Monday 20th August 2018
Four people were present. Eight had sent their apologies.
We were introduced to the organisation Diem25 (Democracy in Europe Movement, ‘25’ indicating the year 2025 being a time by which change towards real democracy would have to happen, if it is to). The leading figure in this is Varoufakis who founded the organisation in 2015. He is speaking with Corbyn at the Edinburgh Book Festival, also on 20th August. He has also acted as economic advisor to Corbyn.
Diem25 is based upon small groups (somewhat like our What’s Left group) across Europe who keep in continual internet contact. They aim to promote democracy ‘from the bottom up’, within the EU, and to place Diem25 members in the European Parliament. A number of leading figures on the left (including Chomsky, Caroline Lucas and John McDonald) belong to Diem25. There is also a Sheffield group. (see https://diem25.org for further details.) Some in our group may be interested to pursue contact with Diem25.
This raised the question of whether we supported some form of further Brexit referendum. There appear to be three options: staying in EU, accepting government’s negotiated settlement, or ‘hard’ Brexit. While we mostly wanted to stay in EU the idea of a referendum was fraught with difficulties. We wondered whether Corbyn should support a more ‘remain’ position. A recent poll indicates Labour would do better in a general election if it supported remaining in (But note Barry Gardiner’s claim on the Today programme (21st August) that this could lead to civil disruption). We thought a consequence of a hard Brexit could be the break-up of the EU, but were uncertain about whether this would necessarily be a bad thing.
Finally we returned to the issue of antisemitism (see notes of July meeting). We all felt very strongly that the matter has been reported with enormous bias (including in The Guardian) and is used against Corbyn. It was even suggested that there was a conspiracy, an idea consistent with the disturbing evidence presented by an Al Jezeera documentary (see www.aljazeera.com/investigations/thelobby/) regarding the Israeli embassy’s involvement with the Labour Party. We also considered the IHRA example of anti-Semitism that was the principal objection to the labour party position (concerning ‘claims that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour’ is antisemitic). While accepting such a definition would cast some of us as ‘antisemitic’, the real danger is that even discussion has been effectively shut down, with some prepared to accept any definition just to make the issue go away.
Our small attendance was due to many being away on holiday. It was suggested that a couple of others may wish to join us. We encourage that as our meetings are still not too big for a good conversation.