If this wasn’t so deliberately disingenuous it would be absolutely hilarious. It’s still funny, but tinged with the malevolence that accompanies all right-wing Labour MPs claims of anti-Semitism in others.

You may be aware of the slang term “gammon” – used to describe (according to the Wikipedia page on the subject) “older white men, especially those who are particularly patriotic or supported Brexit, who appear pink-faced when emotional. The term is a comparison of their skin colour to the pink of salted pork hind leg, i.e. gammon.”

The term came into common usage after 2012, although its use can be traced back to Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby, in 1838.

The Wikipedia page even carried a photograph of Labour MP Mike Gapes, listing him as “an example of prime gammon“, until it was edited off on August 27.

This may be the reason:

You may be aware of rumours that Mr Gapes has been set to resign from the Labour Party in response to the latest wave of (false) anti-Semitism accusations against Jeremy Corbyn.

As Mr Gapes is a member of Labour Friends of Israel, the organisation that was famously offered £1 million by Israeli government conspirator Shai Masot to remove Mr Corbyn from his position as Labour leader, this is unsurprising.

It attracted a tweet by “Damian from Brighton” to Mr Gapes, linking these two threads as follows: “Your departure from Labour is completely understandable. You are a supporter of an organisation associated with an apartheid state so it isn’t tenable for you to remain in the party.”

He added: “Could you confirm your leaving date? I will be holding a gammon supper to celebrate.”

Enter Chris Bryant, Labour MP for the Rhondda, who is not a supporter of LFI but seems to be a supporter of Mr Gapes:

Twitter did a collective double-take – and then piled on on Mr Bryant like a pack of hungry wolves.

Here’s part of the conversation. Note the number of different contributors:

https://twitter.com/matteoj17/status/1034151964718841856

At this point, Damin from Brighton re-enters the narrative, with a tweet to the Labour Party Whips’ Office, party general secretary Jennie Formby, and the party’s general purpose Twitter feed:

He was absolutely right to do so. At best, Mr Bryant was being wilfully ignorant; at worst, he was deliberately (and lamely) trying to create another false accusation of anti-Semitism.

Mr Bryant failed to retract his statement, so Damian decided to take matters further:

Anyone wishing to support him can email [email protected]

During this time, Evolve Politics (who brought my attention to this issue via the tweet at the top of this article) published a piece about the row, it’s well worth reading and contained a tweet from Mr Gapes:

One can only imagine he thought he could bully Damian off.

Not so:

This is what happens when people in authority abuse their position.

Both Mr Gapes and Mr Bryant are now facing the possibility of punishment for their attempts to bully, browbeat and otherwise batter a person who was expressing a perfectly acceptable opinion.

They thought the public would lie down and quietly accept that they knew best.

But the public has had enough of the false accusations and its members are determined to have their say.

We have the facts, we have the arguments and – by the way – we have the numbers.

Visit our JustGiving page to help Vox Political’s Mike Sivier fight anti-Semitism libels in court

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