Former Labour MP Thelma Walker, who quit the party entirely in protest at Keir Starmer’s ‘toxic’ and ‘stomach-turning’ lurch to the right, looks likely to stand for the new Northern Independence Party (NIP) in the Hartlepool by-election.
Skwawkbox understands that Ms Walker is ‘being encouraged to stand’ and will accept the nomination if no local candidate comes forward. NIP will complete its selection and announce the party’s candidate on Sunday.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to without hardship, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
So sad it had to come this. Go Thelma!
Very rare to see any of them sacrifice the perks and expenses of a Labour mp in parliament.This woman is a lovely Lady and I think she may just shock a few with a very much a maverick public in Hartlepool….Good luck and god bless you.
There are 3 candidates standing. I will make a decision at our zoom hustings on Sunday
Stephen – Who are the 3 candidates?
Thelma needs to follow the example of Craig Murray. Get up! Stand up! Stand up for your beliefs! Act with the courage of your convictions.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/03/what-a-week/
💐🌼💐🌼💐🌼
It’s about time an alternative to the rule of SKS and the Kremlin emerged. Doubt she will go through with it though.
Having said that just heard that Alex Salmond has launched a new party in Scotland. Could it happen here?!
In answer to your question: it already has. I support the salmonid in his struggle against the caviar set but he is more of a demagogue than a democrat, something he arguably shares with the launchers of two alternatives to Labour, Arthur Scargill and George Galloway. Both launched but sunk without trace.
The Salmond affair has certainly exposed the cult of Sturgeon.
“Walker supported the United Kingdom (UK) remaining within the European Union (EU) in the 2016 UK EU membership referendum. In the indicative votes on 27 March 2019, she voted for a referendum on a Brexit withdrawal agreement, and for a customs union with the EU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelma_Walker#Political_career
And there’s the problem. Having mocked Labour for selecting a remainer with no local connections in the unappealing Williams it makes selecting a strong advocate of remain from West Yorkshire questionable. Personally I think Ms Walker is an admirable candidate but would lead to. accusations of hypocrisy .
Thanks StevehH, I like her even more now.
By the way, do you consider Starmer to be a Socialist?
That said- and all right, I’ll concede it could be something of an issue- you do kind of have to admit that Keir caused this- and that if a former Labour MP is saying the party’s taken a “stomach-turning” swing to the right, that means you can’t keep denying a huge swing to the right has happened. We can assume someone who’d been a Labour politician could be trusted when she uses phrases like that.
kenburch – Her constituents gave her trial for a couple of years and decisively decided to go back to the previous Tory incumbent. Why should I put any more faith in her than they did.
As a Tory yourself I wouldn’t expect you to.
SteveH re: Thelma Walker. “Why should I put any more faith in her than they did.” You know quite well what the answer is!!! They believed Farage’s lies about the UK being invaded by immigrants from the EU who would take their jobs, houses, school places and NHS appointments etc.
You still don’t appear to have answered my question: Do you believe Starmer is a Socialist?
Jack – Sorry I thought your question was rhetorical.
However I am more than happy to answer your question.
I believe that Keir Starmer is a democratic socialist in line with the principals laid out in Chapter 1, Clause IV of the current Labour Party Rule Book.
SteveH thanks for your answer. How can Starmer be Socialist or a Democrat and be a Zionist at the same time, they are not compatible. Zionism is 100% racism.
Jack – You are the one who is hung up on the subject, not me The atrocious mismanagement of the issue from the very first accusation onwards led us to where we are now. I think that all religious groups should be disaffiliated from the party.
SteveH you want to charcterise it as me being ‘hung up’ because you refuse to accept that the intention of Starmer the Zionist, is to remove Socialists from the Labour Party and you know why! He is following the lead of the Likud Party in Israel whose intention is to demonise anyone who gets in their way of colonising the Holy Land. How do you feel about working on behalf of the servant of a foreign government?
Every person in Britain who wants to be able to chose their own government should be ‘hung up’ about the influence the racist State of Israel has on our politics.
She lost solely for being a Remainer- and her loss proves that Labour can never gain votes or seats in the North as a Remain party. It doesn’t discredit her and it doesn’t invalidate what she has to say about what Starmer has done to the party.
BTW, the Blair version of Clause Four is meaningless- it is essentially impossible for any Labour politician to ever be in violation of it.
ACTUAL democratic socialism- as opposed to Blair’s evisceration of the concept- is not a Blairism, and no policies to the right of the 2017 and 2019 manifestos could possibly be considered to be genuine democratic socialism.
kenburch – It looks to me as if the Tories just went back to having a similar majority to the one that they’d enjoyed before Walker’s brief interlude. Perhaps it was the massive vote for the Brexit Party 1,268 (2.1%) & the large UKIP following 230 (0.2%) that led you to conclude it was all about Brexit .
kenburch “Labour can never gain votes or seats in the North as a Remain party.”
You are making the rather rash assumption that people haven’t change their mind. The detriment is Starmer not Remain.
She gained the sort of seat the Labour Right said the party should never have been able to gain under Corbyn, so that gives her some significant creedence. BTW, Corbyn and all his supporters are also democratic socialists in line with Clause Four- that clause does not mean you’re disqualified from being considered a democratic socialist if you’re to the left of Tony Blair on the structure of the economy.
Given what we are seeing today then Walker was bang to rights.
Is this a welcome or unwelcome intervention.
“Preston Tabois, a Haringey Labour councillor and Unite the Union activist, has had the party’s endorsement for his London Assembly candidacy removed following the decision of a national executive committee panel.
Tabois was selected by party members last year to be a candidate on the London-wide list. He was then administratively suspended by the Labour Party in August over a complaint relating to alleged antisemitism.
https://labourlist.org/2021/03/preston-tabois-removed-by-nec-panel-as-labour-candidate-for-london-assembly/
Such is the current Labour party that Guido Fawkes has final say on who stands. That said Murad Qureshi will make a good replacement if he’s allowed to in this anti democratic environment.
If he actually believed that the Holocaust was what that article he shared said it was, than he would in fact be an ACTUAL antisemite. What does what happened with this person have to do with the person we are actually discussing, though?
kenburch – I was just curious to know how others who may have some local knowledge saw this.
To those who have left the Labour Party because of the leadership can I suggest you donate the amount of the subscription you saved to your local branch? Branches only get a fraction of subscriptions so a regular donation will help get Labour councillors elected.
You would need to be careful. If the branch is controlled by lickspittles just give your money to a food bank.
I was under the impression that Paul Proudfoot was going to stand for the NIP, perhaps until Guido Fawkes had a go at him. From what I can gather, NIP is avowedly socialist and Brexit vote-respecting so it seems slightly odd if Thelma is a remainer because Richard Tice, whether he stands or not will not let her forget it.
I’ve already posted my advice to friends in Hartlepool and the wider north east to vote for NIP because Starmer needs a bloody nose. Ideally an NIP win but in a less than ideal world, enough NIP votes to make sure that the lickspittle Williams loses. A Labour win will just enable Starmer to carry on as though the wind is behind him.
Having said that, I think the NIP candidate should be as local as possible and be able to articulate the deep-rooted sentiments of the 70% of Hartlepudlians who chose to use the 2016 referendum as a chance to a) be heard and b) give one on the chin to the establishment – without resorting to wearing a monkey suit.
fao JackT,
substitute Farage lies with Blairite lies & you’re getting somewhere near the truth. All major political Parties are ‘Remainers’ including ‘one nation’ Tories. The Liberals; The Labour Party; The Greens; the SNP; their leadership are ‘Remainers’, Wages & the standard of living for the ‘Deplorables’ throughout the European Union has collapsed over the decades & the downtrodden have sent a message to the bourgeois elites that the ‘left behind’ still exist. Strmer’s 2nd Referendum was insulting & that message will be repeated. Don’t tell me I’m too stupid or a racist who voted the wrong way & has now changed his mind. When I sign an agreement , I keep my word. The hubris!!!
Steve Richards, my point is a simple one, which you don’t appear to understand.
It’s that people can change their mind once they have more information about a previous choice and it is not undemocratic to allow them to express it in a democratic manner.
Why do you think we have General Elections if it’s not to give people a chance to change their mind about a previous choice if they wish?
I realise that as a ‘Brexiteer’ you regard me as an emotional simpleton, but let me make this perfectly clear; David Cameron sent a glossy booklet pre-referendum @ the tax-payer’s expense, outlining the terms of the Referendum & why it was necessary.. All political parties agreed to those terms; I don’t remember a caviat that said ‘what if I had my fingers crossed or can we have the best of 3 in case I change my mind’. Remind me never to shake hands with you on a deal; seems the Remainers’ have a lot in common with Donald Trump.
Steve – That would be the same referendum that resulted in the High Court receiving an unprecedented number of petitions (200+) for the EU Referendum result to be set aside because of various wrongdoing. There is little doubt that the referendum result would have been set aside if the referendum had been anything else but advisory.
In Dec16 the Justices of the Supreme Court ruled that because the referendum was advisory and therefore had no standing in law they were unable to pass judgement on it. The Justices said that the decision whether to implement the result of the EU referendum was an entirely political one and not a matter of law.
Steve Richards, out of the millions of people who voted in the referendum
you must be the only person who thought they were signing a contract instead of giving an opinion when they cast their vote.
Regardless of the suitability of Walker’s proposed candidacy, the key point is surely that the NIP respects the Leave decision and is an avowedly democratic socialist party specifically for the North. So, if you live in Merseyside, Manchester or the North East, what on earth is the point in staying in the shitty organisation that the LP now is, fighting right wing scumbags, when you can unite with other socialists and really give it some stick!
Unless, your loyalty to Labour is greater than your loyalty to the interests of the working class?
Doug, I’m afraid that’s NOT the key point
The key point is in nearly four years since the referendum and us leaving the EU, peoples’ opinions can change. We’ve had General Elections with shorter intervals than that where the public’s opinion has changed!
What about Thelma standing as a NIP candidate for mayor in Liverpool if a local comes forward in Hartlepool?
fao SteveH….”various wrongdoings”. Is that a legal term or just your opinion?. The bourgeois establishment have never accepted the Referendum result & no doubt would use any mechanism available to overturn the result.. Hubris…..Cameron, Blair Starmer et al & the bourgeoisie still can not believe that with all the power of the State & the support of all political parties & all MSM behind them, they lost the referendum by over a million votes……..a classic example of various wrongdoing or just the electorate being bloody minded & awkward..
Steve – I am simply reporting what happened in the Supreme Court in Dec16, it is a matter of public record.
Battle of the Labour Losers
The separatist Northern Independence Party have announced former Corbynite MP Thelma Walker [as their candidate] – in parliament from 2017 to 2019 and who quit Labour last year over Starmer’s suspension of Corbyn – will be their candidate. During her brief political career she was McDonnell’s PPS, and backed ‘second referendum’ and ‘customs union’ during parliament’s indicative votes. Just the sort of person to whom Hartlepool is sure to warm…
The not-to-be-confused regionalist Northern Party has also quietly selected a former Labour MP: Hilton Dawson, member of parliament for Lancaster & Wyre from 1997 to 2005. While Dawson wasn’t voted out in 2005, his party’s platform is primarily trying to resurrect Prescott’s regional assemblies; plans which were scrapped after the North East comprehensively voted them down in 2004 (in what was Dominic Cummings’ first referendum success). Given Labour selecting former Labour MP Paul Williams too, Hartlepool is shaping up to be a parade of left-wing MPs the region’s already rejected…
https://1791times.com/Main/2021/03/29/battle-of-the-labour-losers/
‘The only way is up’.
Thelma Walker has yet to make much of an impact in Hartlepool. She is currently polling 2%.