Former Blair adviser confirmed reported words but did not attempt to justify accusations of racism and misogyny
Former adviser to Tony Blair, John McTernan, caused considerable amusement among members when he turned up at last week’s meeting Camberwell and Peckham CLP (constituency Labour party) called to decide whether to ‘trigger’ a selection contest for the London Assembly seat currently occupied by Florence Eshalomi.
According to one member present:
He turned up late and walked past the registration desk. When he was called back and asked to produce his membership card, he announced to the room “I’m John McTernan and I’m here to fight trots“.
Totally melodramatic.
Contacted by the SKWAWKBOX for comment, McTernan confirmed that the words were accurate before launching into a diatribe in which he claimed the move to trigger a selection contest had ‘brought shame’ on Camberwell and Peckham CLP, which “has had a great record on equalities”.
McTernan had tweeted before the meeting that the ‘far left‘ was ‘as racist as they are misogynist‘ simply for attempting to trigger a selection contest involving Ms Eshalomi.
However, when asked whether he had any grounds for calling Camberwell and Peckham members racist and misogynist, or simply considered any attempt to deselect her to be automatically racist and misogynist because she is a black woman, he did not reply.
Florence Eshalomi has previously been heavily criticised by Streatham Labour members for attempting to influence members to select an executive favourable to her automatic reselection at their annual general meeting (AGM).
McTernan’s ‘Trot fight’ was unsuccessful. The Camberwell and Peckham selection motion was passed by 46 votes to 33.
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McTernan is a bit late to the game. The original “Hammer of the Trots” was Max Morris of NUT. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2690313/Max-Morris.html
So he was an advisor to Tony Blair. Says it all really!
Did he find any Trots to fight?
immodium
for red tory snowflake neverenders
Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m John McTernan and I’m hunting Twots.
Have woo seen any Twots Woosiana?
Blimey Blairs band of merry men are all coming out of the woodwork. You would think they they still had status in the labour party.
He is clearly delusional and looks confused? .Blair’s adviser ?.Did he come up with the soudbite “for the few not the many” ?.Well another blairite bites the dust!.
The hopefully last dying thrashings of the RW tory lites of Nu Labour , the defunct CUK party or Libliars awaits them .IMO there really is no shame in changing parties if they no longer suit your beliefs and ambitions .
I simply don’t understand his , and others like him , problem with this concept. The party has improved and changed under Corbyn so much for the better IMO .It has returned more towards its original origins of a true Left wing party and the likes of Twatson and the other wreckers who were moaning in the Graun/Indy that Labour has left them , then yes it has and it has and thank goodness too.
We have a long way to go in most CLPs though, where destructive contributions have the effect of sapping morale, energy as well as attendance at meetings for so many less involved members who do not want the constant attacks on the Labour leadership from within. It probably remains the case that so may of the extreme moderates are content with their value as destructive of Labour if that is their only way to prevent Corbyn’s advance. It is a difficult phenomenon to deal with without causing even more antagonism and that remains the the best card for the Right Wing.
“I’m John McTernan and I’m here to fight trots“
Bless.
I haven’t seen a ‘Trot’ in 40 years – and even then they were rank amateurs, most of whom clearly had not read a word written by Dear Leon.
If he’s that scared of democracy, he’d be right at home in the tories.
It sounds exactly like a line from one of near-namesake film director John McTiernan’s Arnie Schwarzenegger movies!
Or to paraphrase John Carpenter’s film They Live, “I’m here to chew gum kick (Trot) ass…and I’m all outta gum!”
Chew gum AND kick (Trot) ass, obvs.
Boss film! Watched it again a few months back at stupid o’ clock in the morning. Sums up the US under (and since) reagan fairly concisely.
Now if he’d said “l’m here to fight Zionists” who are determined to destroy Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, he’d have my full support.
………but he isn’t Comrade, he’s a Blairite & he advocates the same policies as Watson; Starmer & Umunna who are determined to undermine Jeremy The Lib.Dems beckon!
I know Steve, I didn’t even need to read the article and I also know that McTernan is dyed in the wool New Labour and therefore an enemy of everyone who supports Jeremy and a TRUE Socialist government.
“………but he isn’t [a] comrade”
Fixed it for you 🙂
Might I suggest that he takes a massive dose of Imodium? That would sort out those Trots.
Nah, there’s nowt would ever stop mcternan being full of sh*t.
McTernan makes even Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson look left.
In 2016 he proclaimed in the Telegraph that “Tax avoidance is an expression of basic British freedoms”. The state makes you “work for it whether you chose to or not. That forcible confiscation is, of course, backed up by extremely punitive powers… The Left, traditionally, have believed that you can build a consensus of support for public services or specific institutions like the NHS and in that basis justify and raise taxation. The problem has been that for at last 40 years voters have disagreed with them… The moralising Left and the governing bureaucracy unite to condemn tax avoidance as “immoral”. The end point is more power – to investigate, to coerce… Tax avoidance is an expression of basic British freedoms. You may not like the principles set out by Lord Tomlin in the Inland Revenue’s case against the Duke of Westminster, but they are as fundamental as Magna Carta, and a good deal more useful to most of us.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/05/tax-avoidance-is-an-expression-of-basic-british-freedoms/
Note that last phrase. We can guess whatn happens with his tax return. He’ll still demand service from the NHS of course.
It just confirms to me the extent to which the Labour party was infiltrated by these representatives of the elite class with their ‘sod you I’m alright politics’. Wasn’t it Thatcher who espoused ‘There is no such thing as society’ as she proceeded to rip up society , this has gone on till what we see today, socialism for the rich (with subsidies, tax breaks, gifts of public assets) and capitalism for the working class with privatisation of public services, welfare cuts etc. The beginings of complete breakdown of the pillars of civilisation with survival of the ‘fittest’.
Captain Diarrhoea is clearly under Blair’s direct control – you can see the antenna sticking up out of his head in the picture of him in that transport cafe-themed wine bar.
Blair:
“WHAT?! Some of the electorate think they might have made a bad choice and want a do-over?!
But she’s on OUR side!
We must prevent another vote at all costs!”
“Except on Brexit – that’s completely different.”
No, it’s not.
“Florence Eshalomi has previously been heavily criticised by Streatham Labour members for attempting to influence members to select an executive favourable to her automatic reselection at their annual general meeting (AGM).”
It turns out she didn’t need the favourable AGM after all. Streatham voted to trigger her in a close vote (IIRC 88 to 81). However, the new executive didn’t follow the correct procedure and regional board ruled the meeting invalid asking to re-run it. They need to do it by Friday and it is unlikely they get organize it. So Streatham CLP vote in the trigger ballot won’t be considered. This lowers the threshold to 3 CLPs out of 4.
It goes all down to Bermondsey & Old Southwark CLP which will meet this week. Eshalomi has won 2 (Vauxhall and Dulwich) and lost 1.
Bumper pack of Imodium for Mr McTermite!
Over the years McTernan has shown his grip on sanity has been very flimsy, some of his outrageous outbusts have been absolutely bat**** crazy, to think he was advising one of our PMs is frightening.
Shame on him for hijacking the words of Spanish anti-fascists…
They cut the student grant and introduced tuition fees. They gave us the casualisation of ‘zero-hour contracts’. They cut access to basic welfare provision. And killed and tortured Muslims & indigenous people in a variant of 19th C racist imperialist foreign policies.
Then they expect us to fall for McCarthyite smears about ‘Trots’.
Pathetic!
McTernan should have been expelled from the party for calling for the Tories to crush the rail unions once and for all. The only other people to behave in this manner are the verminous EDL thugs who violently assaulted rail staff on a picket line.
He was always a nasty piece of work.
You will only be expelled from the Labour Party if you criticise Israel. Criticise Jeremy & …………..did someone say that NEC is as useful as the Peoples’ Front of Judea (or was it the Judean Peoples’ Front?) anyway, can we change it?
A BBC News presenter this morning tried to diminish the impact of a report on relative poverty in the UK by comparing it with “real” poverty in, eg, Manila – thereby putting life under the Tories in a much more favourable light.
Now that a more realistic standard has been set by the BBC we can all stop bleating about food banks, rough sleeping and all that stuff.
According to Tory figures employment’s at its highest ever too, so we’ve obviously never had it so good. Again.
What’s that antenna on his head in the photo?
BBC = govt propaganda agency…
What a dickhead.
“Ah well, back under his stone”!
“Shit f brains McTernan”!
Does he not realise he missed the chair when the music stopped?