Does this look like “poison" from a "hate mob” of "losers" … in the words of Reform Party MP Rupert Lowe?

Anti-genocide campaigners in Norfolk don’t want Israeli bowlers competing in the UK

Note to those reading via email: This article may exceed the length that can be sent by Substack to an email account. Solution? Please click on the headline (Does this look…and it will take you directly to the Substack article. Or click on “View Entire Message” down the page.

Cover photo by Susan Carr on 10 Jan. in front of Potters Resorts, Hopton-on-Sea in Norfolk.

By Alan Story

This is one of those “connect the dots” stories of Who? Where? and What?

+ Dot #1 is, of course, Elon Musk [Trump’s sidekick, the UK’s political meddler- in-chief for 2025, the world’s richest man - as the mainstream media constantly reminds us – and with Aljazeera informing us that Musk had recently told German voters on his X (formerly Twitter) platform that only the neo-Nazi AfD party “can save Germany. End of story.”]

+ Great Yarmouth Reform Party MP Rupert Lowe is the second dot. [He’s in the same political and ideological camp as Musk and they both make Nigel Farage sound like a liberal. Although not in Musk’s league financially – who is? - Lowe is a rich enough multi-millionaire business tycoon and former owner of a chain of care homes that he doesn’t need to personally pocket his MP salary of £91,346 per year, plus expenses.]

+ The somewhat down-at-heel Norfolk coastal town of Great Yarmouth and one of the most easterly spots in the UK [ which Lowe, known as a “Cotswold toff”, probably visited for the first time not too long before his general election parachute opened there. GY was once a prosperous tourist and fishing centre before it was pulverised by the forces of global capitalism and centralisation and, alongside other seaside towns, suffering the consequences of cheap flights to Europe. Ditto Clacton and Skegness & Boston where other Reform MPs perch. ]

+ Five miles south on the North Sea coast is the village of Hopton-on-Sea [which is the home of the five-star luxury Potters Resorts, the area’s largest employer. Our guests are “adults only”, it proudly announces. ]

+ The World Bowls Tour (WBT) [which has been based at Potters since 1999 and it calls Hopton “a global event.” This international niche tournament of indoor bowls lasts from 10-27 January in 2025. Hopton is now “the mecca of bowling” as a spectator gushed last year.]

+ Official Bowls tour sponsor is Ambassador Cruise Line [indeed the event is called “The 2025 Ambassador Cruise Line World Indoor Bowls Championships”; in this weather, obviously NOT outdoors! As a sport, bowls has been commodified to promote bookings of Potters’ hotel suites and Ambassador’s cruise line cabins. Cabins for a Caribbean cruise last week were going for +£5,000. Ambassador is headed by Gordon Wilson who is also in charge of Virgin Experience Days. So you know what that means and who that involves. ]

+ The next dot is composed of three bowlers from what is now considered, by many, to be the most despised and cruellest nation in the world. [The Israeli bowlers were first invited to the 2025 tournament in October, then uninvited on 29 December 2024, and re-invited, under pressure, on New Year’s Eve. That double U-turn was reported in the mainstream media here in the UK and unsurprisingly by THE TIMES OF ISRAEL.]

+ Two more dots. One is the Norfolk Palestine Solidarity Campaign (NPSC); HERE and HERE and HERE [To declare an interest; I am a member, though not a very active one. We’re neither a rich group nor especially large or politically experienced one … but we’re definitely DETERMINED and NOT a “hate mob” as Lowe labels us repeatedly in the local and national press. .]

+ The last dot - but also the MOST IMPORTANT one – are the Palestinian people, more than 13 million world-wide, who live in Gaza, the West Bank, across the Middle East and elsewhere in a global diaspora. [They have lived in Palestine for hundreds of years. In 1948, they were forced from their own land that, over the past 76 years, has been illegally occupied by Israel. The last 16 months have been a living hell of death and destruction. Check out “Free Palestine – A reading list.’]

Now let’s connect the dots fully, examine the politics and power dynamics of the past month, and tell you what happened here in very chilly Norfolk on Friday (10 Jan.) and Saturday (11 Jan.)

And we will see, in particular, how a bad thing - namely, the WBT’s re-invitation of the formerly banned Israeli bowlers - was turned into a good thing – namely, the mobilisation of Norfolk’s anti-Israeli genocide campaigners and much wider local publicity for our cause….and that of the Palestinians.

A photo from the 2024 World Bowls Tour in Norfolk.

THIS SAGA STARTED IN AUTUMN 2024

The current saga started in October 2024 when the three Israeli bowlers were invited to the WBT’s Hopton’s bowls event that began here 48 hours ago. There was little media coverage.

But that changed on 30 December when the WBT announced that three Israeli bowlers had been banned from this year’s tournament.

Its decision did not come out of the blue. Israel is the leading pariah nation in the world today. Excluding athletes of some nations from international sporting completions is now a commonplace event.

It happened to South African athletes during the apartheid years and there is a current attempt to boycott the Afghanistan cricket team in support of women's and girls' rights in that country.

“Protests, boycotts, and excluding countries from international competitions are well-documented methods for pressuring states to cease human rights violations. These actions send a clear message that such behaviour will not be treated as ‘business as usual’," wrote Norwich South MP Clive Lewis in a Facebook message.

As for the banning of indoor bowlers, THE TIMES OF ISRAEL reported a WBT statement that “Israeli bowlers’ involvement at the Scottish International Open in August had produced ‘significant escalation in related political concerns’.” Translation: one Israeli bowler was kicked out of that event through the efforts of Scottish Sports for Palestine and Show Israeli Genocide the Red Card.

IT APPEARED THE “GOOD GUYS” HAD WON

As well, Norwich PSC in December 2024 had organised a very successful emailing / petition campaign with its partners to ban the Israeli bowlers from the Potters event. More than 2,200 people joined in and the WBT rapidly capitulated. So on 29 December it appeared “the good guys” had won a victory.

But allowing the “pro-Palestine hate mob” - as Great Yarmouth Reform MP Rupert Lowe calls us - to win any sort of victory and especially on his “political turf” is simply not on, Lowe decided.

A brief tangent on Lowe and his background: And this is where Elon Musk, dot #1 above, enters the story. First elected in the 4 July general election, Lowe was “unveiled” on the national, and even international, social media political stage --- if that’s the best way to describe it --- by Musk as part of his own well-publicised “bring down Farage” campaign against the Reform Party leader early in 2025.

Wrote Musk: “I have not met Rupert Lowe. But his statements online that I have read so far make a lot of sense.” Suddenly Lowe seemed to be Musk’s man in the UK’s far right universe. Musk “appeared to throw his weight behind Mr. Lowe as a potential successor (to Farage”, predicted one media report.

The five Reform Party MPs. Multi-millionaire Rupert Lowe is on the far right of the far right.

MP Lowe himself was introduced nationally in this brief August 2024 bio in Private Eye:

“Rupert Lowe, the new MP for Great Yarmouth, is anything but your typical "man of the people." A landed Cotswold toff, Lowe's career spans from his days as the unpopular football chairman of Southampton FC, to his current directorship of 13 corporate entities, including co-director with Akshata Murty (aka Mrs Rishi Sunak) at Digme Fitness which went bust in 2022 after taking £630,000 in furlough cash and owing creditors – including taxpayers – £6.1m.”

The next month in September, Lowe had his coming out at the Reform Party conference in Birmingham. Media reports said his “ugly speech” there was “laced with antisemitic conspiracy tropes”.

HE’S A “MAKE THE UK GREAT AGAIN” MAN

Lowe is the essence of a “Make the UK Great Again “man. In Birmingham, he suggested, again according to media reports, that Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson had “undermined the Restoration Settlement of the 1660s with (Labour’s) constitutional changes in 1997.” What’s next from Lowe? Bring back child labour.

Back to Israel and Norfolk and Bowls. The “banned bowlers” story suddenly had a different spin. On 30 December, Lowe, working with a group called UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) claimed it was “illegal” to ban the Israeli bowlers. The term “antisemitism” was thrown around in the media. It was a “red meat” story for the likes of the Daily Mail on New Years’ Eve.

On 31 December, the WBT’s opposition to the participation of the Israeli bowlers melted away like an ice lolly on a hot July day. The three Israeli bowlers could now attend. The WBT said we are “delighted to advise that significant additional security measures have been put in place for the forthcoming World Indoor Bowls Championships.” WBT director Gordon Woods said this year there have extra security staff hired for the event.

This version of events is bogus. I stood at the main gates of Potters Resorts on Saturday morning (11 Jan.) I learned that there are ALWAYS extra security guards hired for WBT matches. This year there were four hired in total “to guard” a large 300-suite luxury hotel. Several of them rolled their eyes when I asked if the issue this year was about hiring more security. The real story: the WBT, Ambassador and Potters caved in like cowards.

A placard displayed at the Norfolk PSC protest on the weekend.

In any event, Norwich PSC mobilised for two day of picketing events on 10 and 11 January in front of Potters Resorts. Meanwhile, Lowe kept being quoted in the local press about the dangers of “empowering anti-semites” and how “Israeli competitors are welcome in our constituency. I will not tolerate racism in any form.”

This is pretty rich coming from a politician in a party which is widely recognised to be the most racist in the House of Commons and passionately hates asylum seekers. But then Lowe does not connect the dots.

Concluding what was at stake this week in Hopton, Norwich PSC chair Andrea Abeyesinghe said: “We are asking all sporting events to withdraw the invitation to the players of a country accused of apartheid such as Israel…which they did (at first) , but under pressure from right-wing organisations, they U-turned.”

THANKS RUPERT LOWE

So to sum up:

1) During the protests, it was very chilly at times, but nothing compared to the cold many Palestinian children have recently been enduring in rain-drenched tents in icy weather.

2) We held two successful protest events against the WBT’s decision to re-invite the Israeli bowlers. We made our point and we will keep making it. No counter protestors showed up.

2) On 11 January, Rupert Lowe tweeted a one-word tweet/ X when he learned of our protests: “Losers.” I didn’t check if Musk gave it a thumbs up.

3) Our protests and our views received the best mainstream media coverage we’ve ever had. This is from the largest-circulation newspaper in Norfolk on 8 January.

On 10 Jan, the protests we were featured on both the regional suppertime news shows on BBC TV and Anglian TV; on the latter, the coverage was especially good. News of the protests also made it into BBC sports coverage; yes, this is a pathetic twisted piece… but it is coverage on BBC Sports which is broadcasting the bowls tournament.

4) Perhaps risking a push-back from the pro-Israel Labour government, Labour MP Clive Lewis put out a prominent Facebook post on 10 January giving his full support to the protest. “The protest at the Championship doesn't unfairly single out Israel or individual athletes. It's about holding all nations, including Israel, accountable for upholding their obligations under international human rights conventions.”

5) Late on Saturday ( 11 Jan.) when the protest was over, a leading activist from Norwich PSC sent out this message to the group’s Whats App chat: “Can I ask everyone to write to Rupert Lowe to thank him for his help in turning what would have been a quickly forgotten local incident into a major national and international event which has put Israeli participation in international sport on the agenda. We hope he will oblige us again in the future.”

One thing is clear: to be attacked by the enemy is often a very good thing.

FREE PALESTINE!

ZZZZZ

Assessing the career of RMT general secretary Mick Lynch who has announced his resignation.

You can order a copy of Gregor Gall’s 2024 biography of Mick Lynch HERE.

By Gregor Gall

Mick Lynch, RMT union general secretary, has announced his resignation (effective from May 2025), a year before his term of office was due to end. No reason was given. His likely successor is his deputy, Eddie Dempsey.

Lynch leaves the RMT in mixed fortunes. The latest available figures show that its membership has fallen: the first year of Lynch’s leadership, 2021 - 81,197, 2022 - 81,543 and 2023 - 78,889 – and there have been no widespread redundancies in the rail industry, the key sector the RMT organises within and which might have explained the decline.

After being unable to mobilise RMT members to occupy their ships and stage port blockades against the immediate mass sacking of 800 workers by P&O (along with their replacement by cheaper, overseas labour) in March 2022, Lynch fared better in leading his union into battle with the government (owner of Network Rail) and the train operating companies (all receiving public subsidy) over pay, jobs and conditions from May 2022 onwards.

Politically he was far better than he was industrially in this long, drawn-out battle. He was crucially calm and collected in his criticism of government and employers, using simple down-to-earth language and clever turns of phrase to explain and prosecute his case. In the process, he began to be called a ‘working-class hero’ as he generalised out from what were sectional disputes of his members to the union movement as a whole in the cost-of-living crisis.

Yet, he came up seriously short when it came to Labour and Starmer. While critical of Starmer, he was naïve to believe that Starmer could or would change, saying Starmer had to come out and show his true colours. Starmer did and has – far more blue than red. This was from someone that had left the Labour Party many years before and the RMT having disaffiliated over twenty years ago in protest at Tony Blair.

But industrially, Lynch was lackadaisical to say the least. Strikes stopped and started, building up no pressure upon the government and companies (especially as both were indemnified against strike losses). Escalation was rare as was striking with other unions. Talks were held about talks.

All the while, RMT members received no strike pay even though the union could have afforded to do so. The end results were well below inflation level pay rises after the loss of around three weeks wages and none of the key long-term issues resolved in favour of RMT members.

All this is explained in my biography of him.

+++++++++++

Watch this November 2024 videoed interview of Gregor by Alan Story HERE on THE LEFT LANE’s You Tube Channel.

Or

COPY and PASTE this link into your browser: https://www.youtube.com/@TheLeftLanePresents/videos

++++++++++++++++

Edited by Alan Story, THE LEFT LANE is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber: http://theleftlane2024.substack.com/subscribe

You can reach us at: theleftlanepolitics@gmail.com

You can read all previous columns of THE LEFT LANE here

Follow us on our new THE LEFT LANE Instagram

And this is the cover art for the first post ( 12 Jan .) on our new Bluesky account.

https://bsky.app/profile/leftlanepolitics.bsky.social