AFILM about how Jeremy Corbyn was targeted by a co-ordinated campaign to undermine his leadership of the Labour Party with false accusations of anti-semitism is now available online.
Oh Jeremy Corbyn — The Big Lie was due to be screened at last year’s Glastonbury festival but was dropped by organisers after they were hit by an online smear campaign which accused the film itself of anti-semitism.
From a small group of seasoned protesters, a lively and creative coalition of Jewish groups has come together to form a growing, visible bloc in solidarity with the Palestinians on all the protests against Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. RUTH LUKOM reports
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Our newly formed Jewish Bloc — including, among others, the Black-Jewish Alliance, Na’amod, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, the Jewish Socialists’ Group, Jewish Voice for Labour and Jewdas as well as individual Jews and activists who have come together — is now a recognised presence. No longer a curiosity.
We are getting an entirely different and sometimes quite moving response to what we have previously encountered. It is a combination of gratitude and relief as we have vindicated what everyone knew in their hearts: that what they were reading and hearing in mainstream media about British Jews being united on Israel and Palestine was a lie.
As more groups joined, our Jewish Bloc began organising more methodically. Someone knew a graphic designer and they came up with our watermelon/star logo, which has been picked up everywhere.
Before a mass demo, we talk online and arrange a meeting place which is put on to our Jewish Bloc logo and then circulated. Our numbers have grown — up to 1,000 on one demo. The people joining us are a combination of longstanding activists and other Jews who are horrified and angry at Israeli brutality but still wary of the mass protests because of the raw emotions, fear of hostility or uneasiness about the “river and sea” chants.
Since December the Jewish Bloc has met up each month with other comrades and friends for a Shabbat dinner, where we eat, drink, sing and dance with our group banners draped around the room.
But that’s just in London.
Around the country, in all the major cities, Jews are demonstrating as Jews. In Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool, Jews have joined the Palestine demos and organised vigils. Says Carla Bloom, a member of Na’amod in Brighton: “We demonstrate to all and sundry that it’s possible to be an ‘out’ Jew and not support Israel. We encourage other Jews to have the confidence to speak out against Israel — because the pro-ceasefire argument is strengthened when ‘even’ Jews espouse it.”
And Misha in Scotland says: “I will often march with a wider community group of Jewish people at the protests, or will visibilise myself as being Jewish through holding different signs. To believe in and act for Palestinian liberation is what my Judaism requires of me.
“The mainstream narrative, perpetuated by both global and mainstream British Jewish institutions, holds the belief that all Jews are zionists. I identify as Jewish at the demos to resist this narrative: to show that there is Jewish solidarity for Palestine; that there is a global community of Jews who stand in solidarity with Palestine and we are no less Jewish for this.”
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
“Today’s budget exposes a government that is blind to the scale of the crises we face. While private companies are taking home more profit than ever before, more than 4 million children live in poverty.”
Jeremy Corbyn MP
“Austerity is a political choice, not an economic necessity” – Jeremy Corbyn exclusive on #Budget24
Jeremy Corbyn MP writes for Labour Outlookon #Budget24.
This is what we said back in 2015, five years into a devastating programme of cuts and privatisation. We knew that austerity would decimate our public services, plunge millions into poverty and send our country into economic decline. It was true then – and it is true now.
Today’s budget exposes a government that is blind to the scale of the crises we face. While private companies are taking home more profit than ever before, more than 4 million children live in poverty. A quarter of a million people are homeless, while millions more languish on social housing waiting lists. Our NHS is on its knees after decades of austerity and privatisation.
Perhaps most alarmingly, we are sleepwalking toward a climate emergency. Make no mistake, the climate crisis is here, and we are running out of time to avoid total catastrophe. People in the Global South are already suffering the worst consequences – more and more people in this country will experience the devastating effects of air pollution, heatwaves and flooding.
The Tories’ economic experiment has failed – and they should not get off lightly. Parroting the language of austerity is a grave mistake, and represents a missed opportunity to bring about the transformative change this country needs. When there are more billionaires in this country than ever before, the idea that we cannot afford to build a fairer and greener society is absurd. We have the means to end poverty, pay our workers properly and save the planet. We just need the political will.
Millions of us still believe in a real alternative.
One that funds a fully-public NHS; austerity and privatisation are the causes of – not the solutions to – the healthcare crisis.
One that introduced rent controls and builds social housing; we will never tackle the housing emergency until we treat housing as a human right, and embark upon a huge council house-building programme.
One that invests in a Green New Deal to transform the economy and create thousands of green, unionised jobs.
One that scraps the 2-child benefits cap; this cruel and callous policy is a moral disgrace, and we could pay for the abolition of this policy seventeen times over with a 1-2% wealth tax on people with assets over £10 million.
One that brings energy, water, rail and mail into public ownership; privatisation has been a total disaster, and it’s time we stood up to the companies holding our country to ransom.
Our economy is not just broken. It is rigged in the interests of the few – and unless we fundamentally rewrite the rules of our economy, nothing will change. There’s nothing fiscally responsible about plunging millions of people into poverty or destroying our natural world. Why can’t we have the courage to campaign for a more joyful, equal and sustainable future?
As the MP for Islington North, I will continue to campaign alongside my community for a redistribution of wealth and power. For an economy that puts human need before corporate greed. For a society that cares for each other and cares for all.
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The Tory MP has been taken apart after deeming support for a 4-day week ‘socialist madness’
People have found it hard to see the common sense in Esther McVey’s recent attack on the four-day week, as Britain’s unofficially designation ‘common sense tsar’ has been taken apart for blasting support for the scheme as “socialist madness”.
In an opinion piece for the Express, Esther McVey attempted to demonise trade unions which she accused of “calling the shots over Labour” and took aim at the PCS union representing civil servants over its calls for a four-day working week.
She wrote that the “last thing the country needs” is a return to the “bad old days of union dominance with a weak Labour leader appeasing them”. Ironic given the current state of affairs 14 years of a Conservative government has left the country in.
The 4 Day Week Campaign organisation wrote a scathing response to McVey, blasting the MP for Tatton as out of touch with public opinion, whilst also thanking her for showing how many people actually want a four-day week through the responses to the article.
“Sometimes you can judge the success of an idea by the kind of person who rejects it,” the organisation wrote on X.
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
JEREMY CORBYN announced today that he is taking legal action against Nigel Farage for making “highly defamatory” comments.
The former Labour leader has instructed lawyers to take the first steps in legal proceedings against Mr Farage, after the GB News host made a “disgusting” statement about him on the network last week.
It is not specified what statement Mr Corbyn is referring to. However, it comes just days after Mr Farage aired a segment in which he accused Mr Corbyn of subscribing to an anti-semitic conspiracy theory.
