Sandwell is a West Midlands borough neighbouring the better-known town of Dudley. It contains the constituencies of three MPs: Warley’s John Spellar, West Brom East’s Tom Watson and West Brom West’s Adrian Bailey.
Spellar is well known as a viscerally anti-Corbyn and anti-Momentum MP, who once agreed on national TV that he used the term ‘Momentum member’ as an insult. He also recently emailed a joke about trans members to various recipients from his parliamentary email account.
Watson is Labour’s deputy leader and was involved in attempts to persuade Jeremy Corbyn to resign as party leader during the period of the post-referendum ‘chicken coup’.
Like any local authority area, Sandwell Labour Party has a ‘Local Campaign Forum’ (LCF) responsible for organising electoral campaigns and, crucially, in selecting the candidates who will stand in local elections.
Sandwell LCF has been – for those in the know, at least, at the centre of controversy, with allegations flying of unconstitutional actions, data protection breaches, sexual harassment, racism and rigging of candidate selections, as locals claim that the ‘ruling’ faction exploits, or fights to maintain, its control. Some of the allegations are the subject of legal actions.
The LCF met last night and was, according to local sources, ‘venomous’ – with representatives of MPs and others allegedly voting to block an application by the third MP for the local candidates ‘panel’, followed by an unsuccessful attempt to have the same MP’s representative ejected from the meeting.
So dire has the situation become that senior Labour sources tell the SKWAWKBOX that the party’s National Executive Committee is considering suspending the LCF pending action to clear out the sources of the trouble so a clean start can be made.
The mere hint of such a move in the heartland of such central figures on the Labour right will send shockwaves through ‘moderate’ circles that have been fighting tooth and nail to retain their power and influence.
More details to follow…
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🙂 love it, Get them out.
Q squeals of bullying and intimidation from the right whiners , hope the new NEC can sort this lot out . Clean start and proper democracy to follow .
Let’s get Tom Fatson and his rich backer out!
Let’s show the power of the NEW NEC!
And Ian Austin
These are the so called MPs who said fook you to the members in the leadership battle, now the same MPs want the Members, to vote on brexit because their position is different to Corbyn’s. These moderates BLAIRITES are doing nothing good for the party, they don’t believe in grass roots politics. Deselections are needed for the party to progress.
throw the lot out giving them on the way out invitations to the tory party
Navel gazing
Maybe, all they need is the spark that will eliminate them all!
Corruption, finger pointing and lies amongst themselves, should do the trick!
Everyone of them, as individuals, are looking to stitch the others up, to become supreme leader of the far right Labour party!
No hiding place, for you all, everyone of you, have stuck your head above the parapet, swarn and declared your allegiance to the right and have gone the road of trying to bring the “Socialist Left Labour Party”, along with yours and our Leader “Jeremy Corbyn Down”!
You all should resign for what your doing to our Party, which was created to protect us, the ordinary people, from the excesses of the rich!
WILL IT HAPPEN THOUGH? Sadly I’d put money on Watson remaining in place. If it’s going to happen the moment is NOW as there could be a GE any day and we won’t win if these SABOTEURS remain..
If the half-Tories believe THEY are the true voice of Labour which of their limp policies do they think would help the poor or halt – even slow – the rise and rise of the 1%?
They don’t believe in re-nationalisation or even in restricting privatisation. They wouldn’t even tackle tax havens or the markets that are sucking us all dry.
They’d cuddle up to Murdoch again for a little less anti-Labour vitriol in his comics, tentatively reduce austerity by a hair and call that “job done.”
In power they’ll be junior Tories in red ties however much they pretend otherwise. They’ll call themselves “NEW” again while they sit on the fence until the middle class start to lose THEIR jobs by the million – by which time it’ll be too late.
If the right controls Labour the Tories will gladly fall on their swords to be able to blame Labour for the job losses that are coming when AI/robotics really takes hold – as it will.
Only the Left can save us from a dark, dark future.