Labour decision to bar councillor from shortlist for backing Corbyn ‘sign the party has lost its way’ says Plaid candidate
Martin Shipton
The Plaid Cymru candidate in the Caerphilly by-election has said he and his campaign team were astonished to learn that a senior Labour councillor had been barred from standing because he had supported Jeremy Corbyn when he was the party’s leader.
Lindsay Whittle said the decision to exclude Caerphilly council’s deputy leader Jamie Pritchard from the shortlist of would-be candidates was a sign that the Labour Party had lost its way.
The by-election, which will be held on October 23, is taking place because of the tragic death of Labour MS Hefin David in August.
‘Unbelievable’
Nation.Cymru has reported how a source told us: “At the selection meeting on Saturday morning, party members were very unhappy that Jamie Pritchard had been removed from the list of candidates. Some wrote his name on the ballot paper in protest, but obviously the votes were discounted.
“People found it unbelievable that Jamie was excluded for tweets he had posted that backed Jeremy Corbyn when Corbyn was the party leader. This is pure control freakery.”
After the meeting children’s publisher Richard Tunnicliffe was announced as the party’s candidate.
Our source told us: “If Jamie Pritchard had been allowed to stand, he would have won the nomination. Less than 30 local party members were at the selection meeting. I was told that Richard Tunnicliffe was declared the winner after just six people voted for him.”
We contacted Cllr Pritchard and told him what we had been told.
‘Respected’
He said: “I was very seriously affected by the death of Hefin David, who I respected very much and who I knew well. I’ve never thought previously of putting my name forward to stand as an MP or an MS. But a number of people encouraged me to do so in these circumstances, where we’re having to fight a crucial by-election. I decided to apply for the candidacy.
“But at about 8.30 on Friday evening – 14 hours before the selection meeting – I received a phone call from a Welsh Labour official who told me I was being excluded from the shortlist because of some tweets I wrote years ago.
“I didn’t post anything offensive and I’m not going to apologise for tweeting in support of Jeremy Corbyn at a time when he was the democratically elected leader of the party. I also see no reason to take the tweets down, as was suggested to me. These tweets are from years ago, I certainly haven’t tweeted anything in support of Jeremy Corbyn since he ceased being the leader [in April 2020], left the party and stood as an Independent.
“I was at the selection meeting and believe it is likely I would have won if I’d been allowed to stand. I’m frustrated by what has happened, but it’s nothing in comparison with the sense of loss I feel at the death of Hefin. Richard is a lovely fellow and of course I’ll be supporting him in the election campaign.”
Nation.Cymru found the tweets Cllr Pritchard wrote during the period when Mr Corbyn led the party and saw that they were clearly inoffensive.
‘Astonished’
Lindsay Whittle, a former leader of Caerphilly council and ex-Assembly Member who is currently the Plaid Cymru opposition leader on the council, said: “We were having a campaign meeting on Sunday evening when the Nation.Cymru story about Jamie Pritchard being excluded from the Labour shortlist was published. We were all astonished.
“I have never heard anything like it before. There have been cases of candidates getting into trouble for criticising the party leader, but barring someone for supporting the leader is something new.
“I’ve always supported the leader of Plaid Cymru, whoever they are. It’s what you do.
“This is a sign of how much trouble Labour is in. Who is running the party? They’ve lost their way.”
Canvass returns
Cllr Whittle said: “I believe Labour will come third in the by-election. Our canvass returns are telling us it’s a battle between Plaid Cymru and Reform.
“There’s a lot of unhappiness within the Caerphilly Labour party. Most of them didn’t like the fact that Chris Evans [who formerly represented Islwyn] was imposed on them as their new Westminster candidate following boundary changes. A lot of them wouldn’t support him and didn’t even display a poster in their window or a placard in their garden.
“There are plenty of reasons for people to be unhappy with the Labour council, like their attempt to close libraries.
“A lot of people are telling us they’re voting for Plaid, but Reform is getting support. When we ask why, they say two words: ‘Small boats’. We ask them what they think the Senedd – or the Welsh Assembly, as many continue to call it – can do about that, and point out that it’s a London problem. We hope we can get across the message that Reform has nothing positive to offer.”
It’s understood that Plaid leader Rhun ap Iorwerth will be campaigning in Caerphilly on Tuesday September 9.
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There’s an irony and worse that a Labour party that always argued and indeed proscribed against sects, is now itself the biggest and narrowest sect of all, seeking total control and brooking no internal opposition or any dissent. The further irony is that it is incompetent, crashing in the polls, lurching from crisis to crisis and has the hallmarks of a one term government. It’s not as if they are uniting around success. Mcsweeny the “great strategist”, Starmer, “Mr integrity”. All that’s missing is the pantomime horse.
Under Starmer, a chronic and deep-seated insecurity seems to have taken hold of Labour. Their all too apparent fear of the hard right looks likely, if anything, to make the ascendancy of the hard right more likely, come the next Westminster election.
I would recommend that any party or candidate focus on promoting their own positive message about what they can do for their constituency. If they simply keep attacking one another and not providing an alternative positive vision, the only real winners will be Reform, who are going to coast it at this rate. As for Corbyn, I think this assessment was wrong. We know he was very popular with around 30% of Labour members, but strongly disliked by about 40%. He was a deeply polarising figure and particularly unpopular among traditional, older Labour voters. Labour lost a lot of members… Read more »
Is that what you all think at Labour Central Office?
Labour membership was its highest ever under Corbyn.
Excellent point. The number of traditional labour supporters declined. These were replaced with students, middle class, uni educated, people under 30. He certainly changed the membership of the Labour Party. it’s always complex and different people do different things but those traditional voters stopped turning out for labour or are reform voters now
Anyone considering voting Reform, even for a moment, does not belong in even the rightist Starmerite Labour Party, so I say “good riddance”, and if a lot of energetic young, well-educated people replace them, so much the better. They are probably the same people now signing up to Your Party, given the failure of Labour to move to the left.
No , Labour gained a lot of new members under Corbyn, in fact the most it has ever had, well over 500,000. That number dropped a little until Corbyn resigned, but the membership took a nosedive under Starmer. Many existing members may have left, but I can find no evidence for that, and unlike you I don’t consider my personal experience ( as in ” I’ve never seen blah blah blah”) to be remotely relevant to the discussion. Stick to the facts and stop with the subjective nonsense.
Shame he turned it from a political party into a personality cult.
I was going to comment on this news story, but I felt I’d contact Cllr James Pritchard out of courtesy for his side of the story. So I sent him an e mail. He immediately replied saying “Hello , No, I don’t wish to offer any comment. Many thanks, Cllr James Pritchard”.
So I think it’s best to leave split Labour in Caerphilly to its own wranglings.
Under this ruling by Labour, a number of current Labour AS should be shown the door for their overt support of Corbyn when he was leader.
Control freakery at it’s worst by a party that has truly lost its way.
This is hilarious. Welsh Labour are in meltdown.
Labour has always believed in so called democratic centralism also known as Leninism. Absolute loyalty to the party line and leadership is demanded and strictly enforced. It’s ironic that most of the time this is done from a right-wing perspective not a left-wing.
I stand by Lindsay Whittle. Yes Labour has lost the plot and the trust of voters that would normally lend thm their vote. Framing Reform as the “real winners”: This is a distraction tactic. It implies that critique within Labour is self-sabotage, while ignoring the deeper ideological fractures. – Corbyn’s popularity downplayed: The commenter cherry-picks internal polling and anecdotal impressions, ignoring the surge in membership and the 2017 electoral performance. – Claim that “Labour lost a lot of members because of Corbyn”: Factually shaky. Membership peaked under Corbyn—what followed was a purge and disillusionment under Starmer. – “Deeply polarising”: True—but… Read more »