Breaking Exclusive

Exclusive: O’Byrne backers to mount ’emergency meeting’ coup to install her as council leader

‘Mafia’ move on cards to cut Labour members out of selection via emergency vote to revert to leader elected by councillors – and install O’Byrne despite questions over £20k company payment for daughter’s job etc

Right-wing city councillors in Liverpool allied with a ‘north-west mafia‘ of Labour fixers are planning to mount a ‘coup’ tomorrow to scrap the position of elected mayor and install their preferred candidate as leader of the council.

Ann O’Byrne was one of three prospective candidates bidding to stand for Labour in May’s mayoral election who were blocked by the party without explanation.

Questions had been raised, but not answered, about O’Byrne’s involvement, along with two right-wing Labour councillors, in the Beautiful Ideas Company – a vehicle that raised cash through two car parks and allocated funds to local businesses.

A councillor’s report raised a string of questions over BICo’s unreceipted cash transactions, lack of proper accounting, issues with low reports of usage of the car parks on match days – and an award of £20,000 to a group that was used to employ O’Byrne’s daughter.

Although the other candidates had no involvement, the party decided to scrap the shortlist and bar all three candidates from standing – including the popular left-winger Anna Rothery, to the outrage of local members and BAME groups. Rothery looked on course to become the UK’s first black woman elected mayor.

But now the SKWAWKBOX understands that supporters of O’Byrne – who enjoys extensive connections and alliances among councillors – plan to install her anyway, by holding an emergency vote tomorrow to scrap the mayoral model immediately and to return to the system where only councillors vote to elect the council’s leader.

Labour members would be entirely disenfranchised in the process.

If the Labour right thinks it has seen outrage from the people of Liverpool over the travesty so far, they are likely to learn what it really looks like.

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46 comments

    1. Hand up all who think the Right Wing can be converted even to basic human decency📘📘📘

      1. Even if the Right Wing could be converted, hands up all who think that we should prioritise converting them above publicising, justifying, normalising and defending our vision to the GENERAL public📌📌📌

      2. For the avoidance of doubt –

        It’s obvious, my posts since 2019, reported that several times in my Jeremy supporting groups, a few key people repeated “we should convert” the red tories, our mp and it’s tools.

        My firm view as posted – tories infesting the party cannot be converted, and if even they could, then it is not our job to convert them.

        They are adults, who made their choices and aims clear. Egs – they were disappointed that GE17 did as it did. The sabotage from the get go, and open hostility.

        Our priority and aim should be to sustain the normalisation of our Socialist vision to the general public. Sustain, not an utterance every several months then vanish for long stretches to some fog or bunker. And certainly NEVER back room “compromises” with obvious repugnant creatures working openly to undermine’ us.

        We should not have to “work around”, “work with”, “unify with”, “keep calm” about their latest atrocities, nor “sort things out” with them.

        Those are illogical aims. The infestation in the PLP etc are few in comparison to the many in the general public. The general public showed their support as never seen nor FELT before in possibly 60 years.

        That engagement of the general public should have been and should be our priority.

        Appeasement of any kind or degree towards those who demonstrate their opposition to our policies and vision should never be done, let alone a priority. NONE of their gang should get even the slightest support in any form whatsoever. If we do then we are enabling Tories. Red Tories or Blue Tories = Two cheeks of the same backside.

        🟣🔴🟠

      3. lundiel – Instead of profanities perhaps it would be more constructive if you took notes and asked why the self appointed guardians of ‘the left’ never seem to be able to get their act together.

      4. windchimes spouting MORE bollox I see! No-one is trying to convert them signpost, precisely because fascists cannot be converted, and you know it and, as such, are talking out of your butt!

        Yeah, first signpost conjures up something that is totally non-sensical and totally improbable and THEN – by way of criticising the left – poses a totally fake question – ie should ‘we prioritise converting them…..’ blah, blah, blah.

        Signpost is a black propagandist shill whose sole objective on here is to discredit the left, and he has posted literally hundreds and hundreds of posts to that effect since he started posting on here a couple of months or so before the 2019 GE.

      5. PS So within THREE minutes of the above article being posted and subscribers notified in an email, signpost posted his initial comment (and then a minute later his second comment, and then three minutes after that his third comment). You see, being a full-time Establishment paid shill, he is constantly monitoring the site AND waiting for any new article to be posted so that he can then (falsely) berate and malign the left.

        Windchimes has posted first on dozens and dozens and dozens of occasions since he first started posting on here a couple of months before the 2019 GE, BUT, he obviously can’t do that EVERY time as readers would soon pick up on the fact, so on other occasions he posts a ‘Reply’ to the first comment – ie the first person who posted a comment – and has done THAT on dozens and dozens and dozens of occasions ALSO, and for the obvious reason – ie so that his black propaganda falsehoods will be seen by as many readers as possible AND so as to keep a high profile.

        The absurdity of his comment – well it’s several absurdities rolled into one – is that if the Right Wing COULD be converted, then the party would be united under a socialist program and, as such, stand a very good chance of winning a GE and forming a government, so to prioritise doing that would be a constructive and beneficial thing to do, but as I said earlier, it’s complete and utter bollox that the Right – the Blairites – could ever be converted OR that the Left would ever try to convert them when they know that THAT is an impossibility.

        Yeah, it’s just more rubbish AND rubbishing from windchimes!

      1. lundiel – Instead of wasting your time with childish profanities perhaps you would be better employed if you took notes on the RW successes and asked why ‘the left’ never seem to be able to get their act together.

      2. Yeah, the left can never get their act together says SteveH, conveniently forgetting that despite all the smears by the MSM et al, the LP under Jeremy’s leadership came within a whisker – and closed a 20 point plus lead down to a couple of points – of winning the 2017 GE.

        But then SteveH is a lying little fascist shill!

      3. That’s what the left in Liverpool have already been doing- and YOU keep saying “we don’t have enough information”, by which you mean “no one has the right to say or do anything until the NW Labour stops stonewalling- even if they never will stop stonewalling”.

      4. kenburch – That’s a false and malicious interpretation of what I’ve said above, but coming from you that’s par for course.

  1. ……..but Liverpool is a ‘Left Wing’ City so how can it have so many ‘Right Wing’ Councillors? Scrapping the position of ‘Retro’ Mayor? Good idea.

      1. Yes. I thought the demand to abolish these petty but dctatatorial Mayors, and revert back to Leader and Cabinet or Committee (which I support whole-heartedly) was one the left historically backed !

    1. Yes, that’s a really good question. Why are the right so powerful in Liverpool, while all the time we are led to believe that the party is very left in Liverpool? This runs deep and dark.

      1. Alex – It is all the more curious when one factors in that all councillors are (unlike MPs) subject to mandatory reselection.

    2. Steve R, The answer is, as I was informed by a right winger when at an event in support of a local ‘leader’ – “Labour is a broad church”. To which I replied “but whatever that means, to belong to the Labour Party you have to be a Democratic Socialist as stated on the back of your membership card”. One of the North West right wing organisers was on the same table at that event and I suspect from then on I was maked out for expulsion.

      The problem is that the right wing, even in Liverpool have borrowed Labour’s clothes so that they can kid the public and gain influential positions. This is why those such as John Mann and Ian Austin (spit) were able to get away with their attacks on Corbyn with impunity, they have low friends in high places.

      As has been said here on a number of occasions, even when we had the chance, because of short term thinking, the left have failed to organise properly. How many MP’s were parachuted into the Labour seats by Tony Blair and are still here? They are in for the long haul and are organised for it, whereas many on the left, as soon as there is a bump in the road, leave.

      One of the worst, if not THE worst failures was to let the chance of open selection slip through our fingers. It’s absolutely NO use giving the right the benefit of the doubt, they will abuse it and come back even stronger.

  2. The stay in and fight backantra is becoming increasingly difficult to justify, as members voices are constantly being marginalized or maligned

    1. ‘Stay in and Fight’ as a mantra for the Labour Left – after the spineless Left disaster of ‘Corbynism’ 2015 to 2019 was so easily smashed by total Labour Right sabotage from day one – without a single example of organised Left resistance from the Corbyn Circle, is about as useful as the passengers on the Titanic adopting a mantra of “stay aboard and keep baling ” after it struck that iceberg ! We know what happened to the passengers left on board the Titanic don’t we. Time for serious socialists to escape from the now electorally kaput Titanic of UK politics , ie NuLabour 2. – to a new radical Left Party OUTSIDE of the totally corrupt NuLabour swamp. As many here have said in one form or other – “if endemically corrupt , machine politics, Liverpool, is really a Left Wing Labour City – then god help the Labour Left “

      1. jpenney, for your own sinister reasons you want the Labour Party to disintegrate. You are a Zionist and want to suppress criticism of Zionist racism at any cost, which is why even when Corbyn was in the ascendancy you were sniping at him.

      2. Yeah, jpenny, the ‘spineless Left disaster’ of the 2017 GE when Jeremy came within a whisker of winning AND had the largest increase in Labour MPs in decades!

        Don’t believe a word jpenny says, because it is nothing but nazi-type Big Lies!

        In the totally fake reality HE creates, socialist MPs are useless and ineffective, and YET…. he then comes out with how ‘serious socialists’ should escape from NuLabour 2 and form a radical left party blah, blah, blah!

      3. Allan – I suppose that depends on how one views the gains and losses.
        Yes in 2017 we gained 30 seats in the HofC which was great. Unfortunately just 2 and a bit years later we lost double that number of seats (61), a nett loss of 31 seats was very significantly less great.

      4. Dearie me. You really need to significantly up your paranoia-suppressing medication, Jack T and Allan Howard. Having a crazy paranoid hissy fit every time a socialist actually analyses the reasons for the pathetically easy defeat of ‘Corbynism’ and the Labour Left generally, and screaming on about sinister ‘zionist plots’ or ‘Tory shills’ . or ‘nazi-type lies’ (really ?) , just shows that both of you live in an ignorant fantasy world that cannot bear to be challenged by analysis and fact. Go away and do some in-depth reading you couple of right charlies. You simply embarrass yourselves with every bonkers ranting post.

        Just a suggestion – but countering fact-based arguments with fact-based counter-arguments always works better than mad schoolyard abuse.

  3. Here’s something to look forward to

    Door-to-door campaigning for England’s local elections will be allowed from 8 March, cabinet office minister Chloe Smith announced.

    1. Since the purge of the Left means that no one anywhere in the UK will even consider going door-to-door for Labour- only left-wingers ever did that- it’s a largely irrelevant announcement.

      Does it bother you at all, SteveH that Starmer’s antidemocratic reactionary nastiness has guaranteed a massive Labour defeat in May, and probably at ever electoral contest while he stays on as leader?

      1. kenburch – It will be interesting to see whether you’re missed. Come back and tell me what a hero you’ve been in May.

  4. The day OPEN SELECTION died at the Liverpool Conference WAS the day the RW PLP knew they had US SOCIALISTS by the balls……The LP machinery were NEVER going to ALLOW a JC led Socialist Government. The LP is DEAD and the sooner Socialists recognise THAT fact….the sooner we can organise and proceed.

      1. Yes Doug its exactly what they wanted us to do over forty years ago,I have left and joined a union,if more did this we would stand a chance,but the writings on the wall for socialism in the Labour party and has been apart from the Corbyn blip which failed.for as long as I can remember at 70years old.Admire your persistence,but I think you know that the so called socialist mps are eventually going to capitulate(for the sake of unity).Any chance of altering the agenda is effectively water under the bridge…Enjoy the Court cases till the money and lawyers run out

      2. Joseph
        It wasn’t a blip, it was a visceral scream from the electorate after 2015 GE,
        ffs Cameron had written his resignation speech yet won a majority, tells you two things,
        FPTP exaggerates small swings disproportionately and the promise of Brexit referendum was enough
        JC was not a blip, the increase in membership is irreversible, all the demographics are in our favour
        Be it PLP, Councillors or party bureaucrats on the right, they are the few and they are utterly ruthless Blue Tory mini me’s
        The internal report set in stone what needs to happen next
        What we dont have at the moment is leadership, coordination and a reason to be us, our spirits are low
        Scotland, Brexit, Covid19 non of these events were left right battles, yet we have been on the wrong side of every one of them
        Time to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and get back to the day job

      3. Doug….iT wasn’t a blip,I hope you are correct and I take no pleasure in seeing the Labour party destroyed by mindless vandels.The people again will suffer.

  5. and the promise of Brexit referendum was enough

    Not on its own, although it was perhaps the toerag manifesto promise that swung it for Cameron. (And they stuck to it)

    The terminal uselessness of moribund and the nowadays media whore balls and their ‘austerity lite’ idiocy was another factor.

    There was no discernible difference back then, but the dickheads STILL elected stammer last year despite being told he will be worse than the other two weirdos; and they’re still scratching their heads, wondering where they’ve gone wrong.

    Although there are some who just deny everything and blame everyone else for stammer’s ascendancy. Some of them even have the gall to call themselves socialist.

    We know who they are, every bit as much as they do.

    1. The Toffee
      We have Man Utd’s famous youth team coming through all we need now is the fucking horrible manager

    1. Joseph
      When I was running around the country supporting Newcastle they were 2nd Division, a man called Docherty (whose up mother brown) got them back into Division 1
      My other favourite football quote is “with 2 Scots men in your team you have a chance of winning everything, with 3 you will win nothing ‘ Bill Shankly
      Thats how I feel about Socialism

  6. Apparently Campaiigning for the May council elections can start on 08 March, so just enough time to email the candidate you might work for and ask him/her if they will align with SCGLC.

  7. Over 1,000 activists to call on Labour to fight for a socialist Budget

    Labour Assembly Against Austerity (LAAA) isonto a hiding for nothing with this when Sir Billionaires’ Lackey is instructing the party to oppose tax increases for the wealthy.

    A LAAA spokesperson said: “The Tories are using this crisis to restructure the economy in the interests of the 1 per cent. Labour needs to both fight the Tories and argue for a transformative alternative.”

    Register for the event here:
    https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/for-a-peoples-budget-no-to-austerity-20-tickets-137983126245

    1. So it’s goodbye to Scottish Labour EVER winning a governing majority in Scotland, or sending any significant number of Scottish MPs to Westminster ever again. Scottish Labour was wiped out almost overnight under Murphy (and Miliband), by SNP advances BEFORE Corbyn was Leader – after umpteen years of right wing neoliberal Blairism/Murphyism positioned Scottish Labour to the RIGHT of Scottish Toryism on most issues – never mind the decades of Scottish Labour crony corruption. Now the victory of the multimillionaire, Sarwar, is a total return to all that. Even embroiled in their own internal factional wars , the SNP must be SO PLEASED that Scottish Labour is mired once more in the electorally toxic dead end of neo Blairism.

      1. “Scottish Labour was wiped out

        almost overnight under Murphy (and Miliband),

        … BEFORE Corbyn was Leader

        – after umpteen years of right wing neoliberal Blairism”.

        repeat four times daily, forever everywhere, to everyone, especially to any socialist weirdly in awe of the rightwing. so in awe as “to do everything to love them”

        so transfixed by repeated myths as to to offer up everything and many, to “get them” thatcher’s maggots “to love… back.”
        🕛🕧🕜

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