Red Tories’ chaos deepens as second candidate dumped over Israel comments – and party’s Westminster polling falls

The second parliamentary candidate to be suspended by Labour in a matter of days for ‘antisemitic’ comments was given a gushing endorsement by a senior Jewish Labour Movement figure.

Graham Jones trumpeted the backing of Ruth Smeeth – now Anderson – last year while he was seeking selection to stand for Labour in Haslingden and Hyndburn. She referred to him as a ‘true ally’ in her fight against ‘antisemitism’:

Oops.

Anderson was one of the most prominent faces in the creation and propagation of the so-called ‘Labour antisemitism crisis’ after falsely accusing left activist Marc Wadsworth of claiming she was part of a ‘media conspiracy – video evidence showed he had said no such thing, but that didn’t stop her storming out of a meeting and marching with a ‘lynch mob‘ that to the party hearing that drove Wadsworth out of Labour:

Author and investigative journalist Asa Winstanley wrote last year:

Ruth Smeeth MP had good reason to delete the post [claiming Black activist Marc Wadsworth had used an antisemitic smear toward her at a Labour event] —the idea that Marc Wadsworth had said she was part of a “media conspiracy” was completely untrue. Importantly, he did not make any kind of anti-Jewish comment. In fact, he didn’t refer to Smeeth’s Jewishness in any way—he later clarified that he hadn’t even known she was Jewish. Wadsworth replied to Smeeth’s false allegations in a statement the same day, describing them as “poisonous slander.” He said her claims played “into a Jewish media conspiracy theory that I utterly reject and have never espoused.”

Wadsworth’s instincts about Smeeth “working hand in hand” with the right-wing press to overthrow Corbyn were totally correct. Only three days earlier Smeeth had played her own minor part in the coup attempt against Corbyn. She announced on Twitter “with a heavy heart” that she was resigning from a junior role in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. It was timed to coincide with a series of resignations by dozens of hostile MPs, in a failed attempt to force him to resign. They came after the no-confidence vote tabled by Margaret Hodge and the firing of Hilary Benn, another right-wing shadow minister Corbyn had fruitlessly attempted to bring on board as part of his abortive “big church” approach.

But unlike Wadsworth and the others, as a journalist reporting on the UK’s pro-Israel lobby, I happened to be pretty well acquainted with Smeeth’s work.

I wrote a story about her in 2014, when she was selected as a Labour candidate. I did so because of two key facts, ignored by a media that would later pay her such close attention: she had worked as a spin doctor for the Israel lobby and had acted (wittingly or otherwise) as a secret Labour Party source for the US government.

Anderson, who was once described in a leaked US embassy communication as someone to ‘strictly protect’ who had provided inside information on then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s election strategy, has also smeared left-wing Jews who support Palestinian human rights – and said, at about the same time as she was endorsing Jones, that pro-Palestinian Jews should ignored by the UK media and if they didn’t like it, ‘tough’. She went on to smear left Jewish group JVL, forcing the BBC to publish a belated ‘correction’ for not challenging the accusation.

Other JLM activists similarly have egg on their faces after jumping in to try to get Rochdale voters to back Azhar Ali, the other suspended candidate – only a couple of weeks before the Rochdale by-election – despite his ‘antisemitic’ comments about Israel:

On the left, the JLM's timeline right now, with key figures explaining why it's right to have some tolerance when someone on your own side mucks up.

On the right, the distant past of… 2021, when the JLM said "serious" zero tolerance was expelling left groups. pic.twitter.com/HOaI4bfHDD

— Alex Nunns (@alexnunns) February 12, 2024

Ali was set to lose the by-election badly even before being officially dumped last night, having featured in videos of him being told to leave by voters he tried to canvass because of his association with Keir Starmer’s support for Israel’s genocide, in stark contrast to the warm welcome widely given to pro-Palestinian candidate George Galloway.

For his part Jones, before he lost his seat, was one of two Labour MPs who sat drinking on the Commons terrace with disgraced right-wing activist Ian McKenzie, who had made comments about the rape and beheading of senior Labour MP Emily Thornberry. Jones was then taken to task by local members for his support for McKenzie.

The chaos of the Starmer regime and its propensity for shooting itself in the foot continues to grow – as well as its complicity in apartheid Israel’s genocidal slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza. Starmer’s red Tory party has fallen three points in the polls, despite the Tories’ ongoing disaster, and has lost half or more of its support among Muslim voters, as well as being rejected by those opposed to Israel’s genocide.

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