Labour Council candidate Mike Sivier defends far-left antisemites and quotes far-right Holocaust denier

Mike Sivier is a freelance journalist based in Llanindrod Wells, Mid Wales. He writes a blog called Vox Political as well as having a Facebook and Twitter feed. He is standing as a Labour Party candidate for Radnorshire and Builth Wells in the upcoming elections to Powys County Council. He enthusiastically supports the hard ‘Corbynite’ left within Labour, referring to those who formerly led the Party as “neoliberals”.

He writes prolifically on issues relating to Zionism and Jews and has ardently defended numerous members of the Labour Party who have been suspended or expelled over allegations of antisemitism. He has defended Jackie Walker, particularly for her comments that Jews were the chief financiers of the the slave trade. He endorses the views and cross-posts the writing of Tony Greenstein.

Concerning the late Tam Dalyell’s comment that Tony Blair may have been “unduly influenced…by a cabal of Jewish advisers”, Mr Sivier suggests that this may have been “entirely justified”, later writing to us to say that he had not intended to suggest that Mr Dalyell’s comment was accurate. He has defended some of the antisemitic tweets of Naz Shah, despite that MP accepting that what she had said was indeed antisemitic. He has asserted that the Socialist Workers’ Party’s omission of Jews from a list of victims of the Holocaust may have been “politically correct” and defended NUS President Malia Bouattia’s reference to the “Zionist-led media”. He regularly accuses Jews and others who point to antisemitism in his Party of acting in bad faith.

In fact, it seems there are virtually no allegedly antisemitic incidents or individuals on the Left that Mike Sivier has not either defended or supported.

Mr Sivier explicitly states that he believes that there is a “conspiracy” by Jews: “…it is a conspiracy, have no doubt about that” and those who would defend them in the UK. In the same breath as naming leading Jewish figures, Labour MPs and British journalists he says: “We are being told that agents of a foreign country have infiltrated our institutions”.

This would be enough for Campaign Against Antisemitism to question why the Labour Party is allowing him to remain a member, never mind stand for office in its name. However, Mr Sivier’s taste for antisemitic discourse runs to a deeper shade still: his support and enthusiastic defence of Ken Livingstone, and his assertion that Hitler supported Zionism, runs so deep that he has even written an e-book on the subject. Despite Mr Livingstone being found guilty of bringing the Labour Party into disrepute for making his assertions, and the unanimous determination by the world’s leading Holocaust historians that his interpretation of history is twisted, Mike Sivier is persistent and undaunted. After the verdict, unintimidated by historians of infinitely greater learning than himself, he determined that the Jewish community of this country is incapable of understanding its own history.

Mr Sivier seems determined, however, to ‘complete the set’ of every variety of contemporary antisemitism by linking to the work of Gilad Atzmon, an individual so antisemitic that he has been disowned by those on the left that are no strangers to antisemitism themselves. Gilad Atzmon has taken antisemitism to a new level, asserting that ‘Jewishness’ is toxic. He has written that “With Fagin and Shylock in mind Israeli barbarism and organ trafficking seem to be just other events in an endless hellish continuum” and said at a British University event that “…the burning down of a synagogue…is a rational act”. The post itself featured on the website Redressonline, a website so antisemitic it features Mr Atzmon’s work on a regular basis. Mr Sivier quoted directly in his own piece from the editor’s supplementary comments to Atzmon’s post.

When it was pointed out to Mr Sivier on Twitter that he had linked to Mr Atzmon’s work, and that Atzmon had re-posted his writing, Mr Silvier shrugged his shoulders, saying he was “…not all that bothered”.

Yeah, but you're the one claiming he's a neo-Nazi, so I'm not all that bothered.

— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) January 3, 2017

Mr Sivier’s extensive writing provides Campaign Against Antisemitism with an unwelcome resumé of the varieties of antisemitism that have emerged in the contemporary Labour Party. He is not only antisemitic on several counts under the terms of the International Definition of Antisemitism, but, en route, defends many of the leading individuals responsible for it. Not content with that, he has shown himself to be unconcerned about both linking to and being reposted by a neo-Nazi.

In the light of this, and the very public nature of his extensive and offensive posts, it seems inconceivable that he has been allowed to stand as a Labour Councillor in next month’s elections. We call on the national and local Labour Party in Radnorshire and Builth Wells to deselect him as a candidate immediately.