Photos demonstrate link, though Bedser says he is not a member
Some Labour members in the West Midlands have disputed reports that former Dudley council leader Pete Lowe – who launched his campaign from the left – has involved right-wingers, including Labour First, in his campaign to become Labour’s candidate for West Midlands regional mayor.
The SKWAWKBOX has obtained photographic evidence that shows Lowe’s campaign manager Steve Bedser attending at least one major Labour First event – the right-wing pressure group founded by West Midlands MP and die-hard Corbyn opponent John Spellar.
The evidence consists of two pictures of Bedser – who positioned himself as a pro-Corbyn candidate for the last West Midlands mayoral contest before losing out to right-winger and close friend of Tom Watson, Sion Simon.
The first image shows him with Lowe at a campaign event – and the second shows Bedser listening to Spellar favourite Gurinder Singh Josan at a Labour First event a year ago, with anti-Corbyn hard-liner and soon to be Tory-made peer John Mann also visible:
Bedser is also treasurer of ‘The Forward Dining Club’, a West Midlands group said to be linked to Labour First:
The SKWAWKBOX approached Steve Bedser and Pete Lowe for comment. Mr Bedser denied being a member of Labour First but conceded that he had attended an ‘annual dinner’, which he said was part of his ‘working across the party’. He said The Forward Dining Club was a ‘broadly social group of broad Labour Party supporters’. He said he had ‘voted for the winner’ during the last Labour leadership election.
Pete Lowe did not deny that figures from the party’s right were involved in his campaign but declined to discuss individuals. He insisted that his campaign had played no part in recent media attacks on rival Salma Yaqoob and that he was running a positive campaign on a ‘radical, transformative socialist’ platform.
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All these usual suspects are out for the blood of salma yaqoob,some of its malicious intent insights the racists and bigots and I would not repeat some of this filth in any post.These vile people who are mainly well known Labour mps and one the deputy leader should have been removed from the Labour party years ago.I fear that this brave woman will be another victim of the media and the Watson fanatics including that gutless wonder from Brighton MP Peter Kyle.I hope she doesnt need to book into the holiday inn anytime or kyle will cancel for her and have her booted out of town….Chris Williamson? Anyone?
“The Forward Dining Club” – that’ll be at the Town Hall where they feed the homeless and other poor and hungry people with hot nourishing meals I guess?
David,you would think it should be if there was any justice,People like them and Labour first along with the Tory government have put a lot of vulnerable people on the breadline and I cannot even begin to understand why they are still in the Labour party!
Defeat Cummings glove puppet tonight and we have a GE
Dream on, Doug. Bogus , naive, optimism rules. Don’t you get it ? Johnson WANTS a snap General Election- firmly focussed on Brexit ! He’s firmly established his entirely bogus credentials as the promised huge new mega funder of the NHS, police, and education , AND his role as the ‘champion of the 2016 Referendum decision against the political Remainer elite’ , and so he thinks (rightly) he could win a snap General Election. BUT, he needs a two thirds majority to get a General Election though under the Fixed Parliament Act . There is no chance that all those Remainer Labour MPs facing wipe-out in our Leave-supporting Labour heartlands will vote for a General Election. So the political system is trapped in stasis – with the overwhelming Remainer Parliamentary majority determined to delay any decision except that of a new Referendum – despite the fact that 80% of these MP’s stood on manifestos in 2017 promising to ‘respect the 2016 Referendum outcome’.
The irony is that in a new Referendum there is a very good chance that Leave would WIN yet again ! Except this time such a deeply divisive Referendum would also involve the permanent eclipse of the Labour Party in many of our Labour heartlands by the crooked opportunists of the Brexit Party – as happened so very recently in the EU MEP elections.
Bad Penney
So fecking close but no Havana
Cummings glove puppet needs to go to war on a No Deal manifesto to double six Brexit party, so he will crash his deal tonight and call for GE under FTPA
EU will grant extension for GE
No Labour mp will dare vote against it, besides fact that winning under JC is their only chance of 2nd referendum
We do however agree on one thing,
Leave will win
And the talentless muckspreder Rachel Riley has managed to get the law society to pull their advertising with the left wing corbyn supporting Canary news .It seems that just the accusation is all our worthys in the law society needed to make a judgment on the Canary being an AS sponser of fake news.Nice to know our countrys future is decided by such bastions of the people…shame on the law society?
What an attention-seeking Rachel Riley is.
It’s almost enough to make me stop watching Countdown!
Navel gazing whilst stuff actually happens in the HoC, and Corbyn makes a good speech about the latest con from Mr Toad.
This Party is nowhere near ready for a GE. Yet.
Rachel Riley works for Channel 4. ’nuff said!