The byelection result in Rochdale is a huge rebuff to the political establishment. The Workers Party of Britain chose to make campaigning for the end of the Israel genocide of the inhabitants of Gaza a key point of its programme and this has found strong resonance amongst the voters in the constituency who elected George Galloway of the WPB as their MP on Thursday 29^th February with a nearly 6000 majority. This journal has been pointing out how public opinion in British ‘liberal democracy’ is manipulated and how dissenting opinion is suppressed. The calls for suppression grow every more blatant. Here is a very recent example from an ex-Home Secretary:

“They started with the Jews; there were stern words of disapproval from the top but things only got worse. The Islamist cranks and Left-wing extremists then took control of the streets; the police looked meekly on. They harassed teachers through the courts; our human rights and equalities laws were used against us. They threatened to kill an MP; he decided, justifiably, to leave public life. A respected peer, Lord Austin spoke out against terrorism and Islamism; he was suspended from a job he loves. They have hijacked a by-election in a deprived town in northern England. We see their influence in our judiciary, our legal profession and our universities.” (Suella Braverman writing in the Telegraph, 22^nd February 2024).

Who ‘They’ are is deliberately left unclear. A natural human reaction to witnessing the slaughter of women and children is to take steps to stop it happening by putting pressure on our government which bears a great deal of responsibility for what is happening in Gaza. The size and frequency of these marches makes it clear that they are drawn from large sections of the population who have looked on with horror and disgust at the genocide that our government and opposition are supporting. These are the ‘Islamist cranks and Left-wing extremists’ of Braverman’s abusive article. Police upholding a civic right to peacefully protest are criticised for ‘meekly’ looking on. Braverman would obviously have preferred mass arrests and violence against people exercising their right to demonstrate. When our laws are used for a purpose that she does not like they are ‘used against us’. When the population of a northern town exercise their right to vote for the MP of their choice in a fairly fought by-election, that by-election has been ‘hijacked’ by the Workers Party and its supporters. Note the snide implication that the voters have been led by the nose because they live in a ‘deprived’ constituency. Clearly, according to Braverman they are too ‘deprived’ to make a considered choice of their own.

Let’s turn to the Labour Party and its leadership. First the Labour Party accepted the equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. That crucial error was made already at the time of Corbyn’s leadership, to be used against Corbyn. Statements against Zionists were interpreted as anti-Semitic. Then statements and actions that conflicted with the wishes of Zionists were interpreted as anti-Semitic. Both the Labour leadership and the Tories have accepted this slippage in meanings thus validating the twisted logic that lies behind it. However there is a problem. British public opinion, according to this account of anti-Semitism, is deeply anti-Semitic. A YouGov poll conducted at the end of 2023 found that 71% of the British public supported an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza conflict, the very proposition that the mass marches last year and this year were campaigning for. 61% of Conservative voters and 76% of Labour voters believe that Israel should be prepared to enter peace negotiations with Hamas. Perhaps Braverman thinks that they should all be arrested and charged for supporting a terrorist organisation. Clearly the Tories are way out of line with public opinion on the issue including the opinion of their own voters.

But the Labour Party finds itself in a much worse situation. Since support of Palestinian rights and aspirations is deemed ‘anti-Semitic’ and Starmer and his cronies have vowed to root out anti-Semitism from the Labour Party, their job is far from complete. Having purged much of the left from the Labour Party on the grounds that they were anti-Semitic, they find themselves still infested with anti-Semites! Starmer has clearly failed in his primary objective of making the Labour Party electable again by eliminating ‘anti-Semitism’ from its ranks. He is in poor shape to criticise Rishi Sunak for failing to meet his pledges. What is more, there is no way that he can do so without setting himself at odds with the great majority of Labour voters. We don’t have numbers for Labour Party members’ support for an immediate ceasefire, but it would be safe to assume that it would not be too far from the figures amongst Labour voters. ‘Anti-Semitism’ looks set to stay in the Labour Party and short of purging the majority of its members there is nothing that Starmer can do about it.

The Labour Party finds itself in this ridiculous position because Starmer decided to steer it back into the Imperialist fold from which it had briefly and hesitatingly strayed under Corbyn’s leadership. The Labour leadership has always been imperialist, but the party attracts members whose commitment to full-blooded American imperialism can sometimes be half-hearted. Without these members however, Labour cannot preserve the fiction of being a party of opposition as opposed to being what it actually is: the opposite number to the Tories in a Kabuki theatre of pretend democratic politics. Starmer must have thought it was a brilliant idea to get rid of the Left by tainting them with the ‘anti-Semitism’ smear. He has now made himself a failure on his own terms and disgusted a large part of the electorate with his antics. Rochdale is a powerful symbol of that disgust. Come the general election there will be many Labour voters who will stay at home or vote for a more principled party such as the Workers Party where a candidate is available. 

Braverman’s obnoxious communal politics are a barely concealed call for police repression and Islamophobia. Starmer shelters behind politicians who sink that low but his views are essentially the same.