At the hearing yesterday, the GMB did not let Rabbi Ahron Cohen give his speech.  It was timing; the Rabbi had religious duties which meant he had to get the 9.26 train, which didn’t get into Glasgow until 12.42. At 12.15 most of the business of the case had been raced through at breakneck speed; my presentation was frequently interrupted by the chair, when he thought I was drifting into “politics”. The timing for each stage had been set to be short – 15 minutes for this, 30 minutes for that. I begged and begged for them to do some other Exec business for 30 mins (they had other items to attend to, which would have allowed the Rabbi time to arrive), but the answer was no...

I understand that large meetings (there were 7 members of the Scotland Committee present) need to be tightly run.. But it was only at the beginning of the meeting that I was informed of the timings; (which were, I felt, too brief); I immediately tried to explain that my witness would not be there until near 1pm, but that was ignored. I am annoyed and embarrassed that the Rabbi did not get to speak. I think that in this important case, to ignore the view of a Rabbi was a mistake.

If I am expelled, it will probably be claimed that I have been trying to draw the Union into disrepute, but, as I said at the meeting, my public exposure of proceedings was, I felt, necessary, to avoid the far greater damage that would result to the union were I to be expelled. For it would become known as the union that had trampled of the freedom of expression on racism of one of its 631,000 members, sending a message that the union condoned apartheid Israel. As I pointed out at the meeting there were many other GMB members who felt Israel to be racist, some of whom had signed this petition. Would they be expelled too? A year ago, on the 4th Nov, the GMB had sponsored a big march and rally called “Justice for Palestine”; I pointed out that now, every GMB marcher on such a protest would need to be suspended if they declared, like me, Israel to be a racist endeavour. Justice has to be same for all.

By 12.45 the hearing was over and I had to leave. I met the Rabbi just after I exited the hotel. He read the speech out on the hotel steps; we filmed it; and you can se it above; the text can be downloaded here.

I had submitted the speech to the GMB at 8am yesterday morning, so his words are included in evidence. My full defence, along with the allegations, are in a 21 page document, available here.

Judgement

But there is no decision as yet; I was told the GMB judgement will come to me in a letter. They did not say how long that would be; I mentioned that I had been under investigation as an anti-Semite by Labour for almost 3 months now – they said it would be nowhere that long. But in the meantime I continue to be suspended as steward.

You might wonder after all this, why I want to stay in the GMB. Well, I still think it is a good union.  There are a few things I’d like to improve, obviously, but I still think it is a fighting union, far less compromised than Unison or Unite. The GMB thought the NHS staff pay rise wasn’t enough, for example, unlike the other unions.

Scottish Gov says not anti-Semitic to Criticise Israel 

The other main news is that I received a letter from the Scottish Government after I had written to the First Minister seeking support.  That letter, from Jacob Hansen of Connected Communities, says:

 “I appreciate your concerns about freedom of speech and the criticism of Israel, however the IHRA clearly states, ‘criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic’ which we are satisfied helps to protect freedom of speech in this regard.

We believe that the definition helps to bring some much-needed clarity to what is often a complex issue, where legitimate criticism of Israel can be inaccurately called anti-Semitic and where anti-Jewish sentiment expressed against Israel can be incorrectly defined as legitimate criticism of the state.”

Other Submissions

There were some great submissions to the hearing: In this update I’ll give you links to the organisational ones. In the next I’ll give you the individual ones.

So the glorious supporters are (in addition to Labour Against the Witch-hunt (LAW), featured in previous updates):

Free Speech on Israel who say, on their website, “FSOI protests against abusive use of IHRA definition by GMB”

Scottish Jews against Zionism, by Sarah Glynn, - statement here

Tony Greenstein of LAW – statement here

Scottish Friends of Palestine, by Hugh Humphries – statement here

Lawyers letter

My lawyer at Legal Spark sent another letter. This one points out shortcomings in procedure, my rights to express views and complains about the last-minute change of venue (the GMB had moved the meeting to a hotel on Monday, citing fears for staff safety, when they heard there might be a few protestors at their offices (!!)). Read my lawyers letter here; the GMB response was pretty thin, more or less rejecting all his points.. read it here.

Oh and by the way, the petition just hit 1,000 signatures. That’s 1,000 Labour Party members telling the NEC what to do with the IHRA

Cheers

Pete Gregson, Edinburgh