Aaron Bastani

Co-Founder, Novara Media. Dad. Husband. Author of ‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism’. Column at UnHerd. More soon with Verso Books.

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

Terrific show on @novaramedia tonight.

Labour try and paint the Greens as a bit crazy! But it was *Labour MPs* who voted, in their hundreds, to define vicars, retired accountants and grandmothers as ‘terrorists’ - for holding signs.

https://t.co/S3c2ownJZD

[Branko Milanovic @BrankoMilan]

It might seem strange but thirty years later on, it seems that a strong case can be made that if the most uncharismatic Zyuganov was allowed by the oligarchs (remember, "loans for shares"), the US State Department, and esp. the Treasury, to have fair elections in 1996 and thus win, both Russia and Ukraine would be better off today, and the world as well.
History makes unexpected detours.

[Ben Mclaine @BenMclaine]

As well as giving excellent directions @AyoCaesar is also correct that the "Zionism is Racism" motion may create strategic problems for the Greens in centring affordability & prompting questions of semantics rather than liberation.

Recommend watching tonight's Novara show icymi!

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

Good spot!

Quite a big deal….

[James Jackson @derJamesJackson]

Interesting whether the German & Austrian Greens agree with this condemnation of “the genocide against the Palestinians”

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

Utterly loopy.

We need a minimal written constitution, centring free speech and freedom of association.

Meanwhile these same people support arresting grandmothers as ‘terrorists’ for holding signs.

[Noa Hoffman @hoffman_noa]

EXCLUSIVE: More than a dozen Labour MPs have reported the Green party to Sussex Police and the EHRC over its ‘Zionism is racism’ policy, The Spectator can reveal.

Zack Polanski’s party was plunged deeper into crisis this afternoon after politicians, led by former Home Office minister Mike Tapp, urged police in Brighton to examine whether events at the Green conference may have crossed into criminally actionable racial or religious hatred against Jewish people.

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

These things aren't the same. You have to have the naivety of a 5 year old to not grasp that. And that's arguably unfair to kids!

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

This, from the Economist, is like reading a school child.

"Far from being colonial, Zionism began as a liberation movement, like the Polish or Czech nationalism".

Czech nationalism wasn't premised on displacing people thousands of miles away!

https://t.co/vVki5M08iO

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

Yes, Zionism shares clear similarities with 19th C European nationalisms.

But, unlike German or Italian nationalism, the construction of the nation required millions of people settling land, thousands of miles away, and giving those already living there the boot.

Come on.

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

@leftrestoration You re-select the candidate every 4 years. Not six times a month! 🤣

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

@leftrestoration they wanted mandatory re-selection. I don't think thats especially radical given the US has primaries!

And Bennism never opposed delegates as a system, as far as I know!

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

All American forces have now withdrawn from Iraq - after more than two decades.

It's striking how little has been written about this. A core part of Iran's foreign policy, since 1979, is US withdrawal from West Asia.

A BIG part of that just happened.

https://t.co/0AouvTspiz

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

@tedsmarty @doctor_rahmeh So the greens should oppose a return to the 1967 borders? Even as an interim demand? The call for that is now…racist? Impressive.

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

@BulusBinyamin @doctor_rahmeh Sadly some people want the smallest possible coalition. A feature of some politics in the digital age.

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

@Seattle_Matt @doctor_rahmeh Completely agree.

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

I think Zionism is a racist ideology. But I equally understand why bundist Jews turned to it immediately following 1945.

How does that make me a ‘Zionist’?

[Dr Rahmeh Aladwan @doctor_rahmeh]

The co-founder of Novara media is a zionist. In case you didn't know.

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

You read that right. People that want to *remove* LTNs will be voting for Zack Polanski.

Voters are not the entirely rational automatons projected by media. If only politics was that easy!

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

The propensity to impose national stories onto single constituencies by media never ceases to surprise me.

In Somerstown, a ward in Holborn & St Pancras, I asked three guys, all Muslim, their major concerns.

They said: anti-social behaviour, parking & LTNs. All voting Green.

[Bill McGuire @ProfBillMcGuire]

My Novara Media interview just reached half a million views

In case you are at a loose end, you can still watch here

@novaramedia @AaronBastani

https://t.co/YMYBNIg5OZ

[Paul Holden @pauleholden]

I would *love* an investigation by the EHRC into The Greens.

Because this time, unlike under Starmer when Labour literally colluded with the EHRC to find Corbyn's office guilty of offences he didn't commit, the Greens will hire proper lawyers. And they'll run rings around the mediocrities and political hacks who currently pass as EHRC Commissioners.

The EHRC doesn't even have a working definition of antisemitism. It explicitly acknowledges that IHRA definition is not legally binding. If the EHRC tried to adopt a definition that centred Israel or Zionism, or tried now to use the IHRA definitions, it would be torn to shreds.

Mainstream journalists are utterly ignorant of how the EHRC works or its underlying statutory provisions. A key statutory provision is that the EHRC is bound by findings of tribunals and the courts.

The tribunal judgment in the Prof David Miller case is a game-changer, and binds the EHRC. The tribunal found that anti-Zionism is a protected belief. It found that anti-Zionism is a cogent, coherent philosophy that holds that Zionism is racist and inevitably leads to the dispossesion of Palestinians. It found that anti-Zionism is a belief deserving of respect in our society.

So riddle me this: how is the EHRC going to investigate the Green Party for adopting a protected belief as Party policy? Not least because the motion explicitly has no implications for disciplinary proceedings - which was the heart of its investigation into the Labour Party.

Of course, the Commissioners at the EHRC, who are all political appointees made by the Minister for Equalities, might feel like investigating a party or movement they dislike (just look at this still serving EHRC Commissioner for Scotland: https://t.co/V1dzHg2dmM).

But if they do, it will open the door to reviewing and exposing the multiple absurd legal contortions and basic errors of fact in its report into the Labour Party.

And it will allow us to expose, once more, how prominent Labour figures like Angela Rayner repeatedly violated the EHRC's findings on political interference - a form of indirect discrimination.

So they might decide to put their fingers on the scale like they did many years ago. But it's not going to be like 2020. This time, they'll face people who actually care about the law, and know how to practice it.