Watson was pushing hard for the first Brexit referendum long before it was actually held – but pivot to join march for so-called “people’s vote” caps a campaign of hypocrisy to undermine Labour
Comment
Labour’s notional deputy ‘leader’ Tom Watson has displayed boundless opportunism and hypocrisy in recent weeks. He has attempted to hijack Labour’s disciplinary processes in spite of a dire record of false claims and double standards – as well as trying to shore up the relevance of the Tinge-group quitters when their launch day racism disaster enveloped them.
And now the so-called “people’s vote” campaign has announced that he will speak to its march this weekend.
As the images above show, Watson was pushing then-PM David Cameron and then-Labour leader Ed Miliband for the first referendum to be held at the earliest opportunity, so Watson’s appearance as a speaker looks no less opportunistic than any of his other recent behaviour – especially when the rest of the speakers are considered.
Watson will be joined by Jess Phillips, Michael Heseltine, various Tory MPs, Tory former Cabinet Minister Justine Greening, Tory ex-Attorney General Dominic Grieve and Tory former Justice Minister Phillip Lee – as well as by Tinge-groupers including Anna Soubry alongside Lib Dems Vince Cable and Jo Swinson.
This should tell genuine Labour supporters and voters – and the aware public – all they need to know.
Watson’s hypocrisy and cynical opportunism knows no bounds. He backed Brexit and pushed for the EU referendum remainers hate – and now pivots to back another referendum to overturn the first, even though he favoured leaving the EU as far back as 2015.
If he or the so-called people’s vote campaign think his presence at the march, let alone as a speaker, enhances its credibility instead of damaging it, it merely demonstrates how badly out of touch both he and they are.
Since Watson seems so enthusiastic about the quitter group and their cause, perhaps he could do Labour a favour and join them, so the party can elect a deputy leader with half an idea of what the job is supposed to be about.
Tom Watson was contacted for comment.
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He can’t be deputy leader and oppose Labour’s policies. Let’s hope this is step too far.
Can someone challenge his leadership?
How much extra pay does he get in the DL job?
Forget Watson. He’s a distraction from the main issue. There just needs to be a retreat from Brexit, pure and simple. It’s a minority pursuit that has no credibility by any rational analysis and little support within the Labour Party and its vote.
The usual, content-less, drivel assertions from our resident uncritically pro-EU Troll , RH, (to be followed very soon by his alter ego, Jack T, no doubt) The over seventeen million voters who gave Leave a clear majority in 2016 are simply dismissed out of hand . RH listens only to the few hundred thousand middle class privilege infused, ” ignore the 2016 Referendum, only our minority privileged interests matter” marchers this coming weekend – on 200 coaches funded by Big Business. And as with last time, as planned by Mandelson and Campbell, the abuse and hatred of those marchers will not be targeted at the Tories, but against Jeremy Corbyn ! And , as with last time, a few middle class youth will be allowed to let off naughty red flares and drape pseudo rebellious Leftish banners over the march to show that “da woke yoof just lurve that EU man “.
Ah yes … we know about your somewhat less-than-constant support for Corbyn.
“The over seventeen million voters who gave Leave a clear majority in 2016”
…. which rather betrays innumeracy or membership of the ERG (or both). As frequently said, it was a minority vote of 37% of the electorate. In simple-minded terms, the difference in the vote was actually a quarter of the numbers now requesting withdrawal of Article 50.
Do give up this dilettante pseudo-Marxism based on fairy stories of who voted and why. As said before – the core of the ‘Leave’ vote was the older,comfortably off Tory vote in southern England. The Labour vote was solidly for ‘Remain’.
That’s OK – align yourself with the middle class Tories and the plutocrats of the ERG. Just don’t pretend to be a friend of the ‘working class’ who will get the shit end of the Leaver stick as the economy declines further and the hedge funds walk off with the loot..
Just because Brexit is the current obsession it doesn’t follow that everything else is a minority pursuit.
Most here would argue that the main issue is getting a genuinely redistributive Labour government elected whether we’re in or out of the EU – and Watson is the most highly-placed of the anti-Corbyn Labour MP’s opposing that.
Forget him? He’s a mere distraction?
Who but an ardent supporter would want him free to speak, act and build his public profile without challenge?
I think you’re busted.
You’re argument falls apart when you look at who Labour supporters of leaving the EU rub shoulders with: Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, James Rees-Mogg, for example.
There is no connection, certainly no “rubbing shoulders” in any form, whatsoever between a Left Wing socialist analysis of the neoliberal EU, and resultant desire to free the UK from the Single Market straightjacket which stands in the way of pursuing a Left Keynsian economic programme , and the neoliberal globalist offshore tax haven ambitions of Fox and Johnson and Mogg , or the racist autarchist fantasy of UKIP or Farage. But then your cynical suggestion that the Left who support a Left Brexit have any connection with the Brexit Right is pure smearing sophistry. It is the People’s Vote Campaign that is entirely funded by the war criminal Blair, his dodgy oligarch assisting mate, Mandelson, the Iraq Dodgy Dossier author, Campbell, and Big Business interests. But then you know that already, Troll.
Ahh! Nothing like a “Left Wing socialist analysis” for tackling inequalities and putting bread on the table, is there? Just rabbit on, and the world transforms.
As to ‘Trolls’ – I think you’re actually mistaking the Bill Goats Gruff trampling over your rickety-rackety bridge.
This march is a dilemma for those of us of a left-wing persuasion. I am going to the starting rally with Left Bloc, but do not intend going to the final rally because the likes of Watson, James O Brien (prime Corbyn-basher on LBC), Jess Phillips to name a few.
I do think that it is a shame that the Labour Party have perceived the demand for a further referendum as the domain of the Centrists/Blairites/Tory Lites.
I appreciate that this is not a popular view on this website. Ideally, I would like A50 to be revoked, but this march demonstrates to May that the populace has other ideas.
You are entirely right. Currently inaction over the issue is gifting Watson and Co. with the agenda. I – like many others – am frustrated with the refusal to take the wind out of their sails – for what? JRM’s bank balance?
Hey Mr RH……….The Troll & the Billy Goats Gruff was my joke!
That’s your fault for not being a capitalist and copyrighting it. 🙂
The march merely demonstrates a few hundred thousand firmly middle class privileged people out for a day’s walk , determined to maintain all the wideranging gravy train privileges that the EU provides the middle classes. If you don’t understand the totally neoliberal enforcement machine nature of the EU by now then your “Left wing persuasion” is based on no analysis or class awareness whatsoever. A few hundred thousand marchers is not “the populace”. Those in the Labour Party who support the march. and its Big Business backers, should tell you all you need to know about its real political purpose.
Right on. Wait for the insults..
“analysis” and “class awareness”
We are in awe of these sufficient conditions for progressive politics and a better world. Why didn’t we think of them before?
… or perhaps we did, but went beyond the basic reader and fantasies about what such entail when you actually engage with reality and the fact that simply mouthing “class” doesn’t confer omniscience, insight or rectitude. (Let alone an understanding of the concept).
It’s not you know. Watson is a hideous schemer, true. But leaving without a deal will be a true disaster and Jeremy has ignored conference. Never forget it was the Tory right wing and UKIP who caused this. ERG types are financially protected. W/Class or what is left of it in northern anti-european enclaves, have had the wool pulled over their eyes.
At my London workplace, colleagues have been invited to a posh breakfast at the Inns of Courts before the march. Speaks volumes of the social class dominating proceedings.
Poetrymuseum is wrong about what would constitute the true disaster. A no deal Brexit will not cause economic Armageddon. If it were going to do so, Britain would already be in recession.
But Brexit in Name Only (BRINO) or no Brexit at all, would place Britain on a cliff edge in democratic terms, if the capitalist political elite do not respect the result of the biggest vote in British history.
What is striking is the lack of concern from Labour Left comment-makers about the effect of EU membership on even mild democratic socialist reform. We cannot even nationalise the most basic public utilities if we are in the EU, EEA or May Deal, courtesy of the EU liberalisation directives. It is difficult to know what actually makes the Labour Left distinctive in the present era, apart from their precarious objection to austerity.
https://www.thefullbrexit.com/cliff-edge
“The march merely demonstrates a few hundred thousand firmly middle class privileged people out for a day’s walk”
So much for the sophisticated “socialist political theory”
I just came across a quick guide called ‘Wolfie’s Summary of Socialist Political Theory for Dummies”
It has a few lines between the covers :
CHAPTER I
‘Middle Class’ – Bad
‘Working Class’ – Good.
CHAPTER II
Me no like = Bad = Middle Class
Me like = Good = Working Class
The appendix is about how to do a knee jerk
It looks like Tom Watson’s values are as cheap and interchangeable as Chukka Uminna’s.
Some good news (but why on Earth did it take so long!):
Weedkiller is removed from DIY store shelves after US court rules in cancer link case
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6832963/Weedkiller-removed-DIY-store-shelves-court-rules-cancer-link-case.html
“(but why on Earth did it take so long!)”
1. Monsanto
2. Everybody else.
TWAT !
Need more testing to confirm whether Watson has the memory of a goldfish or just thinks we do.
Holding his head underwater would settle the issue but there’s the danger to shipping to be considered.
It must be wonderful to be Tom Watson. As you leave the house in the morning you take a final glance in the mirror to reveal that glorious amalgam of Christ and Napoleon ready to lead your people to the ultimate Utopia.
Brings a tear to me cynical old eye.
T om W atson A bsolute T raitor ,,,, like I said T.W.A.T
Nothing but another cynical attack on Labour using the excuse of Ref 2 , never passes a chance for grandstanding self promotion .
Hope he gets pelted with eggs on Saturday
What is more important than Watson, is the failure of the Labour leadership to recognisd and respond to the establishment blaming the establishment and the EU for the austerity caused by the establishment, thereby gifting Brexit to the establishment.
The Labour leadership, who should be on the march to give the final say to the people, have allowed Watson to wrong foot them. Instead, they are trying to please everyone by promoting a deal which will please no one and still result a Brexit which will damage the country.
It’s about time we had some clear thinking from the Leadership.
“It’s about time we had some clear thinking from the Leadership”
Indeed. The media assault on Corbyn has, I fear led to a bunker mentality – this is the real ‘success’ of the rubbishing and anti-semitism campaigns.
I despair at the open goals that haven’t even attracted a kick – to the point that the right is being handed a further stick with which to beat the Party whilst millions of potential voters are left raising eyes to the heavens as the Baldrick strategy continues.
For the first (and probably only) time in my life I am happy to quote Tom Watson
“The Prime Minister claims she speaks for Britain. Well, have a look out of the window Prime Minister. Open your curtains. Switch on your TV. Look at this great crowd today. Here are the people.”
Been busy today so all I saw of the march/rally was a few seconds of Watson mechanically reading his speech from notes & failing dismally to capture the crowd – possibly the other reason there was so much booing.
Surrender-monkey as good as said he’d vote for May’s “deal” whatever the terms, doing his best to alienate both remainers and hard brexiters from Labour.
“… there was so much booing”
Which was a case of ‘First – the Good News’.
The bad news is that this suggests a fair number of clued-up Labour supporters in the crowd demonstrating for a more active anti-Brexit policy whilst the leadership goes AWOL.