‘Spiteful’? Watson’s comment on Campbell expulsion shows he’s unfit to be Labour deputy leader
He’s got his coat: Tom Watson’s support for Blairites who voted for other parties means he should be ejected from his position as Labour deputy leader – and preferably from the party altogether.
Tom Watson could not have given Labour Party members a better reason to remove him. He is a hypocrite – and a low one at that.
Mr Watson was quiet as a mouse when Labour members who supported Jeremy Corbyn were expelled by the thousand for the heinous crime of – for example – voting Green before they had even joined his party.
Labour’s deputy leader, who has a famous taste for pop music, had nothing to say when one member was kicked out for voicing her enjoyment of the Foo Fighters in Anglo-Saxon terms.
But when Alastair Campbell gets the boot for voting Liberal Democrat in the EU elections, up he squeaks.
Not good enough. If that’s what he thinks, he should be quitting the party of his own volition.
If he won’t (and I think he is himself too spiteful and vain to do the honourable thing), then it is time he was challenged for his position as Labour’s deputy leader. He disgraces it.
I note that The Guardian lists three other Blairite Labour members who voted for other parties and look forward to seeing reports of their expulsion as well.
Rules are rules. Mr Watson liked them well enough when he could use them to get his way.
Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, has said the decision to expel Alastair Campbell for voting Lib Dem was spiteful and members who voted for other parties in the European elections should be given an amnesty.
In a rebuke to Labour’s HQ, Watson said members who voted for other parties should be listened to rather than punished. Campbell, Tony Blair’s former spin doctor and a leading advocate for a people’s vote, admitted after polls had closed that he had voted Liberal Democrat.
The former Labour home secretary and party chairman Charles Clarke said he had also voted Liberal Democrat in the election, while the ex-defence secretary Bob Ainsworth said he voted Green.
Fiona Mactaggart, a former Labour minister, admitted she also voted Lib Dem and said it was “time for us all to declare: ‘I am Spartacus.’”
Watson said members who had voted elsewhere to send a message to Labour had been right about the party’s lack of clarity on the issue of a second referendum, compared with parties such as the Greens, Lib Dems and the SNP.
Source: Tom Watson calls Alastair Campbell’s expulsion ‘spiteful’ | Politics | The Guardian
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They should all go. Still purged and second time they took our money and disabled money and elderly pensions and refused to give it back including the £25 new fee although purged.
They Foo Fighter ORF!
Tom Watson is not fit to represent Labour and should have expelled long ago.
Watson’s advocacy of nuclear war should have led to his expulsion from the Labour Party.
Charles Clarke is still a strong supporter of ID cards and seems to want to charge cancer patients for their treatment:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jul/17/policy.taxandspending
So you’ve been attacking Watson for almost three years at least, under any pretext you can find. Expelling Campbell does nothing to strengthen the Labour Party. I couldn’t vote Labour either this time, with such an unclear message on Europe being offered.
… by Tom Watson.
The message being offered by the Labour leadership was crystal-clear. And of course nobody elected to the EU Parliament will have any influence on the UK’s decisions on Brexit.
Keeping Campbell strengthens the Party? If he’s £abour, through and through, as he claims, why did he vote for another Party and then compound the situation by crow about it, on national television? The rules are clear; his expulsion was warranted. Do you think that he’d be shouting for your reinstatement, had you done the same? “Brexit” had nothing to do with these elections. These were European Elections, not a General Election, £ocal Election, or proxy referendum.
If they didn’t like the policy, they could have abstained, or left the Party; that way, they could be free to vote for whomever they chose. At best, he is a sophist. at worst, he’s a bad apple that is contaminating the Party and needs to go.