THE assault on free speech within Britain’s Labour Party speaks like a ghost from my past. I was banned from public speaking in apartheid South Africa almost 60 years ago. My crime, aged 23, was advocating votes for all. The apartheid government accused those like me of undermining the safety of whites.

When all avenues of peaceful change were blocked, we had no option but to turn to armed struggle. We argued that there was no equivalence between the state violence of the oppressor and the resistance of the oppressed. International solidarity helped bring about the demise of the apartheid system.

We empathise with those in the Labour Party today, who are being victimised by a double agenda: for their socialism and for defending Palestinian rights. It is astonishing and deplorable that a witch hunt is underway within those ranks — as elsewhere.