Last week Jeremy Corbyn was left red-faced in PMQs after David Cameron asked him why he had allowed Gerry Downing — a 9/11 apologist — to rejoin the party. While Labour later expelled Downing, the party now face fresh controversy over one of its other members.
This morning Guido Fawkes revealed that disgraced former Labour PPC Vicky Kirby is Woking Labour’s ‘newly elected vice chair’. Kirby was suspended by Ed Miliband in 2014 after the Sunday Times revealed that she had suggested Isis should attack Israel. So with two dubious members re-admitted, one could be forgiven for thinking that there is a bit of a pattern developing here when it comes to Corbyn’s Labour.
However, one bright spark has another idea about what’s really going on. Momentum activist Max Shanly — who is a member of Young Labour’s national committee — has suggested that this could really just be part of an anti-Corbyn conspiracy. Shanly suggests that rather than there be a party problem, someone in Labour’s Compliance Unit may be ‘purposefully readmitting people with dodgy views and then leaking that to the press’:
https://twitter.com/maxshanly/status/709357176649850881
However, Shanly — who according to the Telegraph is being investigated himself over alleged anti-Semitism at Oxford University, an allegation which he denies — ought to think again. After all, a Labour spokesman just confirmed that Kirby is a Labour member and will remain one unless ‘fresh evidence’ comes to light:
‘Vicky Kirby was suspended from the Labour Party following comments on social media in 2014. Following her resignation as a Parliamentary candidate she received a warning from the NEC on her future conduct and the suspension was then lifted. If new evidence comes to light, the Labour Party will review that evidence and make sure the rules of the Party are upheld.’
Vive la Revolution!
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