Erith & Thamesmead’s Labour MP Teresa Pearce did not support Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership. In 2016, she supported challenger Owen Smith in the leadership contest.
But last week, her CLP passed a vote of confidence in her unanimously.
The vote, based on a motion from Abbey Wood ward, expressed “full confidence” in Ms Pearce. A member of the CLP explained:
Teresa didn’t choose for Corbyn, she was in the Owen Smith camp for leader and yet when the “chicken coup” took place she refused to join. Staying in the shadow cabinet, she took on extra responsibilities and roles. She put the Labour Party first and supported a leader who was being subjected to a bullying attempt to remove him.
CLP secretary Sizwe James added:
Erith & Thamesmead CLP’s General Council met on 27 September and a vote of confidence in our MP Teresa Pearce was passed unanimously. The consensus of the meeting was that we very much appreciate the hard work and dedication that Teresa brings in representing us and the extra mile she goes in serving our community.
Ms Pearce supported a ‘centrist’ challenger to Corbyn’s leadership – but behaved honourably throughout, putting party and members first and working to help the party succeed, whatever her personal opinion.
As a result of that and her hard work on their behalf, she is clearly regarded highly by local Labour members – and they recognised it by voting full confidence in her.
It’s a very different story to the prevailing mainstream media narrative of the supposed ‘hard left’ attacking MPs for not being part of the supposed ‘cult of Corbyn’.
So if the reason some right-wing MPs are on the receiving end of votes of no-confidence is not because they don’t like Corbyn, why have they lost the confidence of their local party?
How are they different from Teresa Pearce the Erith & Thamesmead MP, who put the party first and worked to help it succeed in spite of her political differences with the leadership?
What could possibly be the cause?
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Heart warming though this is when did CLPs begin voting on motions of confidence and what purpose are they supposed to serve? Strikes me as a deliberate abuse of process to stifle opposition which is not heart warming at all but a form of bullying.
I may be missing something but I don’t understand your reference to bullying, perhaps you could explain.
A Confidence vote (one in favour 500 abstentions) changes nothing but would clearly intimidate opponents from bringing a No confidence vote. It could even be argued, and I am sure someone would, that the confidence vote prevents the subject being revisited for six months or whatever the rules say.
I think most members who are Corbyn supporters don’t have a problem with MPs who didn’t vote for Corbyn, Angela Raynor was a Yvette Cooper supporter for example. We do however have a problem with MPs like Jess Phillips, Joan Ryan and Margaret Hodge who refused the democratic decision of the members launched the ridiculous chicken coup and use every opportunity to attack the leadership in television interviews and the right wing media. These people deserve to be deselected!
Agreed , we on the Left despite what the bullshit MSM try and portray are honourable and fair and fair play to her .
She is doing the job , being loyal to the membership/CLP who voted for Corbyn and not ,unlike the usual long list of suspects , undermining the chances of a Labour Govt to help the many .Austin ,Leslie, Umunna, Kinock, Mann would all do well to learn from Ms Pearce.Respect is a two way street and the trouble makers only know one way .
Support OS join Labour International
https://www.labour-open-selection.org.uk
I sometimes email groups of MPs and it would be useful to have a full list of the Labour well-to-the-right of centre anti-JC central cast, which as well as the two lists above would surely include I.Lucas, Spellar, Ellman, Smeeth, Streeting . Who else is there?
Angela Rayner nominated Andy Burnham.
She is quite good although I think she is wrong in supporting Heathrow’s new runway.
Perhaps she would have nominated Corbyn if he had declared himself as a candidate earlier.
It is easy to forget just how truly awful that election was until Corbyn got nominated. Personally, I was surprised that he made it onto the ballot.
Andy Burnham came out with this gem:
“It’s been a long campaign. I can remember when I was still the frontrunner.”
I think it would have been a disaster for the Labour Party and for politics if any of the other candidates had won. They inspired nobody. And that is hardly surprising.
According to Owen Smith, Liz Kendall’s campaign predicted she would bring one million people to the Labour Party. So, only a million short!
Sorry, that should say Owen Jones.
It always depresses me when Labour supporters endorse class clueless, big pharma lobyists who go to arms fairs’ dinners and make sexist comments. Tony Blair was bad enough.
I’ve no problem with Pearce having the confidence of er CLP. She’s earned it, after all.
It’s when the, like the sanctimonious field, you go on Tv and tell the nation that you’re not interested what your constituents think…Or like the detestable ellman, you tell the nation you refer to your constituents – who take a totally different view to you, then you cannot seriously expect the backing of your CLP.
It’s the ‘media whores’ who have already lost, or soon will lose confidence votes, if they continue their anti-socialist diatribe and continue to go against the will of the grassroots of the party. And so they should.
If an MP voted to leave the EU (as I did), & the majority of Labour members in that constituency did not, they should be deselected? Does that also mean that those of us members who voted to leave EU should also leave the Labour Party? MPs like Dennis Skinner.
”If an MP voted to leave the EU (as I did), & the majority of Labour members in that constituency did not, they should be deselected?”
You’re the MP for where?
” Does that also mean that those of us members who voted to leave EU should also leave the Labour Party?”
Oh, you’re just a member. I see. No – No it doesn’t. It was a free vote.
”MPs like Dennis Skinner.”
Who voted tactically, you mean? Much unlike the four that continued to vote with the toerags and give them life support, rather than initially vote with the toerags to hopefully give them enough rope to hang themselves with – as would’ve been the case had field, hoey, mann & stringer not ratted the nation out.
Who, other than you, has suggested this? If such a scenario happened, you, as the sitting MP, really ought to ask yourself some damn important questions, such as, what else are you at odds with your members about, what does it tell you and are you in the right job or even party?
The MP for hypothetical……….but if the majority of the constituency party members disagree with their MP’s views s/he could very easily be deselected. Many MPs in ‘northern areas of GB’ who voted pro remain are worried about that possibility & the reverse in the South. Dennis Skinner has voted against the EU all his life, as too Jeremy Corbyn. Be careful what you wish for, it could become a recipe for organised chaos in the Labour Party.