Last night Business Insider journalist Henry Dyer revealed that Labour MP Neil Coyle had levelled sinophobic comments at him in one of parliament’s bars. At the time Labour was not willing to go further than saying they took the accusation seriously. This morning however they’ve reevaluated the light-touch response and removed the whip. A Labour spokesperson says:
“The Labour Party expects the highest standards of behaviour from all our MPs and we take allegations of this sort very seriously. Accordingly the Chief Whip has now suspended the Labour whip from Neil Coyle pending an investigation.”
Coyle’s been out of order for years…
UPDATE: Coyle says “I’m very sorry for my insensitive comments, [I] have apologised to everyone involved and will be cooperating fully with the investigation.”
Whatever could Coffey be talking about…
A fairly innocuous tweet from Andy Burnham made a splash on Twitter this morning after a complaint about overpriced public transport in the North. He lamented a simple 20-minute one-stop journey costing constituents an eye-watering £8, and comparing it to London:
Public transport is so expensive in our part of the world.
— Andy Burnham (@AndyBurnhamGM) October 20, 2021
This is the cost of a one-stop, 20-minute journey.
To be levelled up, we need London-level fares.
Accept nothing less. pic.twitter.com/Dug5VOaisC
Labour MP Neil Coyle then, unprovoked, accused the King of the North of making “cheap digs at London”:
A riled Burnham would not hear it and was keen to level up the conversation…
Still not satisfied, Burnham has spent the last hour passively aggressively retweeting his Twitter supporters including one who not so subtly wrote: “I don’t get why some Londoners are upset about this”. Meanwhile red wall voters without transit systems, and just one bus an hour, will no doubt be experiencing broken hearts at the plight of their metropolitan comrades…
Jeremy Corbyn is facing calls for an investigation into his financial interests, after Labour MP Neil Coyle wrote to Parliament’s Standards Commissioner claiming Corbyn has not declared the full extent of the support he received to cover his legal expenses from disputes over antisemitism. Failing to declare any financial support in the MPs’ register of interests is a violation of the members’ code of conduct…
According to Coyle’s letter, Corbyn is alleged to racked up at least £150,000 in legal bills fighting claims of antisemitism, with Unite having fronted nearly £100,000 of that total in just one defamation case (which Corbyn lost). Unite are also said to have lent support in Corbyn’s fight against the BBC over their representation of his comments on shoot-to-kill. Senior members of the Unite leadership, including current general secretary candidate Howard Beckett, were aware of all of this…
Corbyn’s register of interests states he is “likely to benefit from a legal fund managed by JBC Defence Ltd which was set up on 16 October 2020 to help meet any legal costs which I or my supporters incur in relation to allegations of defamation“, though where this cash is coming from isn’t stated. It also doesn’t include Unite’s contributions…
Hat-tip: Joe Pike
Labour MP Neil Coyle may have been hoping the storm created by his ‘late-night’ Twitter rant against “fat old racists” Brexiteers might die down after he deleted them the next morning. Blue wall Tory MP Lee Anderson is not taking the insults lying down, however, having now publically invited the Bermondsey MP up north to meet face-to-face with Brexit voting ex-miners he insulted. For good measure, Coyle also described Mogg and others as “Absolute sh*tbag racist w*nkers.”*
Anderson described Coyle’s rant as “outrageous and disgusting” and informed constituents he has invited him up:
“I am inviting you to Ashfield to a local working men’s club where I will introduce you to a group of ex-miners, many of whom I worked with down the pit, who were all lifetime labour voters prior to the 2019 General Election – this will provide you with the opportunity to explain to them how you’re going to win them back.
I cannot guarantee that you will be able to change their minds.”
Labour’s Neil Coyle conducted a scathing interview on Sky News, lashing out at Labour’s process to reinstate Chris Williamson, which involved both Keith Vaz and Huda Elmi. Curiously he presumably mistakenly referred to Keith as ‘Jim’.
“I think Jim Vaz needs to look at himself and wonder if he was in the best place to make that kind of judgement or whether he would be better off sticking to laundry quite frankly.”
Surely just a slip of the tongue…
Curiously Jim Keith is now opposing the decision he took yesterday to reinstate Williamson. Classic Labour competence…
