Warmonger Alastair Campbell was forced to scuttle upstairs as his speaking engagement in Croydon last night descended into disorganised farce.
Low farce: after paying 30 quid for their tickets, attendees were expected to move furniture and to buy Campbell’s book
The event was a campaign fund-raiser organised by Labour MP Sarah Jones, although in reality it was just as much about Campbell flogging a few copies of his latest self-regarding book.
Despite Jones and Campbell trying to keep the location of their £30-a-ticket love-in a secret, a large crowd of pro-peace demonstrators gathered outside The Venue (what used to be Beano’s) on Middle Street, just off Surrey Street.
There, with placards and Palestinian flags, they voiced their anger at Labour’s craven position over the genocide in Gaza.
Reasonable estimates, backed up by video evidence, suggest more protestors were on the street than there were Blairites inside the poorly attended event.
Allegations – by pro-war Labour supporters – that windows were broken were dismissed by protest organisers as “false”. There were no arrests, although one passer-by not connected with the protest was cautioned by a constable for using a rude word…
Star-struck: some Croydon Labour members enjoyed meeting a warmonger
The sensitivities of having Campbell attend a book promotion event in Croydon were clearly understood by Jones and the local Labour Party, from their cloak-and-dagger approach to bookings.
Labour in Croydon had a fund-raising dinner cancelled before Christmas when the owner of that venue took issue with the party’s failure to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Last night, the chanting protestors certainly made themselves heard: Jones and her organisers ordered the couple of dozen attendees to remove themselves from the venue’s ground floor, and take their chairs upstairs to try to escape the din.
That move was not entirely successful, though.
Once everyone had settled down with their over-priced bottles of warm lager to hand, Jones discovered to her dismay that the microphones did not work.
The MP – currently for Croydon Central, though this event was to raise funds for her new constituency of Croydon West – was forced to raise her voice to make herself heard.
As did LibDem voter Campbell, who was becoming increasingly hoarse as the evening wore on.
Unlawfully obtained: Al Jazeera’s The Labour Files exposed how party officials circulated illegally hacked data. Labour never notified the police
Among the attendees were Stuart King, the leader of the Labour group at Croydon Town Hall, Ben Taylor, the party’s candidate in Croydon South, plus a smattering of other Blairite types and party hacks.
In an irony undoubtedly beyond the comprehension of those attending their warmongers’ little get-together, the upstairs room at The Venue was the location for many of the “studio shots” and interviews for the 2022 Al Jazeera television investigation into illegal hacks and corruption in the Labour Party, nationally and specifically in Croydon.
As one insider who slipped out of the Campbell event to tell Inside Croydon how things were going: “There was a comedy element to it all, of course. It reminded me of a scene from Fawlty Towers: ‘Don’t mention the war!’ Though here it was more a case of: don’t mention any wars!”
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: Whip letters prove they knew hack was illegal
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: Source of hacked data worked for David Evans
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Most Labour members want a ceasefire. Just because the leader of the party is soggy on the issue, it doesn’t mean most attendees or the wider membership don’t want peace.
No protests about problems closer to home sadly. Seems foreign policy trumps everything. Weird priorities
Were you asleep when hundreds of people took to the street outside the Town Hall to oppose your Mayor’s Council Tax hike?
Its disgusting this war criminal was invited… And before anyone starts with “no one was charged” … At the time the crime of Waging Aggressive War was outside the jurisdictions of the ICC because “we don’t have an agreed definition of it”. Rudolph Hess who spent most of his life in Spandau prison after being found guilty of the charge must feel a right prune …
I am always a bit bemused by that phrase ” Waging aggressive war” – There is waging war, waging aggressive war , Blitzkreig, Russian pretext war and American overwhelming force of fire and thunder to obliterate a pimple on the arse of something unmentionable.
And then there is the old new passive aggresive war that really is a rehash of an Drochshaol -remove food water air and shelter/medicine and you have a passive aggresive war that can be viewed as genocidal.
(p.s fun fact – Population of Ireland 1840 was 8 million in 2021 it just recovered to 5m – only two more centuries to go.)
Israel has a right to be a free sovereign nation and live in peace and so do Palestinians Yemeni’s, Sudanese Ukranians and everyone.
Perhaps it might help if larger nations stopped using smaller nations to have proxy wars?
Waging an aggressive war (like 2003 Iraq) is very simply starting a war that didn’t need to happen because it was not defensive or a reaction to a plausible threat which Saddam’s invented arsenal of WMD was not. From Campbell’s 2 Dodgy dossiers to the tissue of lies that was Powell’s UN PowerPoint presentation there was no legal justification for the Iraq War. Resolution 1441 did not legitimise the war either.
The Nuremberg Tribunal described it this way : “To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”
These are fairly black and white binary concepts which are not at all confusing at except to people too lazy to use Google or who are trying to muddle issues together with a whole load of Whataboutery.
You’ll forgive me if I don’t comment on the legality of the Israel/Gaza conflict but, unlike the illegal 2003 Iraq invasion, it is not black and white and I can only ride one hobbyhorse at a time. Maybe Israel will have peace one day but it would have to define the borders it is trying to have peace within first – a question that has remained unresolved since 1948. Such questions should be resolved by National Self Determination of the respective populations. This concept is the cornerstone on modern international law and derived partly from President Wilson’s famous 14 Points speech.
One thing can be said for certain however, and that is the Blair and Bush invasion of Iraq gave the green light to many other governments all over the globe to say that you can ignore International Law and the UN and this quite clearly has set it motion a spiral of international instability which will no doubt eventually end in WIII.
Probably quite soon.
Theo, the majority of MPs or councillors don’t so why support that treachery? Maybe watch the Al Jazeera files again (assuming you have).
The Labour Party is no opposition, and does not listen to it’s members or the people. We need a new system.
If you want to change the system, you do so from the inside, gradual reformation is what works. While you are fully in your right to protest, it often leads to nowhere and can actively harm the cause by giving the Tory media ammunition to attack you.
The Labour Party may not be acting as you wish but it is “The Opposition “ and we are a democratic country. What is this new system ‘we’ want?
An opposition that opposes
Democracy means rule by the people, not rule by just two parties. That’s why we should have an election system based on proportional representation so that many different views are represented. Labour members voted to support this but the leadership said no – Labour is not even democratic within its own party so we know we can’t trust it to act democratically in government
Be careful what you wish for, PR will let Farage’s lot in.
I never realised that if Keir Stammer called for a ceasefire then world peace would ensue. The hard left are soo smart