Kate Hoey must be feeling threatened by her local Lib Dem candidate George Turner. As one of the most prominent advocates of Brexit in a heavily Remain voting constituency, (not to mention having to campaign on Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto), her jacket is, shall we say, on a shoogly peg.
The other day, she tweeted a photo of an event at a school in her constituency. If you look in the back row, you will see Sarah Olney. Next to Sarah Olney is a pair of legs without a head. They belong to George Turner who has been airbrushed out.
Wonderful protest by children in North Lambeth to call on politicians to sign the #CleanAirPledge. Fully support pic.twitter.com/uWCgxPli2Y
— Kate Hoey (@KateHoeyMP) May 8, 2017
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, George Turner said:
“I saw Kate tweeted and I thought it was a bit strange as I remembered standing on stage next to Sarah Olney. I was thinking: ‘Did I move?’ But all the time Kate spoke I was stood next to Sarah.
“On the photo my head and torso were deleted – in a slightly Stalinist way.”
Kate Hoey’s excuse was that George was wearing a rosette and she didn’t want that on her personal Twitter. That’s the sign of someone feeling the heat.
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8 Comments
Hoey represents the worst of Labour – economically a socialist and in favour of nationalisation, anti foreign ownership, anti free trade, nationalist, reactionary, anti free movement, europhobic and socially right wing.
She stands for everything this party and liberal minded people should be against. “Red UKIP” is a phrase which describes her cocktail of protectionism, socialism and nationalism which would harm the very people she claims to stand for.
There is also a very interesting article in tonight’s London Evening Standard by a self-confessed pro-Remain journalist who lays into Hoey about all this, after interviewing her. It also no doubt will help George Turner with name recognition in Vauxhall.
The Belfast Telegraph?
“europhobic”. Stimpson you are genius…
@Tony Greaves: Ms Hoey is from Belfast, so the local rag is interested in her doings. As a matter of fact, in the 80s when it seemed that Labour was nearly a wholly owned subsidiary of Sinn Féin, she was brave in speaking in favour of the Union in that context. But there’s little left to admire now.
Evening Standard article here. http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/battle-for-vauxhall-is-it-time-for-labour-brexiteer-kate-hoey-to-get-her-coat-a3536586.html
Do you criticise remain MPs in heavily leave seats like Yvette Cooper whose constituency voted 70% to leave. So Hoey shouldn’t be picked on to leave. If that was the key determinant then the Lib Dems shouldn’t win seats in the South West as that region voted leave too.
‘in the 80s when it seemed that Labour was nearly a wholly owned subsidiary of Sinn Féin, she was brave in speaking in favour of the Union in that context.’
Not quite the story. There was a long-standing affiliate of the British Labour Party in Northern Ireland called the Northern Ireland Labour Party, which had a lot of support among the Protestant working class in Belfast. It peaked at 4 seats in Stormont House of Commons (out of 52). By the late 1960s their Stormont MPs were no longer all Protestant, and a new party was formed – SDLP, which included one former NILP MP and Catholics with an ambition for a peacefully achieved United Ireland. About the same time the NILP became part of the British Labour party which decided to shut it down and only recognise the SDLP. The SDLP is very unlike Sinn Fein which a few Labour people like Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn gave a platform to.
The Protestant unionist working class suddenly found their party taken away from them, which is why some former NILP areas are now represented by the DUP.
Kate Hoey’s part, in later decades, was to try resurrect something like the NILP, but like having Conservative candidates in NI, hasn’t met with much success.
In the 2017 Assembly elections there were a number of candidates from parties whose name indicates (sometimes very) left-wing attitudes, but not any that were conventional British Labour.