 So it's been a bizarre few weeks for the Labour Party. I think that really started with the panorama investigation which was last Monday, but I don't want to talk about that in particular in this video. I want to talk about more recent events which responded to it. I want to talk about this advert that was placed in the Guardian by 64 Labour Lords yesterday, Wednesday, and in addition to that there's a motion that's been submitted to the parties, NEC by some people including Tom Watson in regards to anti-racism and auto exclusion. I want to do another video at some point in regards to the question of whether or not the Labour Party is institutionally anti-Semitic. I don't think it is. I've written something about it. You can check that out at luxurycommunism.com, trying to base that as much as possible on quantitative data, generalisable data and facts rather than how one person feels or how one person doesn't. Obviously if panorama wanted to, they could make a documentary saying how everybody loves Jeremy Corbyn or Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage. It depends who you talk to. That's not scientific if you talk to a group of people because they may not be typical. I don't need to go into that for now. Topic for another video. Let's talk about these two big things, the advert and this motion that's being submitted by Tom Watson. First with the advert, this was remarkable. I thought this was a real low point for the Guardian because it was 64 unelected or 67 I've seen in some places, 64 on others, but more than 60 Labour lords, unelected peers who placed an advert in the paper which may have cost as much as £18,000 to attack the party's leader. This is quite remarkable. Unelected people attacking a twice-elected leader of the opposition, one of the most important people in the country's democratic life, and nobody in the mainstream media is asking, where has the money come from? £18,000 is a lot of money. Where has that come from? The Guardian haven't made it clear. Who paid for it? I mean clearly there's an important consideration there around who is funding an attack on the leader of the opposition to the tune of £18,000 and nobody's mentioning it or even asking the question. I think it says a lot about the state of the media in this country. Equally alarming is the fact that the Guardian is meant to be a progressive newspaper and yet it's allowing unelected legislators to attack an elected leader of the opposition through payment. Now what this says to me is there's increasingly no real distinction between the paper's paid-for content and its editorial line. Let's say I could muster up £18,000 to take out an advert and say that Jonathan Friedland, one of the editors at Common is Free, is an appalling journalist. I don't actually happen to think that I'm just being provocative, right? I think he's a pretty bad journalist but whatever. I mean it's immaterial. All that the editor is a bad person or whatever. Now clearly the Guardian would say well we're not going to run that advert. Why? Well they would say it's a kind of conduct etc but clearly it's at odds with the editorial line of the paper. So if you can take out an advert attacking elected politicians but you can't take out an advert attacking people they happen to agree with or like, clearly again there's a bit of a break down there between paid-for content editorial. Big problem. And often we talk about Lebedev the evening stand of the Telegraph. It seems to me the Guardian has just as big an issue here. Very very troubling. So who are these lords, these strident anti-racists? Well let's look at the political complexion of them because I think you might be surprised actually. The first is Margaret McDonough. She was the party's general secretary from 1998 to 2001. She proceeded to leave that position in 2001. She went to work for Richard Desmond, the Express newspaper group. Before leaving she was most noted for taking a £100,000 donation to the party from Richard Desmond of which only two people including herself knew about. So for all the talk of an independence complaints process and scrutiny and accountability and transparency none of those words apply to her tenure as general secretary. In fact Lord Treisman, her successor as general secretary was one of the people to really say as much. So she takes £100,000 from Richard Desmond who at the time was the proprietor of the Express newspaper group, had titles like The Daily Express, The Daily Star, some of the most right-wing racist, xenophobic papers in the country. She then goes to work for him. So you could say there's conflict of interest. What really happened? Was it a quid pro quo? We don't know. It was 18 years ago. We'll probably never know. But this does clearly point to the fact there are obvious limits to her anti-racist credentials to the extent that she took money from this gentleman and then went to work for him. Now if you're not familiar with the politics of The Daily Star, The Daily Express, The Daily Star in 2011 came out of the English Defence League. Richard Desmond, subsequently giving that £100,000 to the Labour Party, has donated more than £1 million to the UK Independence Party. So it's pretty fair to say the guy's quite right-wing. Pretty right-wing. Yet she not only took this money from him for the Labour Party without barely anybody knowing, she then went to work for him in these newspapers which I would argue have reproduced some of the most objectionable, disgusting, racially inflammatory rhetoric this country has seen in my lifetime. But apparently she's an anti-racist. Interestingly enough, I wouldn't say McDonough is actually the worst case here. We have others. One is John Reed, former Labour Home Secretary during the new Labour years. John Reed was arguably the most authoritarian Home Secretary ever. Now that's saying a lot when you consider that pretty much every Home Secretary during the Blair administration in particular was appalling. David Blunkett, awful man. Jack Straw, pretty bad. Charles Clarke, very bad. I would say John Reed is the most authoritarian of those four and that's really saying something. So why am I saying this? Well, while the advert claimed that the Corbyn leadership had failed to defend our party's anti-racist values, it was Reed who once announced he would target foreigners who come to this country illegitimately and steal our benefits. He also once boasted he was throwing out more asylum seekers, failed asylum seekers than ever before and he even remarkably demanded that all immigrants from Africa be tested for HIV AIDS. That's right. He said that all immigrants just from Africa should be tested for HIV AIDS. Now this is one of the brave anti-racists seeing down Jeremy Corbyn somehow. I don't think so. It gets even worse, believe it or not because John Reed in fact went on a paid holiday to Geneva with one Radavan Karazic in the early 1990s. Now if that name sounds vaguely familiar it's because he was responsible for the last major genocidal atrocity in Europe at Srebrenica, which saw the death and murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims. Then there's Baroness Morgan, Sally Morgan to you and I. She was once a trusted advisor to Tony Blair. In fact she was within an inner circle which consisted of just several people, Alistair Campbell, Blair himself and Philip Gold, his polling guru. And in fact she was so trusted by Tony Blair that it was her alongside Blair who blocked the then Attorney General for giving the legal case for war in Iraq. That's right, she blocked the most senior lawyer effectively, the Attorney General, from giving the legal advice as to why we should go to war in Iraq in 2003. So again these people talk about independent complaints and you know rules and process. She blocked a lawyer giving advice to the cabinet about whether or not war in Iraq was legal or not. That's because there were more holes in that argument than in a piece of Swiss cheese. These really aren't the people we should be looking to when we talk about poverty in public office and upholding decent moral standards. Now only days before that advert was published five members of the party's NEC including Tom Watson submitted a motion that they wished to be adopted at party conference this autumn. That included the demand that racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia are dealt with by quote automatic exclusion from labor where there is quote irrefutable evidence. In an opportunistic ploy typically bereft of considering actual implementation it's unclear what irrefutable evidence is on planet Watson. Would Watson himself for instance be guilty of racism given he oversaw a racist campaign in the Hodge Hill bar election in 2004. Now I'm not making that up, we still have the leaflets and you can still read the kinds of rhetoric that was deployed. Read for yourself because in one of those leaflets that very campaign claimed that the Lib Dems want to keep giving welfare benefits to failed asylum seekers. They voted for this in parliament on the 1st of March 2004. They want your money and mine to go to failed asylum seekers we get it you don't like failed asylum seekers. Now what wasn't mentioned in this campaign was that the policy in question was Labour's plan to take asylum seekers children away from them and forcibly place them into care. For defending such a brutal racist policy deploying the most audible of dog whistles while doing so what does Mr Watson think should be his comeuppance? And then there's the fact that Mr Watson took a half a million pound political donation from Max Mosley. Mosley's name sounds familiar yeah that's right he's the son of Oswald Mosley leader of the Blackshirts a fascist organisation. Now I can hear what you're saying Aaron don't go there you know you can't punish the son for the sins of the father all that well that's true but also sows this. Max Mosley was the election agent in a campaign where a leaflet specifically claimed that people of colour were responsible for spreading tuberculosis. Remarkably as recently as 2018 Mosley conceded that the leaflet was quote probably racist but they had no cause to apologise. And what would Watson suggest for his various colleagues both past and present? David Blunkett who was home secretary from 2001 to 2004 he once claimed asylum seekers children were swamping British schools. And then there's Jack Straw should he have been automatically expelled for overseeing the introduction of discriminatory visa policies for Roma people of Slovakia and Czech heritage in 2001 or perhaps he could offer input regarding Phil Woolis. Ahead of the 2010 general election the former MPs team spoke internally of quote needing to get the white vote angry. Such an impulse was the basis for a campaign so ridden with racially inflammatory lies that shortly after winning two high court judges determined Woolis had acted unlawfully and called for a fresh election. Now between Woolis winning that election and those judges making that decision what do you think the Labour Party did to Woolis? What was his punishment? Auto exclusion? Sensea? Ostracised? Did he lose the whip? Nah. He was promoted. And how do you think Tom Watson responded to his good old friend Phil Woolis suffering such an appalling outcome? Well we know because he was kind enough to write about it for Labour Uncut with Watson going on record as saying that the judge's decision was won we will all regret and that he had lost sleep thinking about poor old Phil Woolis. And what would Tom Watson make of Yardswood detention centre? This was built and opened by the Labour Party in 2001 it hosted women who were refugees people seeking asylum 70% of the women there according to one report in 2006 are the survivors of sexual assault many have gone on record of suffering sexual and racist abuse at the hands of guards this is an institution which seems almost built to destroy and denigrate vulnerable women of colour and it was created by the Labour Party I find it particularly interesting that Mr Watson excuses the behaviour of Phil Woolis is involved in a appalling bar election campaign in 2004 and has no problem it seems with Yardswood and yet he's talking about auto exclusion for racist members of the Labour Party well if we're talking about auto exclusion perhaps we might start with you. Now to highlight the brazen double standards and hypocrisy at the heart of all of this and I really do think that in the last week and a half most normal people look at the Labour right and they go this is crazy what the hell are you doing Boris Johnson's about to be Prime Minister there's the story of Baroness Hater funny name but not a funny story she went on record as saying that the team around Jeremy Corbyn were analogous to Hitler's bunker in the final days of the Third Reich but if you look at the Chuck Robarty report if you look at the IHRA if you look at all of the norms and conventions the Labour Party's now meant to be following in regards to taking anti-Semitism her comments were not just unacceptable but racist that's because there are people of Jewish heritage in Jeremy Corbyn's inner circle he has a few people within his team he has a few further people in his kind of political retinue more broadly who aren't in his direct employment so to speak in the leader of the opposition's office so you're looking at four or five Jewish people this is relating to and yet this Labour Lord can openly compare them to Nazis now what's interesting is that if anybody on the left does this they're immediately denigrated attacked this is appalling now racists and yet the very same Labour MPs step forward Jess Phillips and West Street who say that we should never compare anybody to Nazis or Hitler are all I generally agree with are the first to say that Baroness Hater has been taken out of context misunderstood this is a miscarriage of justice but what it reveals fundamentally is that these are unserious people in a time when we need more serious politics than ever before brazen double standards mendacious hypocritical they're not worthy to lick Jeremy Corbyn's boots now when it comes to reselection and trigger ballots I often try to say I don't have an opinion on MPs who aren't representing me that's because the whole idea of mandatory reselection is it is mandatory they should apply to Jeremy Corbyn as much as Tom Watson and it's down fundamentally to local members to determine who's best to represent them that said I would say if I was living in Jess Phillips's constituency or West Streetings and I was a member I would absolutely be organised I would absolutely be organising to ensure a trigger ballot because they are really impeding right now obstructing any possibility of a Labour government and the country needs a Labour government whether it's taking on the far right defeating racism building much better public services making houses affordable increasing wages sorting out the NHS dealing with Brexit so much to do before we even talk about the longer term issues climate systems breakdown demographic age automation making the most of these remarkable opportunities in the 21st century these people are not interested any of that it's really sad but that's just that's it that's the fundamental truth of the matter so like I say if I was living and was a Labour Party member in their constituencies I'd absolutely want to get rid of them because they're not serious about dealing with these things the conclusion for this I guess is that what all this feeds into from panorama to these various letters being signed by people to this advert apathetic that cost £18,000 these unelected people to attack a twice elected Labour leader to Tom Watson's motion what all these reflect is a deranged comprehension that Jeremy Corbyn is not really going anywhere and that if there was another leadership and if there was another leadership election the Labour right would lose the strategy therefore instead is to undermine him and erode support for him and really a cause of political death by a thousand cuts that can't be allowed to happen primarily because there is going to be a general election likely this year and as I've said looking at the actions of Watson looking at people now comparing Jeremy Corbyn to Hitler we can't have these people destroy the only opportunity we're going to have to create a socialist government I think in arguably it might never happen again this is a really historic opportunity there's a bifurcation going on do we have the politics of Farage and Trump or democratic socialism and right now these people who are apparently a socialist are doing the absolute level best to undermine the latter and here's the thing and I'll conclude with this whether it's West Street in Tom Watson or Jess Phillips fundamentally given a choice of Boris Johnson leading the country or Jeremy Corbyn they'll take the former as long as that's the case people have to work their damned hardest to get rid of them as Labour MPs because we and the country deserve a whole lot better