Exposed: Corbyn ally’s vile Nazi slur on our democracy
Hard-Left MP claims British leaders have used power like Hitler
ONE of Jeremy Corbyn’s closest allies claims that British governments have enforced power like the Nazis, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Hard-Left MP Clive Lewis told young Labour activists that political leaders had ‘systematically undermined’ the NHS, the BBC and public services.
He likened this to the Nazi policy of seizing power by forcing all institutions to toe the same line, called ‘Gleichschaltung’.
Speaking in Brighton as Labour held its conference this week, Mr Lewis took aim at ‘neo-liberalism’ – a term for free-market economics used pejoratively by the Left.
At an event run by pro- Corbyn group Momentum, he said: ‘One of the things that neo-liberalism has done, it has undermined [the BBC and the NHS], systematically undermined them.
‘The Germans – the Nazis – actually developed a word for it. It’s called Gleichschaltung. Basically, the Nazis understood that when they came into power, it wasn’t just about decree, they also had to undermine those civil and democratic institutions.’ The former Labour business spokesman said he was ‘not comparing the Conservative government to the Nazis’, but added: ‘What I am saying is there is a theme running through neo-liberal approaches to democratic institutions.’
Another speaker called for the monarchy to be abolished and ‘bad laws’ to be broken. Last night Tory MPs said Mr Lewis’s comments were little more than hate speech.
It comes as Labour was branded the ‘new nasty party’. At the Brighton conference, one speaker at a fringe event said they should be able to question whether the Holocaust took place, while another delegate called for the party’s Jewish wing to be kicked out for backing the ‘apartheid’ state of Israel. And Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad sparked fury by mocking Prince Harry’s military record.
The equality watchdog called on Mr Corbyn to ‘root out’ antiSemitism and told Labour it had to do more to prove it was not a racist party. Alongside the party conference in Brighton, Momentum put on a festival for activists which was called The World Trans- formed. Mr Lewis organised a debate titled ‘radical democracy and 21st-century socialism’, joining the Momentum chairman Jon Lansman on a panel last Sunday.
He said public institutions such as the BBC and the NHS were ‘really big’ elements of a healthy democracy, but these had been under attack from neo-liberalism. He compared this with Gleichschaltung – literally translated as ‘synchronisation’ or ‘co- ordination’. The term was used by the Nazi Party for its policy of eliminating all opposition within the state’s political, economic, and cultural institutions.
Mr Lewis, who was previously a Labour defence spokesman, said: ‘They developed a word which was basically to undermine and
‘ The BBC, NHS, public services,co-operatives– neo-liberalism has systematically undermined them. The Nazis actually developed a word for it. Gleichschaltung. They understood that when they came into power they had to undermine those civil and democratic institutions and hollow
them pointless out or till irrelevant.they’re either I’m obviously not comparing the Conservative government to the Nazis – quite careful what we do here – but what I am saying is there is a theme running through neo-liberal approaches to ’ democratic institutions.
hollow them out till they’re either pointless or irrelevant.
The MP also claimed that Labour had inspired the Left in Israel. Even though almost one in four voters in Israel support Left-wing parties – including its own ‘Labor Party’ – Mr Lewis said: ‘I was in Palestine last week and I met some Leftists in Israel. They were hard to find and track down but we did find them eventually.’
Also on the panel was Janine Booth, of the RMT union, who told the event: ‘We need to abolish the monarchy. We also need a right to protest, we need to take direct action, and democracy, yes, sometimes involves breaking bad laws.’
She admitted there was ‘a genuine issue… with antiSemitism within the Labour movement’, but said it needed to be confronted through political education and debate rather than disciplining offenders.
Tory MP Andrew Percy said: ‘These comments from Clive Lewis are grossly offensive and little more than hate speech.
‘It is this type of rhetoric that encourages followers to violent and sinister behaviour. Most importantly, what he is saying is also historically inaccurate. The capitalist system has provided this generation with the best healthcare, education and social services in the history of the country. Clive Lewis is an ill-informed, ignorant fool.’
Former Tory Party vice-chairman Shailesh Vara said the comparison was ‘not only completely wrong’ but ‘grossly offensive to millions’.
Last night Mr Lewis said: ‘As I said on the panel, I was in no way comparing the Nazis to the Tories. To suggest otherwise is grossly misleading.’
The RMT said: ‘Janine Booth was not representing RMT on this platform and the views she expressed were her own.’
Miss Booth said: ‘ I was invited to speak as an individual, and references to my trade union affiliation were just for descriptive purposes.’
A kinder, gentler politics. You have to pinch yourself to remember this was what Jeremy Corbyn promised when elected Labour leader. After its conference this week, his words are no more than a sick joke.
For as every day proved, the hard Left’s takeover has infected the party with a virulent strain of intolerance.
On Monday, activists clapped along when panellists at a fringe meeting likened supporters of Israel to Nazis. One speaker suggested Labour should be free to debate whether the Holocaust had happened.
On Tuesday, a Trotskyist faction accused the head of the Jewish Labour Movement of being a ‘hard-Right racist Zionist’, while the party was censured by the equalities watchdog for not tackling anti-Semitism.
Then on Wednesday, Mr Corbyn’s speech offered not one word of apology, and risibly hailed the conference’s ‘spirit of unity, love and affection’.
If any Mail readers still question the scale of Labour’s anti-Semitism problem – or the extent to which its leaders tolerate their followers’ worst excesses – they need look no further than Red Len McCluskey, who claimed the entire controversy was ‘mood music’ designed to undermine Mr Corbyn.
But the hatred and enmity did not end there. As we reveal today, at a meeting hosted by Momentum, MP Clive Lewis deployed a sickening Nazi slur which – though he denied it – was clearly aimed at this government.
With such overwhelming evidence, there should be no doubt in the public’s minds that Labour is the real nasty party. Nor should there be any doubt that its policy programme of State control of the economy, 1950s-style rent caps and all power to the unions is unremittingly Marxist and would bankrupt the country.
Certainly, the scales should have fallen from the eyes of those foolhardy business leaders who trooped off to Brighton to cosy up to Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who was honest enough to admit he expects to provoke a run on the pound if he ends up in the Treasury.
Yet the fact remains that to his loyal supporters, to many voters who have felt the squeeze following the financial crash, and particularly to the under-40s who have no memory of the Winter of Discontent, Mr Corbyn has a superficial appeal.
Which brings us to the challenge facing the Tories as they gather for their conference, braced for a stream of invective from the inevitable Left-wing hate mob.
Theresa May set the right tone this week, as she – belatedly – made the case for free markets. Today she warns of the disaster Corbynomics would inflict on the poorest. But after a survey revealed widespread support for wholesale nationalisation, there is clearly a long way to go.
Yes, there must be an election postmortem into party organisation and socialmedia campaigning, where the Tories were totally outgunned.
More than anything, the Conservatives must offer an optimistic vision of this country’s future. After her Florence speech, Mrs May has a strong story to tell about the opportunities of Brexit.
She must reaffirm her determination to give those who feel left behind a stake in society, deliver practical solutions to the country’s problems – especially the broken housing market – and prove that hers is the true party of aspiration.
Above all else, the party must be unified. For if the conference descends into infighting – gripped by bickering over Brexit or, even worse, disloyal posturing from pretenders to Mrs May’s throne – the Tories will already have lost.
The Mail is wary of hyperbole. But there is no other way to put it: If they let Corbyn win, it will be a disaster for Britain – and for the very people he professes to care for the most. For the Tories, the price of failure is too appalling to contemplate.