As the Corbynistas continue their takeover of Labour HQ, Guido is taking a look at some of the new faces in Southside. Meet Nathan Akehurst, who Seumas Milne has appointed as Labour’s new media monitoring officer. Akehurst is a former leading member of the Socialist Workers Party, writing after the rape cover-up scandal that he remained “proud” of the party and wanted to “maintain our tradition of revolutionary spirit”. Akehurst was pretty hardcore – he put his name to an article which analysed the SWP’s issues through the prism of the October Revolution and concluded: “The time for Leninism to be tried is now long overdue”. Now he sits in Labour HQ writing summaries of mainstream media newspaper reports… sellout.
Other classic Akehurst quotes include this on the violence that took place during the Occupy protests: “to draw a line between ‘peaceful’ and ‘violent’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ protest is both disingenuous and inaccurate”. And this from the anti-cuts march: “the majority of even anarchist violence was directed against property; the property of a billionaire elite being propped up at the expense of a compassionate society”. Oh and he voted Green in the 2015 general election. Sounds like he’ll fit right in…
The publicly-funded Imperial War Museum is giving a free tour to members of the Stop the War Coalition which will be led by a notorious hard-left agitator. Activists from the group, long associated with the far-left and Jeremy Corbyn, will be granted free access to the People Power: Fighting for Peace exhibition in London. Meanwhile, ordinary families will pay to go round the show this summer: adult tickets cost £10, children £5 and concessions £7. An email to Stop The War members also reveals the museum will provide the services of a professional curator and historian:
“We are pleased to announce a free guided tour for Stop the War members of the People Power: Fighting for Peace exhibition at the IWM in London at 4pm on 3rd August, which will last for about an hour… Senior IWM curator and historian Matt Brosnan and Stop the War convenor Lindsey German will be guiding the tour. “
As noted in The Economist, Stop the War has “often been accused of being sympathetic towards (or at least, conspicuously quiet about) despotic foreign leaders.” Its founder, John Rees, said Hamas and Hezbollah are “a legitimate part of [our] movement”. When Syrian civil society groups lobbied the UN to set up no-bombing zones in Syria, Stop the War opposed it. Tour leader Lindsey German – formerly of the Socialist Workers Party Central Committee – wrote in The Guardian: “The answer to the misery of the people of Aleppo… is not a no-fly [no bombing] zone, which in fact entails military intervention.” A public institution hosts a free day out for the hard left…
The protesters who disrupted Paul Nuttall’s press conference this morning are die-hard Socialist Workers Party activists and their leader was embroiled in the notorious rape cover-up that blighted the hard-left group. Weyman Bennett led a small number of protesters who shouted and waved placards at UKIP’s campaign launch at the Marriott County Hall. The protesters did not deny their SWP background but told Guido: “A large number of groups are involved in Stand Up to Racism“. Asked if they were veteran agitators one joked: “It’s not my first protest”…
A member of the SWP’s central committee, Bennett was implicated in the cover-up of well-publicised rape allegations against an ultra-left ally referred to as “Comrade Delta“. The police were kept out, the accused was declared “ not guilty ” at the SWP national conference and the case led to Jeremy Corbyn being criticised for sharing a platform with Bennett.
Today Bennett and his fellow protesters shouted obscenities and chased away journalists covering the event, after UKIP’s patient press officers politely asked them to leave. Real nasty pieces of work…
