Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Grassroots backing for Labour leader is ‘inspirational’
A meeting of Canterbury Labour activists supporting Jeremy Corbyn’s continued leadership of the party was “inspirational”, says its organiser.
Forty people gathered at St Paul’s Parish Hall for a meeting of Momentum, the grassroots movement which swept the hard leftist to victory in last year’s leadership election.
Mr Corbyn is locked in a leadership contest with former shadow pensions minister Owen Smith – and learned this week that London Mayor Sadiq Khan is backing Mr Smith.
But Kate Adams, one of the organisers of the Canterbury meeting on Thursday, is positive about the campaign’s potential to retain Mr Corbyn. She said: “The meeting was inspirational. Canterbury Momentum has launched the campaign locally to keep Corbyn and we will succeed. We welcome more people getting involved. Jeremy’s policies will benefit Britain as a whole.”
The meeting was titled Keep Corbyn – the Fight for Socialism and Democracy in the Labour Party.
Bernadette Fisher, a Labour councillor for Whitstable’s Gorrell ward, was among those to speak. She said that support for Mr Corbyn in the Canterbury and Whitstable constituency was overwhelming.
The other key speaker was Graham Bash, the Broadstairs-based editor of the Labour Briefing website. He accused the media of “Corbyn-bashing” and said that his leadership was being undermined by members the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).
He also denied that the Labour Party was anti-semitic – despite reports on Saturday that almost 3,000 party members had been reported to the national executive committee for anti-semitic behaviour.
It follows the emergence of anti-semitic comments over the course of this year, including that of suspended Labour councillor Aysegul Gurbuz, who had once described Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as the “greatest man in history”, adding that she hoped Iran would “wipe Israel off the map”.
But Mr Bash told campaigners in Canterbury: “I am Jewish and I know what anti-semitism is and I have suffered from it. I am appalled at the way they undermine the struggle against real anti-semitism by concocting these allegations.”
Despite a vote of no confidence from the PLP, Mr Corbyn is forecast to have enough grassroots support to remain leader.
The result of the ballot of Labour members will be made public at the party’s leadership conference on Saturday, September 24.
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