Toxic by-election candidate sees MPs decline to be seen supporting
Labour MPs have refused to campaign in Hartlepool for the party’s by-election candidate Paul Williams.
Williams, former Labour MP for Stockton South, has had a bumpy ride after a demeaning tweet about older women made headlines and an email showing Keir Starmer’s office participated in ‘stitching up’ his selection leaked to the public domain. He also faces issues in Hartlepool, which voted overwhelmingly to leave in the 2016 referendum, for his avidly anti-Brexit politics. And those chickens appear to have come home to roost.
Labour sources say that at least two Labour MPs have refused the party’s demand to campaign in Hartlepool for Williams, in a by-election that is seen as a tough test of Keir Starmer’s insipid leadership over the last year – and of his primary role in forcing Labour to u-turn on its commitment under Jeremy Corbyn to see the referendum result through to completion.
SKWAWKBOX view:
The refusals form a bleak commentary on the party’s prospects in what was, until the Brexit sabotage in the run-up to the 2019 general election, a habitual Labour seat. The constituency returned a Labour MP in that election only because the Brexit party did not stand down in Hartlepool, splitting the pro-Brexit vote as anger at Labour’s failure to fulfil its promise wrecked the party’s standing in its working-class ‘heartland’ seats.
With Williams also under the cloud of an anti-democratic, ‘shortlist of one’ selection, the refusal of MPs to campaign for him is a blow that the badly-led party can ill afford.
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Who are these 2 brave MPs that are refusing to campaign for Labour in Hartlepool.
Why the emphasis on brave? Skwawky never said it. It could be right wing MP’s from leave constituencies who were forced to bite the bullet or lose their own seats. What does it matter to anyone but you and Walsh who they are…..no one wants to back a looser.
What’s with the identical troll comments? Are you and Walsh one person?
Enough of your silly straw men.
Headlines in your toilet paper Guardian “I will take off my mask and fight a early general election in may 2023. Sir Rodney Knight rises from the lies and foreign government funding and desperately trys to cling on to power thats slowly bleeding away .Rigged selections,Fake AS scam,fake constituency party mtgs.Fake rules inventing.of the cuff sanctions,and the worst crime is the destruction of the Labour party by driving out the best activists,and best mps ,councillors who quite frankly have had enough.Squawkbox and many others unmasked this Cuckoo and many other left wing blogs this masked imposter.IF the Labour party don’t dump him then the Tory party will,this mans background is already being scrutinised by people outside the Labour party asking who and what is this plant inside the British establishment.?
And the two MP’s are ?
The above article paints a picture of this being very damaging for Williams (and Starmer’s Labour Party), but are the vast majority of the electorate even going to hear about it! I very much doubt that any of the MSM will be covering it, and as far as I can determine – having just done a search – none of the local papers appear to have covered it.
Can we dispense with this silly attitude, on this site, of “Who said it? Who did it?” etc.
Journalists often receive “leaks” on the understanding that they will not be attributed. Stories based on such leaks abound in the “mainstream media” and there are no demands for “the names”.