Chris Williamson's planned rally in Brighton had to go ahead on the seafront last night after three venues cancelled on him. Currently suspended from Labour, Chris is still wandering around the country spreading the Corbyn gospel. Following years of 'no platforming', hounding political opponents and forcing venues to cancel events, the loony left finally got a taste of their own medicine.
The Brighthelm Community Centre was the first to cancel Williamson's booking following the intervention of local Labour MP Peter Kyle (so much for solidarity). Organisers then moved the event to the Holiday Inn, but after being bombarded by complaints that venue also cancelled. Williamson's third and final throw of the dice was to approach the Quakers and book their Meeting House, but that didn't last long leaving Chris up shit creek without a paddle.
However, nothing was going to stand in the way of our intrepid revolutionary and the event went ahead... in a park! Williamson claimed afterwards that 150 people attended, although the photos tell a different story. Although the rally was titled "A Democratic, Socialist Economy", this didn't stop one young attendee wearing a USSR t-shirt, complete with hammer and sickle, and being placed at the front of the 'big' (heavily-cropped) group photo. Then again it was Lenin himself who said that the goal of socialism is communism.
Despite the speaker's attempt to show that Williamson is 'Jew-friendly', a raffle was due to be held in which the top prize was a cartoon depicting Tom Watson as an anti-Semitism witchfinder. The cartoon was signed by its artist, Brighton-based Steve Bell, whose work has been published in the Guardian for many years. However, the newspaper refused to publish this particular cartoon (pictured below), leading to it's star slot at Williamson's rally.
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| Top prize at Williamson's rally was a signed copy of this cartoon |
A small group of protesters gathered outside the town hall, one of whom told the local rag: "If it had just been Chris who was to come down, it would have been offensive. But the fact it’s Chris and the auctioning of the cartoon, it feels like an exercise in Jew baiting". Williamson claims that he is being lined up for expulsion by Labour and is currently taking legal action. Stunts like this won't exactly work in his favour, regardless of how many Jewish communists spring to his defence.
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| Williamson with the artist and raffle prize |
