A Labour Minister has been given the boot after the Mail on Sunday exposed his racist and sexist WhatsApp messages, including one saying he hoped a pensioner who didn’t vote Labour would drop dead before the next election. Here’s an excerpt:
Andrew Gwynne also made antisemitic slights and ‘jokes’ about a constituent being “mown down” by a truck.
Keir Starmer stripped Mr Gwynne of his job as Health Minister and suspended his membership of the Labour Party when he was told about the content of the WhatsApp messages yesterday. Meanwhile, the MP himself apologised for his “badly misjudged comments”. …
In one particularly shocking comment, the Gorton and Denton MP says he hopes a 72 year-old woman will soon be dead after she dared to ask about her bins. …
After the councillor shared the letter among fellow Labour figures in the WhatsApp group, Mr Gwynne wrote a suggested response: “Dear resident, F*** your bins. I’m re-elected and without your vote. Screw you. PS: Hopefully you’ll have croaked it by the all-outs.” ‘All-outs’ are elections at which every council seat is contested at once.
Accepting his fate last night, Mr Gwynne wrote on social media: “I deeply regret my badly misjudged comments and apologise for any offence I’ve caused. I’ve served the Labour Party all my life and it was a huge honour to be appointed a minister by Keir Starmer. I entirely understand the decisions the PM and the party have taken and, while very sad to have been suspended, will support them in any way I can.”
The messages were exchanged in a group called Trigger Me Timbers, which Mr Gwynne shares with more than a dozen Labour councillors, party officials and at least one other MP, all based on the outskirts of Manchester.
The MoS gained access to thousands of messages from the closed group, which was set up in 2019, and discovered a barrage of abusive texts. Among them are:
Mr Gwynne saying someone “sounds too Jewish” and “too militaristic”, apparently from their name alone
Racist comments about veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott, mocking her historic achievement in becoming the first black MP at either Despatch Box for Prime Minister’s Questions
Sexist comments about Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner performing a sex act
Mr Gwynne mocking a local Labour leader as “Colin C*mface”
The politician also made offensive remarks about Jewish people.
Discussing an upcoming Labour meeting, a member of the group asks if Marshall Rosenberg would be there, in apparent reference to a late American psychologist whose conflict management techniques might have been useful in heated debates. Mr Gwynne responds: “No. He sounds too militaristic and too Jewish. Is he in Mossad?”
In 2018, Mr Gwynne made headlines when it was revealed he was in a Facebook group called Labour Supporters in which antisemitic messages were shared. At the time he responded: “I was added to this Facebook group without my knowledge or permission. I DO NOT support the posts and I ABHOR antisemitism. It has absolutely NO place in the Labour Party or in society. End of.”
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