Luke Akehurst

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(political activist)
Luke Akehurst 1.jpeg
Born2 March 1972
Alma materBristol University
Member ofCommunity Security Trust
Interests • Labour First
• Labour Friends of Israel
• Labour to Win
Anti-semite, self-proclaimed “Zionist Shitlord”

Luke Akehurst is a British political activist who, on 29 May 2024, was selected to stand at the UK/General election/2024 as the Labour Party candidate for North Durham constituency.[1]

Akehurst is a Director of Labour First and Labour to Win,[2] and is a member of Labour Friends of Israel and Labour's National Executive Committee.[3]

On 6 June 2024, a formal complaint of antisemitism was submitted to the Labour Party about comments – describing non-zionist Jews – made by Luke Akehurst in 2020.[4]

Pen picture

On 30 May 2024, The Daily Politik posted on Facebook:

Labour’s candidate for North Durham, self-proclaimed “Zionist Shitlord” Luke Akehurst, has deleted 1,329 tweets in the past month.
His candidacy was announced by Labour yesterday. Akehurst sits on Labour’s NEC and has been parachuted in to a safe Labour seat to ensure his election as an MP.
Akehurst is employed by BICOM, an Israeli lobby group that operates in the UK. He is not Jewish.
He has previously tweeted that he believes the United Nations is “antisemitic.”
He has tweeted that he believes nuclear weapons can be used “tactically”.
He has tweeted that the 2003 Iraq war was justified and is “Proud to have supported liberation of a country from fascism.”
He has tweeted, “Attacking the Hard Left is inherently also anti-Tory as history tells us their defeat is a necessary precondition of defeating the Tories.”
He has tweeted “Aren't Jews politically black?”
He tweeted that he was “amused by” economist Grace Blakeley whom he described as a “posh Trot” and a “posh Stalinist”.
Are these Labour positions? Given Faiza Shaheen has been suspended from the party for her social media likes, this smacks of hypocrisy from Labour.[5]

Pledge for Israel

On 6 June 2017, We Believe in Israel and the Israel Britain Alliance published a list of the 216 candidates in the UK/2017 General Election who had signed the Pledge for Israel. 53 of the candidates were Conservatives, 52 Labour, 40 Liberal Democrats, 26 UKIP and 45 from other parties. Thousands of activists from a range of pro-Israel groups sent emails to their local candidates to ask them to support the campaign.

Luke Akehurst, Director of We Believe in Israel, said:

“It is great to see cross-party support from a range of parliamentary candidates for these important pledges about Israel, which include commitments to opposing boycotts and supporting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which defines which forms of extreme anti-Israel discourse cross the line into antisemitism.”[6]

For the UK/2019 General Election, 232 of 3,322 UK candidates signed the pledge.[7]

Labour First

Labour First's "Zionist Shitlords" are (l-r) Luke Akehurst, Matt Pound and Marlon Solomon

Now that the left-wing grassroots movement to reclaim Labour, spearheaded by Jeremy Corbyn, has been smashed, the party’s neoliberal centrists are seeking to reassert their control. The party bureaucracy conducting political purges under the guise of enforcing anti-discrimination rules is a key part of the right-wing effort to re-establish dominance.

All the contenders to succeed Corbyn as leader have agreed to the Israel lobby’s demands to purge the party.

The most right-wing candidate, Keir Starmer, is the frontrunner to replace Corbyn. Starmer has close ties with the hard-right of the party. His leadership campaign staff includes Matt Pound, an operative for the anti-Corbyn group Labour First, who is pictured in the centre of this “Zionist Shitlord" trio.[8] The "Zionist Shitlord" on the left is Luke Akehurst of pro-Israel/pro-nuclear lobbyists Labour First and the "Zionist Shitlord" on the right is comedian Marlon Solomon.[9]

Labour List

A regular contributor to the Labour List blog, Luke Akehurst wrote on 21 June 2016:

I don’t know where to begin.

Before Thursday last week politics felt vile enough already, with a referendum campaign already characterised by Vote Leave leaflets delivered to every household in the country lying about the possibility of Turkey joining the EU as a kind of dog whistle to racists and Islamophobes.

And then on Thursday Jo Cox’s murder reminded us all that there is actually evil lurking on the fringes of our national political life.

There are not many people who are evil enough both to embrace fascism and race hatred, and even fewer who would take their ideology and put it in to practice by shooting and stabbing a young mum for having the temerity to be an elected democratic socialist politician and care about refugees and community cohesion. But it only took one man prepared to put ideology into savage action to take away two little children’s mother and a community’s democratically elected voice.[10]

After Jennie Formby

On 13 May 2020, Luke Akehurst wrote an article entitled "The process and politics of picking Labour’s General Secretaries". Akehurst gave no indication of his pick for General Secretary of the Labour Party to succeed Jennie Formby.[11]

Candidate selection

He oversees the Labour Party/Future Candidates Programme.[12]

Deposed by local CLP

On 14 March 2017, the Clarion reported:

Right-wing ‘Labour First’ activist and proud enemy of the left Luke Akehurst has been firmly routed from his position as membership secretary in Oxford East CLP and replaced by two left wing party activists: Jane Stockton and Dan Iley Williamson – who is also a Councillor and the secretary of the Oxford Momentum branch – with a healthy majority. At the same meeting, which was attended by well over a hundred branch delegates, some other left-wingers were elected to positions on the executive.[13]


 

Related Documents

TitleTypePublication dateAuthor(s)Description
Document:Dear Tom, about this Trotsky thing…..article11 August 2016Jeff GouldingTom Watson, Corbyn’s deputy, has launched an astonishing and utterly ridiculous attack on his leader’s supporters. In it he claimed that “Trotskyists are twisting the arms of young Labour members”.
Document:Why Starmer picked a controversial pro-Israel lobbyist for a safe seatArticle4 June 2024Peter Oborne
Imran Mulla		The self-proclaimed Zionist activist Luke Akehurst has called the UN 'antisemitic' and backs Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank
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References

  1. ↑ "We’re so pleased that our incredible co - director @lukeakehurst has been selected as Labour’s candidate for North Durham"
  2. ↑ "Director of Labour First Ltd and Labour to Win Ltd"
  3. ↑ "Selections drama as Waugh and Starmer allies Akehurst and Simons picked but Russell-Moyle out and Shaheen ‘at risk’"
  4. ↑ "Luke Akehurst accused of antisemitism in complaint to Labour Party"
  5. ↑ "Labour's candidate for North Durham is Luke Akehurst"
  6. ↑ "216 Candidates sign General Election Pledge for Israel"
  7. ↑ "232 of 3,322 UK candidates sign pro-Israel pledge ahead of tomorrrow’s election"
  8. ↑ "Zionist Shitlords are (l-r) Luke Akehurst, Matt Pound and Marlon Solomon"
  9. ↑ "Asa Winstanley: Why I just quit the Labour Party"
  10. ↑ "Luke Akehurst: What do we do now? We keep the faith"
  11. ↑ "The process and politics of picking Labour’s general secretaries"
  12. ↑ https://labourlist.org/2021/08/labours-future-candidates-programme-is-controversial-but-if-it-works-we-win/
  13. ↑ "Luke Akehurst removed from local Labour Party executive by members"
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