Senior Labour MPs attack Tom Watson’s record of non-attendance and wilfully igorant smear on Lavery’s honour
Senior Labour MPs have slated the party’s deputy leader Tom Watson for dodging an important meeting of the Shadow Cabinet to appear on media attacking Ian Lavery and pushing a position on Brexit contrary to Labour’s policy – and have accused him of laziness in failing to attend key meetings.
One senior MP told the SKWAWKBOX:
While the Shadow Cabinet met to discuss the critically important issue of climate change, Watson – who rarely bothers to attend Shadow Cabinet – was on a tour of media studios attacking Ian (Lavery) to push a policy that hasn’t been officially determined yet. He even went as far as questioning Ian’s honour – and Ian is one of the most honourable people you’ll meet. But what would Tom know about honour?
Another said:
This is just typical of Tom, he’s well known to be lazy when it comes to anything worth doing. Just look at the number of things he announces and then never does anything with. It’s not just Shadow Cabinet either, he rarely shows his face at PLP (weekly parliamentary Labour party meetings).
Tom Watson was contacted for comment but did not respond.
SKWAWKBOX view:
Watson told LBC yesterday that breaking the party whip as a front-bencher is a matter of honour that would usually lead to resignation, pointing the finger at Lavery’s decision to vote against a parliamentary motion for a new referendum.
However – as is well known – Lavery did offer his resignation to Jeremy Corbyn, who refused it because of Lavery’s huge value to the cause. Watson will have been well aware of this fact – if he wasn’t, then he adds incompetence to his list of wrongs as deputy leader.
By contrast Tom Watson’s interventions have been so uniformly damaging to the party that he seems to have never knowingly made a statement helpful to Labour’s leadership.
If he wants to talk about honour, he should try offering his resignation to Corbyn and see whether the reaction is the same. Labour members might then at last get the opportunity he has long denied them to deliver their verdict on Watson’s honour and his version of deputy ‘leadership’, via a new election.
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