TUSC embraces Chris Williamson

Submitted by AWL on 17 November, 2020 - 3:22 Author: Keith Road
Chris Williamson

Earlier this year the Socialist Party confirmed they would be preparing their electoral front, TUSC, operating since 2010 but mostly dormant since 2015, to stand once again in elections.

For the Socialist Party the drift of the Labour party to the right under Starmer confirms the view they’ve taken ever since quitting Labour in the years after the Liverpool council fiasco in 1985-6 that Labour is a dead end.

For Chris Williamson, Labour wasn’t a dead end. It got him a lucrative career as leader of Derby City Council where he governed in coalition with the Tories, cut services and was pro-PFI. It also got him two stints as an MP (now left-ish) on a handsome salary.

After Labour suspended him for antisemitism, or rather under the much-too-flexible “bringing the party into disrepute” clause, he quit and set up a proto-party now branded as the Resistance Movement.

The leading people attracted to it are defined by the belief that a “false antisemitism witch hunt” dominates politics, a belief which, by branding all who complain about antisemitism as agents of a supposed ultra-powerful “Zionist lobby” seen as the axis of everything right-wing, is effectively antisemitic itself. Thus: Sally Eason, The Word newspaper, and Sian Bloor.

TUSC has now welcomed Chris Williamson and Sian Bloor onto their steering committee. For a political group that is meant to champion a message against cuts and privatisation, this strikes a false note.

And why is the SP embracing individuals with a history of antisemitism and conspiracy theories? The RMT, the one national union that backs TUSC and is represented on its steering committee, should question the Socialist Party on this. And any socialist understandably disillusioned with Labour and attracted by TUSC should think again.

More info:
Chris Williamson
Sally Eason
The Word
Sian Bloor

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