Right-wing Labour MP Neil Coyle was widely forecast to lose his seat in last month’s General Election. Instead, Labour’s majority in his Bermondsey and Southwark constituency almost tripled.
Coyle’s response? To talk to the Daily Mail, one of the most right-wing ‘newspapers’ to talk down Corbyn’s and Labour’s achievement in defying all predictions by hugely increasing their parliamentary seats instead of losing 60 or 70 – handing easy propaganda to an outlet that despises Labour:
Coyle may have felt clever thumbing his nose at the party leader that had just saved his job for him. But those who campaigned for Coyle – because they were inspired by Jeremy Corbyn’s vision for the Labour Party – thought differently.
They have sent him a remarkable, stinging open letter expressing their dismay at his self-centred shortsightedness, signed by no fewer than 140 people who wore out shoe-leather on the streets of his constituency to get him elected – for Corbyn’s sake, not his – and telling him to haul his backside into line instead of letting down the country:
Local sources have told the SKWAWKBOX that Mr Coyle also had to make a humiliating apology to neighbouring Labour MP Helen Hayes and her Dulwich and West Norwood members for the anger and frustration he caused them by his behaviour.
Mr Coyle will no doubt be less than happy that this letter and his humble pie have become public, but it’s to be hoped they are at least as widely read as his comments to the media inimical to Labour values.
The full letter including all signatories to date can be found here.
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CLPD is proposing that MPs would have to get 2/3rds support at CLP level in order to continue as the local candidate. Any less and they would face a full selection process (but they are automatically shortlisted, if they want). Not quite mandatory reselection but it’s a start and perhaps a more achievable goal.
Labour will have no trouble finding bright, enthusiastic replacements for the likes of Neil Coyle.
A fact I suspect he and his ilk are well aware of.
Ditto Angela Eagle in Wallasey.
Kay is this proposal going up to Conference in Sept ?
Sounds a great idea
Believe so, here’s the CLPD page with proposals for the upcoming conference (submission deadline of deadline of 7th July 2017), including the “McDonnell” ammendment, scroll down to the one titled “Reform of the ‘trigger mechanism’ for sitting MPs”: home.freeuk.com/clpd/170618rulechanges.html
These are linked from the main CLPD page, with lots of other interesting proposals that should be supported: http://www.clpd.org.uk
Many thanks Kay some great stuff here
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what a piece of work. having worked in politics for fifty years through unions, liberation movements, foreign political parties i signed up for JC as a genuine politician and joined Old Southwark. It took me less than a year to dump career politician Coyle and have re-joined a ‘foreign’ liberation party – a future to embrace, hooray! “free at last, free at last”.