howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#1
Courtesy of the Times - McCluskey seems to have an over inflated sense of his own importance.
Labour’s deputy leader has hit back against the Unite boss Len McCluskey after he suggested that disloyal MPs were “stale” and could be ousted. Tom Watson dismissed the trade unionist as a “controversial figure” and warned that it would be a mistake to deselect hardworking Labour MPs and distract from Labour’s policies. His intervention came after Mr McCluskey renewed an attack on centrist MPs that he began last month when he said that “Corbyn-hater” parliamentarians should expect to be “held to account”. Last night he told the BBC that MPs should not behave as though they have a “job for life, and they don’t need to respond to anyone”.
He added: “In Corbyn’s Labour people have to respond to their local party members . . . Now, if the local members decide they don’t represent them anywhere and use the appropriate procedures, they should leave and I won’t cry over it.” Last month Mr McCluskey singled out the MPs Chris Leslie, Neil Coyle, John Woodcock, Wes Streeting and Ian Austin among the “promiscuous critics” of Jeremy Corbyn. He claimed that they were trying to present Labour as a “morass of misogyny, antisemitism and bullying”.
Mr Watson slapped him down, saying: “Len McCluskey is a very controversial figure and he’s very critical of people who are supposed to be on his side a lot of the time. Every Labour MP is selected by their local party to stand at every general election.”
The deputy Labour leader told Sky News: “If he’s saying that we should start removing hardworking Labour MPs from office then I think that would be a mistake and would be a diversion from our ability to campaign against Tory austerity, which I assume Mr McCluskey wants Labour MPs to be doing.”
Mr Watson and Mr McCluskey used to be flatmates but have since fallen out in spectacular fashion. Last year Mr McCluskey accused Mr Watson of behaving like a “low-budget remake of The Godfather”. He added that the Labour MP appeared to be “sharpening his knife looking for a back to stab”. Mr Watson brushed off the remarks, saying that his former friend had fallen back on “personal insults rather than arguing his case”. He alleged that Unite had plans to fund Momentum and that this would “destroy” Labour. Mr McCluskey said that the claims were a “complete fabrication” and that the union had no such plans.
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
#2
Perhaps Mr Watson should test the water and put himself up for Party Deputy re-election within the Labour Party. He might get the message from the membership that he is willfully ignoring.
On the issue of destroying Labour, how exactly does the idea of constituency party members democratically choosing their candidate destroy Labour?
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#3
Nice side stepping Your Grace but the real issue is about "good old Len" selecting MPs he thinks should be shown the door. Should Wes Streeting get deselected in Ilford North it will simply revert back to a Tory safe seat as it was from 1979 to 1997 with the vile Vivian Bendall as MP.
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
#4
Not a side step. The reality is some Labour MP, including Wes Streeting, do not hold Labour principles - they are more akin to Liberal ... or worse. What is the point in having them representing a
constituency Labour party (CLP) membership that so fundamentally differs to their view? Let the CLP members choose their candidate and campaign for them.
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#5
The Bishop wrote:Not a side step. The reality is some Labour MP, including Wes Streeting, do not hold Labour principles - they are more akin to Liberal ... or worse. What is the point in having them representing a
constituency Labour party (CLP) membership that so fundamentally differs to their view? Let the CLP members choose their candidate and campaign for them.
As you wish Bish but why would the members deselect someone who regained the seat from the Tories in 2015 when against the flow then won it again it a year or so later?
I strongly suspect that you are one of those people in Labour and the Lib Dems that prefer to lose so that you can be high minded and shout from the roof tops about the wicked Tories whilst munching on sundried tomatoes and mueslie.
Brian Dixon, Reginald Barrington and Judith Roberts like this
Weird Granny Slater
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 7 Jun 2017
- Posts: 3,095
#6
howard mcsweeney1 wrote:...munching on sundried tomatoes and mueslie.
Together in a sandwich?
'Pass the cow dung, my dropsy's killing me' - Heraclitus
Button
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,109
#7
One can see this kind of dilemma in religion too. Faced with falling congregation numbers, should the Church re-evaluate the 10 Commandments with a view to deleting those most often transgressed, double its efforts to convince people that the 10 Cs are jolly good things to adhere to, or sit back and wait for people to work it out for themselves?
(Not my real name.)
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
#8
howard mcsweeney1 wrote:As you wish Bish but why would the members deselect someone who regained the seat from the Tories in 2015 when against the flow then won it again it a year or so later?
I strongly suspect that you are one of those people in Labour and the Lib Dems that prefer to lose so that you can be high minded and shout from the roof tops about the wicked Tories whilst munching on sundried tomatoes and mueslie.
Wes Streeting 2017 votes : 30,589 vote share:57.8% Net percentage change in seats +13.9 swing
Compare that to the 2015 votes of 21,463 and you are looking at the undeniable Jeremy Corbyn effect NOT a Wes Streeting effect.
As for the sundried tomatoes and mueslie [sic] slur (I presume) all I can say is I have principles, I also believe that politicians should have principles - that's absolutely essential in the cynical political world. Wes Streeting may well have principles, however, from what I know of him, he and I do not share the same principles and I'd be happier, if I was in the constituency, to have a representative of Labour who I believed in and could trust.
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
Weird Granny Slater- Location: Dover
- Registered: 7 Jun 2017
- Posts: 3,095
#9
Labour's foundational roots are in the TUs, so I don't see that TU 'influence' is an issue. In my opinion there's not enough class in Labour at the moment. Labour's bigger problem is with a group of its own MPs whose influence is out of all proportion to its numbers, namely the supporters of a certain rogue, bordering-on-apartheid (not my words, but those of a previous Israeli Foreign Minister) state in the Middle East. They've been busy seeking to align opposition to Israeli foreign and domestic policy with anti-Semitism and will have Corbyn out at all costs.
'Pass the cow dung, my dropsy's killing me' - Heraclitus
