Stella Creasy has begun advertising for a temporary MP to act in her place for seven months, to ensure “casework, campaigns and community concerns of the residents of [Walthamstow] are not neglected” over the course of her maternity leave. The £50,000-a-year Locum MP would be based for xis months in Creasy’s constituency rather than Westminster, and would not be able to vote or sit in the Commons. Could not her experienced staff handle the work load in her absence? Stella clearly thinks not…

The Labour Party has descended into fresh turmoil after John McDonnell’s highly contentious comments last night saying that Labour “would not block” IndyRef2. Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP naturally jumped all over it and are now gleefully trying to widen the rift between Scottish and UK Labour.

Unsurprisingly Scottish Labour themselves have erupted at the news which threatens to rip out their electoral base yet further. To be fair, they could have seen it coming given Corbyn himself said he was “absolutely fine” with another go at Scottish independence two years ago…

Scottish Labour Leader Richard Leonard held what will have been a fairly robust meeting with the Shadow Chancellor this morning, issuing a statement:

I made clear to him that a second independence referendum is unwanted by the people of Scotland and it is unnecessary… The 2014 referendum was a once in a generation vote.

Scottish MPs and MSPs have since piled in. Ian Murray MP led a blistering attack on McDonnell, saying:

“These are utterly irresponsible comments from John McDonnell that betray our party’s values… McDonnell has even bought into the nationalist narrative that Westminster is an ‘English Parliament’, in an insult to the hard work carried out by Scottish MPs from every party.

We were promised by the SNP that the 2014 referendum was once-in-a-generation, and we have a duty to hold the Nationalists to their promise by firmly opposing a divisive second independence referendum.

But one of the architects of the Corbyn project that is destroying the Labour Party now appears willing to destroy our United Kingdom with thoughtless rants at the Festival”.

Murray retweeted fellow MP Stella Creasy who blasted:

Nationalism is antithesis of socialism – to prioritise passports over principles isn’t progressive. Egalitarian devolution isn’t about separation but how by working together as nations within the UK each stronger and more successful. Labour abandons such commitment at our peril.

— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) August 7, 2019

Shadow Scotland Minister Paul Sweeney MP has also been on the attack, while Labour’s Scottish Parliamentary candidates have put out a joint statement. Never underestimate Labour’s ability to turn a crisis into a catastrophe…

UPDATE: Rather than apologising for undermining Labour policy, McDonnell has doubled down, saying the approval of a second Scottish independence referendum is also Jeremy Corbyn’s view. It’s clear Scottish Labour are not going to let this argument die down.

UPDATE 2: Labour’s MSPs have released a joint statement condemning McDonnell’s IndyRef2 u-turn:

The SPLP support the stance taken by Richard Leonard as our Leader and back the policy position that he outlined. We deplore any attempts to undermine the official policy position of the Scottish Labour Party and we express serious concerns about an apparent change in Labour’s position on a matter of vital importance to the future of Scotland and of the Scottish Labour Party itself.

Scottish party policy is very clear – that is opposition to a second independence referendum. There is therefore an urgent need for the UK Party leadership to engage constructively with the Scottish Party leadership on the issue of the party’s stance on the future of Scotland.

We are clear Labour’s position on Scotland’s future is a decision for Scottish Labour, which the UK Party must accept. We expect all Scottish Labour MPs and MSPs to vote in accordance with party policy.

The war rages on…

Stella Creasy at Jewish Labour fringe event…

“I was going to say something about how good it is being a Jew in the Labour party at the moment… but someone told me you guys don’t get irony.”

This Sky debate between Stella Creasy and the IEA’s Kate Andrews, and the ensuing Twitter spat, is quite something. Kate noted that conflating equal pay with the gender pay gap is problematic, and criticised the attempt to piggyback on the #MeToo campaign. Stella did not take it well, wrongly demanding Kate apologise for “misquoting” the ONS:

Hi @KateAndrs will you apologise to the @ONS for misquoting their data? Anytime you want to join the real world when it comes to fight for equality you would be welcome! https://t.co/FxDbSsyfpc #noshittakingmp

— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) April 2, 2018

Kate responded, proving her own claims and debunking Stella’s:

Hi @stellacreasy. Did not misquote. Said #paygap stats are wildly out of sync w/ ONS stats, which are 9.1% for full-time & -5.1% for part-time. This is a fact. It’s not subject to your opinion. https://t.co/RTslbGCT1j You responded w/ the data below. Here’s the problem. (Thread) https://t.co/lFG6nI6pn1

— Kate Andrews (@KateAndrs) April 2, 2018

With no meaningful comeback, Stella instead blocked Kate, going on to tweet that she had been “brainwashed” and, bizarrely, that Kate had mocked her disability (she hadn’t). As anyone who has ever interacted with Stella on Twitter knows, she really doesn’t like being proved wrong…

Check out this rather entertaining red-on-red on the Sunday Politics where Labour leaver Frank Field tells metropolitan remainer Stella Creasy what he thinks of the party’s shift on the customs union. Frank said:

“Are you going to rat on the people’s decision to leave? You come out Stella with all these things, we’ll stay in a customs union, we’ll stay in a single market – the decision was quite clear to leave… in the North Labour voters voted very, very clearly… which bus are you on?”

Labour’s bus well on the road to betraying its core vote…

There has been a lot of political controversy about Twitter bots spreading fake news. Guido found another example of one yesterday. The government is actually planning to spend £127 billion on the NHS. Which is a lot more than the £3 billion being put aside for Brexit preparations. Stella is fake news….