Thread by @Steve_Cooke

THREAD: What is going on in Torbay Constituency Labour Party? The West Country CLP has been in the news this month after the party suspended three of its candidates in the local elections over concerns about alleged #antisemitism. /1

The first candidate to be suspended was Virginia Keyes, women’s officer for Torquay branch and contesting Tormohun ward, after TV celebrity and antiracism campaigner Rachel Riley exposed her history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories (see threadreaderapp.com/thread/1112258…). /2

Then two more were suspended: Torquay branch chair Jack Critchlow, Labour's candidate in the Cockington with Chelston ward, and Dani Passmore, its candidate in Barton with Watcombe. Once again, allegations of antisemitism are understood to have been behind the suspensions. /3

These suspensions came a couple of months after Torbay CLP was rocked by the resignations of two senior officers, Lesley Perrin and her husband Terry, who quit the party when it launched an investigation into claims of Holocaust denial by the former (threadreaderapp.com/thread/1109816…). /4

The Perrins' interest in that topic seems to go back a few years, as shown by this Facebook exchange from 2015 where Lesley recommended the Nazi apologist and Holocaust denial film 'Adolf Hitler: The greatest story never told' to her friends. /5

Yet their very public commentaries on these matters seem not to have constituted a barrier to promotion within Torbay Labour as Lesley Perrin, Terry Perrin and Virginia Keyes soon found themselves elected to key roles in the CLP and its Torquay and Paignton branches. /6

But the Perrins, Keyes, Critchlow and Passmore aren't the only members of Torbay CLP whose views warrant scrutiny. Pat Bishop (aka 'Cat Priest'), for example, commented that Donald "Trump is a Jew in all but name" and has been highly dismissive of concerns about antisemitism. /7

Glenys Wright describes Israelis as 'ZioNazis', reckons the Israeli government were behind ISIL and believes that Jews working in the Twin Towers were given advance warning of the 9/11 attacks. /8

Indeed, David Icke-style conspiracism seems to have got a real foothold in Torbay, with these CLP members also into the usual ra-ra-Rothschild-Zionist mantras, "Israel's hidden hand", organ harvesting, the New World Order, 9/11 truth, and so on. /9

So perhaps it's not such a mystery how people with views such as those held by Virginia Keyes, Jack Critchlow, Dani Passmore, Lesley Perrin and Terry Perrin are able to secure key roles and candidate selections in a CLP like Torbay. /10

Should I be criticising fellow Labour members so publicly? Well, all the material I've cited was posted in open threads. These comrades were happy to share antisemitic conspiracy theories, question the Holocaust, gaslight Jews and attack other members in public, so why not? /11

This isn't about defending the government of Israel, which I detest, or silencing advocacy for Palestinian statehood, which I support. It's about antisemitism. Tough action needs to be taken against those who promote it and more political education provided for all members. /12

Torbay CLP has 700+ members, which is impressive for a constituency where Labour came a distant third in the 2017 general election. I'm sure the overwhelming majority oppose antisemitism. I urge them to use the party's democratic processes to restore their CLP's reputation. /13

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