Persecution complex

​Thanks to the Jewish Voice for Labour website, I’ve been made aware of a case in which a Holocaust survivor and member of the Labour Party, Stephen Kapos was threatened with expulsion (and as a result resigned) because he was due to make a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day. In this regard, leader Keir Starmer, the Director of Party Persecutions (DPP) has sunk to a new low. A fellow Holocaust survivor tried to move the following motion at his party branch meeting:
 
“This branch and CLP are distressed by the action of the London Regional Labour Party which threatened Mr Stephen Kapos with expulsion for planning to participate in the Holocaust Memorial Day webinar organized by the Socialist Labour Network. Holocaust Memorial Day is the day when on 27 January we remember millions of Jews, Roma and Sinti killed by Nazis during the Second World War. It is an event that must be kept outside current politics. Stephen Kapos is one of the last Holocaust survivors. He survived Holocaust in Budapest as a seven-year-old child. To censor a Holocaust survivor for his willingness to speak about his life experience is simply unacceptable. As a result of London Labour’s threatening letter Mr Stephen Kapos resigned from the Labour Party on 27 January 2023. This branch and CLP believe that the Labour Party owes Mr Stephen Kapos an apology.”
 
Guess what? The London Region Labour Party ruled it out of order, on the grounds that it broke party rules on discussing disciplinary cases and that it somehow ‘targeted’ regional staff. Since Mr Kapos had resigned it clearly could not any longer be considered a live disciplinary case, and the motion does not ‘attack’ party staff members. We are all surely desperate to get rid of the Tories, but it is getting harder and harder to believe Keir Starmer and his acolytes deserve any respect. Sorry, I should have said ‘impossible.’