This is a cross-post from Anthony Cooper
Jeremy Corbyn has been a Patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign since at least 2003. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) was founded in 1982 but almost collapsed in 1998. One of its executive members, Francis Clark-Lowes, helped “resuscitate” it by serving as its National Chair between 1998 and 2001. Later he served as one of its Directors.
Francis Clark-Lowes is a Holocaust Denier and was obsessed with “Jewish power” from the beginning of his involvement with the PSC.
In January 1999 he wrote to his fellow members of the PSC committee urging the PSC to recruit more Jews because “non-Israeli Jews in the West are, as a body, an extremely potent force”. In the same note he complained that:
“only rather bland statements follow about the unworthy use of ‘the holocaust’ [his quotation marks], and anything which might conceivably be construed as revisionism is avoided like the plague.”
In May 1999 Clark-Lowes told a conference that:
“a cursory review of holocaust literature reveals that most of the books on this subject are written by Jews, and their almost exclusive concern is the suffering of Jews. I ask myself whether this process has more to do with buttressing the ‘fantasy’ … of Jewish identity than with understanding the nature of atrocity…At the risk of being labelled a revisionist…I want to suggest that there is something wrong with the use of the Nazi atrocities for this purpose…It is for this reason I find it better to avoid the word ‘holocaust’, and to refer instead to ‘Nazi massacres’, or ‘Nazi atrocities’.
In 2000, he wrote to all member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign suggesting that they should engage with Jews because “they are more likely to be interested and to have the power to influence Israeli politics than any other group. Their influence on those in the West with the power to exert pressure where it matters is also likely to be greater.”
Clark-Lowes is a close friend of Paul Eisen – the self-declared Holocaust Denier whose events Corbyn has attended. In 2005 when Eisen declared himself to be a Holocaust Denier, Clark-Lowes defended him, writing that “unconsciously or consciously almost all criticism of Israel and support for the Palestinians undergoes a process of amendment to comply with the demands of Jewish power.” and that “Whatever the truth about the Nazi atrocities, we agree, I think, that Finkelstein is correct is describing ‘the Holocaust’ as an industry. To me that industry is a tangible representation of Jewish power.”
Clark-Lowes himself eventually came clean declaring “I am proud to call myself a ‘Holocaust denier.’”
Eventually, Clark-Lowes was expelled from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in 2011 and appealed at its AGM in January 2012. In his appeal speech he spoke of the “Holocaust myth” and the need to challenge “Jewish ideology”. The members of the PSC voted to uphold the expulsion – although 20% refused to do so.
Jeremy Corbyn was present at that AGM!
So once again Corbyn is faced with awkward questions about his relationship with a Holocaust Denier. When did he become a Patron of the PSC? How many events organised by Clark-Lowes has he attended? How may meetings has he had with Clark-Lowes? When did he become aware that the PSC was being run by a Holocaust Denier?
What explanations will Corbyn come up with to explain yet another association with a Holocaust Denier?