Britain: Gove accuses RCP of antisemitism – down with the lying Tory war criminals!

Tory minister Michael Gove has accused the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) of antisemitism live on the BBC.

[Originally published at communist.red]

It is no coincidence that Gove has chosen to attack us now. Just yesterday the International Criminal Court (ICC) accused Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the murder of civilians.

Even by the spurious standards of a bourgeois court of law, the crimes that Israel is carrying out in Gaza are clear for all to see.

The Tory government, alongside the rest of the establishment, is complicit in this genocide. Since 2008, the British state has licensed over £574 million in arms sales to Israel.

Both the Tories and Starmer’s Labour have taken every opportunity to give their unconditional support to the murderous Israeli regime, including the dispatch of the Navy and RAF as backup, and defunding the UN’s aid agency UNRWA.

Meanwhile, the entire bosses’ media has been mobilised to whip-up support for the Israeli regime, and shield it from its crimes.

Gove’s speech is therefore nothing more than a smokescreen to obscure his government’s – and the rest of the establishment’s – role in perpetuating Israel’s ongoing slaughter in Gaza.

It’s not the RCP that should be on trial, but the British imperialists and their capitalist system, which is producing the horrors we see in Gaza today.

Hypocrisy

Along with others who oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza, we have been accused by Gove of whipping up “division and hatred”, and of threatening the very foundations of British democracy. This is rank hypocrisy.

Gove postures as a defender of free speech and democracy. Meanwhile, our comrades have been intimidated and arrested by the police for supporting Palestine / Image: RCP

This is rich coming from the very same Tory government that has been the architect of divisive racist policies, such as the deportations of refugees to Rwanda and the creation of a ‘hostile environment’ towards migrants.

It is his government that is actively whipping up a culture war to distract from their own failures; fomenting hatred towards migrants, asylum seekers, and other oppressed layers of society.

Ministers such as Gove claim to be paragons of free speech, protecting Britain from the ‘hordes’ of communists and protesters. Yet, it is his government that has attacked democratic rights of free speech and assembly.

They are the ones who have clamped down on the right to protest with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, as well as the right to strike with the Minimum Service Levels Act.

Comrades of the RCP, meanwhile, have been intimidated and arrested by the police at pro-Palestine demos on bogus charges, which have later been dropped, just to stop them from marching.

And we have been smeared as violent antisemites in bosses’ rags like The Telegraph for putting forward a revolutionary programme in the Palestine solidarity movement.

Antisemitism?

Blatant smears of ‘antisemitism’ and so-called ‘hate marches’ are merely tools of the establishment to attack those who oppose imperialism, and to clamp down on basic democratic freedoms.

Anti-Zionism has absolutely nothing to do with antisemitism. The genocide being carried out against the Palestinians is not a Jewish policy, but is the policy of the Israeli regime and western imperialism.

Many Jewish people have taken part in pro-Palestine marches and encampments to express their opposition to this genocide. Gove and the rest of the Tories know this. They are lying through their teeth.

The Tories are cynically using the issue of antisemitism as a political football, to suit their own imperialist agenda.

In reality, it is their support of Netanyahu’s war that is fuelling division, and making the world less safe for Jewish people.

These accusations are particularly sickening coming from the Tory Party, who themselves have a long and shocking history of antisemitism.

Sign of weakness

There is a deep mood of disgust at the actions of British imperialism, both at home and abroad. Millions have taken to the streets week-on-week to demand an end to the genocide.

Now, an explosive movement of encampments at universities has spread across the world, demanding that all ties with the Israeli war machine are severed.

Students and workers are sick of British imperialism’s support of the genocide, and have made it clear that they are willing to stop at nothing to fight it.

This is what the government fears. This movement brought down the war criminal Suella Braverman. And it now has the potential to escalate and bring down the entire Tory government, alongside any government that continues to support Israel’s barbarous war.

No wonder that support for revolution and communism are on the rise, as millions can see every day the horrors that the capitalist system creates, both in Gaza and elsewhere.

Fight back

The entire establishment has blood on its hands. Michael Gove, the rest of the Tory government, alongside Starmer’s loyal opposition: they are all war criminals.

The brutality of Israel’s genocide has been met with a conspiracy of silence in the bosses’ press, which merely parrots the line of British imperialism in its support for the slaughter, and smears anyone who dares stand against it.

Palestine protesters, alongside comrades of the RCP, have been smeared in the press as ‘antisemites’, as ‘inciting violence’, and as being ‘terrorist sympathisers’. Our demands to reply to these gross slanders have so far been ignored.

But we will not be silenced. We are determined to fight back. And you can help.

To combat the establishment’s lies and smears, and make the most of the publicity and attention we are getting, we need to employ a new full-time revolutionary dedicated to media and press work.

And we need to fight the conspiracy of silence in the bosses’ press by building the revolutionary press, which will publish and expose what the establishment doesn’t want you to read.

We therefore urge you to donate to our fighting fund, set up a regular donation to help us take on more staff, and subscribe to The Communist. With your support, we can succeed.

Above all, we ask you to consider joining the Revolutionary Communist Party. We are building a force that can overthrow the Westminster warmongers, and the murderous capitalist system that they defend. We urge you to join us in this task today.