Jane Ashworth

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Person.png Jane AshworthRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png

Jane Ashworth is the Advisory Editor of Democratiya and the Project Director of Engage, which, according to her personal profile, is a "campaign against left anti-semitism". She was on the Executive of Socialist Organiser, the forerunner to Alliance for Workers Liberty ("a Trostskyist groupuscule"[1]) for nearly a decade. Furthermore, she is the founding Chair of Labour Friends of Iraq, co-author of the Euston Manifesto, and principal organizer of the defunct (as of January 2010) Unite Against Terror website.[2]

Activities

The following comment on Ashworth and the Euston Manifesto is from the Workers' Liberty website[3]:

Some of the writers of the Euston Manifesto, notably Alan Johnson and Jane Ashworth, learned their opposition to "reactionary anti-imperialism" from us. That was many years ago. It is as long ago as 1994 that Alan Johnson quit the AWL (to join the SWP, and he has oscillated frequently since then!), and much longer ago that Jane Ashworth and others left us to join the tame-Labourite remnants of the Independent Labour Party.
But they turned against us in a big way, with heat and vehemence, more recently, in 2004, when they denounced us for not giving critical support to the US/UK occupation of Iraq. They refused to collaborate with us on building towards the launch of Iraq Union Solidarity, and instead launched their own Labour-leadership-loyal outfit, Labour Friends of Iraq, oriented towards the most "moderate" wing of the labour movement in Iraq (IFTU) to the exclusion of other wings (FWCUI, UUI, IFOU).
They exulted that they were now in the big time. Why, New Labour had cited Labour Friends of Iraq as its "website of the week"!

Additional Activities

Current

  1. Monitoring Respect (George Galloway's party), and running RespectWatch [4]
  2. Editor of the Engage website

2006

  1. Chair of a panel at Bar-Ilan Univ.'s Conference on "Academic Freedom and the Politics of Boycotts", International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom (IAB), Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, Jan. 25-26, 2006. Ashworth chaired a panel entitled "The ideological foundations of the boycott campaign against Israel".[5]
  2. Discussant in panel entitled "Anti-semitism and the left: The acceptable prejudice?" [6]
  3. Commentator in David Aaronovitch's "Don't Get me started" program for Channel 5 (26 Sept 2006)
  4. Panelist at the Progress Labour Party Conference Event: "Westminster fringe: Anti-semitism and the left: The acceptable prejudice?" (6 June 2006)[7]

2005

  1. Registered domain was formerly: unite-against-terror.com. She is the instigator of this project. As of January 2010 the domain is for sale.
  2. Attempted to host a debate between Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway in May 2005[8]

Affiliations

Publications

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References

  1. DD Guttenplan, No sects please, you're British, Guardian, 17 April 2006.
  2. Jane Ashworth, Democratiya profile, Accessed: 13 May 2008
  3. "Left" politics without class struggle?, Workers Liberty, 27 April 2006; Accessed: 13 May 2008
  4. Jane Ashworth examines Respect in the East End and elsewhere, Labour Friends of Iraq, 30 May 2005. Accessed: 13 May 2008.
  5. Academic Freedom & the Politics of Boycotts, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, Jan. 25-26, 2006, version placed in web archive 21 Feb 2006, accessed in web archive 19 Jan 2010
  6. Anti-semitism and the left: The acceptable prejudice? 9 June 2006
  7. Westminster fringe: Anti-semitism and the left: The acceptable prejudice?, Progress, 6 June 2006, accessed 19 Jan 2010
  8. Hitchens vs Galloway: 'Any time any place any subject…', www.lastsuperpower.net, version placed in web archive 18 Oct 2005, accessed in web archive 19 Jan 2010