BY SAM WHITE

The Labour Party Conference 2017, taking place in Brighton, has been a horror show from start to finish. Here’s how chilling, off-the-rails, and utterly devoid of self-awareness the Corbyn freak-out has become.

It’s reported that at a fringe meeting called Free Speech on Israel, there were calls for two Jewish organisations, the Jewish Labour Movement, and Labour Friends of Israel, to be removed from the party.

One attendee is said to have told the room that Israelis should be treated the same as Nazis, while Israel itself was referred to by some speakers not by its name, but as ‘the Zionist state’.

In an interview with the BBC, amber encased leftist film maker Ken Loach claimed that in all his time attending Labour and trade union events he had never heard a single antisemitic remark. Then, in the very same interview, he was told about reports of holocaust denial at the Free Speech on Israel meeting, and was asked if he would condemn such behaviour, to which he replied the following:

“I think history is for us all to discuss.”

The interviewer asked him to repeat himself. And he did.

Later, in an interview with Channel 4’s Jon Snow, Jeremy Corbyn continued the theme of being shifty on the topics of brutality and state oppression. Pushed on the issue of Venezuela, he became strangely tetchy, and failed to offer direct, unequivocal condemnation of dictatorial leader Nicolas Maduro, whose government was recently accused by the UN Human Rights Council of “crushing democratic institutions and critical voices”, amid calls for an investigation into possible crimes against humanity.

There’s a game that interviewers can play with the Labour leader. Pick any violent left-winger and ask Corbyn to condemn them and their atrocities. And here’s what he will do: not condemn them. That’s because Jeremy Corbyn is ideologically aligned with a stomach churning list of dictators and dystopias.

Meanwhile, at a nearby Momentum event named, in the Utopian manner beloved of cults, The World Transformed, shadow chancellor John McDonnell speculated on the imagined consequences of a Labour victory at the next election. And it didn’t sound pleasant.

“What if there is a run on the pound? What happens if there is this concept of capital flight? I don’t think there will be but you never know so we’ve got to scenario-plan for that.”

He spoke of “war game-type scenario-planning” and “detailed implementation manuals”. He has a planning team headed by a character named Richard Barbrook, who runs an obscure political gaming site called Class Wargame. It’s seems at least partly tongue-in-cheek, but nonetheless, here’s a line from their manifesto to get a flavour of their character, about what the game does:

“Class wargame… trains the militants of the cybernetic communist revolution to come”

Agitated crank Paul Mason spoke alongside McDonnell, and also envisioned the beginnings of National Corbynism:

“We need everybody mobilised, in crisis mode… We might have to retreat the equivalent of 2,000km and, like in Stalingrad, be in a siege for six months. You might see the government make compromises and retreats. That’s how you get victory. It’s not very easy. But when you get it, my goodness, we will change the world.”

These people are real, they reference Stalingrad, and their sixth form schemes run as far as changing the entire world.

Which brings us to famous racist Diane Abbott, who made it known that she favours segregationist policies. Her suggestion is that in constituencies with high levels of black and minority voters,

“We need to revisit the campaign for all-black shortlists”

Or to put it another way, she wants to create areas in which white people are prohibited from becoming Labour politicians, resulting in a nation carved up along racial lines. How very progressive.

A warning though, be careful about asking hard questions of Corbyn’s Labour. At this year’s conference, BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg had to be accompanied by bodyguards, as a response to the threats and abuse she receives from Labour supporters. Yes, that’s an actual security detail, at a Labour Party conference, to protect a journalist from the attendees.

Underlining the extremity of what has taken place at the conference, Warren Morgan, Brighton and Hove’s Labour council leader, threatened to ban the Labour Party from holding future conferences in Brighton. In a letter to the Labour Party general secretary, he wrote,

“As the Labour leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, I will undoubtedly face questions as to why we allow any event where anti-Semitic views are freely expressed to happen in the city, particularly on council premises.

As a Labour Party member, I expect the inquiry announced today to take firm action; as leader I will need reassurances that there will be no repeat of the behaviour and actions we have seen this week before any further bookings from the party are taken.”

He added,

“We are a city of sanctuary and I have to speak up against any form of racism as and when it is given a platform in the city.”

This is not the BNP. It’s not the EDL or Britain First, or any of the other far right fringe organisations we’re continually informed to be on our guard against. This is the Labour Party, in 2017.