Left Rallies Behind Rebecca
The following union leaders all sent messages of support to Rebecca Long-Bailey:
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey,
CWU general secretary Dave Ward,
FBU general secretary Matt Wrack
BFAWU president Ian Hodson
McCluskey called her sacking by Keir Starmer: “an unnecessary over-reaction to a confected row.....Unity is too important to be risked like this.”
The Socialist Campaign Group of MPs: “made it clear that Rebecca Long-Bailey should not have been sacked and should be reinstated." Starmer remained intransigent.
They also pointed out that MPs and Party members should speak out against the Israeli government ahead of moves to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
The Socialist Campaign Group of Labour Councillors added: “We wish to record our appreciation of the good work which Rebecca Long-Bailey has conducted in her role with Labour’s education brief, including her resistance to the premature and unsafe wider opening of schools.
We call on Keir Starmer to issue a full and unequivocal apology to Rebecca Long-Bailey, and to reinstate her to her shadow cabinet position."
Momentum launched a petition for Rebecca’s reinstatement which gathered 10,000 signatures for her recall in the first 24 hours.
There was a trivial, insignificant error in Maxine Peake’s original wide-ranging article in the Independent. Long-Bailey ‘crime’ and sacking offence was to retweet the article. She suggested that US police learned the ‘knee on throat’ technique from the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). Though there is ample evidence of co-operation between the two security forces, including mutual visits and training sessions, it seems that the mainly white US police force developed the technique independently, for use against people of colour in particular. The IDF uses the same technique against Palestinians. Repression came up with the same technique in both cases independently of one another.
This small mistake has allowed Starmer to launch the preposterous smear that this was an “antisemitic conspiracy theory” and this is spread about by his now-servile Shadow Cabinet members. It is a pity that he is selective about which injustices he chooses to denounce. There is a mass of photographic evidence of the IDF using the ‘knee on throat’ technique. How can it possibly be ‘antisemitic’ to mention this?
The official labour Party Document No Place for Antisemitism states clearly that the battle against antisemitism: “Does not mean limiting legitimate criticism of the Israeli state or its policies or diluting support for the Palestinian people’s struggle for justice”.
The IDF is not the same as the millions of Jewish people, who live all over the world. Many of them are appalled by the treatment of the Palestinians as a subject people. Starmer seems to disagree with No Place for Antisemitism, and regards any criticism of the state of Israeli as taboo, and to be denounced automatically as antisemitic.
John McDonnell also defended Long-Bailey: “Throughout discussion of antisemitism it’s always been said criticism of practices of Israeli state is not antisemitic. I don’t believe therefore that this article is or Rebecca Long-Bailey should’ve been sacked. I stand in solidarity with her.”
Rebecca’s sacking was arbitrary and high handed. There is a strong suspicion that the real issue was not the retweeting of Maxine Peake’s article but a longstanding dispute on how quickly schools could be opened safely in the light of the coronavirus pandemic. Johnson’s incompetent Education Secretary Gavin Kennedy wanted to throw caution to the winds while the teaching profession, and the parents, were much more cautious in their approach. Starmer seems to be siding with the Tories, who regard human life as less important than returning to profitable business.
Richard Burgon suspects as much. He tweeted:” Becky did a great job as Shadow Education Secretary standing with unions against Tory attempts to force schools to reopen.
She has an important role to play in Labour’s future and I don’t think she should’ve been sacked for sharing the Independent’s interview with Maxine Peake.”
Education expert Melissa Benn remarked: “From the minute she took on the education brief Rebecca worked incredibly hard behind the scenes to master the complexities of our system, link up to a wide range of groups across the political spectrum. She was a listener, and anything but factional.”
Labour MP Zara Sultana added: “From her excellent work on the green industrial revolution to holding the government to account on its shambolic plans for reopening schools, I’m disappointed that Rebecca Long-Bailey has been removed from her shadow cabinet role.”
Dawn Foster comments in Jacobin: “Long-Bailey had already been sidelined by Starmer and the right of the party. Although education is one of the central issues affected by the coronavirus, she has been given little support or amplification. Starmer’s team briefed right-wing journalists that Long-Bailey was seen as ‘too close’ to teaching unions, which ‘gave ammunition’ to the Conservatives, they claimed.”
Starmer prefers sucking up to the Tories, whose handling of the pandemic has been lamentable, causing thousands of excess deaths. Backstabbing seems to be a standard feature of his team. Anonymous briefings and no due process or natural justice, in fact no trial at all for Rebecca – just an arbitrary sacking. Is that how Starmer carries out his promise during the leadership campaign to promote Party unity?
Kate Green was swiftly appointed over the weekend to replace Long-Bailey as Shadow Education Secretary. Starmer had a number of reasonable options for the position. He could have chosen former teacher Emma Hardy, already in the education team; Lucy Powell who has held the brief before; or someone recognisably on the Labour left to factionally rebalance the top team and give a nod to party unity after a rocky few days. But instead he plumped for a Fabian member and an MP who not only joined the mass resignation to undermine Corbyn in 2016 but also chaired challenger Owen Smith’s leadership campaign. This seems to be another clear signal that he is tacking sharply to the right and that his pronouncements about Party unity made during his leadership campaign were false.
This is an attempted coup. The left in the Labour Party must mobilise and fight back.
