From the August 2018 police report (recently released to me by the General Medical Council):
“Ranjeet Brar was completely supportive of officers being there and offered to assist in the investigation and he was adamant that the book was not inciting racial hatred and actually completely the opposite. The title of this book was: ‘Zionism, A Racist, Antisemitic and Reactionary Tool of Imperialism’. Printed by the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist).
“Officers read the blurb of the book and nothing jumped out as inciting racial hatred. The front of the book was clearly using a controversial symbol to grab people’s attention however it was not believed to be inciting racial hatred.” (My emphasis)
*****
How the Met came to write a review of Harpal Brar’s ‘Zionism’, and how the book acquired a political life of its own
Let me take you back to August 2018. Jeremy Corbyn was still clinging on as leader of the Labour party, struggling to stay in office against the relentless assaults of the British establishment, which was striving to remove him from office and thereby remove any hint of the discourse about ‘socialism’, ‘anti-capitalism’ or ‘anti-imperialism’ from mainstream bourgeois politics.
The Corbyn project and ‘antisemitism’
Corbyn was drubbed daily in our press as a terrorist for having once expressed mild support for the Irish republican movement (the IRA!), and the Palestinian resistance (Hamas! Islamic Jihad!), which he dissociated himself from. He was lambasted for supporting violence, having once expressed mild support for the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, for Hugo Chávez, but not President Maduro, from whom he dissociated himself also (condemning “violence on all sides”!)
He was lampooned for being a dangerous pacifist (an apparent oxymoron), having previously called for nuclear disarmament as head of ‘Stop the War’ and the CND – although he reluctantly agreed after being elected Labour party leader that Trident should be renewed! Having initially spoken out against extra-judicial assassination of Yemeni and Sudanese citizens, among others, by British drone strikes, he was subject to relentless pressure, until he went along with that too!
Corbyn was criticised as a supporter of the ‘dictator’ Assad – although he dissociated himself from the “Assad regime” and allowed a ‘free vote’ of his own Labour party right-wing MPs (basically the whole party) on the question of a ‘no-fly zone’ and cruise missile strikes on Syria. Do you remember the cries of “Oh, what a mature, seasoned, sensible and wise politician” is Hillary Benn!?
For all these reasons Corbyn, we were told, was not a true patriot, could not be admitted to the privy council, would not command the loyalty of the armed forces, police and civil service “if elected”, and certainly had no support from the press barons and City financiers. In the event of a Corbyn government, a coup was in order! Serving British soldiers were reported as practicing their marksmanship using JC’s portrait as a target. Seriously!
A split of the Labour party was threatened (does anyone now remember Chuka Umunna?) But the reality was, that the Labour party machinery itself lined up with the Tories, Liberals, Greens, Scottish nationalists, Ukip, police, military, navy, military intelligence, civil service, BBC, mainstream press and the finance capitalists of the City of London to ensure that his electoral campaigns were sabotaged and his leadership holed below the waterline.
Antisemitism: the ‘best weapon’ picked up by imperialism
Perhaps the most effective line of attack on Corbyn proved to be the lasting smear that he was an antisemite, that Labour had a problem with racism and antisemitism, and that the Labour party must be forced to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism (which characterises all criticism of Israel as “antisemitic”).
Back in 2012, Corbyn had expressed his approval of an anti-capitalist mural in east London. It depicted the (European and Japanese) capitalists and imperialists playing Monopoly on the backs of the workers of the world, quite clearly depicting imperialism as modern-day slavery. Suddenly in 2018, the entire bourgeois press launched a campaign decrying this criticism of the wage lords’ exploitation as “antisemitic”!
Typically, Corbyn apologised: “I sincerely regret that I did not look more closely at the image I was commenting on, the contents of which are deeply disturbing and antisemitic. I wholeheartedly support its removal. I am opposed to the production of antisemitic material of any kind, and the defence of free speech cannot be used as a justification for the promotion of antisemitism in any form.” (Corbyn ‘supported antisemitic mural’, The Times, 24 March 2018)
Corbyn apparently did not understand what was happening. Or perhaps he did but was just not equal to the task of standing up for himself, let alone for the British working class or the oppressed and downtrodden nations. One after another, all the causes from which he had made a career mouthing ‘support’ were thrown under the proverbial bus.
And we were left facing the new reality, that this very charge of ‘antisemitism’, of racism, could and would be hurled at British workers for opposing imperialism, for opposing capitalism, for opposing exploitation, and for opposing in particular the imperialist drive to dominate and loot the mineral wealth of the middle east.
Supporting the liberation of the oppressed, indeed, socialism itself was being outlawed. Not explicitly, as Bismark had outlawed the German socialists in 1878, with his ‘anti-socialist law’. No, this was to be a far more ‘British’ regime. Civilised on the surface. Almost unspoken but adhered to rigidly for all that. And, as ever, the consensus to the will of capital must be cross-party. Absolute. Unquestioned.
As Karl Marx noted in the preface to his great work Capital: “In the domain of political economy, free scientific inquiry meets not merely the same enemies as in all other domains. The peculiar nature of the materials it deals with, summons as foes into the field of battle the most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest. The English Established Church, eg, will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 articles than on 1/39 of its income. Nowadays atheism is culpa levis [a minor sin], as compared with criticism of existing property relations.” (1867)
Despite the fading global political, military and financial position of Britain, our ruling class was signalling that with the ongoing and intensifying capitalist crisis, that its absolute right to export capital, and to commit any crime to safeguard the rights of the financial barons in the City of London to commit any crime to safeguard their superprofits and capital flows was sacrosanct.
Moreover, at a time of heightened inflation, of stock-market turmoil, of global competition and glut, and of the domestic ‘cost of living crisis’, there would be no talk even of mild social-democratic welfare increases (Corbyn’s plans for cuts in tuition fees, free internet and the like!) The economic realities of capitalism meant class war. And as popular discontent rose, the state’s means of controlling the working people must likewise become more intense.
Corbyn’s continual retreat should not really have surprised anyone. He has never been an economic Marxist. His underlying 30-year political history was that of the soft left, “loony” Labour; of Bennite social-democratic support for the ‘democratic’ imperialist status quo; of ineffectual posturing and an endless round of garden fetes, ‘antiwar’ meetings that called on the assembly to ‘vote Labour’ despite Blair and Brown’s Labour governments, of which Corbyn was a back-bench member, being the party of war, of genocide in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan. ‘Reclaiming’ Labour was the continual theme of this gentry – as if it had ever stood for anything else.
Corbyn’s entire political life and role was to be the Labour talisman atop the British ‘left-wing’ movement, wringing his hands over the cruelties of imperialism, and issuing a stream of meaningless and effete resolutions – no sooner committed to paper than filed in the wastepaper basket of history. He really had not wanted to become the leader of the party at all.
Zionist activists mature into their role as Britain’s political police force
Let us cast ourselves back into this febrile political bubble. The date is 21 August 2018, just 18 months before his final electoral defeat at the hands of Boris ‘Get Brexit Done’ Johnson. Corbyn was holding a rally in Conway Hall in central London, and zionist provocateurs had been deployed to harass the attendees, shouting them down for being, yes, “antisemites”, “terrorists” and all the rest of their now familiar refrain.
It must be noted that the infamous zionist preacher ‘Joseph Cohen’ (if that is indeed his real name) had not yet had such a direct hook-up with the mainstream press that anyone took him at all seriously. Nevertheless, he and a few rabid zionists roamed the crowd, trying to stir up an incident upon which to ‘base’ their baseless claims of ‘victimisation’.
I was at this event. I had gone with a few comrades to man a stall and speak to the disciples of Corbyn. It was already apparent that his project was floundering, and that the mass following it had called forth would soon be rudderless.
Our party had recently collected Harpal Brar’s series of essays, originally published in the anti-imperialist journal Lalkar, on the origins of zionism into a pamphlet, and that was among the materials we displayed. One of Cohen’s zionist companions, having approached me to start an argument – and no doubt to nurse ‘offence’, even ‘fear’ on the back of his aggressive intrusion – seized (stole, actually) one of these pamphlets and handed it to a policeman, ever present at the demonstrations and meetings of the left.
The police had a brief word with me, took my name and the stolen copy of the book – and then … never made contact with me again!
The Israeli genocide of October 2023-January 2025
And that may very well have been the end of the matter, had I not subsequently been targeted in November 2023 and January 2024 by other zionist activist groups (notably ‘Harry’s Place’ and ‘Gnasher Jew’), which were working hand in glove with London’s Metropolitan police to target workers and political activists taking part in the mass protests against genocide and in support of the Palestinian people in the wake of the escalated Israeli genocide from October 2023-January 2025.
This escalation in Britain’s level of political policing was directly ordered by the Rishi Sunak’s cabinet, whose rabid home secretary Suella Braverman was on record as declaring herself a zionist and demanding that the Met police take a proactive role in suppressing the Palestine solidarity campaigners and demonstrators.
The police responded to her call. I, among thousands of British workers, was arrested on two separate occasions. On Saturday 25 November 2023 and Sunday 14 January 2024. I will not go into the details of those police arrests now, except to say that despite having no grounds whatever to arrest me, they did so on the pretext of allegations made by their zionist agents that I was “inciting racial hatred” by attending a demonstration and distributing the self-same book on zionism; and later that I was “supporting terrorism” by standing outside Hammersmith police station with my four-year-old son – yes really!
It became clear that zionist foot soldiers were directing the police effort to target and criminalise political activists and conscious anti-zionists and anti-imperialists attending the demonstration. Clearly with a view to intimidating and stemming the rising tide of the Palestinian solidarity movement among British workers.
Labour complicity in Israeli genocide and suppression of British workers
The Labour party has compounded and extended the repression since assuming government on 5 July 2024. But even in opposition they gladly played their part. Yvette Cooper, as shadow home secretary, is on record as doing her bipartisan best to chime in with Braverman’s condemnation of British workers’ solidarity with Palestine. All the acts of police repression were recorded as “incidents of antisemitism” by the ‘community security trust’, and in turn were used to justify further acts of repression of the anti-imperialist British workers.
In February 2024, Cooper told Parliament: “I welcome the minister’s statement, and advance sight of it. The appalling and intolerable rise in antisemitism in Britain in recent months, as set out in the report of the Community Security Trust last week, is a stain on our society. We must never relent in our work to root it out – something that I know the whole House will want to affirm.
“The more than 4,000 incidents in 2023 alone are an urgent reminder of the responsibility that we all have to stamp out the scourge of antisemitism wherever it is found. I join the minister in thanking the CST for the remarkable and tireless work that it does each day, alongside the police, to keep our jewish community safe. Having supported and worked with it over many years, I know the incredible forensic work that it does in monitoring antisemitism, and the physical protection that it provides for jewish schools, synagogues and other community events. We owe it our thanks.
“We welcome and support the government’s commitment of additional funding for the CST …
“We must never allow the terrible events and conflicts in the middle east, which cause deep distress across our communities, to lead to increased tension, hatred, prejudice, abuse or crimes in our communities at home. I welcome the points that the minister made about ensuring that extremist incidents on marches are also addressed with the full force of the law, but I press him to go further in a few key areas.
“First, the counter-extremism strategy is now eight years out of date. There are reports that the work has been delayed again. When will the government come forward with an updated strategy? The Metropolitan police commissioner and the government’s own experts have warned that there is a gap in the law around hateful extremism that is allowing toxic antisemitic views and conspiracy theories to be spread [this in the midst of the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people!], and making it harder to police them. I have asked this of ministers before: will the minister update us on what action is being taken?
“Will the government also urgently look again at the decision that ministers took around a year ago to downgrade the reporting of non-crime hate incidents, particularly around islamophobia and antisemitism, to ensure that those who engage in vile and vitriolic religious hatred can always be properly monitored and identified by the police?
“Finally, I ask particularly about online antisemitism, which has increased. We have seen a huge increase on X, formerly Twitter, at the same time as some of its monitoring and standards have been downgraded. Have the government raised that directly with Elon Musk and X? I urge them to do so, and to set out how the Online Harms Bill will address that, because there are real concerns that it will not go far enough to address the changes.
“We stand ready to work with the government on this. Those on both sides of the House will want us to stand together with jewish communities across the country, in solidarity against hatred, prejudice and antisemitism in all its forms. All of us must stand together and say that antisemitism must never have any place in the United Kingdom.” (Contributions by Yvette Cooper to a parliamentary debate on ‘Antisemitism in the UK’, Hansard, 19 February 2024, my emphasis)
‘Antisemitism’ here is the term incorrectly used for opposition to zionism, Israeli genocide and Anglo-American imperialism, which is the real perpetrator of that genocide. It is precisely for that reason that Comrade Harpal’s book is so powerful, and exposes the myth that our principled politicians are just ‘anti-racist’!
They are racist to the core. They stand with exploitation and the war crimes committed by serial Labour and Tory governments to protect that looting of the labour-power and the mineral resources of the peoples of the middle east, and wider humanity.
Wes Streeting, the IHRA definition of ‘antisemitism’ and the NHS
This has dovetailed entirely with Wes Streeting’s December 2024 meeting with the zionist campaigning organisations (Board of Deputies, Community Security Trust, Jewish Medical Association) in his capacity as health minister, during which he pledged to push for the IHRA definition of antisemitism to be adopted across the NHS, directly affecting over a million workers, and further criminalising medical personnel who speak out against the genocidal policies and actions of Israel.
Streeting (the Labour MP for Ilford North who came very close to being ousted by pro-Palestine campaigner Leanne Mohammed last July) has gone so far as to exhort the General Medical Council (GMC) to strike off doctors who campaign against Anglo-American-Israeli genocide:
“In the 12 months following 7 October, over 5,500 antisemitic incidents were recorded in Britain, three times as many as reported the previous year
“According to community security organisation CST [entirely objective and unbiased!], 78 antisemitic incidents have been reported in the health sector over the past 14 months, of which 42 were perpetrated by healthcare professionals.
“Regulators have powers to set conditions that a healthcare professional must work under, suspend them, or strike them entirely from the medical register,” Streeting said. (Streeting pledges crackdown on antisemitism in NHS by Eliana Jordon, The Jewish Chronicle, 15 December 2024)
We will not discuss the IHRA definition of antisemitism here, but refer you to our previous article on the topic. Suffice to say, it is designed not to expose or define racism, but to indemnify Israel from criticism, and therefore to deflect all criticism of Anglo-American imperialism in the middle east as ‘racist’. This fools fewer people every day – no thanks to Labour, or indeed to the ‘left Labour’ swamp around Corbyn.
GMC investigations into ‘antisemitism’
Perhaps predictably, the GMC (my professional oversight body at work) was contacted by both zionists and the police, following the latter’s infringement of my civil and political rights, and launched its own, ponderous investigation into my conduct. As part of this, both the police and the Jewish Medical Association (JMA) coordinated complaints to the GMC. I note in passing that the JMA is actually an Israeli (not ‘jewish’) organisation, and was formerly the ‘British Chapter of the Israeli Medical Association’.
My hospital was contacted and I was asked to justify my action. Had they been so minded, my local NHS Trust managers were encouraged to launch separate disciplinary proceedings against me. Fortunately, my colleagues were generally supportive, and as I was a permanent member of staff, it was not an easy step to simply dismiss me or ‘discontinue’ my contract – as has been the case for so many doctors and healthcare professionals who do not enjoy that relative security of tenure.
The GMC investigation dragged on and hung over my working life and practice for some 14 months before it was finally dropped entirely – as there was ‘no evidence of misconduct’ – on 25 January 2025. That did not happen without a vigorous legal campaign of defence being waged by me, with the help of several lawyers and my party. I will publish more details to help other workers who are falling foul of this increasingly systemic and draconian regime of state actions and sanctions.
By some twist of fate, the GMC emailed me its intention of dropping the investigation on the very day that the pamphlet’s author, my father Harpal Brar, succumbed to his final illness and left us to continue the struggle to which he had dedicated his life. He may rest assured that we will fulfil his behest.
An ill wind that blows no good
And yet, were it not for that politically motivated witch-hunt; that British police-state harassment directed against Harpal’s book, our party’s stall, myself, my comrades and the great Palestine solidarity marches, the police would not have disclosed these secret police records to the GMC, which in turn would not have passed on a 200-page bundle of ‘redacted’ material to me.
Such was the GMC’s eagerness to assist in getting me struck off, disciplined, morally censured and economically outcast from society, on the direct instruction of home secretary Suella Braverman and her Labour successors, that despite heavily redacting various materials from its adjudication process (carefully hiding the names of various state agents), it nevertheless disclosed the fact that some six years before I was arrested on the flimsy pretext of “inciting racial hatred” by possessing Harpal’s quite legal and factual book on the history of zionism, the police themselves had read, reviewed and summarised Harpal’s book.
In fact, the “officer in charge of the case read the entire book and deemed the content not to be offensive”. He had ‘outcomed’ the case for “No further action”, since “No offences have been identified.”
We reproduce in full the Met police review of this outstanding work, and add only our hearty recommendation that all our readers should obtain a hard copy from our shop or download and read the pdf from our website.
There is, of course, a reason that the zionists and both Tory and Labour imperialists want to supress this information. Because knowledge leads to conviction and understanding. It is the basis of working-class political organisation. And from that grows the political power of the working class, and the real freedom of the exploited and oppressed masses from the global system of wage-slavery in which we are enmeshed.
Official police review of Harpal Brar’s ‘Zionism’
Ranjeet Brar – Case Summary complied using Crime Report: 2323708/18
Offence: Racial Incident.
Circumstances:
On 21 August 2018 Police were called to outside the Conway House Ethical Society to reports of a protest taking place whereby literature was being sold which was inciting racial hatred. As police attended they found approximately 100 people standing outside the entrance with about 20 people in high visibility yellow jackets acting as stewards for the event.
As officers were there various people were coming up to them stating that Jeremy CORBYN was supposed to be attending the meeting which was regarding Palestine with apparent Anti-Semitic groups outside within the group of 100. Officers observed the group which was of good nature and no apparent public order offences were being committed.
After approximately 20 minutes of officers being present an unknown member of the public (not the informant) approached officers stating that a small picnic type table was around the corner whereby leaflets and books were being sold. Apparently, one of the books being sold was inciting racial hatred and the Jewish community were extremely offended by them.
Officers approached this table which was being dismantled as they approached and suspect1 approached officers in a friendly manner. Ranjeet Brar stated that he was the distributor for the book which had caused offence and officers asked to see it. Ranjeet Brar handed the booklet over and stated that they could keep it for their investigation whilst officers also explained it would be seized for this purpose. Ranjeet Brar was completely supportive of officers being there and offered to assist in the investigation and he was adamant that the book was not inciting racial hatred and actually completely the opposite.
The title of this book was: Zionism. A racist, anti-Semitic and reactionary tool of imperialism.
[Printed by the] Communist Part of Great Britain (Marxist Leninist).
On the front of the book above title was the star of David in white. In the middle of this star was what appeared to be a swastika which was causing the offence to people at the gathering. Officers read the blurb of the book and nothing jumped out as inciting racial hatred. The front of the book was clearly using a controversial symbol to grab people’s attention however it was not believed to be inciting racial hatred. The book is 92 pages long and therefore officers did not read this due to time constraints and also dealing with a live public order incident/protest.
Various groups approached officers stating that they wanted the people selling these books to be arrested however, it was explained to them that during a public order incident where three officers were present it would not be the case. More importantly, no immediate criminal offences could be seen within the publication itself. However, officers clearly explained that this book was being seized and it would be examined to see if any further action needed to be taken at a later date.
23 May 2019. Officer in charge of the case read the entire book and deemed the content not to be offensive. The officer made the following comments:
I have read the book from start to finish and can see no offences from this book.
The book consists of 8 chapters made up of various articles from LALKAR which is a bimonthly political magazine and proletarian [the paper of the CPGB-ML].
The preface and chapter one introduces what Zionism is, how they believe it is an imperialist tool how the labour party are accused of being soft on anti-Semitism.
Chapter 2 (pages 5-22) Talks about Zionism as a racist ideology by talking about the beginning of Zionis[m], the Balfour declaration, blut and boden theory, the principles agreed by German Zionists and how this progressed once under Nazi leadership. It also talked about The Ha’avara in which German jews were allowed to transfer some of their money outside of Germany to Palestine by buying farming machinery. It then goes on to talk about the Nazi–Zionist collaboration and the basis for this and then onto Nuremberg laws.
Chapter 3 (pages 23-39) Talks about how Zionism and how Jewish people were treated. Starting from the reformation of the church, Cromwell in England, French revolution through to the first world war, Balfour declaration and Jewish people in [unfinished sentence].
Chapter 4 (pages 39-47) Talks about the non–semitic origins of the modern jewish people. It talks about the origins of modern Jewish people from the ancestral homes, their DNA, through to their language and discusses how it is not historically correct for Israel to be seen at Jewish people’s homeland.
Chapter 5 (pages 49-75) Talks about the Nazi – Zionism collaboration in great detail. It starts by talking about [Adolf] Eichmann then Kestner who was from Hungry and how he formed a pact with the Nazis to save 600 prominent Jewish people. It goes on to talk about Kestner and his involvement in the Zionist movement, which they say a lot of information about this has been suppressed. It goes on to talk about his trial and the public reaction to it and also at the Supreme Court [of Israel]. It then goes on to talk about immigration of Jewish people to the USA and other countries and how it was selective.
Chapter 6 (pages 75-81) Talks about the Edward Montagu memorandum. The author then goes on to talk about his own opinions including: there is no Jewish nation, he would make Zionism illegal, Palestine as being unsuitable for Jewish people to sit [unfinished sentence].
Chapter 7 (pages 81-88) Talks about the Balfour declaration, how a lot of Jewish people are against Palestine as a homeland for Jewish people. It goes on to talk about the Palestine mandate. It then goes on to say that the Jewish population in Palestine was increasing and that by 1939 a white paper by Britain had been issued promising to end Jewish people immigrating to Palestine. The chapter then goes on to talk about the Nakba (catastrophe) for people already living in Palestine as it resulted in them being expelled from their own homes. It goes on to talk about how Israel is giv[en] money for military, aid etc. rather than Palestine being recognised as an independent state.
Chapter 8 (page 89-92) is about how certain western governments have criminalised activism against Israel occupations and discussed articles from newspapers including the independent. It talks about laws passed in the America in which less funding would be given to education institutions that fund groups that boycott Israel for instance.
I therefore propose to close this book and taken no further action against the SUS1 as this book is not inciting racial hatred but talks more about the development of Zionism, key characters involved in it[s] development, the impacts it has had over time and different people’s opinions on it.
I will ring the SUS1 to make them aware of this and in order to give his book back. [Not done!]
Outcome: No further action. No offences have been identified.
