Could Frank Field start a fightback?
ANYONE with any concern for the way our country is run will have been saddened by the rejection of the Labour whip by Frank Field, the MP for Birkenhead for almost 40 years. And yet that regret must be tempered with complete understanding.
Mr Field is a thoroughly honourable man who has been deliberately and cynically targeted by a core of ultra Corbynistas in his constituency association despite having a 25,000 majority at the last election.
This was because he objected to the anti-Semitism now rife throughout Labour and unrebuked by Jeremy Corbyn himself. Mr Field is not even Jewish.
Behind the campaign against him in Birkenhead is of course Momentum, whose march towards total takeover of a once-honourable party remains virtually unopposed by the chickenlivers who make up the bulk of the MPs who take the Labour whip.
He might be wise to resign as an MP, forcing a by-election, then stand in it as an independent.
So large is his personal following in Birkenhead that he would probably win it – even more likely if the Tories and Lib Dems (who haven’t a cat in hell’s chance anyway) declined to stand against him.
That could trigger a real fightback against the extremists and political thugs of Momentum and their attempts to take over the party at constituency level and railroad through the deselection of real Labour MPs.
As with Spartacus, it sometimes take just one with guts to inspire the dormant majority.