Len the Lummox
The Politics Home web site reported the other day on Len McLuskey's bid to deselect a sitting Labour MP, Ian Murray, from his Edinburgh South constituency.
Ian Murray won the resulting 'trigger ballot' by a resounding 158 votes to 13 before issuing the following statement about the attempt of the Unite boss to throw his weight around inside the Labour Party:
“Len McCluskey would be better spending his time defending the jobs of his members from Brexit rather than attacking me. He’s so out of touch he doesn’t even know that I’ve been reselected and re-elected since I resigned from the shadow cabinet.
“I’m a working-class Labour MP to my core and I put my constituents first, which is why I’m leading the campaign for a people’s vote on Brexit. Len claims to be a democrat so he should practice what he preaches. He tried to get rid of me and failed miserably.”
Len's reason for trying to unseat Ian Murray was that the Edinburgh South MP was 'disloyal' to the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn which is a bit rich because, as everyone knows, Jezza as a backbench MP was a serial rebel and a thorn in the side of every Labour leader from 1983 onwards: Neil Kinnock, John Smith, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/107469/unite-launches-bid-trigger-only-scottish-labour?
Unite launches bid to trigger only Scottish Labour MP elected in 2015
By Kevin Schofield - Politics Home
Unite is attempting to boot out the only Scottish Labour MP elected in 2015, it has emerged.
Ian Murray has the largest Labour majority in Scotland - Credit: PA Images
The powerful union voted to "trigger" Ian Murray in a vote in his Edinburgh South constituency on Tuesday night.If they are successful, Mr Murray - who also has the biggest Labour majority in Scotland - will have to go through a full reselection process to be able to stand as a candidate at the next election.
The powerful union voted to "trigger" Ian Murray in a vote in his Edinburgh South constituency on Tuesday night.If they are successful, Mr Murray - who also has the biggest Labour majority in Scotland - will have to go through a full reselection process to be able to stand as a candidate at the next election.
The former Shadow Scottish Secretary, who has been an outspoken critic of Jeremy Corbyn, said: "It is disappointing that in the week where I’m leading the People’s Vote campaign in Scotland and working around the clock to maintain the cross-party coalition that's defeating Boris Johnson disastrous Brexit in order to protect workers' jobs and rights, that this is Unite's priority.
"My constituents are my priority and I won't be distracted from fighting for them."
Mr Murray was the only Labour candidate to survive the SNP tsunami in 2015, winning Edinburgh South by 2,637 seats from the nationalists.
He increased that majority to more than 15,000 two years later as a mini-revival saw Labour return seven Scottish MPs.
He was one of a wave of frontbenchers who quit their posts in the wake of the 2016 EU referendum.
Under Labour party rules, if either one-third or more of party branches, or at least on-third of affiliated branches indicate they wish a full selection to take place, the sitting MP is triggered.
They then have to stand against rival candidates for the right to stand at a general election.
Labour members in Edinburgh South will be voting in their branches on Thursday night on whether to trigger a full reselection contest in the seat.
Several Labour MPs have already been triggered by their local parties, although some thought to be top targets for the process have survived.
Len the Lummox (27/01/19)
Len McCluskey makes a fool of himself in this interview with the BBC in which he claims that Jeremy Corbyn's handling of Brexit has been 'brilliant'.
Now this is a shockingly stupid argument, even for someone like McCluskey, who presumably agrees with Corbyn's that the UK can leave the European Union and yet somehow maintain all the advantages of remaining inside the EU.
And, of course, this is no different to the argument that people can leave or refuse to join a trade union while still enjoying all the benefits of trade union membership.
You can’t have the same benefits of membership of the EU if you’re not a member.
Corbyn: We can make it happen. #Marr
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Mark Irvine
As a former full-time trade union official, Jeremy Corbyn is arguing (with a straight face) that people can get all the same benefits of trade union membership - without being a member of a trade union!
What a complete tosser.
