Last week the SKWAWKBOX exclusively revealed the alleged attempt by ‘moderate’ Labour MP Paul Farrelly to sabotage the candidacy of Gareth Snell for the Stoke Central seat – and subsequently to sabotage the Labour campaign in the constituency by asking Labour MPs not to campaign for Snell and persuading the area’s biggest Labour donor to withdraw his support.
The campaign was, of course, ultimately unsuccessful – but it seems Mr Farrelly’s constituents were not in a forgiving mood at their monthly CLP (constituency Labour party) last Friday.
The SKWAWKBOX understands that Farrelly was confronted by a number of members about this blog’s article and refused to deny it.
Farrelly refused to give any answers except that “it’s a matter for the Whips“.
This, of course, suggests two things:
- that Mr Farrelly did indeed act as the SKWAWKBOX’s witnesses indicated
- that Labour’s Whips have heard about it and consider the matter concrete and serious enough to be investigating – and, presumably, to act against him if the allegations are proven
This latest turn of events puts egg on the faces of those who accused – all too predictably – the SKWAWKBOX of the tired old ‘fake news’.
It also suggests that the laughably-termed ‘moderates’ are anything but – and appear to have been prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to try to engineer an electoral defeat for their own party, in hope that a double defeat in both Copeland and Stoke would bring down the party’s democratically-elected-but-relentlessly-undermined leader.
In a strange quirk, Stoke Central’s new MP, Gareth Snell, was at the Newcastle-under-Lyme CLP meeting on Friday – still a resident there, he is a member of the CLP and currently its treasurer, although he is stepping down because of his parliamentary responsibilities.
Ironically, Farrelly was only reprieved from the anger of his members when Snell very generously moved the meeting on to a new topic.
The SKWAWKBOX has also learned that Mr Farrelly is allegedly unsatisfied with a single attempt to damage Labour electorally. His CLP also discovered that he has removed the entire activist membership’s access to Labour’s Contact Creator system.
This was another huge topic at the meeting. Without Contact Creator it is impossible for CLPs to run election campaigns properly – and there are County Councillor elections in May.
In a move that comes straight out of the Progress play-book for controlling a CLP, Farrelly has potentially sabotaged Labour in the County Council elections in May.
It looks like the Whips will have plenty to get their teeth into – and it can only be hoped that they will sanction Farrelly to the full extent available, even to withdrawing the whip.
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