By John Pickard
It was no surprise that the voters of Hartlepool felt so “left behind” that 70 per cent of them voted Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum. It is from this long-standing neglect by Labour’s right wing that the parliamentary majority for Labour, in a seat held for 57 years, has been gradually shrinking from around the 60% inherited by Peter Mandelson, to less than 38% today.
There is now a strong likelihood that Labour will lose the seat. When and if this happens, the blame will lie squarely with the right wing of the Party.
The latest bureaucratic diktat from the Evans/Starmer leadership meant having a one-man shortlist foisted on the Hartlepool Constituency Labour Party, although there would have been ample time for a proper democratic selection process. It has produced some dismay and anger among Hartlepool Labour members, as this article shows.
A left candidate would have been replaced immediately
And what a candidate they have chosen! A former MP for nearby Stockton South, it now transpires that candidate Paul Williams, friend of Saudi Arabia, tweeted the most outrageously misogynistic comments, of the kind that would have led to his replacement immediately, had he been from the left of the party instead of the right.
Shami Chakrabarti, the Labour peer who was Shadow Attorney General under Jeremy Corbyn, rightly called for a new candidate to be found, not that the Evans/Starmer axis will take any notice. Disgracefully, Angela Raynor, the erstwhile left-winger who is now Starmer’s deputy, has tamely acquiesced to Williams’ candidacy after an apology.
Hartlepool has a long history of right-wing Labour MPs. For 28 years from 1964, this honour was held by Ted Leadbitter. To get an idea was he was like, he was the only Labour MP who in 1991 opposed the illegalisation of rape in marriage, on the ludicrous grounds that every family row would lead to false allegations.
No prior connection to Hartlepool
But probably the best-known Labour MP for Hartlepool was Peter Mandelson, parachuted into the constituency in 1992, without any prior connection to the North-East, thanks only to his long-standing assistance to the right of the Party. Prior to this, he had been Neil Kinnock’s Director of Communications, the one person more than any other, it was said, who “brilliantly lost” the 1987 general election.
A glance at his entry in Wikipedia will show how this one man did more to besmirch the good name of the Labour Party in Hartlepool than anyone else. After he was appointed Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the Blair government, it transpired that two years earlier, he had bought a home in North London, partly with an interest-free loan of £373,000 from millionaire ‘Labour’ MP Geoffrey Robinson, who was by now a Cabinet colleague. Mandelson’s department was the one that was supposed to be inquiring into Robinson’s business dealings, and although Mandelson at first tried to ride out the scandal, he was forced to resign his ministerial position.
Twice obliged to resign as a minister
However, he was soon back, and was appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, taking over – and taking the credit for – the work on the Good Friday Agreement that had been done by Mo Mowlam. Being such an ‘expert’ and so ‘sensitive’ on Irish matters, Mandelson’s very first speech in the post caused some disquiet, when he mistakenly referred to himself by as the “Secretary of State for Ireland”.
Within a couple of years, he was obliged to resign from the Cabinet a second time, after yet another scandal. He was accused this time of using his position to influence the passport application of a friend, an Indian businessman, on whose behalf he had contacted a Home Office Minister. He finally resigned as an MP in 2004 for an even cushier job, to become a European Commissioner for Trade.
Mandelson, soon to be made Lord Mandelson, is as much a part of the British capitalist establishment as any Tory MP or Tory Lord. On half a dozen occasions, he was invited to meetings of the Bilderberg Group, an international gathering of the supposed strategic thinkers and theorists of world capitalism. Among its most illustrious members are the likes of former Tory grandees like Alec Douglas Home, Lord Carrington and US mass murderer, Henry Kissinger.
Mandelson’s widespread connections with business
His Wikipedia entry also shows his widespread connections with business interests. In January 2011, Mandelson was appointed as a senior adviser to the advisory investment banking firm, Lazards. In 2013, he also joined the Board of Trustees of Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft.
Peter Mandelson is one of those who is justifiably charged with being a Tory ‘infiltrator’ into the Labour Party
In May 2012, he confirmed that he was advising Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) in selling timber products to Europe. In 2012 APP was accused of illegal logging in Indonesia and damaging the habitats of rare animals such as the Sumatran tiger. At least 67 companies worldwide, such as Tesco and Kraft Foods since 2004 and Danone since 2012 have boycotted APP.
Peter Mandelson is without doubt one of those who is justifiably charged with being a Tory ‘infiltrator’ into the Labour Party. His maternal grandfather may have been at one time a leading light in the Party (Herbert Morrison), but he has no real connection with the lives and interests of working-class people and never has – and that goes especially for Hartlepool.
After the 2015 Labour leadership election resulted in Jeremy Corbyn becoming the party leader, Mandelson began a programme of undermining his leadership, alleging that Labour was now “unelectable”. In February 2017, he commented that he does something “every single day” to help bring down Corbyn’s leadership.
Taking Party members and voters for granted
Even now, he hasn’t given up. Although Keir Starmer was only elected on the basis of his ‘Ten Pledges’ which included some vaguely radical elements, Mandelson is now suggesting that Starmer drop all the radical policies – and very popular ones at that – that were in the last manifesto. According to Mandelson, Starmer “still has the 2019 manifesto around his neck“.
“It would be wrong,” he said, ” to make too many specific commitments early in the parliament“, adding that the party needed polices which were “radical, credible, affordable“. What Mandelson means is policies that are Tory-lite or even outright Tory policies.
Unfortunately, the right-wing of the party have forgotten nothing and learned nothing. The headbangers on the extreme right of the party, people like Lord Peter Mandelson, are simply Tory infiltrators, and unfortunately, too many in the Party still listen to what these creatures say. Riding rough-shod over the members of the local Labour Party and taking the tens of thousands of Hartlepool voters for granted is exactly what they have done for decades and what they still do now. Don’t be surprised if the Labour Party hierarchy have engineered another “brilliant loss” on May 6.
