Labour’s general election director in Wales wrote offensive tweets about disabled and gay people
Martin Shipton
Labour’s general election director for Wales tweeted offensive messages about disabled and gay people but was allowed to remain a member of the party, we can reveal.
Stewart Owadally, a close aide to Vaughan Gething who is employed in the First Minister’s constituency office and was his campaign manager during the recent Welsh Labour leadership contest, posted the messages on a Twitter account that has since been deleted.
NationCymru has been sent four historic tweets made by Mr Owadally. One, addressed to Nick Griffin, the former leader of the far-right British National Party when he was a Member of the European Parliament, stated: “You can’t spell you spaz” .
The second tweet, in which Mr Owadally responded to another Twitter user, said: “I ANSWERED F***ING QUESTIONS!!! Sorry, you’re a total idiot. Can’t be bothered with you any more. Utter halfwit. Mong.”
In the third, Mr Owadally wrote: “Apparently have turned into a total retard tonight”
The fourth tweet consisted of a response to another Twitter user. Mr Owadally wrote: “I dunno why ‘gay’ stopped being used as a derog, It’s like how ‘spastic’ isn’t allowed any more too.”
The person who sent us the tweets included a message that said: “Been holding on to this for a few years but seems apt right now to show the types of people Vaughan Gething surrounds himself with.
“His, I think adviser but I’m not politically astute enough to know his role exactly Stewart Owadally once ganged up on a close friend of mine alongside some Labour MS’s …………online and caused him to attempt suicide because they’d piled on him so badly retweeting mean things about him from their accounts.
“Subsequently we found out Owadally had some hideous tweets on his account which we reported to the Labour Party, conveniently his twitter vanished quickly and I’m led to believe he now has a fairly new one, but Labour found that “no wrongdoing” had taken place despite the things he’d tweeted attached above.
“Might not be relevant but thought worth passing on given the current situation.”
Abhorrent messages
Secretary of State for Wales David TC Davies said: “I’m appalled that a senior apparatchik in the Labour Party and a close ally of the First Minister was prepared to write such abhorrent messages. He was using derogatory terms that show a disgraceful lack of respect to people with various kinds of disability as well as to people who are gay.
“This episode raises further questions about the First Minister’s judgement.”
We wrote to Mr Owadally, saying: “Clearly the tweets are derogatory to disabled and gay people. Are you ashamed of writing such tweets and do you apologise?
“What can you tell me about an investigation by the Labour Party that resulted in a finding of no wrongdoing by you, as mentioned in the email sent to us?
“Do you think such tweets are appropriate from someone who is the director of Labour’s general election campaign in Wales?”
Mr Owadally responded: “These tweets from nearly 15 years ago were made long before my involvement in Labour politics and were initially brought to my attention four years ago. As I said at the time, I absolutely apologise unreservedly for them.
“I am, of course, ashamed by those comments, but I believe people can learn.
“It is, in many ways, thanks to my involvement in Labour politics since then, and thanks to the people I have worked alongside, that I have understood how to be a better ally to LGBT+ people and people with disabilities.
“That understanding involves knowing how to not be a bystander, and meant when I was elected as a trade union representative I worked on bringing in measures to better understand equalities issues and inclusive language in my workplace.”
Complaint
We received a message from Welsh Labour, from which it is understood that the Labour Party received a complaint in relation to this matter in 2020. It was fully investigated at the time and appropriate action was taken in response.”
We sought clarification about what the “appropriate action” amounted to, but did not get a response from Mr Owadally or Welsh Labour.
A Welsh Labour insider said: “These terms of abuse cause real hurt and pain – there is never an excuse for using them. People have been suspended and even expelled from the Labour Party for demonstrating such prejudice on social media. That they were tweeted some years ago is never accepted as an excuse in these cases.
“As a former staffer, Stewart will no doubt be aware of and perhaps even involved in such cases. Has he advocated for these individuals to be given chance to grow? The party need to show they take it seriously and let those impacted understand what the sanction was.
“Failure to do so suggests it wasn’t taken seriously at all.”
In 2016 Mr Owadally was director of the Wales Stronger in Europe campaign in the run-up to the referendum which resulted in the UK leaving the EU.
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Really? The Labour party member who organised Gething’s leadership campaign, and is now leading the Labour Party’s general election campaign in Wales uses hate speech I couldn’t quote in a Comments section without getting deleted/banned? Why does he keep failing upwards? Who is in charge of this sh*t show in Wales? At the very least – the very least! – If the Labour party is on some sort of twitter comment purge, then Owadally needs to be gone by tomorrow. Or they are total hypocrites.
The Welsh labour party after over 20 years in power totally believe they are untouchable and can impose their will and doctrine on the people of wales without retribution.
No one has banned or deleted any of your comments.
Correct. That’s because I don’t use homophobic language or abusive terms to refer to disabled people. Or any other abusive terms, in fact. That’s the point I was making. The words Owadally used would – usually – get comments deleted in any moderated comments section.
I think he meant if he was to make the same type of comment then it would be deleted and he could be banned, not that he had done so.
Isn’t Odawally the man who Gething originally nominated to be Director General(?) for Labour in Wales?
Totally indefensible comments no matter the age. Beliefs such as those don’t just disappear.
Agree. Owadally wasn’t a kid and it wasn’t a single tweet. He is consistently, deliberately abusive in the terms he used. He was in charge of a pro-Europe campaign at the time. Are we supposed to believe that it wasn’t until he joined the Labour Party that he learned using derogatory hurtful terms for people with disabilities and Down Syndrome was wrong? I wonder what brought about that Damascene conversion? It couldn’t possibly be personal ambition, surely.
Who could write this sort of stuff and make it anywhere near believable, how much more is there to be revealed about the first ministers judgment, when the posts were first revealed this guy should have been sacked.
Presumably Mr Owadally is one of Starmer’s right-wing goons. If he were a lefty, he would have been suspended by now.
Well, that’s the issue, isn’t it. If these tweets (which are clearly not a one off, or a slip of the finger on a keyboard) are the kind of thing one can apologise for, and shrug off – then there are a lot of Labour party members, recently expelled or suspended, who should be allowed back.
There are many people that have been expelled from the labour party for posting to social media comments that have been nowhere near as vile as that posted by stewart owadally!
The longer he remains involved with the labour party the nearer it is to joining the tories below the gutter!
Wow – against some very stiff competition amongst Gethin’s clown cabal, this guy really is a world-class moron.The fact that he’s clearly discriminatory is overshadowed by his sheer stupidity: I mean, how thick do you have to be to not know that these sort of comments will get unearthed? Gething really is the gift that keeps on giving.
Boy sounds like grade A Reform party material. There again is there much difference between the 2 parties apart from the way they strut and posture ?
Reform? Are you kidding? He’s of the classic material that Labour is currently courting. We now know his attitude to gay people: it’d be interesting to know his take on women’s rights.
Not much difference is there after you peel away the posturing.
I just thought I’d see if my instincts were on the mark. It turns out that Owadally is not not only a Board Member, since 2022, for Chwarae Teg (Welsh Government funded gender equality organisation) – but also served two years on Welsh Labour’s Diversity and Inclusion Board.
Traditionally, when someone in politics has an iffy background in terms of prejudices, they are given a role in some equalities related organisation, or programme – and encouraged to talk publicly about other progressive issues. Almost like it can all be balanced out somehow. My guess too is that Owadally will be very supportive of transgender women and gender self ID. That seems to be the ‘go to’ equalities issue for people with prejudices in other areas. Cynics might suggest that it has a ‘two for the price of one’ value. Trans rights is also, uniquely, an equalities area which… Read more »
Talking of strutting, have you met Farage’s mate ‘Posh George’ a proper little crooked heavy…
Keep perspective, it is what they don’t say that is the business busting freedom stealing offence…the words that describe the truth about Brexit or even that it exists…
Nesrine Malik on the Guardian…
Not to worry though, I’m sure he’s a committed Zionist, as all politicians are required to be. That’s the only thing that matters.
Jeez. Does this bigot still work for Vaughan Gething?? He should be sacked asap.
I’m all for scrutiny but how many of Mr Drakeford’s team had someone comb through 15 years of tweets?