Without tom watson, jeremy corbyn’s mask has slipped | thearticle

Tom Watson was not only Jeremy Corbyn’s deputy: he was his figleaf too. Despite being two decades younger, and having latterly overcome obesity and Type 2 diabetes, Watson never looked

likely to succeed Corbyn. He kept the flag of the Labour moderates flying. Now he has hoisted the white flag. The spectacular timing of Watson’s resignation was just about the only thing he

got right in a long but undistinguished political career. Having made his name with the “curry-house plot” against Tony Blair, he proved to be a mediocre minister. He helped Ed Miliband to

defeat his brother, but that act of fratricide began a train of events that ultimately led Labour to renounce the European social democratic values to which Watson and his allies adhered.

Now the Marxist mask has slipped. His reputation had long since been destroyed by his obsessive pursuit of an imaginary cover-up of VIP child abuse and murder, concocted by the criminal

fantasist Carl Beech, abetted by an incompetent unit of the Met. It soon became clear that Watson was no Sherlock Holmes. The pursuers became the pursued and in the end it did for him. As

Andrew Neil commented, “he could never do a TV interview again without having to deal with his erroneous…claims”. The writing had been on the wall for Watson ever since the Labour Party

Conference, when a far-Left plot to abolish his job was only just scotched at the last minute. The Corbyn-controlled National Executive Committee (NEC) ensured that the premature putsch was

defeated. But it was only a stay of execution. Over the previous year he had persuaded many of his fellow moderate MPs not to leave the party. That task of damage limitation was no longer

required. Nor, therefore, was Watson. At every stage of its gradual takeover of the Labour Party, the hard Left has outsmarted, outmanoeuvred and outwitted its opponents. The myrmidons of

Momentum have won because they are more unscrupulous, certainly. It is not only useful idiots who are sacrificed. If their own become a liability — as the purveyor of anti-Semitic conspiracy

theories Chris Williamson did — they will throw them under a bus. But Corbyn’s comrades also have more endurance, more of what the Germans call sitzfleisch — better-padded bottoms. They

attend every meeting and they take control of every agenda. Even when they lose, they never give up. A good example of their modus operandi came yesterday in the Labour seat of Bassetlaw in

Nottinghamshire. Nine days ago the local party had defied the NEC by selecting Sally Gimson as its candidate. (Full disclosure: she is an old friend and a valued contributor to TheArticle.)

At the same time as excluding Williamson and two other extremist candidates, the NEC refused to endorse the eminently qualified Sally Gimson on the trumped-up accusation that she had

allegedly shouted at another party member at a raucous Holborn and St Pancras constituency meeting, where an attempt was made to oust the sitting MP, Sir Keir Starmer. She had attended as a

Camden councillor, local party member and Starmer supporter. The accuser enjoys “protected” status as a disabled person and arcane procedures mean that the accusation cannot be challenged.

The Bassetlaw party and its retiring MP, John (now Lord) Mann, are outraged by the NEC’s decision to overrule local democracy and are standing by Sally Gimson. But there is little they can

do about it. This ugly episode illustrates how outstanding candidates in the mainstream Labour tradition are being systematically purged. Jeremy Corbyn reminded Tom Watson that he had given

him radishes from his allotment. It is unusual for nemesis to arrive in vegetable form. But the long march of the Marxists through the institutions will leave behind nothing but scorched

earth.