Right-wing Labour MP faces selection contest because of move to remove her by own faction
The media has cast the vote by local Labour members to ‘trigger‘ Barking MP Margaret Hodge – forcing her to face a full selection contest – as a move by the Labour left.
Hodges’ supporters, including a gaggle of ‘usual suspects’ among right-wing MPs, have leapt in with full-throated condemnations, with some all too predictably framing it as an antisemitic move by the left – a campaign to ‘reselect Margaret’ has already been started and widely publicised.
Ilford North MP Wes Streeting, like a sudden number of others, thinks the wicked lefties should leave poor Ms Hodge alone and focus exclusively on fighting the Tories (because of course, that’s all the Labour right ever do):
Embarrassing, then, that it seems the trigger was the result of a move by the Barking right.
Local sources have told the SKWAWKBOX that, while the left in Barking is relatively weak, two senior right-wing figures coordinated the move – and that the trigger motion only carried because of their supporters among the local branches. Those ‘movers and shakers’ include at least one with extremely close ties to right-wing pressure group Labour First.
The same Labour First whose campaign to ‘reselect Margaret’ was so eagerly publicised by Wes Streeting.
Not only was the vote a right-wing move, but Margaret Hodge lost more heavily than media reports have indicated.
While supporters of the right-wingers turned up, a number of left-wingers stayed away precisely in order to avoid or invalidate claims that the move was driven by the ludicrously-termed ‘hard left’.
In an attempt to underpin the presentation of the move as an unfair left-wing plot, Establishment media and the Labour right have tried to claim that only a minority of branches voted for the trigger – five of eleven – with other branches supporting her. Labour First’s Luke Akehurst majored on it as a reason that the trigger process is not democratic.
But in fact, only seven of the eleven branches voted. Five of those seven voted in favour of the trigger – but when the threshold of one in three branches was reached, the remaining branch votes were abandoned.
So of the seven branches who did vote, in 71% a majority apparently wanted an opportunity to select a new candidate.
Media also reported how tight the votes were, mentioning only one that voted for a trigger by a wider margin of thirty to seven – with ‘others’ decided only by a few votes.
However, while some were tight the overall score was – according to members present – vastly in favour of a trigger. The overall totals among those who voted seem to have been heavily in favour of the trigger.
Labour First’s Luke Akehurst responded to a SKWAWKBOX enquiry as to whether he would be surprised to learn that the trigger was driven by the Barking right:
We are against deselections of sitting moderate MPs whoever is involved.
SKWAWKBOX view:
A tight, undemocratic progress driven by the ‘antisemitic’ left – or an emphatically-decided move by the same Labour right to which Margaret Hodge belongs?
Yet again, the corporate media are feeding the people a line.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.