Ellie Reeves facing deselection

Lewisham West & Penge Labour are set to deselect Ellie Reeves after she signed a letter demanding that left-wing and alleged anti-semite Chris Williamson should have the Labour whip removed.

Thanks for sharing @rbmartin.

I’d be interested to hear from the local party members who triggered this de-selection.

I am a local Labour Party member. I think she did the right thing in signing the Chris Williamson letter and will be there to suport her on Saturday.

Thanks for including me here.

There’s also a discussion about this on se26.life and as someone pointed out there, Ellie might prove a poor choice of target for deselection

Oops!

This must be the Nicer, Kinder Labour I keep hearing about. Not.

Sad that such people are so stuck with their ideology that they ignore all in favour of a "wrong ‘un’

There are a lot of us really nicer, kinder Labour Party people who have been around for decades and I sincerey hope we can prove that to you on Saturday. Comments I have seen on a Party Group FB point to a small number of people behind this.

Indeed there are but I just feel a lot of you are not in the power base which means events like this happen.

I’m debating on the Party group FB site and noone so far has had the decency to come forward as a proponent of this and a lot of Ellie supporters have been vocal. Will keep you posted.

To quote from the article:

No motion has been formally moved or tabled. And in any case, motions of no-confidence have no formal standing and do not result in trigger ballots.

Do note trigger ballot is process by which the party decides if current MPs should face party selection process prior to next elections or are automatically selected to stand at the next election as a Labour representative. Motions cannot overrule this process.

Hopefully not a genuine threat, as explained by @MajaHilton. Although it did make the front page of today’s Evening Standard:

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News Shopper have produced this article writing up the support lent to Ellie by Damian Egan. Looks like they managed to turn a tweet into a story, but the message is good:

I guess from Labour’s perspective it’s a low risk game as Lewisham wouid vote for for a stapler as long as it had Labour printed on the handle.
I’m glad that there seems to some principled labour members standing up for her but I think it demonstrates the extent of ( at very least ) minimising the antisemitism in the labour movement . I guess as long as attacking Jews and Israel brings in more votes than it loses , nothing will change .

and to quote from the article:

In a tweet, Cllr Wilkins wrote: “No motion has been submitted as yet; the press are whipping this up.

I don’t see the relevance of the supportive press and her backers highlighting how she is “pregnant”, as if that makes the behaviour of the complainant worse. Pregnant politicians can still be bad politicians and should be held to account and criticised as much as ones who aren’t pregnant. To do otherwise is patronising to pregnant women everywhere.

Not that I agree with her potential deselection, but it just irks me how some people advocate that women in high profile jobs should be able to get pregnant and have children, but then at the same time imply that these women should essentially be wrapped in cotton wool and treated more sensitively than others.

I think the point is the misogyny of mainly pregnant female MPs being threatened with deselection – Luciana Berger and now Ellie Reeves – in addition to the fundamental antisemitism of threatening to deselect Jews and those seeking to protect Jews.

I don’t know what terrible things Chris Williamson has said but I do find it strange that Labour the “broad church” or specifically Momentum (the kinder gentler politics branch, right?) is embracing diversity of opinion like this.

She has been a useful and responsive MP for as long as I’ve been contacting her so really hope this doesn’t amount to anything.

It just serves to show how dysfunctional the apparent opposition party is, completely from the grassroots to parliament.

No-one seems sure about this. Either he said that the Labour Party has been too apologetic about anti-antisemitism, or he has said that the Labour Party has been too apologetic in the face of false accusations about anti-antisemitism. Perhaps the main problem, however, is that Williamson has not closed down this ambiguity beyond doubt.

Here’s a good summary of Williamson’s antics - it won’t seem antisemitic to many labour members but what’s new . Suffice to say if the discussion were about criticism and maligning black or Asian people he’d be buried by now .

https://www.thejc.com/comment/analysis/what-exactly-has-labour-mp-chris-williamson-done-to-offend-jews-here-s-a-long-list-1.485890

Just a friendly nudge to all members - we’re fine here so far, but could we keep further conversation on Chris Williamson and Labour anti-semitism within the opt-in General Politics category please