Is Luke Akehurst the Labour face for acceptable bigotry?

Right, so Labour candidates, they’ve got to be the highest quality we’re told, that is why rampantly unfair deselections have been conducted or attempted isn’t it? Diane Abbott for example, was going to be deselected after having been left hanging for a year over the wrong copy of a newspaper reply got sent in and published, which she immediately apologised for and then got left without the Labour whip for months after her case had been dealt with in an attempt to replace her through technicality. You then have Faiza Shaheen, deselected whilst she was literally out campaigning for Labour in Chingford and Woodford Green, as she has been for four years now, now standing against Labour, having been replaced because she like a Green Party tweet once upon a time and liked a sketch by Us comedian Jon Stewart – himself Jewish – criticising the Israel Lobby. She was also punished for bringing up her own experiences of Islamophobia as a Muslim. These are the most recent and well known examples, there are so many more it is ridiculous.
But then equally if not more ridiculous, you have the very people in Labour judging whether others are worthy parachuting themselves into safe seats. So should we be surprised when such power tripping individuals end up exposed as anything but high quality, and guilty themselves of committing the very things they accuse others of?
Right, so that was Luke Akehurst, we should all be getting much more familiar with this guy by now, arguably in my view the most dangerous man in the Labour Party, an Israel Lobbyist, outrageously Zionist, was once photographed wearing a top with Zionist s**tlord written on it. A Labour National Executive Committee member, someone who has been in a position not just for deciding who is a high quality candidate and who isn’t, but would also have been making decisions and rulings on allegations of antisemitism and other forms of racism brought before the National Executive Committee for rulings to be made. Yet there he is in a very short clip that has been unearthed, despite Akehurst’s attempts to hide such things by deleting some 2000 tweets from his account by way of housekeeping, basically talking about good Jews vs bad Jews in effect. Attacking people for not being Jewish enough, Not going to Shul, therefore they have abandoned their Jewish identity, but happy to gather around a bowl of chicken soup. Stereotyping and attacking some Jewish people based on not being religious enough. That surely, is antisemitism is it not?
It is in effect denying Jewish people their identities, based on criteria he himself has conjured up and Akehurst isn’t even Jewish, he’s just a paid mouthpiece for Israel.
I’m reminded of another case actually, where Rupa Huq, another Labour MP, made a similar claim about black Tory MP Kwasi Kwarteng, referring to him as having been ‘superficially’ black, since if you only heard him speak you apparently wouldn’t know he was black. This comment by Akehurst, falls into a similar incredibly offensive trope.
It's the equivalent of saying if you don’t go to church, you aren’t Christian enough to call yourselves such, how many of us were raised in a Christian household but don’t go? I don’t. I turn up for hatches, matches and dispatches, doesn’t change the fact I was packed off to Sunday School as a kid, whilst mum sat in church, I do come from a pretty religious family, but I’m no less a Christian for keeping my faith in my own way and that goes for every other religion too and it isn’t for a non Jewish paid advocate for a so-called Jewish state to denigrate such people as he has done here.
Jewish Labour Councillor Martin Abrams, a chap who has cropped up a bit quite recently on mainstream media discussions, has apparently written a complaint to the Labour Party concerning Akehurst’s comments here and he’s expecting a prompt response:
‘As a Jewish @UKLabour Member I've just submitted a complaint about Luke Akehurst's remarks here to the Party Considering Keir Starmer has promised me that "under his leadership he takes a Zero Tolerance approach to Antisemitism" I expect a prompt response.’
So will he get a prompt response? Will Labour act against Akehurst? What say you on this issue Keir Starmer?
Zero tolerance to antisemitism on your watch eh? So how come you could suspend Diane Abbott within an hour of her Observer article response getting flagged, I think her apology came before her suspension, yet this is Akehurst, he made these comments some time ago, this isn’t recent, but having now come to light, having now imposed himself as a candidate in North Durham, though you understand this would still have been subject to scrutiny. Luke was allegedly scrutinised by himself and fellow NEC member James Asser, and then Asser himself was scrutinised to see if he was suitable to stand in West Ham and Beckton, by Luke Akehurst, and er, himself. All above board I’m sure.
Such is the right wing make up of the NEC that this allegation could be brought back to them and they go Luke, you’ve been a very naughty boy, don’t do it again, give him a slap on the wrist and off he goes again. Given the disparity in how right wingers are treated versus left wingers, not only is there a factional drive as we all know by now, to wipe out the left, wipe out critics of Keir Starmer, who can’t stand being scrutinised or criticised, leaving behind a Labour Party, completely bereft of any semblance of a soul, of any belief in standing up for the working class as they were created to do and will fully embrace their place as a second establishment party, which will now never change. Equally and for the same reason though, they will never be able to have a zero tolerance on any form of racism, because members cannot and will not be treated equally as a result. I completely believe nothing will happen with Akehurst without significant levels of outcry and even then, Starmer is so in hoc to the Israel Lobby, Akehurst could well be nigh on untouchable despite what he says.
This isn’t an isolated incident either, it’s easy for people to say Damo, you’re covering Akehurst again, anyone would think it is just him, but it isn’t. Let’s have a look at the body Starmer put in charge of racism training and education, the Jewish Labour Movement, where you need neither Jewish nor in Labour to be a member of, and is chaired by Mike Katz, who recently, if you saw my video on this already you’ll know, appeared on an election panel hosted by the Jewish Chronicle, alongside anti-Muslim journalist Melanie Phillips, but he’s also been foolish enough to opine on the case of Faiza Shaheen and her barring from being the Labour candidate, after 4 years of campaigning for the party, for Chingford and Woodford Green. It’s little wonder Martin Forde of the Forde Report wrote of the JLM’s inadequacies in that regard in said report, but nothing has changed, nothing in that report on Labour abuses and racism has ever been acted upon, Starmer buried it.
Katz said of Faiza Shaheen’s treatment in an interview with Politics Home that:
‘Her social media activity was problematic, but particularly given that she's got a very mixed community, and the wider point is, we want people who are in positions of leadership – potentially significant positions, the leadership of the local MP; particularly where there are Jews and Muslims living side-by-side – to behave responsibly when it comes to promoting better community cohesion,” Katz explains.
He says the recent social media activity brought to JLM’s attention by local Jewish members included “talk about the Israel lobby that she liked”, which “really plays into the traditional antisemitic trope of power and shadow control – it's really not very far away from that”.’
Talk about the Israel Lobby. So what’s the problem with that then Mikey? You claim that to be an antisemitic trope, but it is not. If she’d said Jewish Lobby, then it would have been, but here, you’ve punished her, because you regard saying Israel Lobby in the same light presumably, which would mean you are conflating anti Israel sentiment, with anti Jewish sentiment, and THAT would actually be antisemitic.
Shaheen was also criticised over a quote referring to Israel as an apartheid state – it is. Palestinian lives are worth less, they have fewer rights, they are segregated.
But to be punished as a Muslim woman for talking about her own experiences of Islamophobia within the Labour Party is just beyond the pale, and all Katz does is point to an independent complaints process, which isn’t independent at all, it’s people like him, or if shuttled up the line enough, people like Luke Akehurst! If Shaheen has experienced racism herself, Labour should be dealing with that, not punishing the complainant, yet instead we see that happen here and you just know that because Labour operates this hierarchy of racism, as described in the Forde Report and if it was a Jewish person involved here and not a Muslim one, you can’t help but feel this would have panned out very differently.
Luke Akehurst just keeps on becoming more and more of an issue for Starmer, and if he is untouchable, then get the popcorn out as this is bound to continue, but it’s not all gone on Akehurst’s favour as this video recommendation will tell you all about the absolute carnage of his election campaign launch, couldn’t happen to a nicer person and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks