Who is the Labour Party’s “witchfinder general”?

Labour’s “witchfinder general” Maggie Cosin (right) poses with Blairite lawmaker Liz Kendall, who would later come last place in the leadership contest that Jeremy Corbyn won by a landslide. (Facebook)

Asa Winstanley- 31 May 2018

Veteran anti-racist, former mayor of London and Labour giant Ken Livingstone resigned in May from the party to which he had devoted his adult life.

But the very same day, another high-profile leftist purged from Labour put the party on notice he would be taking his case to the high court.

Marc Wadsworth’s case highlights how the party’s disciplinary apparatus is being used to purge members falsely accused of anti-Semitism, many of them supporters of Palestinian rights.

Wadsworth announced at a meeting in Bristol that his lawyer had written to General Secretary Jennie Formbygiving Labour two weeks to re-admit him or expect a legal challenge to his expulsion.

The letter came as Wadsworth was on a national speaking tour calling for his reinstatement.

After the expulsion of Wadsworth in April, it became clear to many activists that Livingstone had little chance of receiving a fair hearing.

So in May, after two years of suspension over supposed anti-Semitism, Livingstone said the controversy over his continuing membership had become a “distraction” to getting the party led by Jeremy Corbyn back into government.

Livingstone said that had he fought expulsion, his case would have dragged on “for months or even years, distracting attention from Jeremy’s policies.”

Corbyn himself said it was a sad moment but it was the “right thing to do”.

Media circus

Livingstone’s statement reiterated that he did “not accept the allegation that I have brought the Labour Party into disrepute – nor that I am in any way guilty of anti-Semitism.”

But he went further in apologizing than he had ever done before, saying he recognized “that the way I made a historical argument has caused offense and upset in the Jewish community. I am truly sorry for that.”

In April 2016, Livingstone had been asked in a BBC radio interview if a Labour lawmaker’s online posting about Hitler’s actions being “legal” had been anti-Semitic.

In reply, he raised the 1933 Haavara agreement between the Nazi government and the Zionist Federation of Germany, saying it amounted to Hitler “supporting Zionism” by transferring Jews to Palestine.

In contrast to Livingstone’s contentious, but broadly accurate historical comments, the event that got Marc Wadsworth expelled was far more clear cut – it was based on a totally fabricated version of his comments, eagerly adopted by a frenzied media circus.

In June 2016, right-wing Labour lawmaker and former Israel lobby spin doctor Ruth Smeeth falsely claimed Wadsworth had accused her at a public event of a “media conspiracy” – a fabricated quotation.

Almost two years later, she deleted the press release containing these claims from her website – but refused to correct it, and continued to repeat her false claims in media interviews. She later reposted the press release, misleadingly backdating it as if it had never been deleted.

Due to the strength of Wadsworth’s case on the facts, many activists expected the Labour Party disciplinary hearing to exonerate him.

But it didn’t. Why? And who was behind the ruling?

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