abuse
Pro-Israeli judge Myerson sanctioned for ‘judicial misconduct’ for social media
Well-known Israel advocate and Corbyn critic found to have breached professional standards in attack on trans rights campaigner
Pro-Israeli barrister and part-time judge Simon Myerson KC has been disciplined by the Lady Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor for attacking a transgender rights campaigner on the Twitter/X social media platform.
Myerson supports Israel against accusations of genocide and has frequently attacked Corbyn and his supporters
Myerson received a sanction for ‘judicial misconduct’ after complaints were upheld for a series of offensive tweets. Myerson accused the campaigner of having a “tiny intellect” and making “idiotic statements”. The disciplinary decision can be found here. Myerson broke the principle that judges should avoid participating in online debates on politically controversial topics to maintain the integrity and dignity of their judicial office.
Myerson insists Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza despite its slaughter of tens of thousands of women and children and insulted a Jewish anti-genocide campaigner
Some observers might consider there to be a suggestion of hypocrisy to Myerson’s behaviour. In September 2023, Myerson was a witness against a solicitor accused of posting offensive tweets at a disciplinary tribunal. Myerson’s evidence was that the solicitor’s tweets went “well beyond the bounds of acceptable conduct”, raising questions about whether he gave evidence to a tribunal about another person’s offensive social media posts without telling the tribunal that his own offensive posts were under investigation by the Lady Chief Justice.
Myerson also has a history of controversial comments on Twitter/X about the suicide of the Northumbria University academic Dr Pete Newbon, who died after a row with his wife. Newbon had posted to Twitter/X a meme of an image that originally showed Jeremy Corbyn reading much-loved author Michael Rosen’s Bear Hunt to some children, but in which the title of grossly antisemitic forgery ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ had been photoshopped onto the book.
Rosen, who is Jewish, was understandably unhappy that the Protocols had been photoshopped on his book. Myerson suggested that it was Rosen’s tweet in response to Newbon that led to complaints to Newbon’s employer that were linked by Newbon’s supporters to his suicide. Rosen’s tweets were far less offensive than the tweets Myerson has now been disciplined for and the coroner did not mention Rosen or his tweets at all in his inquest findings. Newbon, who had tried to get fellow academics sacked, was in fact on a final warning from the university because of his repeatedly awful conduct on social media – and was doing badly in a lawsuit brought by another individual whom his false claims on social media had endangered. Rosen has featured frequently in Myerson’s Twitter/X timeline.
Myerson, like Newbon a founding signatory of the so-called ‘Labour against antisemitism’ (LAAS) group that weaponised antisemitism allegations to attack then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and whose directors have also attacked Michael Rosen, continues to be active on Twitter/X in support of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Myerson rejects the finding of the International Court of Justice that Israel may be engaged in genocide. His position is that Israel’s actions in bombing Gaza and refusing to allow aid to enter are proportionate responses to the October 7 attack by Hamas. Most serious legal commentators are clear that Israel’s actions are disproportionate and are likely to amount to war crimes.
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Simon Myerson criticised a court for finding anti-Zionism is a protected political belief and insists that Israel was not told to implement a ceasefire even though the International Court of Justice told it to stop killing Gazans and protect them instead.
Those reading Myerson’s recent social media output might feel justified in concluding that a change in his behaviour is unlikely. Yesterday he bizarrely accused a Jewish Twitter/X user of having learned to be snide ‘almost certainly aided by being Jewish’ when the user gently mocked the Israeli spokesperson Eylon Levy.
Mr Myerson did not respond to a request for comment accompanied by an initial draft of this article.
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Video: Israeli Knesset member mocked and called liar by UN-linked parliament gathering
Hard right advocate of ‘levelling’ Gaza derided for repeating debunked atrocity propaganda to 148th Assembly of Inter-Parliamentary Union
Danny Danon, a hard-right Likud member of Israel’s Knesset, has been derided as a liar and jeered by attendees at the 148th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), a UN-linked gathering of the world’s parliaments, which is taking place in Geneva.
Danon, who advocated for the ‘levelling’ of Gaza almost ten years before the Hamas raid on 7 October last year, blamed Hamas for Israel’s actions in Gaza, ignored the seventy-five years of illegal occupation and slaughter by Israel and regurgitated atrocity propaganda about child rapes and murders, which has been discredited for months – and was booed by delegates and angrily confronted by the Palestinian delegate, before being carpeted by Ireland’s representative for his ‘lots of lies’ on behalf of a ‘failed’ regime:
In 2013, Danon, an opponent of immigration from Africa to Israel – where discrimination against Black Jews is rife – advocated for punishment attacks against Palestinian civilians and infrastructure, including a suggestion that Israel “delete” one whole neighbourhood in Gaza in response for every rocket launched by the Palestinian resistance, an act of collective punishment that is a clear war crime under international law.
A year later, Danon advocated cutting off all electricity and fuel supplies to Gaza, prefiguring the blockade by Israel that has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into famine. A month later, Danon said that Israel should respond to the kidnapping of an IDF soldier by “levelling Gaza”. Since the resistance raid, he has been a prominent advocate for the ‘voluntary’ removal of all Palestinians from Gaza to other countries, yet he clearly thinks he has the right to demand obedience and belief from the global community.
The IDF has admitted that the number of its own people that it killed during the Hamas raid was ‘immense’ – an admission ignored entirely by the UK media. Israel has murdered over 40,000 Palestinians since 7 October and wounded double that amount in its levelling of Gaza, mostly women and children. It is using starvation as a weapon of war and has killed dozens of Israeli hostages while taking thousands of Palestinian hostages and, according to the UN, carrying out summary executions of civilians and raping and abusing Palestinian women and girls.
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Exclusive: whistleblower accuses Labour W Mids PCC of refusing to act on abuse allegations
No response from Simon Foster’s press office to Elaina Cohen’s allegations – also covered up by Keir Starmer
A former MP’s staffer who blew the whistle on alleged abuse of Muslim domestic violence victims has accused West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Simon Foster of ‘refus[ing] to investigate’ the failure of the force’s then-Chief Constable to act on evidence of the abuse – and that Foster and the current Chief Constable ‘disregarding’ further allegations, from a separate source, about the same alleged perpetrator.
Elaina Cohen, who used to work for Birmingham MP Khalid Mahmood and took him successfully to an industrial tribunal for unfair dismissal when she lost her job after making protected disclosures about the abuse, first made the allegations against Foster during submissions to the tribunal, which Skwawkbox attended on behalf of its readers. Evidence given under oath to the tribunal by one of the victims of the ‘sadistic’ abuse, threats and blackmail she suffered was not disputed by Mahmood or his legal team.
And in an email today to Wolverhampton South East MP Pat McFadden, a Keir Starmer front-bencher, seen by Skwawkbox, Cohen wrote that:
Evidence already in the public domain shows Simon Foster has steadfastly refused to investigate why former West Midlands Chief Constable Thompson abandoned multiple victims when presented with evidenced abuse perpetrated by a Labour member working in a parliamentary office of a Labour MP.
An email from [Tory West Midlands Mayor] Andy Street states when he has the authority of a PCC he will seek justice for these women…
…an opposition party councillor has made representation to Simon Foster and Chief Constable Guildford with further allegations about the same perpetrator and was also disregarded.
I believe this information questions Simon Foster’s suitability to be a candidate.
Skwawkbox contacted Mr Foster’s press office for contact this morning, but received only an automated acknowledgement in reply.
Labour leader Keir Starmer and his general secretary David Evans also covered up the abuse, taking no action despite repeated warnings and appeals from Ms Cohen. They also did not act on Ms Cohen’s complaints of the antisemitism she suffered – or on complaints from Muslim women councillors in Birmingham about bullying, misogyny and threats at the hands of local party right-wingers.
Despite this appalling record, Starmer has continued to boast that he will be a ‘champion’ for victims of domestic abuse. Simon Foster has also promised to act to protect women:
Foster, who is standing for re-election, has just won a legal battle to prevent his PCC role being absorbed by Tory metro mayor Andy Street, but Elaina Cohen told Skwawkbox of her dissatisfaction with both Foster and his party boss:
I remain disappointed that Sir Keir Starmer refuses to acknowledge or act upon my protected disclosures and whilst I would support an independent office of a PCC I would question political appointments based on my own experience. In my opinion the cover-up of criminal abuse of vulnerable women is just as abhorrent as racism as a candidate issue.
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Video: Speaker Hoyle repeatedly ignores Abbott – while MPs are discussing her
MPs talked about racism toward Diane Abbott today – except for Diane Abbott, who couldn’t get a word in for herself, despite wearing an eye-catching red jacket…
One of the many times Diane Abbott stood to speakr today – in a bright red jacket in a sea of blue – and was ignored
During Prime Minister’s Questions today, MPs discussed the appalling racism toward Diane Abbott, Britain’s first Black woman MP, by the Tories’ biggest donor.
Except for Ms Abbott herself, anyway. She stood repeatedly – at least 46 times – throughout the question session, wearing a bright red jacket amid a sea of mostly blue suits – and was ignored, every single time, by Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, forcing her to sit and listen as others discussed her without being able to speak for herself:
I guess Lindsay Hoyle didn't notice the left wing black woman wanting to speak while other MP's spoke about her. I mean, what other explanation could there be? pic.twitter.com/IRkagSVs4D
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) March 13, 2024
Keir Starmer tried to use the session to make political capital about Tory racism, but has overseen widespread racism against Black and Brown MPs among the Labour right and has let disgusting behaviour toward Abbott by right-wing staff and MPs – including Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting – go unpunished.
Perhaps Hoyle was worried Ms Abbott would point this out. The Speaker recently disgusted many MPs by breaking Commons protocols to allow Starmer to hijack a Commons vote on an SNP motion for a Gaza – and tried to excuse it by claiming, ridiculously, that he did it to keep MPs safe. Former party adviser James Schneider and others saw the link and commented:
Countdown to a tearful Lindsay Hoyle @CommonsSpeaker addressing the Commons to say:
"I'm sorry I didn't call Diane Abbott to talk about her own abuse when others were. That was wrong.
"But I WILL NOT allow another 9/11 terror attack on this HOUSE.
"MPs must be protected."— James Schneider (@schneiderhome) March 13, 2024
Speaker's excuse for overriding an SNP day was his concern for MPs safety.
Yet he doesn't allow Diane Abbott to question the PM who is saying an apology from a man who called for her to be shot should be accepted. Not the PM's right to accept any apology it's up to Diane Abbott.— Colin Patton (@colinpatton10) March 13, 2024
Saul Staniforth, who compiled the video, has posted examples of some of the egregious establishment racism and mistreatment toward Diane Abbott, who has long been the most abused MP:
Anyone else remember how Jess Phillips bragged to journalists for years that she'd told Diane Abbott to fuck off. Diane has said Phillips made it up. pic.twitter.com/36u3rDVPc6
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) March 13, 2024
Anyone remember how, during the warm up to a program in 2019, QT host Fiona Bruce implied Diane Abbott got the job as shadow home secretary because of a previous personal relationship with Jeremy Corbyn
But its ok, because sneering abuse is just light hearted bantz, apparently. pic.twitter.com/UjORiI7ifx— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) March 13, 2024
The time when a white person impersonated a black Labour MP (one of the most abused MP's in parliament), while three other white people laughed along – one of those three being a fellow Labour MP. pic.twitter.com/EuXwyiZvLh
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 31, 2022
Skwawkbox is attempting to reach Ms Abbott for comment.
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Video: Lab women’s spokesperson Dodds admits she/Starmer hadn’t contacted Abbott
Anneliese Dodds stammers when asked whether any Shadow Cabinet members had been in touch with Britain’s first Black woman MP, before admitting nobody had
Anneliese Dodds, Labour’s ‘Women and equalities’ spokeswoman, stammered and dodged her way through an interview on Sky News this morning, ultimately admitting that neither she, Keir Starmer, nor anyone else in Starmer’s shadow cabinet – nor apparently the party’s whips – had bothered to get in touch with Diane Abbott.
Ms Abbott, Britain’s first Black woman MP, has been in the headlines after racist and violent comments from the Tories’ biggest ever donor and has spoken publicly about how vulnerable she has felt as a result.
Dodds tried to excuse the lack of contact by claiming no phones are allowed in shadow cabinet meetings and then she had hurried to the Sky studio – as if mobile phones don’t work on the way to TV interviews. She also said that she wasn’t in charge of Starmer’s diary so couldn’t say when he would be in touch and could only say the party’s ‘whips’, who she said are responsible for MPs’ welfare, had been in contact with Abbott ‘for several months’, not since the news of the donor’s racist comments broke:
The interview sparked disgust among many who saw it:
Diane Abbott suffered racist abuse from Labour MPs regularly.. she gets abuse on here regularly, they are liars, bigotts and Annalieze Dodds should remember the WWW retains the information. she has suffered more racial abuse than anyone else https://t.co/JfuDhg9Oby they forget… https://t.co/ZFEjy5ozn5
— Isobel_Waby we NEED a COALITION (@Isobel_waby) March 12, 2024
I am shocked to learn on Sky News that Anneliese Dodds Shadow Secretary of State for WOMEN & EQUALITY has made no effort to contact her colleague Diane Abbott to enquire as to how she is feeling after her abuse by a Tory donor & should the police not take this up as threat tokill
— The man with no name (@Themanw86823082) March 12, 2024
Starmer and other Labour MPs – including Wes Streeting – have performatively condemned Frank Hester’s comments. However, Starmer has not punished the blatant racism – much of it directed at Diane Abbott – revealed in the leaked 2020 report on the conduct of senior party staff and confirmed by barrister Martin Forde’s investigation.
And Streeting was responsible for a 2018 ‘disgusting’ and ‘disgraceful’ verbal assault in Ms Abbott’s face in a Commons corridor, witnessed by other MPs and staff, for which he has never, at least publicly, apologised and which he threatened to sue Skwawkbox for revealing, a threat he did not carry out after Skwawkbox stood its ground:
Streeting has never been disciplined for his behaviour and was promoted by Starmer to Shadow Health Secretary.
Keir Starmer has presided over the targeting of a series of Black and Brown MPs and other elected figures, while ignoring others who faced foul racism – and his treatment of Diane Abbott, up to and including this latest incident, who has long suffered the most appalling racism of any MP, has been a disgrace that is only compounded by his hypocritical attempts to make political capital out of yet more abuse toward her.
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Photos/video: members protest at Unite HQ over Graham’s betrayal of Gaza
General secretary’s actions and action prompts demo at union’s executive meeting
Unite union members furious at Sharon Graham’s continued silence on Israel’s genocide in Gaza – and her attempts behind the scenes to prevent officials representing the union at rallies and marches, as well as her ban on film showings and book readings on Unite premises and her attempt to cancel a pro-Palestine event, demonstrated outside Unite’s Holborn headquarters yesterday during a meeting of the union’s executive.
Around fifty protesters, including some with experience of the fight against South African apartheid, gathered with banners calling for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide, to hear speakers and chant for freedom.
Anti-apartheid campaigner Dr Jonathan Fluxman, of Doctors in Unite, spoke to the demo about the racist atrocity propaganda that Israel and much of the western media are using to dehumanise the Palestinians:
Another speaker talked of the solidarity of Jews around the world with the oppressed Palestinians:
And the protesters joined in the South African freedom call and response, “Amandla – Awethu”, ‘Power to the people’:
Sharon Graham has been slammed for her actions – and inaction – relating to Palestine and the Israeli regime’s genocide in Gaza. She has been publicly silent about the slaughter, but has been criticised for banning Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests, banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam, placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference – and senior Unite sources have alleged that she told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians. An email from her official union address to an angry member dismissed the genocide perpetrated on the people of Gaza.
Ms Graham’s tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including alleged destruction of evidence against her husband in threat, misogyny and bullying complaints brought by union employees. She is also embroiled in both an employment tribunal for discrimination and a defamation lawsuit brought by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for the union’s treatment of him and comments made about him by Graham and her close ally Tony Woodhouse.
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Excl: new Unite chief of staff ‘threatens London sec with loss of pension bonus’ for Gaza support
No denial from new official appointed by Graham without exec interview
Unite’s new ‘chief of staff’ has been accused by party insiders in London of threatening the union’s London regional secretary with the loss of a discretionary pension bonus if he did not pull back from his support for Palestinians in Gaza against Israel’s genocide.
Sarah Carpenter – who sources say was appointed by general secretary Sharon Graham without the position being advertised and without the approval of Unite’s elected executive, to their and members’ fury – has been accused of making the threat to regional secretary Peter Kavanagh.
Ms Carpenter,
According to Unite sources, you threatened Pete Kavanagh with the loss of his pension bonus if he didn’t back off from his support of Gaza… The sources say that you did this at the behest of Sharon Graham.
If you have any comment or denial to make in respect of this, please provide it no later than 2pm, Weds 6 March. They also say that the position you now hold was not advertised for applications. Is this correct?
Twenty-two hours after the press deadline, no response has been received.
Sarah Carpenter was accused last year – as Southern regional secretary – by members of banning showings of the film ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn/The Big Lie’, which exposes the sabotage of Corbyn’s Labour by the party’s hard right and the use of antisemitism smears as part of the sabotage campaign. Pro-Israel lobby group CAA claimed credit for her decision and Sharon Graham’s wider move to ban showings of the film and readings of Asa Winstanley’s book ‘Weaponising Antisemitism/How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn’.
As well as the ban of the book and film from all Unite buildings, Graham was accused of trying to force the cancellation of a pro-Palestine fringe meeting at Labour’s conference last October. The bid failed when the event’s organiser, international director Simon Dubbins, told Graham’s proxies that she’d have to come and tell him herself if she wanted the event off. Unite has now placed Dubbins under investigation.
Graham has also been condemned by Unite members for her public silence over the Gaza slaughter. Members are planning to picket the union executive’s next meeting, which takes place next week.
One Unite source told Skwawkbox of the anger of elected executive members over the latest move:
Pete Kavanagh the Regional Secretary was called up and threatened by Sharon’s new hatchet woman Sarah Carpenter that he backs off supporting Palestine or they would take away his retirement bonus. Pete is due to retire and apparently there is some leavers bonus that is discretionary.
The chief of staff post was not advertised nor was the job interviewed by Executive council. Members are furious.
Unite operates ‘discretionary enhanced pension’ scheme that allows staff to retire five years early without losing pension entitlement they would have had if they worked until full retirement age. A proposal was floated by Graham in 2022 to end this scheme and force staff to work until sixty-five for their full pension and consulted on the change in early 2023, but this does not appear to have been enacted, at least yet, and entitlement under this scheme seems to be what was referred to in the alleged threat.
Kavanagh retired last month.
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No response from GMB to recording of Smith ‘threatening’ sexual harassment victim
Union fails to confirm, deny or even acknowledge scathing #MeTU accusations from abuse victim
The GMB trade union has failed to respond to an urgent press enquiry from Skwawkbox about the serious accusations made against it by a woman employee of sexual harassment and rape by one of its senior officials – and of threats made by GMB boss Gary Smith if she did not withdraw the complaint and sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
While most of the victim’s allegations of what Smith said are related verbally, on one occasion she recorded Smith appearing to acknowledge that she had been abused, but warning her that if she ‘put a gun on the table’ she would be fired back at and that as a ‘big organisation’ ‘we’ would always have more money and better lawyers for a legal battle – and that there’d be no room for tears if things went badly, so ‘don’t get into that game’:
A secret recording of what appears to be GMB boss Gary Smith
The complainant also says that Smith:
- told a friend to tell her that if she didn’t sign an NDA by the end of the day he’d ‘open a process on her’
- told her that the secret services were watching her
- told her the union was busy fighting the Tories and that she put the ‘whole trade union movement’ at risk if she pursued her complaint
- made her attend meetings, away from the union’s office, in the basement of a local hotel with no HR people present
- told her that GMB is ‘under no obligation to investigate any complaint of sexual harassment simply because it is the employer of the alleged perpetrator or because the GMB’s equipment had been used’
- told her she had ‘driven a wrecking ball’ through the union by launching an employment tribunal case and that ‘all the women on the senior management team wanted me sacked’
- refused to investigate complaints
- refused to help assure her safety at the union’s conference
and more.
In 2020, two years before the victim’s case, barrister Karon Monaghan’s investigation found that:
Bullying, misogyny, cronyism and sexual harassment are endemic within the GMB.
The culture in the GMB is one of heavy drinking and late night socialising,
salacious gossip and a lack of professionalism…Sexual harassment is common in the GMB.
The union promised to implement Monaghan’s recommendations in full.
Skwawkbox wrote to the GMB, with the link of the alleged victim’s video and a request for urgent comment by 5pm this evening. At the time of writing, more than six hours later, Skwawkbox has still received no response.
At about the same time as the allegations in GMB were unfolding, the TSSA union was rocked by a massive sexual harassment scandal that led to the removal of its general secretary Manuel Cortes and a number of his senior team. The TSSA was accused in January and last month of failing to implement the recommendations of the Kennedy report and its new general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust – pushed by the TSSA executive despite having no relevant union experience – of presiding over a culture of fear, intimidation and bullying.
Watch the victim’s full statement about her alleged experiences here.
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Exclusive: Graham’s Unite ‘spending €150,000 A DAY’ on lawyers in Ogle abuse case
1.35 million euros flushed on legal team over 9-day case according to union sources – and that’s just the tribunal, with the defamation suit to follow
Image: S Walker
Sources within the union say that Sharon Graham’s Unite is spending spending €150,000 a day just on the fees of its legal team to defend the discrimination tribunal case brought against Unite by leading Irish trade unionist Brendan Ogle – a staggering €1,350,000 across the planned nine days of the Workplace Relations Commission hearing in Dublin, not including court and other costs.
Ogle brought his complaint against his union employers after he was sidelined, following his successful battle against neck cancer, to an office fifty miles away from his Dublin home, despite a promise from Ms Graham’s predecessor Len McCluskey that his job would be kept open for him pending the outcome of his treatment. Cancer qualifies as a protected characteristic under equality legislation in both Ireland and the UK.
Ogle told the tribunal last week that another senior Unite employee in Ireland called him to a meeting after his return to work and told Ogle that:
he’d been told by Sharon Graham to draw up a strategic plan for the Republic of Ireland and I was not to be in it.
The case could, presumably, easily have been settled for no more, and probably considerably less, than €1.35m – but Unite has deployed no fewer than seven lawyers to defend it:
1 Senior barrister
1 Junior barrister
1 Legal Director
3 Solicitors
2 Legal Execs
Ogle, in contrast, has a junior barrister and a solicitor.
As well as the employment tribunal case, Brendan Ogle is also suing Graham, her ally Tony Woodhouse and Unite for defamation over comments made about him to union members at different events. Unite is employing the same legal firm – one of the world’s most expensive and profitable – in the defamation case, probably at similar or even greater cost.
One union source told Skwawkbox:
That’s the entire annual subs at full rate of 5,769 members. Sharon hasn’t published an Annual Report since she became general secretary. That’s unheard of – and for someone who has spent so much time accusing others of malpractice, it’s extraordinary.
The union’s ‘disgusting’ abuse toward Ogle on his return from cancer treatment triggered widespread outrage among grassroots members, politicians and community groups – anger so serious that an entire sector branch threatened to disaffiliate entirely from Unite, the well-known ‘Right2Water’ campaign said it will no longer work with Unite, Unite’s Community section in Ireland condemned the ‘injustice inflicted’ on him and members picketed general secretary Sharon Graham’s long-delayed visit to Dublin last month.
Sharon Graham’s tenure at Unite has also been marked by a string of other serious allegations, which neither she nor the union has ever denied – of abuse, cover-up and failure to protect women:
- that she attempted to have evidence destroyed in bullying and misogyny complaints about her husband, whom she now employs in her office despite a final warning from the union for his behaviour
- after her supporters failed in their bid to take control of the Unite executive despite ‘dark money’ spending on advertising, ineligible and racist members being allowed to stand and the alleged use of paid organisers in and following the exec election campaign, her faction has resorted to Starmerite tactics to try to discredit the executive members’ election of a new left-wing union chair and both vice-chairs, as well as the vital Finance and General Purpose Committee
In addition, she has been exposed behind the union’s decision to ban showings in Unite’s buildings of a film exposing racism, smears, rigging and abuse by the Labour right and has appeared to grow increasingly cosy with red-Tory Labour ‘leader’ Keir Starmer, despite Starmer’s lies, his contempt for democracy, his u-turns on promises to Unite members and his regime’s repeated blocking of Unite-backed parliamentary candidates.
Unite did not respond to a request for comment.
Update: more than two hours after the response deadline – and an hour after publication of this article – Unite responded with a generic denial:
“This story – like the other stories that The Skwawkbox has published as part of its smear campaign – is untrue.”
The statement, which did not specify whether the amount spent is higher or lower or by how much, went on to smear this site, implying the scrutiny of Ms Graham’s spending and activity was linked to a Birmingham hotel and conference centre project and Ms Graham’s ‘findings’ about it.
Ms Graham was part of the group of senior Unite figures that approved the Birmingham project. Her close ally Tony Seaman was the ‘project-specific convenor’ on the project, a role that appears to have been created especially to accommodate him. Unite, with Graham as general secretary, subsequently whitewashed racism findings against Mr Seaman, despite agreeing that he had made racist comments.
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150 British Jews tell Met top cop: you’re racist assuming we all support Israel
Letter from anti-racist Jews denounces Establishment’s treatment of anti-genocide marches as antisemitic
One hundred and fifty British Jews have written to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley denouncing the police (and government) treatment of marches against Israel’s genocide in Gaza as if they are antisemitic. The letter reads:
We Reject Your Insinuation That The Marches Against Genocide in Gaza Represent a Threat to Jews or the Jewish Community and Suggest that It Is Not the Business of the Police to Intervene in Ongoing Political Debates
We the undersigned, being Jewish, wish to support and join a complaint against the Metropolitan Police, for their racist and anti-Semitic assumption that all Britain’s Jews support Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza.
We further believe that the decision of the Metropolitan, Police to delay the starting time of the March Against Genocide in Gaza on 17 Feb. 24 from 12.00 to 1.30 pm ‘to accommodate an event at a synagogue along the route’ is lslamophobic, based as it is on the assumption that the large numbers of Muslims taking part pose a threat to Jews worshipping in congregations nearby.
Your decision to delay the start of the march rested u~on the assumption that there is something inherently anti-Semitic about supporting the Palestinians and that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism.
The Met’s decision ignores the fact that many thousands of British Jews have already taken part in such marches without feeling threatened in any way. Indeed the march has started from Marble Arch on at least two previous occasions recently without any anti-Semitic incidents.
We are tired of the Police’s racist and anti-Semitic assumption that to be Jewish is to support Zionism and Israel’s racist and genocidal treatment of the Palestinians. There are many thousands of Jews who are active in the Palestine solidarity movement and we resent your assumptions to the contrary.
The letter is signed by:
The letter’s publication comes amid a flurry of racist and Islamophobic comments by government and opposition politicians, with the help of their media allies, aimed at smearing those who object to mass murder as racist – and the arrest of three left-wing protesters in Newham on the nonsensical basis that booing and hissing a supporter of Israel is antisemitic.
The Establishment is determined to suppress free speech against Israel and its war crimes, and to ignore the blatant racism involved in the assumptions it uses to try to justify those attacks. Anti-racist Jews in the UK and the US know better.
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