Corbyn’s suspension ‘patently unjust’ and an utter disgrace, say three of the most senior surviving figures of the anti-apartheid movement as they demand his reinstatement
In another major embarrassment for Keir Starmer, three of the most senior surviving veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle alongside Nelson Mandela have launched a petition of solidarity demanding the reinstatement of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Former government ministers Ronnie Kasrils, Pallo Jordan and
Ebrahim Ebrahim, have said they are ‘deeply disturbed’ by Starmer’s conduct – and they went further.
The petition states:
South Africans in Solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn
We, South Africans, are deeply disturbed at the Labour Party’s treatment and suspension of Jeremy Corbyn. We can attest to his outstanding support for the liberation of South Africa from apartheid, and his resolute stand against all forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and injustice wherever that evil appeared.
The manner in which he has been treated by elements within the Labour Party is an utter disgrace. The incumbent leadership of the Labour Party have fallen prey to a dangerous agenda which conflates justified criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people with the scourge of antisemitism. When there were instances of antisemitism among a small number of ignorant members, Jeremy Corbyn has denounced it. We are aware of the machinations within the Labour Party to conduct a witch-hunt against Corbyn and those who support him. The charges of antisemitism that have been levelled against him are patently unjust and morally groundless.
We stand in solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn and join those in Britain calling for his reinstatement without delay.
The heavyweight status of the three in the anti-apartheid movement is difficult to overstate. On Ebrahim’s release from a second term of imprisonment on the infamous Robben Island, Nelson Mandela said:
He emerged as one of the most outstanding pillars of the movement, who was not only committed and loyal, but who had the ability to explain the policy of the organisation
Kasrils, who is Jewish, joined the ANC in 1960 and was banned by the apartheid regime from speaking in public for five years, before working for decades in the underground antiapartheid movement, then serving in several ministerial roles including Intelligence Minister. Jordan narrowly escaped assasination by a letter bomb sent by the apartheid regime and spent years in exile before taking up government positions after apartheid fell.
The petition is not the first expression of support by former ANC figures. Former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein, who lost dozens of family members in the Holocaust, has gone on record to defend Corbyn on a number of occasions since last Thursday (video).
Keir Starmer suspended Corbyn over the former leader’s comment that the extent of antisemitism in the Labour Party had been exaggerated by the media – a demonstrable fact and one that the EHRC report last week stated was legally protected under freedom of speech and human rights laws.
The strongly-worded petition by three surviving giants of the anti-apartheid movement is a serious humiliation for Corbyn’s successor.
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This support from the anti-apartheid movement will never be reported on the BBC, ITV, SKY, any news Paper or any lame stream media.
What a welcome and LONG overdue turn up for the books! People from an ex British APARTHEID colony, speak up to deliver truths to us. Starmer’s treatmeant of Jeremy is a DISGRACE. All honest people know it.
They are too polite and diplomatic to say Starmer himself IS a disgrace. Our judicial system and establishment are disgraces. ROTTEN to the core. The sooner we see the back of disgraceful Starmer, the better. Keith like all Tories, despises the many. His role is to serve the few. Therefore he will NEVER criticise Tories handing VAST sums to the likes of SERCO, G4S, Deloitte Ranox and many more Tory bandits. Starmer dare not offend them or they would dump him before you could say SPIVS, LIARS and daylight ROBBERY.
I know that if the ANC were stilling fighting today Max would enlist with Umkomti and be training in Mozambique. Sorry, Majorca. Regards.
The lab party will just ignore this…
I agree it would never by reported in MSM and Starmer would just ignore it. However, it is good to know that these giants from the anti-apartheid movement are standing with us.
South africans speaking with an honesty seemingly denied a great many British politicians and journalists.
How long will it be before a statement is released from the party that if anyone agrees with South African politicians who are supportive of Corbyn will severely NEC punished
Yes we can’t have people from another country interfering in our internal politics can we……oh hang on a minute, the lobby.
Jeremy Corbyn lifelong anti racist , peace campaigner and man of principle has been supported by lifelong anti racists peace campaigners and men of principle following his unjust suspension from the labour party . Two of the four named are Jewish but apparently their support doesn’t count – the are not part of the “Jewish Community”. Neither apparently do the Charedi Jews or people like the late Hajo Meyer who stood with Jeremy in the past count. What could be more antisemetic than that?
I take your point Smartboy, and I don’t mean to contradict you, but the horrors that the Jews were subjected to by the Nazis is on a different level altogether. But even in the context of the A/S smear campaign against Jeremy and the left, causing concern and consternation amongst a large number of the Jewish population in the fascists quest to demonise and destroy Jeremy is/was totally evil. as was the demonising and the smear campaign itself.
The psychopthic elites are so evil that the vast majority of people on the planet couldn’t even begin to get their heads round it, but they are inherently sadistic, and they just lurve being evil and doing evil, and all hidden from most people, unless YOU become one of their victims, that is, such as Julian Assange on an individual level, or the Palestinians on a collective level, for example.
I don’t think anyone on the left could EVER have imagined just over five years ago when Jeremy became leader what would happen in the years ahead, and that a thoroughly decent man would be ‘transformed’ into an anti-semite, and the left membership into bullies and thugs and homophobes, as well as anti-semites of course. And although many of us are aware of what they are capable of – eg the smear campaign against Ken when he was leader of the GLC, the smearing of the Liverpool fans at Hillsborough, the massive deceit about WMD etc to get the public on board to invade Iraq, and countless other things – but I’m sure the last five years have opened the eyes of many on the left to just how evil these people are.
ITs amazing how much political news gets around the world.Unfortunately its the Labour party not the knight that makes the conversation among the expats and most of it is ridiculing the Labour party for obsession with rules and political correctness.Here even amongst the mountains and jungle in the Mekong Labour have been shown to be no longer the voice of the working class.and if the knight is mentioned it is along the lines of “the hypocrisy of the Labour party with a knight led leader” .Starmer knows and now the world knows somthing stinks in the heart ❤of the Labour party.and its the Lords and the titles that show just how rotten the Labour party is and dont mention the obsession our mps have with supporting the Apartheid education for their children..Until we have a Socialist leader who leads by example and a group of mps who actually believe in a democratic socialist movement then Labour are dead in the water.Does anyone think we could produce the type of leadership and party loyalists that the ANC had,ones that would suffer torture and jail for the party…thats what real beliefs mean and the corrupted opposition is no longer fit for purpose.Have know doubt that we are fighting a war for the rights that we have held for nearly a century.
I agree with you.
I just came back to this page to see if there were any any new comments since I last looked earlier on, and I suddenly remembered something Craig Murray said several weeks ago in relation to Julian’s extradition hearing. It’s self explanatory (and is of course related to what I said in my post above). The title of the piece is/was ‘Where Is My Final Assange Report?’, and the following is the part that came to mind, and one bit in particular:
Apart from being exhausting, I was totally immersed in a bubble, and buoyed by the support of others close to Julian, who were also inside that bubble.
But in that courtroom, you were in the presence of evil. With a civilised veneer, a pretence at process, and even displays of bonhommie, the entire destruction of a human being was in process. Julian was being destroyed as a person before my eyes. For the crime of publishing the truth.
What he is saying of course is that it was only once he got back home (after spending four weeks or so in London attending the hearing), that it suddenly hit him how evil it all was that it was happening, and that Julian was being put through it all – ie that the evil forces were intent on locking Julian up in a hell-hole for the rest of his life.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/where-is-my-final-assange-report/
Their plans for us are genuinely evil. They are just sharpening the knives.
I wanted to just leave the Party, as many have done. What I have done for the time being is put in an official complaint. I suggest this is a positive way to state how we feel… for the time-being anyway.
https://labour.org.uk/members/my-welfare/making-a-complaint/
The article above begins by saying ‘In another major embarrassment for Keir Starmer…’, but needless to say it would only be a ‘major embarrassment’ if it was all over the MSM, but it isn’t of course, and as other posters have pointed out, the corporate media and the BBC will just completely blank it.
And for the obvious reasons!
Just came across the following article about Jeremy being suspended, which is consise and to the point:
http://www.judecollins.com/2020/10/good-knight-sir-keir-casts-corbyn-into-the-night/
Obsequious, duplicitous and unprincipled, Starmer reminds me of ‘orrible Ives in Porridge.
Come to think of it there are quite a few others in the PLP I could say that about.
………….that is insulting Ives.
To paraphrase an observation made by President Jimmy Carter some years ago……..”If I haven’t read comment about a speech I made in MSM, I doubt that I ever made it”. All Politics is ‘Mediated’ by MSM.
Some on here seem to be very partisan with their ‘outrage’.
I don’t recall there being the same ‘outcry’ when Jennie Formby issued similar edicts banning CLPs from discussing and passing motions on disciplinary cases.
Who is the racist? Jeremy Corbyn who has spent his life consistently campaigning against racism and injustice in all its forms wherever it occurs, or Starmer who purges the Labour Party of people who speak up against Israel for its racist policies and crimes against humanity, even denying Israel policies and actions are racist, and goes further by opposing measures such as trade sanctions and BDS , which are the peaceful methods of putting pressure on the regime to abide by humanitarian law?
Big fan of Ronnie Kasrils. I went to a party for him on my wedding day.(I knew his son Chris)