Activists outraged at Labour’s expulsion of Black campaigner Marc Wadsworth
Media Watch 27 April 2018
Marc Wadsworth speaks at a press confernce with Jewish Voice for Labour and Grassroots Black Left spokespeople on 27 April.
The Electronic Intifada
Labour Party activists expressed outrage on Friday as grassroots anti-racist campaigner Marc Wadsworth was expelled from the UK’s main opposition party, allegedly for “bringing it into disrepute.”
His expulsion came after false allegations of anti-Semitism by a Labour lawmaker.
After living in the limbo of membership suspension for almost two years, Wadsworth finally appeared this week before a party disciplinary panel.
During the launch of a report into anti-Semitism allegations in June 2016, right-wing Labour lawmaker Ruth Smeeth accused Wadsworth of using “traditional anti-Semitic slurs to attack me for being part of a ‘media conspiracy’” – a false allegation which Smeeth later deleted from her website.
Wadworth told journalists at a press conference on Friday that he was talking to his legal team about his next steps.
He could ask a court to review the Labour Party decision and potentially reverse it.
“I have been overwhelmed by the support I’ve received,” Wadsworth said in a statement. “Including those who have contributed to my Crowdjustice campaign.”
Wadsworth has been raising money online to cover legal expenses in his effort to clear his name.
On Twitter, Smeeth, a former spin-doctor for an Israel lobby group, welcomed the decision to expel Wadsworth.
However, she did not repeat her earlier false allegations that Wadsworth had used “traditional anti-Semitic slurs,” changing tack with a line that “abuse, bullying and intimidation have no place in our movement.”
“Scapegoat”
Wadsworth was one of the earliest supporters of the campaign for justice for Stephen Lawrence – the Black teenager murdered by a gang of white racists in the late 1990s.
He said his legal team “won the arguments hands down” during the expulsion hearing over the last three days.
Left-wing Labour activists and lawmakers reacted with outrage on Friday as the news broke.
The Grassroots Black Left group said in a statement that it was “appalled” at the decision and would “fight beside Wadsworth to help him clear his name and get reinstated.”
The group’s co-chair and Unite trade union activist Deborah Hobson said that Wadsworth has been “made a scapegoat in the battle between anti-Jeremy-Corbyn zealots and those people who support a twice democratically elected party leader.”
At the press conference, Hobson said that “a white, privileged member of Parliament has used her status to attack, and try to bring down Marc and we’re going to fight this with every breath we’ve got.”
Wadsworth told media that the office of party leader Corbyn had called him during the hearing to express support privately. The Labour leader’s office declined to comment on the record.
Jewish solidarity
Left-wing group Jewish Voice for Labour condemned the expulsion as “a new low in the unprincipled campaign by enemies of the left to misuse justified concerns about anti-Semitism for factional ends.”
The group’s spokesperson Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi condemned misleading press coverage of the incident that led to Wadsworth’s suspension.
“He’s been presented as a Jew-hating anti-Semite, which I, as a Jewish activist, absolutely refute,” Wimborne-Idrissi said. “This is divisive and it’s dangerous.
Labour lawmakers Chris Williamson, Clive Lewis and Keith Vaz submitted statements to the party defending Wadsworth, Grassroots Black Left said.
Very disappointed to hear the news that veteran anti-racist campaigner, @Marcwads has been expelled from the Labour Party by the party's National Constitutional Committee. Here is my statement on the matter m.facebook.com/story.php?stor…
Williamson said he was “astonished” by the “perverse determination of Marc Wadsworth’s case.”
He said he would “continue to stand four-square behind Marc and assist him in his efforts to clear his name, and his reputation as a veteran anti-racist campaigner.”
Lewis wrote on Twitter Thursday defending his decision to support Wadsworth after a right-wing Labour activist suggested that he was tolerating anti-Semitism.
Well here’s a wee tip for you. You or any other individual in @UKLabour doesn’t get to be judge, jury and executioner when it comes to who’s expelled or not. Go read a history book about what happens when an accusation equals evidence. It’s not pleasant. twitter.com/edacaz/status/…
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