Moshé Machover

• AS the first Jewish person to be expelled from the Labour Party I am not surprised at the expulsion of my friend, Moshé Machover, (Moshé Machover’s expulsion from the Labour Party is wrong, August 24).

If anything I am surprised that it took Sir Keir Starmer’s apparatchiks so long, though I do understand that they have a heavy burden given the number of people they need to expel in order to “purify” the party.

Sir Keir became leader of the Labour Party pledging to “root out” anti-Semitism. Since then Jewish members of the Labour Party have been expelled at a rate five times greater than non-Jews.

It’s not, of course, because they are Jewish but because they are anti-Zionists. That in itself gives the lie to the idea that the campaign against “anti-Semitism” under Jeremy Corbyn was about anything else but Israel and Zionism.

The expulsion of Moshé is particularly egregious. As an Israeli anti-Zionist he has been foremost in opposing the racism of the Israeli state which is now manifesting itself in Israeli government ministers, such as police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, openly applauding pogroms against the Palestinians.

When anti-racists are expelled from the Labour Party using the pretext of “anti-Semitism” it is clear to me that we need to build a new, socialist, party in Britain that will challenge the iniquities of neo-liberalism and privatisation.

It is clear that Sir Keir Starmer is a willing captive of the British establishment, all too willing to do their bidding.

TONY GREENSTEIN
Address supplied