A landmark Rally for Free Speech

The Rally and Speeches

On December 12th, I spoke at an event organised by the Left Labour Alliance (LLA) and Labour against the Witch-hunt (LAW).  The organisers invited two non-Labour speakers, including Craig Murray (SNP) and myself (Lib Dem), in recognition of the fact that the McCarthyistic antisemitism witch-hunt is not just a problem for Labour but for our entire country.

I said some tough things about both Labour and Lib Dems and recommended an inclusive cross-party campaign to counter the appalling dishonesty that has taken hold of the UK and particularly in our mainstream media. I was a bit apprehensive at first, but the 22 people who made positive comments in the chat bar told me I had struck a chord.  You can read my 10-minute speech HERE, or watch it HERE starting at 34 minutes into the clip.  There were fifteen other interesting speakers between morning and afternoon sessions.  Craig Murray started at 1:19 minutes 20 secs, and ended with an interesting quip: “I have never been in the Labour Party but have many friends who have been thrown out of it”. 

Murky shenanigans follow

Hard-line supporters of Israel seem also to have noticed my speech, and on December 22nd I learned from an article in the Jewish Chronicle (JC) that I was under investigation from the Lib Dem Party.  The JC incorrectly described me as ‘a spokesperson’ for Bromley Liberal Democrats. 

Significantly, I had not heard about this from the Party’s ‘Standards Office’ and had to write to ask what was happening; this was not the first time the JC has had information on complaints before the person complained about.  The complainant must have deliberately tipped off the JC – in contravention of the confidentiality requirements set out in the Party’s disciplinary procedures.  Since then another pro-Israeli organisation, the so-called 'Campaign against Antisemitism' (CAA), has picked up the story and posted a similar piece which turned up on social media in my borough.

I have now examined the complaint and find it has no substance, so have asked the Standards Office to dismiss it out of hand.   However, I consider the person who leaked to have already caused me reputational damage. Every time an organisation like the JC or the CAA posts a piece saying that the party is investigating me, they imply I have done something wrong (i.e. antisemitic). 

It is likely the JC, the CAA and other pro-Israeli players will follow a well-worn path and seek to whip up a media frenzy to bully the Lib Dems into taking a ‘zero-tolerance approach’ towards me.  If this happens, I hope the Party will stand its ground and not act precipitously as it did after the House of Lords meeting of October 25th 2016 which was chaired by the (then) Lib Dem peer Baroness. Jenny Tonge. 

A case study on censorship within the Lib Dem party

I have done much of my free speech advocacy within the Liberal Democrat party, and for two reasons.  Firstly, I am a party member and committed Europhile, and secondly Lib Dems are broadly representative of the large ‘centre ground of British politics’ that needs to be on board if we are to stand up for free speech and unfettered debate in the UK. 

However, when it comes to topics the Lib Dem leadership deems ‘sensitive’, such as alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party, the party reflects the nation’s ills.  Rather than question the evidence-lite narrative parroted by the mainstream media, a succession of party leaders has chosen to take the path of least resistance and endorse it.   But worse than this, the party establishment has outlawed discussion of the topic on internal discussion platforms.

I now provide a case study that proves my assertion beyond all reasonable doubt.  You can see the full document below, but here is a summary.  In mid-2020 the Lib Dems instituted what in principle was a groundbreaking innovation: the ‘Policy Lab’, an online forum where people could submit policy ‘ideas’ and have them discussed and voted on by members.  The most popular ones would then feed into the party’s formal policymaking process via the Federal Policy Committee (FPC). 

I tried to submit an ‘idea’ called ‘Let's get serious about press reform and freedom of expression’, but the platform administrator (Greg Foster) took it down within three hours, citing some very weak reasons.   

But this was only the last in a series of such cases.  Since June 2019, a group of party members to which I belonged had been trying to get the antisemitism allegations fully debated, indeed scrutinised, on the party’s various online and other discussion forums. In practice however, our postings were either disallowed, or heavily censored, by no less than eight Lib Dem entities, including LibDemVoice, three Lib Dem Facebook pages, Liberal International British Group (LIBG), Liberal Reform and the periodical Liberator (and in several hustings).  

The worst case was the ‘Lib Dem Policy Debate Facebook Group’ where, on 13 June 2019, a small group of party activists and position-holders assaulted us with serious verbal abuse including four-letter words.  We submitted two formal complaints to the party standards officers, but they kicked them into the long grass and let the culprits enjoy impunity.  

As a last step, I raised the matter in writing with Daisy Cooper, Lib Dem MP for St Albans, in the hope that she would act.  She had formerly been joint Executive Director of the Hacked Off Campaign, and understood the mainstream media’s role in misinforming the public on many issues, so I thought the topic would be close to her heart. 

Daisy responded on Nov 11th without  comment, except to say she had passed the matter to the Lib Dem Headquarters.  Since then, I have heard nothing back and, given my prior experience with HQ, do not expect to.  It is for this reason that I am now publishing the full case on my blog.

Does this really matter?

It matters a lot. What concerns me more than the allegations of ‘antisemitism’ is freedom of expression, in the party and the country as a whole.  If the party censors discussion on one so-called sensitive topic, it can do so on others – and it is already doing so, as I have learn from those engaged in the debate on Trans rights.  The problem is that once the party has the tools of censorship, it can wheel them out any time it wishes to suppress discussion - maybe in the event of a war.  

Lib Dems are justly proud that their party, under the leadership of Charles Kennedy, opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  However, longer-standing members remember that Lib Dem opposition to the Iraq War was a last minute and close-run decision, accompanied by considerable hand-wringing from a timid party establishment, nervous about tabloid press disapproval and accusations of 'unpatriotic behaviour'.  Given this background, it is vital that Lib Dems do not hand party functionaries like Greg the power to stifle legitimate debate. 

But of even more importance is way Lib Dems are normalising misinformation in Britain’s centre ground, and thereby letting off the hook the rightward-leaning Labour party establishment led by Keir Starmer.  Starmer and colleagues have cynically used the media-driven ‘antisemitism row’ as a stick with which to batter left-wing rivals and members, including many Jewish people who are critical of Israel.  At the time of writing, the most recent case was the suspension of Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, a very principled and professional activist with whom I am well acquainted.  The Lib Dem leadership ought to be calling out the McCarthyistic witch-hunt that is currently taking place within Labour, but it is in reality behaving like the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, “passing by on the other side”.



Julian Assange's case exposes British hypocrisy on press freedom

Peter Oborne’s recent article exposes some of the worst contradictions.

Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, used World Press Freedom Day to express his support for free speech, but has remained silent about persecution of reporters in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.  Meanwhile Raab’s cabinet colleague Oliver Dowden sent the BBC a menacing letter complaining about the Panorama documentary of 27 April that exposed shortages of PPE and expressed legitimate concern about Covid-19 deaths among health workers.   

But nothing shows the emptiness of Raab’s claims more than the government’s treatment of Julian Assange, whose real crime is to have practiced journalism, by shining a light on the way the world truly works. 

Equally hypocritical are the British newspaper barons. While they endlessly defend themselves against any regulation that would limit their ability to peddle misinformation and pry on peoples’ private lives, they look the other way when it comes to Julian Assange.

Read Peter Oborne’s article here

Authoritarian and illiberal; Lib Dems must do better

Authors: members of the LibDems4freespeech group: Jonathan Coulter, Peter Downey, John Hall, Roger Higginson, Mike Jones, Dr Thomas Hugh Manning, Pamela Manning, Denis Mollison, John Payne, Penny Rivers, Jeanette Sunderland, Denise Watkins and Dr Rodney Watts. Based on this article in Middle East Monitor, Dec 5th 2019

We are a group of Liberal Democrats committed to free speech, particularly concerning Israel and Palestine. 

On 16th September, we used this Open Democracy article  to ask our leaders to distance themselves from the constant antisemitism smears against Labour.  Tim Farron had started by welcoming “Jewish people who feel alienated by the Labour Party”, while Vince Cable, Jo Swinson and others went on giving credence to the smears.  

Three things that happened in the weeks before the election have driven us to comment further on this:

  1. on November 13-14th, just as nominations were closing, the leadership sought to corral PPCs into endorsing the IHRA “working definition” on antisemitism.  The Editor of Lib Dem Voice (Caron Lindsay) supported with this post that contains two clips, one with Luciana Berger claiming to have suffered large-scale antisemitism and misogyny within the Labour Party, and the other where Jo Swinson presses PPCs to sign up. 

  2. on November 24th, we were dismayed to read a leaflet where the Lib-Dem PPC for Gateshead, as if heeding the leader's advice, uses selected newspaper quotes to accuse Labour of failing to tackle antisemitism. 

  3. on November 26th, Jo spoke in support of the Chief Rabbi’s outburst, in which he said that “a new poison - sanctioned from the very top - has taken root" in the Labour party.  

We find this deeply problematic, for the following reasons.

The leadership is prioritising party line over evidence-based discussion

Jo has continuously failed to discuss hard statistical evidence, aptly summed up in this illustration by Alan Maddison, challenging repeated assertions that antisemitism is rampant in the Labour Party.  

Four+years+rampant+AS.jpg

The IHRA definition picks up on some genuine concerns about antisemitic discourse, but Israel and its supporters have mobilised it as a smoke-screen, with the aim of shielding Israel from criticism about its dispossession and oppression of native Palestinians. Regardless of caveats about “protecting free speech”, the IHRA definition has created an environment where public figures run for cover and/or opt for self-censorship rather than criticise Israel, as Antony Lerman demonstrates in The Independent.

On May 31st of this year, twelve of us addressed Jo an “Open Letter” raising these issues, but at no time has she sought to discuss them.  She has instead reacted in an authoritarian manner, pressing PPCs to sign up to a party line that she herself is unwilling to debate.

All ears for Luciana Berger, but none for dissenting Jewish voices

Jo has likewise ignored the voices of the approximately 41% of British Jews who are not Zionist[1].  Many have expressed themselves in letters to the Guardian and on websites like Free Speech on Israel.   But Jo only has ears for people like Luciana who has been at the heart of the pro-Israel lobby since she was a student, occupying top posts in Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM).  JLM is not an organisation for all Jews, but only for those who support Zionism, the doctrine behind the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Luciana has certainly received antisemitic abuse, but this carefully-researched article provides evidence that she has been economical with the truth, intentionally blurring the distinction between abuse from the left and the far right, as part of a politically-motivated campaign to defame Labour Party members.   Four of the six people convicted of antisemitic threats and abuses against Luciana (and all three jailed) were far-right extremists; yet she seems determined to paint the abuse as a mainly left-wing phenomenon.

Party discussion platforms are toeing the party line

LibDemVoice is supposed to be “a neutral platform where the views of all members are welcome” but in this case it has simply peddled the party line, only allowing a single comment and making it difficult for PPCs to consider the pros and cons of signing the pledge. 

This is not the only time LibDemVoice has censored posts and comments on Israel and Palestine, a policy Caron Lindsay justifies by saying that the topic “brings more heat than light”.  But she fails to point out that most of the “heat” comes from pro-Israeli elements who routinely avoid discussing the evidence and resort to attacking the personal qualities of those advancing evidence, as can be seen from this thread. 

All this comes on top of what happened when we first put forward our ideas back in June.  We were shut out of all party discussion platforms, and on one platform, several party activists and officers treated us, and others, to troll-like abuse, including f-words – with impunity. 

Finally, we appeal to the party to stay true to liberal and democratic principles, which means:

  1. ending internal censorship and opening up discussion forums to proper debate;

  2. leaders making sure their arguments are evidence-based, and insisting party members do likewise, and;

  3. a consistent approach to the media: a party that supports Justice Leveson’s recommendation for independent press regulation to protect the public and uphold press freedom must oppose the press acting as a conduit for a tsunami of unsubstantiated allegations about antisemitism.

[1] According to the House Affairs Select Committee report on Antisemitism, of 2016, para 28.

LibDems4freeseech declaration at people's vote march

Authors: Peter Downey, Jonathan Coulter, Pamela and Hugh Manning 

We are a group of 13 Lib Dems, some of who are here to demonstrate against Boris Johnson’s Brexit, an absurd and damaging proposition, largely rooted in press misreporting in the early 90s, when the self-same Boris was The Telegraph’s correspondent in Brussels and using his position to propagate a series of Euromyths.

At the same time, we are concerned that many politicians, including our own Lib Dem leaders, have embraced an unfounded proposition that there is rampant antisemitism in the Labour Party.

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Lib Dem members: party line on Labour anti-Semitism is ‘ill-judged and uncritical‘ →

We are a group of Liberal Democrats proud of the recent growth in support for our party, but seriously concerned that our leaders’ repeated utterances about alleged antisemitism have not been based on sound evidence. We have tried to raise this issue with them and get it discussed within the party, but much to our disappointment, have encountered a total refusal, as if the topic were taboo. The experience has led us to publish this article.

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