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3 Oct, 4 tweets, 2 min read
As it’s #CableStreet85 tomorrow, and as the CPB/Morning Star has been prominent in commemorations today, worth remembering that, whilst the CP rank and file in the East End played an admirable role, the leadership was only dragged into supporting the counter-mobilisation when…
…local activists told leaders the CP would be “finished” in the East End unless they abandoned plans for their own, party-controlled anti-fascist rally in Trafalgar Square on the same day and backed the local action. (The stamped text reads: “ALTERATION: RALLY TO ADLGATE, 2PM”)
Pretty much every political tendency, even on its own terms, has mistakes in its past. But there should be some reckoning with those mistakes; attempting to boost contemporary credibility on the basis of a misleading revision of the historical record is dishonest and sectarian.
For a different (IMO, accurate) account than the one you’ll read in the Morning Star, I recommend this pamphlet: workersliberty.org/cable-street #CableStreet85 #CableStreet

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More from @therubykid

Daniel Randall Profile picture
20 Sep
All true, but worth adding: sometimes use of language about fighting, even overthrowing, “the system” (or whatever) isn’t a cynical PR stunt intended to dupe people into supporting a cause that’s really about propping up the status quo… (1/4)
…there are currents which really do want to “fight the system”, but in the name of a worse alternative. So it’s not (just) the left “falling for” deceptive rhetoric, it’s forgetting that our positive alternative - not mere -ve opposition to status quo - has to come first. (2/4)
In the Communist Manifesto, there’s a critique of currents which oppose capitalism in the name of a reactionary alternative. Many of the left’s political failures in past decades are about forgetting that reactionary anti-imperialism and reactionary anti-capitalism… (3/4)
Read 4 tweets
Daniel Randall Profile picture
2 Sep
What the debates about when and how Labour should announce policy, and even what the policy should be, invariably leave out is the equally (arguably, more) fundamental question of how the policy is formulated.
Corbyn’s leadership largely left intact the Blairite model of policy production: that it was something cooked up by specialists (SPADs, policy wonks, whoever) in LOTO or Shadow Ministers’ offices, and “announced” to the party and the public simultaneously.
There’d even be policy announcements out of the blue *at conference*, which the left had fought for years to empower. Failing to make a politically sovereign conference the place where policy was debated and agreed (and then acted on!) was a huge missed opportunity.
Read 5 tweets
Daniel Randall Profile picture
27 Aug
Disciplining someone for writing this tweet would not only be an affront to free speech, but inimical to the fight against both antisemitism specifically and racism in general. (1/4)
White Jews have been substantially integrated into the constructed category of “whiteness”. That integration is both recent and extremely precarious, but ignoring or denying it helps no-one, and certainly doesn’t aid serious confrontation of antisemitism. (2/4)
I have made a similar point to the one in the tweet, in speech and print, multiple times, as have many other Jews I know - never to diminish antisemitism or downplay the need to confront it, but the opposite. I think people are more ready to complain about a black woman. (3/4)
Read 4 tweets
Daniel Randall Profile picture
24 Aug
Pleased to announce that my book ‘Confronting Antisemitism on the Left: Arguments for Socialists’ will be published by @NoPasaranMedia on 23 September. Details here: nopasaran.media/confronting-an…
You can preorder the book from a variety of sites. If you don’t have ethical objections to buying books from Bezos Corp., it’s available on Amazon here: amazon.co.uk/Confronting-An….
The book includes forewords by @dr_camila_bassi and Tom Cohen, son of Steve Cohen, author of @dontlookanti. It attempts to locate the historical roots of antisemitism on the left in primitive conspiracy theories conflating Jews with finance, and Stalinist-derived “campism”.
Read 6 tweets
Daniel Randall Profile picture
24 Aug
Owen will get a lot of flack for this from all sides (“he’s caving to the Zionist lobby” from some, and “he doesn’t mean it/he’s just two-faced” from others). Personally I think he’s sincere, and the ability to admit having made a mistake is important.
As a side note, and this isn’t a criticism of Owen per se, more of discourse in general, I don’t think it’s necessary to pose these things as apologies for having caused “upset” or “offence”.
I think it’s fine to say, “I’ve reflected and I’ve changed my mind”, whether or not anyone was “upset”… and also to maintain your existing position, even if lots of people *were* “upset”, if that’s what you actually think.
Read 7 tweets
Daniel Randall Profile picture
21 Aug
Another thoughtful and welcome contribution from David. I share much of his approach. One point of difference: he approvingly quotes a Jewdas article describing antisemitism as “hatred of Jews because they are Jewish.” I think this description obscures more than it clarifies. 1/4
Antisemitism is not simply hatred of or animus towards “Jews as Jews”. It is what Moishe Postone called “an ideology and form of thought”, which presents itself as “antihegemonic” - i.e., a critique of a power, which is seen as in some sense Jewish. 2/4
People who uphold and reproduce elements of that “ideology and form of thought” may not harbour “hatred” for “Jews as Jews” on an individual level, and very often aren’t “racists” in the sense of seeing Jews as a racialised other. They might even be Jewish themselves. 3/4
Read 4 tweets

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