Dear All
When I heard that the Labour Party had
expelled Alistair Campbell, I thought it must be a hoax, if you think back to
the Blair years in Government, Campbell was there side by side with Blair, joined
at the hip.
So, what got Alistair Campbell kicked out?
Labour Party member Alistair Campbell
publicly stated that he was backing another party in this case, the Lib Dems.
Technically according to the party rules if you support and declare for another
party while in Labour, you’re will be expelled. Did Alistair Campbell have to
say publicly he was voting Lib Dem, probably not, but he did and he brought
trouble to his door!
What should the Labour Party have done on
this issue, ignored it, because if you look at what is going on in the party,
the decision looks from the outside as the Corbyn faction getting revenge on
the Blairites. In certain issues, it is recognized that national interest overtakes
party interest. There is no doubt that some view the current situation in terms
of national interest. The Labour Party didn’t have to sit on the fence but they
wrongly made that choice, in the wake of defeat, circa 10 MEPs, they are again
wrongly making the decision to back a second referendum vote.
Compounding mistakes will not help the
Labour Party, imagine if they had backed Brexit stating that they would abide
by the democratic decision?
Would they have lost their seats in
Scotland?
I suspect not, they would have probably
placed second in the polls running a principled campaign. Another gaffe in the
Scottish campaign was not appointing a non MSP or MP as Campaign Manager. Let
me put it this way, do you know the different between a professional footballer
and a five a side player?
Labour MSP Neil Findlay nor any other MSP
should have been in that role, the role is to specialized to leave it to a non
professional. The other major gaffe was of course the message, unclear and non-committal,
and to flag up domestic issues as the way to go was entirely disingenuous to
the public. What is incredible is that
the Labour Party didn’t understand this and blindly plodded on. From second to
fifth in the vote is the worst ever result, but it comes on the back of
previous bad results such as 2015 and 2017 for Westminster.
Apparently Campbell revealed his expulsion
in a series of tweets and said he would appeal the decision.
So, what sanction should Alistair Campbell
get?
6 month suspension for breaching the party rules
on publicly declaring for another party.
Campbell said:
'To all the Labour staff, MPs, peers and
councillors who told me they were not voting Labour fear not; as I believe in
loyalty to the tribe, your secrets are safe with me'.
Campbell added:
'I'm still in the Labour Party as far as
I'm concerned and I'll always be Labour. I don't think I've supported another
party, I don't support another party, tactical voting has gone on for years.'
To be clear the Labour Party didn’t show
leadership in this campaign which is why the voters deserted the party, they
lost both Remainers and Leavers; trying to appeal to everyone makes you weak,
because sooner or later you have to be put to a decision. Speaking of
decisions, Diane Abbott says Labour must now back a second Brexit referendum. She
says formally backing a second EU referendum is 'the democratic thing to do'.
Abbott added:
'There is no inherent contradiction between
respecting the result of the referendum and having a People's Vote, not least
because it's still not sure how a People's Vote would pan out’.
No inherent contradiction?
If you don’t respect the first vote, then
why should anyone believe that the political class would respect the second? This is the same nonsense done in Ireland to
cheat the people;, of course a second vote would be respected if the political
class won. Luckily there is little chance of the Conservatives taking that path
after being smashed in the local elections in England and the recent European
Election.
4 Conservative MEPs in the whole of
Britain.
This means no Westminster election till
2022 and no Scottish Referendums either during the current Westminster
Parliament. The European election was in effect the second vote and the Brexit
Party won by a landslide, beating both the Labour and Conservative votes
combined. No one is mental enough to throw the country into more chaos from the
Conservative government side because the polls stink.
A Labour spokesman said:
'Support for another political party or
candidate is incompatible with party membership'.
Short, sharp to the point and no thank you
to Campbell for his service to the Labour Party. I don’t know about you but I
am looking forward to the appeal by Campbell. Years ago when I used to teach at University,
I used to tell my students that the answer to a problem wasn’t to create
another problem. It seems that the Labour Party if it goes for the second
referendum will utterly destroy their seats in the North of England which means
they cannot get a majority in the Commons come the next election.
Finally given the state of Scottish Labour,
those seats which the Labour Party needs to also help secure a majority are
looking remote as well because the Scottish Party is also in trouble.
It is a serious mistake to back a second
referendum, but the polls will tell the Labour Party this in due course, or if
they pop by the blog they can get this info now!
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow
University
2 comments:
I don't know if it's just me or if everyone else experiencing problems with your blog.
It appears as though some of the text in your content are running off the screen. Can somebody else please provide feedback and let me know if this is happening to them
as well? This might be a problem with my browser because I've had this happen before.
Kudos
Hey very nice blog!
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