recorded. Here is the footage of the pertinent exchange, in which Austin persistently talks over and aggressively interrupts a guest invited to help the Education Committee, before dismissing his viewpoint – twice – as ‘absolute nonsense’:
SKWAWKBOX comment:
Austin’s outburst that the reason Britain wasn’t invaded by the nazis was ‘because Britain fought back on its own‘ is shockingly disrespectful. It ignores, for example, the sacrifice of the soldiers of other nations who did try to resist the nazis or the free Polish, Czech, French and others who were among the troops who pushed the Germans back on D-Day and afterward.
It also ignores the decisive roles played by US and Soviet troops, at huge cost in lives – and surely betrays a simplistic, even jingoistic tendency. His “Dad’s Army” bluster would be comical if his attitude was not so objectionable.
Austin has a track record for boorish – thuggish – behaviour, but presented himself to the media on Sunday as an innocent offended by the evil Labour Party.
But his readiness to steamroll and denigrate the opinion of a respected Jewish parliamentary guest, recorded by Commons cameras, betrays a brittle, volatile temperament and calls into question his respect for and self-control towards people – including Jewish people – who dare to contradict him.
Certainly Michael Rosen felt disrespected and – in his own words – assaulted out of nowhere.
Ian Austin was contacted for comment before the first publication of this article.
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Austin’s rather eager to show a pugnacious front when it comes to shouting the odds about how Britain won WWII on it’s own and how justified he was to send Britain into an illegal war in Iraq.
But what would his plea have been had he been conscripted, because he’s your typical ‘all mouth, no action’ cowardly gobshite.
Rosen does well against the vile, vacuous, pugnacious scum Austin with his boys own view of WW2.
It would appear that John McDonnell agrees that there is a culture of bullying & Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, especially towards an 8 month pregnant Jewish MP.
I have no time for brainless Facebook antisemitism. But it isn’t the Labour Party that’s responsible for that. I think that an objective assessment would diagnose that the greater victims are children and pregnant women in Gaza and the Occupied Territories, targeted by the Israeli state, and ignored by the likes of the LFoI.
SR, RH (probably same person?) as the Johnny Nash song goes Right Wing Troll/s. “Stir it Up.”
Left Wing Democratic Diverse Socialists around the World just need to stand up to Right Wing Barbarians in every country!
Solidarity!
FFS – Grow up and stop thinking that politics is the same as repeating advertising slogans for baked beans.
Bob Marley and the Wailers, Catch a fire. You’re welcome. Cheers.
This article, and Michael Rosen’s story shows beyond a shadow of doubt that Ian Austin is one hyprocritical, opportunistic crock of shit.
Clearly, he like others of his ilk is using the anti-semitism issue as a means of pursuing a covert political agenda. It is interesting how the MSM and Austin also are bending over backwards to shed crocodile tears over Zionist Luciana Berger. I would like to know how he feels about the veritable witch hunt against Dr. Alex Scott-Samuel, himself Jewish, chair of Wavertree CLP who has been described by the “Daily Heil” as her “tormentor”, or others such as Jackie Walker, a black Jewish woman due to face the Inquisition (otherwise known as a Labour Party disciplinary committee) on 26th March for (you couldn’t make it up!), alleged antisemitic comments.
Genuine anti-semitism is something for which there should, of course, be zero tolerance, but the issue is being used by right-wing pro-Zionist Blairites, both Jewish and non-Jewish as a stick with which to beat the Labour Left. It is being weaponised against Corbyn and the vision of a just society he is determined to realise about as our Prime Minister.
Enough is enough. Political obscurity awaits the nine ex-Labour deserters obsenely embracing the three Tory defectors. What a grisly sight. More than enough to turn the stomach.
I think you’re absolutely right to highlight the victims of the antisemitism scam. Restitution in these cases actually does lie with the Party taking action – as opposed to all the Facebook nonsense that is nothing to do with it.
The Gestapo was in all the occupied countries to suppress resistance with collective punishments, arrest of left wing activists and benefits for informers.
There were Nazi supporters in England who’d have informed on their neighbours in a second if we had been invaded, but most people will succumb when their children are threatened.
To claim the English are ‘above that’ is ridiculously jingoistic.
The thickos who wave the St. George’s cross flag would be among the first to collaborate and I suspect Austin is firmly in that camp, Jewish adoptive father or not.
“To claim the English are ‘above that’ is ridiculously jingoistic.’
It is worse than that, it indicates a claim of racial superiority.
Interestingly enough, Jews in Denmark survived the war because people refused to go along with the attacks on them. I recently read that the same was true in Bulgaria.
By contrast, the experience in the Channel Islands is very worrying.
Brits’ belief in their inherent superiority certainly had racist roots – my post war generation was still being schooled to feel pride in empire and the winning of wars from infants’ school onward.
This was the “No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs” / “Rivers of Blood” era.
War and empire demands that aggression is optimised.
Males of many species are prone to hatred of “the other” – it’s entirely possible that all male aggression has its roots in fear of the loss of females/competition for access to them.
Whether or not that’s the case the same male aggression that exists in other animals has existed in us since we were non-verbal apes.
Having said all that the English are mongrels, not a race apart from other Europeans 🙂
And now for something completely different…
Thuggery and bullying by Austin right there. I thought he was against that sort of thing. Mr Rosen looked quite affronted and quite rightly.
Where is the Antisemitism?
February 20, 2019 ~ Harvey Goldstein Bristol
https://harveygoldstein.co.uk/2019/02/20/where-is-the-antisemitism/
“The current pitiful state of mainstream political debate within the UK is hardly news – one has to look no further than the machinations over Brexit to realise that sad fact. Yet, rivalling even that debacle, is the way in which various politicians and interested parties have sought to utilise allegations of antisemitism within the Labour Party, and the ways in which almost all of the mainstream media have involved themselves. Especially depressing is the way in which an internationally increasingly important issue has become mired in muddled thinking.”