Welcome to today's Labour, the party that bans dissent
The Labour Party has just concluded its first party conference since its landslide General Election win in July.
In one of the keynote speeches this week, Rachel Reeves was heckled by a protester complaining about the Government’s arms sales to Israel, with the Chancellor responding: “This is a changed Labour Party, a Labour Party that represents working people, not a party of protest.”
Today one of our readers condemns the party’s attitude towards dissent within its ranks.
Today one of our readers condemns the party’s attitude towards dissent within its ranks.
Leah Gunn Barrett of Edinburgh writes:
"An ongoing genocide in Gaza that has by now wiped out at least 200,000 civilians and wounded hundreds of thousands of others. A terror campaign against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank carried out by illegal settlers, aided by one of the world’s most advanced armies. The planting of explosives in pagers that have maimed and killed thousands of innocent people in Beirut. More than a thousand airstrikes in southern Lebanon that have murdered hundreds.
These are a few of the recent atrocities committed by the rogue state of Israel that the UK Government is arming and politically supporting.
At the Labour Party conference, a young man interrupted a preening Chancellor Reeves to protest the UK selling weapons to Israel. After he was tackled by security personnel, dragged from the hall and put into cuffs, Rachel Reeves, with a rictus smile, said: 'This is a changed Labour Party. A Labour Party that represents working people, not a party of protests.'
No truer words were spoken. Labour is a party that allows no protests, no dissent from the Starmerite party line, that shuts down voices demanding justice for the poor, the old, children, the disabled and the persecuted. No doubt influenced by Labour Friends of Israel, it has banned the words 'genocide' and 'apartheid' from its party conference.
It is embracing the draconian 2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, the 1986 Public Order Act and the 2023 Serious Disruption Regulations passed by Tory governments that suppress and silence dissent.
If Scotland is to have any chance of escape from this dystopia and regain its international voice, it knows what it has to do."
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