Jeremy Corbyn’s team blasted as ‘Nazi stormtroopers’ by Jewish Labour donor
Donor claims Labour leader and his team have no respect for others or the rule of law
JEREMY Corbyn’s inner circle has been branded as “Nazi stormtroopers” by a Jewish donor who says Labour’s leader is destroying his party.
Michael Foster, who tried at the High Court to stop Jeremy Corbyn’s name being automatically included on the leadership contest ballot, described the team around the leader as his Sturmabteilung – the full name for the Nazi regime’s SA, or stormtroopers.
He says Corbyn’s team was an “aggressive, holier-than-thou cadre of committed hard-Left socialists” who “excluded, briefed against, often threatened and intimidated” opponents.
The SA – also known as the Brownshirts – helped the Fuhrer with his rise to power, including defending venues where he made and disrupting meetings held by rivals.
Today’s remarks by Mr Foster follow allegations of violent and anti-Semitic incidents in the party.
They also come after a ruling at the Court of Appeal on Friday that 130,000 members who recently joined Labour are ineligible to vote in the leadership contest.
Corbyn is widely expected to be re-elected as leader as he has a lot of grassroots supports and many of Labour’s MPs are said to be considering breaking away from his leadership if this happens.
Earlier this summer, there was an overwhelming vote of no confidence against him – with 172 to 40 voting against his leadership in an astonishing rebellion.
And Corbyn’s aides have asked Commons Speaker John Bercow’s office if he could remain as official Leader of the Opposition if the rebels split away and become the second largest group in the House after the Tories.
Sources say the guidance from the Speaker is that the rebels would have to register a new party with the Electoral Commission before they could be called the official Opposition.
Mr Foster gave Labour £400,000 at the last election but has openly criticised Corbyn’s leadership.
In the he wrote about attending a Corbyn rally in Cornwall.
He said: “From where I stood in that evangelical crowd, I saw what we have all witnessed across Britain for a year.
“A brand of politics alien to this country, defined and delivered by a divisive, aggressive holier-than-thou cadre of hard-Left socialists with no real policies to speak of, no defined social and economic objectives, just a call for the committed to take this journey with them down the Yellow Brick Road.
“If you are like me, a Jewish donor to Labour, you are smeared as a Blairite conspirator, plotting to falsely use the accusation of anti-Semitism to damage the Left.
“Corbyn and his leadership team have no respect for others and worse, no respect for the rule of law.
“We are asked to accept wave after wave of inappropriate, democratically damaging and wrongful actions by the Corbynistas as the new way by which politics will be conducted.
"It is why I, as a lifelong Labour supporter, funder and former parliamentary candidate, last month took Jeremy Corbyn to court to have the law decide whether the leader of the party could self-nominate for leader.
“To me, respect for the rule of law is fundamental to a democracy.
“Once political parties believe they are above the law it ends with all opposition silenced, whether it is my grandparents in Dachau, or the Left in Erdogan’s Turkey rounded up and held uncharged in prison.
“The courts decided that the rules as they stand allowed it.
“This decision advantaged Corbyn and his Sturm Abteilung (stormtroopers), but on Friday afternoon the Appeal Court handed down a big decision for British democracy.
“It disallowed the attempt by arriviste followers of Corbyn to flood the Labour electoral college.
“This caused the mask of reasonableness of the Corbynista leadership to slip even further.
"Rather than start a party of the Left, Corbyn wishes to steal for the Left the respectable cloak of the Labour Party brand.
“For these schoolboy, idealistic revolutionaries, perpetual opposition is the weak and acceptable substitute for perpetual revolution.
“Let these people win Corbyn this election and Labour as a political force in this country will be heading for terminal decline.”
He added: “If MPs declare their opposition to Corbyn, bully boy Len McCluskey threatens to target them with deselection.
“Oppose them as a Jewish donor and the riposte from Seumas Milne, Corbyn’s mouthpiece, is that you are part of a Blairite, Right-wing ‘conspiracy’ (the ancient racist rhetoric is that Jews don’t act alone, the malevolent Jew always conspires) to destabilise the democratically and legitimately elected leader.
“The Corbynista dream of government is our nightmare.”
A spokesman from Jeremy Corbyn’s camp said they do not comment on staffing matters.