MOTION AGAINST WATSON PASSED BY CLPS

A model motion being widely circulated over social media is gaining traction this follows a massive petition to remove Tom Watson as Labour Party deputy Leader.

When seven Labour MPs formally announced that they were leaving the party to form the Independent Group on 18 February, it didn’t take long for deputy Labour leader Tom Watson to release a video about their departure. In his statement, Watson lamented that his colleagues had decided to leave and suggested that there should be a reshuffle of Labour’s front bench, to accommodate the ‘Social democratic traditions’ of the party.

Three weeks later, on the 9 March, Watson changed tack and announced that instead he would form a new party for social democrat MPs within Labour, called ‘Future Britain Group’

The gathering saw followers of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown mix, having once engaged in bitter infighting, with Peter Mandelson telling the group they must “work together to save the party”.

But, despite his apparent reticence to back a new party within a party three weeks after TIG was formed, it seems that Watson may have been keener than he let on to create his new group. Mr S has spotted that on 18 February, the very day the Independent Group was launched, someone discreetly registered the website domain futurebritaingroup.co.uk:

There can be no doubt that Watson had planed this group well in advance of the TIG splitters exit from the Labour Party, Watson’s prime excuse for creating his centralist group.

Brownites and Blairites, there’s a whiff of another coup in the air

Those at the event included leading Blairites such as Lord Mandelson, David Blunkett and Pat McFadden, as well as Brownites Stewart Wood, Yvette Cooper and Mr Watson himself.

Other senior figures in attendance were former leader Neil Kinnock and former deputy prime minister John Prescott.

In all, 13 former cabinet members attended the meeting, as did 14 current frontbenchers, including shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald, Gloria de Piero, Jim McMahon, Justin Madders and whips Mark Tami and Vicky Foxcroft.

Darren Jones MP insisted the group was not a faction or a Labour equivalent of the Tory European Research Group (ERG).

Mr Jones told reporters: “Some have said that this is a new faction it is in fact the complete opposite.

“As Neil Kinnock, our former leader was saying this evening, and Peter Mandelson, this is a coming together of previous factions into the mainstream Labour Party.

“We are not the ERG. We are not a party within a party.”

Grassroots members calling for Watson to be removed.

The Left of the party are furious at this move by Watson, at a time of national crisis when no matter what your own personal opinion is on leaving the EU the Labour Party should stand in solidarity working in unionism to bring about the best result for the people of the UK, not forming internal divisions and groups.

The disappointment and anger by grassroots members as lead to this motion to remove Watson as deputy Leader. Please feel free to copy and paste.

Model motion

This CLP notes:

1. Under Party Rules, Clause VII, section ix. “the Deputy Leader shall provide the Leader with advice and support in achieving the goals of the Party and deputise as requested.”
2. That in her email of 1st March to Tom Watson, Jenny Formby, the General Secretary of the Party states “You have decided without consultation or regard to due process, to ask colleagues who raise complaints with me to forward them to your private email address as you will be ‘logging and monitoring’ all complaints. It is completely inappropriate for you to set up a vague parallel complaints monitoring system … The suggestion that you as an individual data controller should receive and store data related to complaints unrelated to your personal role as an MP … is completely unacceptable and exposes you, and the Party, to significant compliance risks. Furthermore you will undermine the work that my staff and I are doing and will confuse and pollute the existing formal process, compromising it and slowing it down.”
3. In a series of media interviews Tom Watson has declared his intention to set up an organisation of MPs to challenge the policies of the Leader and the Shadow Cabinet.

__________ CLP believes that Tom Watson’s actions seek to undermine the Party Leader, twice overwhelmingly elected by party members, and are not compatible with his remit as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.

__________ CLP calls for Tom Watson to either stand down as Deputy Leader or submit himself for re-election as Deputy Leader.

Open Selection

The only way we will have representation in the Labour Party that represents the people and not that of lobby groups or their own interest is to have Open Selection. LINK