High Drama in Labour Party; after suffering a massive electoral defeat in the European Elections, the Labour Party have kicked out 'Lifelong' Labour member Alastair Campbell for voting Lib Dem, if the Labour Party wanted to make a statement then a 6 month suspension would have better served their purpose in what is supposed to be a broad church

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