The leader of Ealing Council’s majority Labour group used a ‘bully pulpit’ to block discussion of a motion of support for Jeremy Corbyn last week – and when challenged, shouted down a BAME member and told him to ‘shut up’, according to members of Ealing and Acton constituency party (CLP).
Salim Alam – the member told to shut up – has written an account of the events, corroborated by other members:
Nearly 100 Labour Party members attended the Ealing Central & Acton CLP All Members Zoom Meeting on Thursday 27 November 2020. A motion for debate had been circulated with the meeting invitation.
The motion wording was:
“This CLP expresses its solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn. Jeremy is a lifelong campaigner against racism and
antisemitism. We believe that unity, not division, is important for the Party to make progress and effectively challenge racism, fascism, antisemitism and harassment in whatever form this may take.”The CLP Chair had worked tirelessly in the days leading up to the meeting on the issue and received formal confirmation from London Region that the motion could be put to the meeting, but a few hours before the meeting the CLP Chair received an e-mail from the General Secretary of the Labour Party which, in effect, said that motions mentioning Jeremy Corbyn must not be debated because this would undermine Labour’s anti-racism ethos.
The CLP Chair explained the invidious position of being caught between the two contradictory views and suggested that the motion could be debated – but only if the meeting voted by a 2/3 majority to overturn the Chair’s current ruling that the motion be taken off the agenda.
The Chair of the Ealing Labour Group of Councillors- Steve Donnelly- then interjected (without having been called by the Chair) and instructed the chair that there should be no debate or vote on whether or not to take the motion, on the basis that the Labour Party [acting] General Secretary’s last-minute edict was the highest authority on the matter of what CLPs can and cannot discuss.
When I, as an ordinary member, dared to challenge the factual basis of what Donnelly had said, Donnelly shouted ‘shut up’ at me to ‘shut up’.
The supreme irony and hypocrisy behind Donnelly’s shouting was that it was directed against a BAME party member – and only minutes after the CLP meeting had heard an excellent talk from expert speaker Lela Kogbara on the subject of ‘What is structural racism and how can the Labour Party help end it?’
Donnelly’s use of the bully pulpit resulted in the CLP Chair reversing her earlier position and the meeting was told that the motion and/or the agenda would not be debated or voted on.
A number of members spoke to urge the Chair to hold with her original decision to take a vote on putting the motion to debate, but without success. The result was that Labour Party members were denied their democratic rights to debate the motion and many were left angry, confused and disempowered. These are the foot soldiers that the Labour Party will no doubt be calling on to canvass and campaign in coming elections.
Members have said that Donnelly has a track record of similar behaviour, shouting previously at two Muslim members and ‘shouting in the face’ of a woman member on general election night last year.
The SKWAWKBOX tried repeatedly to obtain a responsefrom Cllr Donnelly to these allegations, but he refused to comment.
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That lot are vile and cannot be “converted”. We must not waste anymore time and energy trying to “work around them”. We cannot “unify” or “be calm”, “sort things out” or any other fantasy with them. Our values are diametrically opposed. A red rosette and the Labour label is not enough🚨🚨🚨
This is despicable behaviour from a Labour COUNCILLOR of all people. Look to Bolivia for inspiration comrades.
How much more evidence is needed that the LP is rotten to ther core?
And who is the new Beria
Take your pick…..
How can we support those who caused thousands to be expelled❓
Made THOUSANDS of vexatious allegations of AS❓ Allegations which thousands of voters in Hendon rejected as obscene heartless dangerous depraved lies❓
Suspend and bans Jeremy from sitting as a Labour MP despite over 30,000 votes and 57 years as a Labour member❓
What sort of reasoning leads any Labour person to consider Starmer worthy of any support❓
Do not even piss on a stamp for Starmer and his lot. They are beneath contempt⚠️ At least Blue Tories don’t try to pretend they are not worse than filth. Sir Starmer and its other appendages and masters always were, are and always will be, until the mother of all miracles, FILTH⚠️ We are not miracle workers. SCRUB filth out⚠️
Return their “support” in full before it’s too late 🚨🚨🚨
And after all that nasty Right wing bullying the actual motion itself was pretty weak – and as ever with the Left – emphasising that unachievable objective of ‘Party Unity’ – which the corrupt self-serving Labour Right have never given a monkeys about !
The Right are in a one-sided , quite open, WAR with the supine , always retreating, Left in the Party – determined to root out all traces of socialist policy and socialist member numbers in the four years before the next General Election is due (though with a looming global economic crisis we’ll see if it IS four years). By then the Right, and their billionaire backers, want to have a fully top-down-run, neoliberal NuLabour Party ready to present to the voters. Total self-deluding hubris by the arrogant Right – but that is what they believe – and they WILL indeed root out the Left , with great help from the MSM,, and also root out as many Leftish PLP members too as possible before then.
Unfortunately for the deluded Right, these are the same stale old Blairite policy offers that the Right unsuccessfully offered to the voters in 2010 ! As much use in what will be by then a deeply crisis-ridden, massive unemployment level, fractured, 2024 society. About as much use and attractiveness to voters as offering a map of the Paris Metro to navigate the London Underground. No serious socialist should waste their time in the same party as these authoritarian, corrupt, careerist, Tory-lite, clowns.
Among the many things that confuse me is the thought process that allows so-called “centrist” MPs – there must be some who can think – to support a system that, without redistributive intervention, will inevitably continue and accelerate the diversion of wealth and power to fewer and fewer people.
Do MPs imagine the 0.00001% will continue to reward them for their services once the takeover is complete? Why would these future planetary overlords bother with plebby little ex-politicians once they’ve outlived their usefulness?
What motivates the working and middle classes to vote Tory baffles me even more.
I can only think it’s either self-belief telling them they’re going to become wealthy themselves and they’ll then be victims of socialist redistribution rather than its beneficiaries – or that they simply swallowed the blue pill without ever really thinking about it.
Or maybe they’re just overawed by Eton drawl and Savile Row suits.
The way Tesco bullies its suppliers is a prime example of big business sucking the life out of small business and should have made all SMEs demand change.
There is no solidarity among capitalists except on one subject – that socialism is the enemy. They can be mobbed by vulture capitalists, asset-stripped to death and still they claim free markets are the only way. They’d rather blame their failure on unions and wages.
I hate the thought that humanity can be so profoundly, stupidly gullible but I’ve never found an alternative explanation.
Excusing ourselves by blaming MSM propaganda is a bit of a crock – these are not difficult concepts.
Excellent comment. For some reason I am unable to add a click for ‘liked’.
You have to be signed up to WordPress to be able to click on the ‘Likes’, 4foxandhare. Thanks for the wish to ‘like’ my post though anyway !
I hadn’t really noticed before, but WordPress for some reason has stopped logging me out automatically and without notice, most annoyingly when I’d click ‘Post Comment’ and have to log in again and sometimes have to backpage to recover the text.
I’m grateful to whoever fixed it – that was more annoying than RH, Bubba (RIP?), SteveH and windbag boy put together.
Will Salim Alam – the member told to shut up, complain that he feels “threatened” by the hostile environment created by Starmer? “afraid” “unwelcome” “abused” “so afraid he has his bags ready to flee” “being driven out of the party by abusive THUGS under Sir Starmer’s disgraceful mismanagement?
How has SIR Starmer created such a NASTY RACIST environment in just a few months???
Why are the PLP happy with despicable bullying by racists condoned by Sir Starmer? Why is the EHRC not investigation this pattern of unacceptable bullying behaviour that Sir Starmer has ushered in? Why is Hodge, Phillips, Lammy, Rayner and the other contemptible frauds silent on this racist abuse? Why is Starmer encouraging racist abuse by not condemning this thuggish racist behaviour?
I believe Sir Starner’s DEFEANING SILENCE shows not only approval of this open racism, but his silence ENCOURAGES racism in the party AND in wider society.
Sir Starmer, this is what I believe. Speak up. If you fail to condemn your racist bully, then we must all conclude that you are ACTIVELY encouraging RACIST bullying and thus you are racist. Prove me wrong🚨🚨🚨
Spot on!
What gives Evans – a Johnny come lately on a massive salary – the right to say that motions supporting Jeremy Corbyn undermine the party’s anti racist ethos. Jeremy Corbyn was fighting racism from before Evans was born as has been attested to by numerous esteemed human rights activists many of them like the late Hajo Mayer ,a fine upstanding Jewish man, a concentration camp survivor who devoted his life post war to peace activism and whose reputation was trashed after his death by those not fit to clean his boots. They didn’t dare vilif him when he was alive but waited until he was dead and unable to defend himself before they made their disgusting accusations of antisemitism against him.
Angela Rayner let the cat out of the bag when she said she would suspend 1000s and 1000s of us for antisemitism. As I pointed out previously there aren’t 1000s of anti-Semites in the party given that when the membership stood at 550,000 only 0.01% – 550 – were deemed to have shown antisemitism and most of these have been expelled. What she meant (and this was echoed in the Redditch tweet which was swiftly deleted )was that she would expel 1000s and 100s of members who support the United Nations position on the treatment of Arabs by Israel.
Why doesn’t Evans, Starner and Rayner just come straight out with it and say –
“If you oppose Israeli policy there is no place for you in the Labour party because we consider anyone who opposes it to be antisemetic. We will have nothing to do with any country on the UN Security Council which has opposed Israeli policy in the past. We will however fully support the USA which has used its veto at the UN security Council to prevent any sanctions against Israel for e.g. the mass killing in Gaza in the Spring of 2018. If Israel want to shoot unarmed civilians or rioters we assert their right to do so. Anyone who says differently is an anti-Semite”
No chance of them coming out with any of this but actions speak louder than words and their actions say exactly what is written above.
I’d like to add a click for ‘like’, but it doesn’t work for me.
Just a brief observation. As all these meetings are on Zoom etc currently doesn’t this make them very easy to record?
The profane intimidation of Labour right figures depends on there being few or easily discredited witnesses at CLP meetings.
Sharing video of their behaviour would be a deterrent and go some way to undermine their pretend “thuggish left” concern
Is there a directive that they can’t be recorded?
Is there a technical barrier my middle aged mind has overlooked?
I hope that all the Ealing Central & Acton CLP members present at the zoom file formal complaints against Donelly for abusive behaviour asking for his suspension from the Party.
They should also remember this when selecting for the panel and excluding Donelly from it. This isn’t the behaviour expected from Labour Cllrs.
And whilst the Labour party are having “motions” the militarization of the false border in the occupied territories in Ireland are to be supported by the knight led Labour party.Also again the exemption for Business class travellers is being planned for to avoid the compulsory 14day quarantine for lesser mortals.ITs also been discussed of allowing higher mortals on the class scale to benifit from exemption from the tiresome restrictions that the working class enjoy.Now where are them socialist working class mps?
Ps I left it open for somone to reply Theyre all booked on Business class for their Xmass jollys..!..still a little joviality in times of strife,and merry Christmas comrades..!
The United Nations security council was the elephant in the room if Labour had won GE19 ,it’s representation and dynamics would have been interesting, but now only a figment of my imagination.
Good to see that Keith is delivering on his number one priority …. bringing peace and unity to the Labour Party ….. Oh!
Under IHRA definition wishing anyone a ‘Merry Christmas’ is anti-Semitic & celebrating Easter…..the crucifying of a Jew, is most unwelcoming with all those crosses everywhere.
The supposed crucifixion has been used for centuries to promote antisemitism and justify atrocities against the jews.
And atrocities against the jews are now being used to justify atrocities against the Palestinians and the Socialists.
So yet another of Starmer’s clones and believer in the new Labour 2.0 cult abuses members and denies them, as usual, the rights to vote or have a debate or even comment on their abuse.
Certainly, not allowed to vote no confidence in them and their leadership., no chance of that ever happening because of the stuffing the executive with only right wing cronies.
So all those that say stay and fight what is the purpose of membership in an organization that does all the above? Who thinks rules are only for socialists? Because i see NO POINT!