Britain: The Livingstone-Standard controversy

We publish this article by Alon Lessel in Israel on the recent suspension of Ken Livingstone by the unelected Adjudication Panel. Since writing this article last week, the High Court has blocked Livingstone’s suspension allowing him time to prepare his appeal.

Today, the Adjudication Panel, an unelected “government watchdog”, suspended Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, for four weeks starting March 1 on the grounds that he brought his office into disrepute. This was supposedly due to remarks he made to a reporter of the reactionary Evening Standard, in which he compared the reporter – who, apparently unknown to Livingstone, was Jewish – to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

The fact that a small body of unelected officials (the Adjudication Panel has three members) can suspend an elected official from office is yet another example of how political power in Britain is passing into the hands of unelected and unaccountable organisations. Elected officials don’t have to break the law to receive a suspension, they simply have to “breach their code of conduct”. The panel even has the power to disqualify people from holding public office for up to five years.

This is not the first time that Livingstone has clashed with the Evening Standard. The paper has attempted many times to smear Livingstone in the past, including claiming at one time – with no basis whatsoever – that he had manhandled his pregnant girlfriend and fought with a man at a party. This charge was dismissed after two completely different statements were made by alleged victims.

The actual exchange

One year ago Oliver Finegold, a reporter for The Evening Standard, attempted to interview Livingstone as he was leaving a party celebrating the 20^th anniversary of Labour MP Chris Smith’s 'coming out', the first openly homosexual member of parliament. Familiar with the paper's homophobia, Livingstone was obviously hostile towards the reporter.

This is the transcript of the actual conversation that took place:

Oliver Finegold: "Mr Livingstone, Evening Standard. How did it ..."

Ken Livingstone: "Oh, how awful for you."

Finegold: "How did tonight go?"

Livingstone: "Have you thought of having treatment?"

Finegold: "How did tonight go?"

Livingstone: "Have you thought of having treatment?"

Finegold: "Was it a good party? What does it mean for you?"

Livingstone: "What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal?"

Finegold: "No, I'm Jewish. I wasn't a German war criminal."

Livingstone: "Ah ... right."

Finegold: "I'm actually quite offended by that. So, how did tonight go?"

Livingstone: "Well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard. You're just doing it 'cause you're paid to, aren't you?"

Finegold: "Great. I've you on record for that. So how did tonight go?"

Livingstone: "It's nothing to do with you because your paper is a load of scumbags."

Finegold: "How did tonight go?"

Livingstone: "It's reactionary bigots ..."

Finegold: "I'm a journalist. I'm doing my job."

Livingstone: "... and who supported fascism."

Finegold: "I'm only asking for a simple comment. I'm only asking for a comment."

Livingstone: "Well, work for a paper that isn't ..."

Finegold: "I'm only asking for a comment."

Livingstone: " ... that had a record of supporting fascism."

Finegold: "You've accused me ..."

There is nothing anti-Semitic about this exchange, nor has anyone explained how what Livingstone said is anti-Semitic. The transcript above merely shows that Livingstone was expressing his disdain for a reporter, who happens to be Jewish (something that doesn't make him any less reactionary), for a tabloid whose homophobia is well known.

Cynical reactionary propaganda

The attempt to present Livingstone as some sort of anti-Semite is ridiculous, not least of all because of those who made this accusation. Mayor Livingstone is well known for his sympathy for Jews and for his hatred of fascism. The Evening Standard and more specifically, its sister tabloid The Daily Mail, are well-known for quite different things altogether.

The Daily Mail was first published by Alfred and Harold Harmsworth (who later became Lord Northcliffe and Lord Rothermore, respectively) in 1896. It was radically imperialist and militaristic, and strongly supported British imperialism, so much so that before World War I, the paper was accused of warmongering.

In 1924, the tabloid published the 'Zinoviev Letter', a forged document supposedly written by Comintern leader Gregory Zionoviev, in which a conspiracy to launch a violent revolution is elaborated. This letter is believed to have been instrumental in the victory of the Conservatives in the elections that year.

In the 1930s, The Mail enthusiastically supported both the British and German fascists. It is, in fact, the only British newspaper that continued to give consistent support to the Nazi Party right up until the beginning of World War II. It also published an article by Rothermore called 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts' (the British fascists), in which Oswald Mosley, their leader, was praised for his "sound, commonsense, conservative doctrine".

The Mail's support for these Jew-haters hardly surprised anyone: from the beginning the newspaper opposed Jewish immigration, and strongly condemned the coming of Jews to England after Hitler's rise to power.

The international campaign against the Left, and the role of Zionism

It is therefore quite cynical for The Evening Standard to call anyone an anti-Semite. However, the right wing is no stranger to cynicism. A month and a half ago, the reactionary Simon Wiesenthal Center attempted to discredit Venezuela's left-wing President Hugo Chavez by charging him with anti-Semitism. They based themselves on a Christmas Eve speech by Chavez, in which he said: "The world has enough for all, but it turned out that some minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ […] took the world’s riches for themselves."

Coincidentally, this quote left out a big part of the speech, in which Chavez said things that prove that this was in no way intended as an anti-Semitic speech. The complete text of what he said is as follows:

“The world has an offer for everybody but it turned out that a few minorities – the descendants of those who crucified Christ, the descendants of those who expelled Bolivar from here and also those who in a certain way crucified him in Santa Marta, there in Colombia – they took possession of the riches of the world, a minority took possession of the planet’s gold, the silver, the minerals, the water, the good lands, the oil, and they have concentrated all the riches in the hands of a few; less than 10 percent of the world population owns more than half of the riches of the world."

One Rabbi, Arthur Waskow, said, "I know of no one who accuses the Jews of fighting against Bolivar, and certainly I – and most Jews – teach that it was the Roman Empire, and Roman soldiers, who crucified Jesus". Chavez was clearly arguing that the forces of imperialism were responsible for taking the possessions of the world and concentrating them in their hands – not Jews. He was also clearly not making the anti-Semitic argument that Jews crucified Christ, but that it was the Roman Empire – the great imperialists of the age. He was equating the Roman Empire that crucified Jesus Christ, who Chavez considers to be revolutionary, with the imperialists and capitalists who expelled Bolivar. This was not an anti-Semitic attack, but an attack on imperialism.

This is not to mention the fact that the main organisation of Venezuelan Jews was furious at the Center for interfering in its business – and not for the first time, as president of the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela (CAIV), Fred Pressner, noted. The organisation rightfully blamed the Center for misrepresenting Chavez and for not consulting them. A draft of a letter they sent to the Center said: "You have interfered in the political status, in the security, and in the well-being of our community. You have acted on your own, without consulting us, on issues that you don't know or understand."

As we see, the cynicism of the right-wingers, former supporters of those who have oppressed and murdered Jews for years now, knows no bounds. However, things are changing in our world. The defence of the Venezuelan Jews of their president is honest and obviously reflects the fact that they, at least, believe him to not be anti-Semitic at all.

In all this, the Zionists have played quite a nefarious role. The Center is radically Zionist and has been at the service of the imperialists whenever they need a battering ram against the left. This is in line with Zionist policy since Herzel: support the worst anti-Semites, seeing as they have the greatest interest in getting rid of all Jews in their country, in order to obtain support for Zionism.

Who's the Anti-Semite?

Upon reading the exchange between Livingstone and the Evening Standard journalist, any intelligent person would have to ask himself, as one reporter did, how calling someone a Nazi concentration camp guard in a derogatory fashion constitutes anti-Semitism. Also, Livingstone has made his anti-fascist views quite clear over a number of years. He has made quite a few anti-Nazi and anti-racist remarks that testify to the fact that he is definitely not anti-Semitic.

For example, in the March 4, 2005 edition of The Guardian, he wrote:

“Racism is a uniquely reactionary ideology, used to justify the greatest crimes in history— the slave trade, the extermination of all original inhabitants of the Caribbean, the elimination of every native inhabitant of Tasmania, apartheid. The Holocaust was the ultimate, "industrialised" expression of racist barbarity.

“Racism serves as the cutting edge of the most reactionary movements. An ideology that starts by declaring one human being inferior to another is the slope whose end is at Auschwitz. That is why I detest racism.”

What Livingstone is detested for, however, is his past criticism of capitalism and imperialism (not his present day policies). In an interview in NME magazine in April 2000, he said that, "Every year the international financial system kills more people than World War Two. But at least Hitler was mad, you know?" Speaking on Irish Radio in August 1983, he said that what Britain did to the Irish was, "Worse than what Hitler did to the Jews". There are many more examples.

This plot then to slander anyone on the left as anti-Semites is a joke, especially coming from the European right-wing which has its own history of anti-Semitism. Today, however, since the Holocaust has made anti-Semitism quite unpleasant business, even for these reactionaries, they have new scapegoats: the European Muslims. All the old trash is there: “Muslims control the economy and oil”, “the media is pro-Muslim”, “Muslims are ruining Western culture”, and so on. Racism has not changed at all, nor has it lessened. It simply has changed its target and has new Zionist agents who, after selling their people to the Nazis in the first part of the 20^th century, moved on to oppressing and slandering the progressives in the latter part of it.

We fully condemn this hypocritical right-wing attack on Ken Livingstone. It is blown out of all proportion and is based on utterly distorting what he said. We have no illusions in Livingstone; he is in no way a Marxist, of course. Since being elected Mayor of London he has clearly moved away from his past left rhetoric. But he is still seen by many as a left-winger, he still comes out occasionally with statements condemning the policies of imperialism. He was very popular in London when he was seen as the anti-Blair candidate. His popularity, when he was first elected, shows just what kind of support the Labour Party could have if it based itself on fighting privatisation rather than supporting it.

In the last few years, however, it is Livingstone that has moved closer to the Blairites, at least in the way he has been running London. The fact that the Blairite leadership of Labour has accepted him back into the party ranks indicates that they can do business with him. In spite of this, at least internationally, Livingstone still maintains an aura about him of being a “Left”. The right wing's campaign, particularly here in Israel, merely exposes the latter's completely anti-democratic and hypocritical nature, and has very little to do with the real figure of Livingstone.

February 25, 2006

Note:

Since writing this article, the High Court has blocked Livingstone’s suspension allowing him time to prepare his appeal. Livingstone argued that the tribunal should not be able to suspend an elected official who did not break the law.