Yet more Stalinism as formally accredited body deprived of votes on motions – apparently because James Whiting wore a Palestine pin
Labour has already further soiled its reputation today by roughly throwing out a delegate who dared to call for an arms embargo on genocidal Israel and for measures to protect our environment – this scandal comes on top of the string of senior Labour front-benchers, and Keir Starmer’s wife, who accepted tens of thousands in gifts and junkets from hugely wealthy donors and from organisations with vested interests, with at least one already apparently granted favours in return.
But there was a second ejection scandal today that was apparently not caught on film – an even more appalling show of arrogance and cowardice and seemingly triggered by the mere wearing of a Palestine pin and a scarf.
The Socialist Education Association (SEA) is one of the Labour party’s officially-accredited socialist societies, who have an official standing in the party – one that has frequently been abused with impunity by the Labour right – and are entitled to put motions to Labour’s conference and to cast votes on behalf of their members. The SEA has held that standing for around a century.
But at this year’s conference it was unable to put its members votes where they want them – because the SEA’s general secretary, James Whiting, was ejected and banned from the conference and had his Labour party membership suspended, apparently because he dared to wear a small badge saying ‘Free Palestine’ and wore a keffiyeh, the traditional scarf of Palestine.
Whiting explained the situation to SEA members in an email of which Skwawkbox has obtained a copy – emphases have been added – and said that he is considering leaving the party after more than four decades of membership:
Dear All,
I have to apologise to you all as I have [sic] expelled from conference and suspended from the party so I cannot represent you here and have wasted SEA funds. I can’t even access most education fringe events.
This is my story. As I explained earlier I was not allocated a seat at the conference and I had not really been in the main hall till this afternoon where I thought I should vote on rule changes.
After walking around trying to find a seat and being moved on by people saying someone was sitting there for 10 minutes. I went to speak to an accessibility steward who took me to the front of the Soc Soc [socialist society] section to a reserved section the first seat of which had no reserved sign on it. He said sit there and if any one comes move so I sat down and started to pull out your card votes ready.
A guy in a suit and ginger beard came up to me and said ‘you can’t sit there’ I said I would move if anyone needed it and showed my pass without seat number. He continued to tell me to move and at this point I probably should have succumbed but I said where to ? Explained I had been out there by a steward. He said you need to come with me for a chat. I knew at this point he had probably already decided his course of action. I had on a small Free Palestine badge and keffieh [sic].
I stayed. 10 mins later a posse arrived. They escorted me out of the conference. I was accused of being aggressive. I argued sure but did not swear or threaten. The posse consisted of security, the police, and the ginger guy who pronounced sentence on the spot. ‘ We are expelling you from the conference and suspending you from the party from now’ I was then asked to go into a small room so as not to create a fuss where I had a pleasant conversation with two police officers who I have to say remained entirely neutral distanced themselves from Labour and were polite at all times. I was then let out of a side door so the media did not see me being led out.
Obviously this is a shock and I need to think carefully how to respond.
These thoughts have been going through my mind.
Go home though we have the fringe so I may go to some friends in Sheffield though my flat is paid for till Wednesday. The only fringe I can access worth going to on Monday is the pSC one. Would like to go but not sure how I will fill the days.
Come back on Tuesday for fringe and stay over here for last night. I feel pretty useless here.
Resign as GS. I cannot represent you properly as a suspended and probably expelled member. Stay doing blogLeave Labour after 45 years and join another party thereby leaving the SEA
Try to use the Palestine angle politically.
I think the real reason they expelled me from the conference is they thought I was going to storm the rostrum and shout Free Palestine or something.
I am not doing anything yet. Will seek opinions from a range of sources before acting.
Welcome your comments and sorry!James
The Labour right’s cowardice and arrogance, and its inability to defend its views and positions with anything more substantial than authoritarianism and expulsion has long been known – and Skwawkbox has long warned that Keir Starmer’s weakness and brittle authoritarianism would be deeply dangerous if he ever got near power.
Starmer’s war on dissent has already moved out beyond the confines of the Labour party, with the arrest, intimidation and in some cases charging of journalists and campaigners who are exposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza. But that clearly does not mean he and his mini-me authoritarians have got tired of expelling anyone in the party who dares speak out – or even wear a badge and scarf the leadership doesn’t like.
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I resigned from my position as Branch Chair, and then from the Labour Party, as I was sickened by the Party’s growing authoritarianism and its positioning on Gaza.
I found a new home in the Workers Party and am now an activist there.
https://workerspartybritain.org/
James would be more than welcome to join us.
We would be proud to have him as a member.
It is very important that people who leave do not leave politics altogether.
https://cnduk.org/
Labour party bans the words Apartheid and Genocide from conference, telling the truth as put forward by the ICJ and United Nations is now forbidden by labour, what a shameful bunch of creeps they are,
I am not shocked about this behaviour by the Labour Party!
I got expelled together with 7 councillor colleagues because in 2014 we questioned the racism in the local party, we were a bit naive and thought we would get redress but now know that Ian McNicol was chairman of Labour Party and he gave us two weeks to get in line or resign!! That was the beginning of the purge!
I remember being at the conference in 2011 in Liverpool. I really enjoyed being a party member at that time and have supported the party like forever and persuaded so many to vote Labour for so long! It was like bereavement when I was expelled!
We do well to remember that Krishna: McNicol was preparing the ground for corporatist takeover well before Starmer.
Good on you I have nothing but respect! For people who stand by their principles and will not give them up just for the illusion and trappings of power.
I felt the same way after 50 years of being a Labour voter and member. I was brought up by two Labour-supporting socialist parents and socialist grandparents, thank god they are all passed and had not seen this vile joke of a Labour party. I was kicked out 2 years ago and was very despondent at first then I discovered the Green Party cared about disability and socialist issues not just green issues.
Please don’t just give up there are other parties as well like the worker’s party and some small parties out there trying to do good things. If we all gave up in disgust the country would be in a far worse state than even now and the scumbags win.
Bereavement?
Emancipation, surely?
Be in no doubt that Whiting’s suspension had as much to do with being a member of an organisation containing the word socialist as it did the Palestine badge.
Why anyone would want to be involved with that freak show in any capacity is beyond me.
Ash Sakar comments on the freebies scandal:
This is just classic Starmer behaviour isn’t it. His way or the highway. This is a typical example of how he works. All those people who voted for him need to look and learn.
I think Toffee is right, the word “Socialist” was just too much for Starmer to tolerate at the conference and the added ‘offence’ of wearing a Palestine badge/scarf pushed it far enough to ‘require’ expulsion from the ‘Labour’ party. Repulsive.
I suspect that most people who voted for Starmer are long-gone already.
Either that, or the delegates at Conference are specially-selected pro-starmeroids who cheer vociferously when a protesting delegate is forcibly ejected from Conference Hall. It’s got to be one or the other.
Congratulations to the Socialist Education Association and the fine teachers who support it for being expelled by pretend-Labour’s stalinist leadership.
Anyways, it’s
the king’s speechkeef’ turn to bore the masses today.I’d say “God help them” – but I won’t because all those present will be the sycophants; the vacuous nodding dogs and imbecilic clapping seals.
…Bar the hero who launches a bundle of fake tenners at the bought ‘n’ paid for, oleaginous rodent.
And if that was to happen, it wouldn’t surprise me to see keef and the rest of them frenziedly scrabble round to check each and every one to see if there’s a legit note amongst them.
And in case you’re lurking around, wee stevie gobshite – No, I WON’T be tuning in. I have no desire whatsoever to become zombified like those who smoke that spice, such is the effect of listening to more than two sentences from the nonce-enabling, nasal freeloader.
It will be interesting to see how other affiliated Trade Unions and societies are responding to GS James Whiting’s removal from Conference and suspension from the Party.
Wiki tells us “Affiliated unions pay an annual fee to the Labour Party; in return, they elect thirteen of the thirty-nine members of Labour’s National Executive Committee and fifty per cent of the delegates to Labour Party Conference.”
Is Starmer’s party adhering to this 50% affiliated union delegate rule re Conference or are they there but happy for one of their GS’s treated like this? We need to know. The entire Labour movement might be 100% behind the Starmer-corporatist takeover of the once true Labour party. We need to know.
The Labour Party’s largest-ever donation came from a Cayman Islands-registered hedge fund with shares worth hundreds of millions of pounds in fossil fuels, private health firms, arms manufacturers and asset managers.
While the £4m donation by Quadrature Capital is the sixth-largest in British political history, it is noteworthy not just for its size, but also its timing.
Electoral Commission records suggest Labour received the donation in the one-week window between former prime minister Rishi Sunak announcing the general election and the start of the ‘pre-poll reporting period’ in which all political donations over £11,180 had to be published weekly, rather than the quarterly norm.
This means that despite being made on 28 May, Quadrature’s generous donation was published by the Electoral Commission only last week, more than two months after Labour won the election. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/labour-given-4m-from-tax-haven-based-hedge-fund-with-shares-in-oil-and-arms/
Remember when Starmer refused to disclose the huge donation from Trevor Chinn the fanatic Zionist supporter before his election as Labour leader. Starmer is a sleazy Zionist liar.
This £4 million donation was apparently received by the party on 28 May 2024, two days before the dissolution of parliament [and 4 days before parliament was prorogued]. All donations have to be reported to the electoral commission on a weekly basis on the dissolution of parliament 30th of May 2024. How convenient, or was it?
I think it is safe to say that McDonnell will not have the whip restored:
“I don’t say this lightly but if you close your eyes and you listen to the language being used, it’s almost like George Osborne speaking in 2010. When you hear politicians talk about ‘tough choices’ or ‘painful decisions’ then you hear some of the rhetoric around fraud and social security, literally that’s a replica of a speech by George Osborne made in 2010.
“I’m really worried”, he added. “I don’t believe what we are hearing this week is going to inspire people around the sort of objectives that we have as a party of changing our society.”
Time for mcdonnell – and others – to jib smarmerist labour altogether.
In fact, it’s been that time for over four years.
What else was he expecting that shower o’ shite to say? You don’t need to be an mp of any years standing to have predicted their done-to-death garbage.
If I can predict it accurately, having got out many years ago, why dies mcdonnell (and the rest) still cling on, hoping they’ll come around?
How much more can we take of these greedie vultures it’s diabolical how they can do this under the guise of redtie those who did vote for them I wonder whot they think of it now hmm
Some years ago, Mark Steel joked:
Some MPs think anything is okay as long as it is declared:
“I did an armed robbery at a sub-post office once. But don’t worry, I have declared it”
Tony, can I have your address so I can report you to the police. Seriously if Starmer disclosed a donation of £10 million pounds from for instance Zionist Trevor Chinn and registered it in all the proper channels, would that be ok.