Tony Greenstein is a British left-wing activist and writer. An anti-fascist and former squatter, he was a founder member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and stood for parliament as a representative of the Alliance for Green Socialism. In 2018, he was expelled from the Labour Party for "harassment" and "abusive language", over allegations of antisemitism. [1] Greenstein is opposed to Zionism which he believes is a racist and supremacist ideology.
Greenstein grew up in Liverpool. He was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family and his father was Rabbi Solomon Greenstein, who opposed Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936. [2] [3] He moved to Brighton to study Maths and Chemistry at Brighton Polytechnic and was elected vice-president of the student union. In 1974, he became involved in housing activism alongside Steve Bassam and squatted in derelict hotels before negotiating a licence to live at Lansdowne Place. [4]
In 1980, he was one of the founders of the Brighton Campaign Against Youth Unemployment and he was also involved with anti-fascist campaigns. [4] Greenstein actively opposed the far-right National Front and neo-nazi British Movement in Brighton during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, as a member of the Brighton & Hove Anti-Fascist Committee and Anti Fascist Action. In more recent years he has been involved in campaigning against far-right groups such as the British National Party, English Defence League and March for England (MfE) in the city. [5] [6]
In 2013, Greenstein was secretary of the Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre, a community centre in Hollingdean. [7] He was a founder member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and in the 1980s, he ran the Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine. [8] [9] In 2005, he stood unsuccessfully for parliament in the Brighton Pavilion constituency for the Alliance for Green Socialism, getting 188 votes. [10]
Greenstein was barred from joining the Labour Party in 2015 and then joined after the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader. [11] He was suspended in 2016 regarding accusations of antisemitism and then expelled in February 2018 after a review by Labour's National Constitutional Committee. [12] In 2019, Greenstein sued the Campaign Against Antisemitism for libel over its claim that he was a "notorious antisemite". [13] The High Court dismissed the claim in 2020. [14] Greenstein had previously co-founded Labour Against the Witchhunt and told a Jewish Voice for Labour meeting during the 2018 Labour Party Conference that charges of antisemitism in the UK Labour Party were designed to destabilise Corbyn. [15]
In December 2021 Greenstein accepted a two-year restraining order in return for the Crown Prosecution Service dropping two charges of harassment against the Labour party’s disputes team. The restraint order prevented him from further contacting the disputes team. [16] [17]
In September 2023 Greenstein was given a 9 month prison sentence, suspended for two years, for his part in a Palestine Action attack on the factory of Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms company, at Shenstone near Walsall. He was convicted, with three others, of intent to cause criminal damage. [18] [19]
The Jewish Socialists' Group (JSG) is a Jewish socialist collective in Britain, formed in the 1970s.
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine—a region partly coinciding with the biblical Land of Israel—was flawed or unjust in some way.
The Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), known as Poale Zion (Great Britain) from 1903 to 2004, is one of the oldest socialist societies affiliated to the UK Labour Party. It is a member of the progressive coalition of Avodah/Meretz/Arzenu/Ameinu within the World Zionist Organization. Its sister parties are the Israeli Labor Party (Havodah) and Meretz.
Christopher Williamson is a British politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Derby North from 2010 to 2015 and again from 2017 to 2019. He was Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government from October 2010 to October 2013. Williamson was previously a local councillor in Derby, representing the Normanton ward from 1991 until 2011 and serving twice as leader of Derby City Council.
British Jews have experienced antisemitism - discrimination and persecution as Jews - since a Jewish community was first established in England in 1070. They experienced a series of massacres in the Medieval period, which culminated in their expulsion from England in 1290.
Peter John Kyle is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology since July 2024. A member of the Labour Party, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hove and Portslade, formerly Hove, since 2015. Kyle previously served as Shadow Minister for Victims and Youth Justice, Shadow Minister for Schools, and Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary.
Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) is a British non-governmental organisation established in August 2014 by members of the Anglo-Jewish community. It conducts litigation, runs awareness-raising campaigns, organises rallies and petitions, and provides education on antisemitism and publishes research.
The Chakrabarti Inquiry was a 2016 investigation into allegations of antisemitism and other forms of racism in the United Kingdom's Labour Party. Chaired by barrister Shami Chakrabarti, the inquiry was launched following comments made by two high-profile Labour figures, Naz Shah and Ken Livingstone, that some asserted were antisemitic in nature; Shah, a Member of parliament, and Livingstone, the former mayor of London, were subsequently suspended from the party pending an investigation. The inquiry presented its findings on 30 June 2016, stating that although antisemitism and other types of racism were not endemic within Labour, there was an "occasionally toxic atmosphere".
Marc Wadsworth is a British black rights campaigner, broadcast and print journalist and BBC filmmaker and radio producer. He founded the Anti-Racist Alliance in 1991 and two years later, also helped set up the justice campaign for murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence. Wadsworth launched an early citizen-journalism news portal, The-Latest.com. In 2008, Wadsworth's reporting triggered the resignation of Mayor of London Boris Johnson's spokesman.
The Left's Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Anti‑Semitism is a 2016 book by Dave Rich. The book argues that new antisemitism is "masked as anti-Zionism" in left-wing politics.
There have been instances of antisemitism within the Labour Party of the United Kingdom (UK) since its establishment. One such example is canards about "Jewish finance" during the Boer War. In the 2000s, controversies arose over comments made by Labour politicians regarding an alleged "Jewish lobby", a comparison by London Labour politician Ken Livingstone of a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard, and a 2005 Labour attack on Jewish Conservative Party politician Michael Howard.
Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) is a British organisation formed in 2017 for Jewish members of the Labour Party. Its aims include a commitment "to strengthen the party in its opposition to all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism ... to uphold the right of supporters of justice for Palestinians to engage in solidarity activities", and "to oppose attempts to widen the definition of antisemitism beyond its meaning of hostility towards, or discrimination against, Jews as Jews".
Jacqueline Walker is a British political activist and writer. She has been a teacher and anti-racism trainer. She is the author of a family memoir, Pilgrim State, and the co-writer and performer of a one-woman show, The Lynching. She held the roles of Vice-Chair of South Thanet Constituency Labour Party and Vice-Chair of Momentum before being suspended and ultimately expelled from the party for misconduct.
Jenny Rachel Manson is a British Jewish activist, author, former civil servant, former Labour Party councillor for Colindale on Barnet London Borough Council, and co-chair of Jewish Voice for Labour.
Since the foundation of the Conservative Party in 1834, there have been numerous instances of antisemitism in the party, from both Conservative party leaders and other party figures.
Labour Against the Witchhunt (LAW) was a group formed in late 2017 to campaign against what it regards as politically motivated allegations of antisemitism in the UK Labour Party, which it calls a “witchhunt”. It also campaigns against what it regards as unfair disciplinary action taken by the Labour Party against its members, particularly in relation to such allegations of antisemitism. The group supports individual members facing disciplinary action and has called for changes to the party's disciplinary procedures and code of conduct.
Keep Talking is a conspiracy theory discussion group in the United Kingdom. Topics of its speakers have included the supposed faking of 9/11 and the 7/7 London terror attacks, the alleged hidden agendas behind assassinations of public figures and "secret" agendas of the Brexit negotiations. Researchers Dave Rich of the Community Security Trust and Joe Mulhall of Hope not Hate, after a three-year investigation into the group, reported that meetings often discussed alleged Jewish conspiracies, including Holocaust denial. Rich and Mulhall also reported that regular attendees included far-right activists, at least one former Labour Party member, and unspecified far-left activists.
Zionist antisemitism or antisemitic Zionism refers to a phenomenon in which antisemites express support for Zionism and the State of Israel. In some cases, this support may be promoted for explicitly antisemitic reasons. Historically, this type of antisemitism has been most notable among Christian Zionists, who may perpetrate religious antisemitism while being outspoken in their support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel due to their interpretation of Christian eschatology. Similarly, people who identify with the political far-right, particularly in Europe and the United States, may support the Zionist movement because they seek to expel Jews from their country and see Zionism as the least complicated method of achieving this goal and satisfying their racial antisemitism.
Zio is a pejorative term for Zionists, commonly used by anti-Zionists. The term is widely considered antisemitic.