Diane Abbott, the longstanding left-wing MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, has spent her life and career both facing racism and fighting it. Now, however, she is under investigation by Labour officials, and has had the party whip removed, due to accusations that she herself is guilty of racism.
This latest furore was provoked by a letter that Abbott wrote in the Observer, which Keir Starmer and the rest of the Labour right wing have labelled as antisemitic.
Regardless of the letter’s contents, it is clear that the right wing have been waiting for such an excuse to push out Abbott – a stalwart of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, and a loyal ally of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
As with Corbyn before her, ‘Sir’ Keir Starmer has jumped on Abbott’s comments in order to attack the left and send a clear signal to the ruling class: that the Corbyn years are now in the distant past; that the right wing are firmly back in the saddle; and that Labour is once again a safe pair of hands for the capitalist establishment.
Whose side are you on?
Charges of racism from Starmer and the right wing are stinking hypocrisy; nothing but political showcasing, designed to undermine the Labour left.
In reality, Starmer and the Blairites couldn’t give a damn about fighting racism, bigotry, and discrimination. Instead, as ever, they are cynically weaponising the issue of antisemitism, using any available excuse as a convenient stick with which to beat the left.
Abbott, Corbyn, and the rest of the Labour left have a proud history of struggling against racism in all its forms. Starmer’s Labour, by contrast, has demonstrated time and time again that it stands not on the side of the oppressed, but with the oppressors.
At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, for example, Starmer quickly distanced himself from activists and demonstrators, whilst offering little more than tokenistic gestures such as taking the knee.
In fact, rather than focussing their fire on the racism of the ruling class, the Labour right wing openly came out against BLM protestors, joining the Tories’ chorus of condemnation against those who pulled down the statue of slave-trader Edward Colston in Bristol. So much for being the party of opposition!
Rotten police
Parroting the Tories seems to be a common theme for Starmer – as his recent efforts to present Labour as the ‘party of law and order’ demonstrate.
Not only have Starmer and the right wing consistently praised the police, but they have also echoed the Tories when it comes to racist migration policies.
This again shows the rank hypocrisy of the Labour leadership’s move to discipline Abbott and Corbyn on the grounds of racism.
A string of scandals have shown the police to be inherently corrupt, racist, and sexist. And yet Starmer and his cronies have said nothing of these crimes and abuses.
Instead, Labour is promising more police on the streets, with more funding. Furthermore, ‘Sir’ Starmer, the establishment’s knight in shining armour, has pledged to restore confidence in this fundamentally rotten institution.
The role of the police is not to protect us, but to uphold capitalism’s status quo of exploitation and oppression; to defend the bosses and their property, not the vulnerable.
Anyone genuinely interested in fighting racism should be fighting to overthrow capitalism and its state apparatus, not strengthening the ‘long arm of the law’.
Manufactured crisis
The recent Forde inquiry, ‘The Labour Files’, and the infamous leaked report have all categorically proven that the right wing’s hysterical smear campaign over antisemitism has always been just that: a manufactured crisis, designed to drive Corbyn and his supporters out of the party.
Plenty of evidence exists to show how the Blairites and the capitalist press whipped up a frenzy over Labour’s supposed ‘antisemitism crisis’ under Corbyn.
Indeed, according to research by Jewish Voice for Labour, Jewish members have faced more of a hostile environment inside the party under Starmer’s regime.
But why let the facts get in the way of a good story! Especially when this story provides such a useful fig-leaf for attacking socialists and left-wingers!
End racism! End capitalism!
Honest workers and youth can see right through these lies and slanders. It is clear to everyone that Starmer and his allies are not interested in fighting oppression, but only in fighting the left, on behalf of the capitalist class.
We must have no trust in Starmer and a future Labour government under the leadership of him and his ilk – the agents of big business and the racist ruling class.
Instead, we say: Solidarity with Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn, and all the victims of the Labour purge!
For those with a genuine desire to end racism and oppression: join the Marxists, get organised, and help us in the revolutionary struggle to end capitalism!
