Memo to Tom Watson: Your saintly pal Maxdenie she was a racist thug. So what do you say to him championing apartheid and exploiting the white supremacist regime to launch a£6bnF 1 empire?
TOM Watson yesterday launched an astonishing defence of Max Mosley after the Mail revealed his racist thuggish past.
The deputy Labour leader defied pressure to hand back £540,000 in ‘racially tainted’ money he took from the tycoon.
Ignoring the mounting backlash over Mr Mosley’s far-Right political activism during the early 1960s, the senior MP lavished praise on him as someone who ‘supports the weak against the strong’.
Mr Watson insisted if he thought ‘for one moment’ his friend still held views from 57 years ago, he would ‘not give him the time of day’.
Today the Mail reveals the astonishing links between Mr Mosley – youngest son of fascist Sir Oswald Mosley – and the evil Apartheid regime in South Africa.
The multi-millionaire struck it rich cosying up to the white supremacists when they were being shunned by the rest of the world to stage prestigious Grand Prix.
Earlier this week under-fire Mr Mosley vowed: ‘ My record in motorsport demonstrates that I do not tolerate racism.’ He made the claim after the Mail exposed how he had published a bigoted election leaflet during his political activities as a young man in 1961.
Mr Mosley eventually admitted the vile pamphlet – saying ‘ coloured immigrants’ spread ‘terrible diseases like leprosy’ – was racist but was adamant his views had changed since the early 1960s. Today we reveal how:
Max Mosley gave the pariah apartheid state prestige by organising Grand Prix races there in the 1970s and 1980s;
His races – in defiance of worldwide sporting sanctions against the white supremacist regime – helped build a £6billion Formula One empire;
While a student at Oxford, he wrote a jawdropping manifesto calling for ‘ total apartheid’ in Africa. Mr Mosley proposed whites would get more ‘ temperate’ lands in which blacks would be denied basic rights;
His father defended Apartheid in a 1960 speech at the Oxford Union when Max was secretary – just two months after South African police killed 69 unarmed blacks at the Sharpeville Massacre;
The infamous £1million donation from Formula One to Tony Blair’s Labour in 1997 was allegedly to smooth the way for Mr Mosley to become an MP;
The Press regulator bankrolled by Mr Mosley’s family millions was facing a crisis as several members considering ditching it.
The Mail’s revelations about Mr Mosley’s past – including brawling at a ‘Jew-baiting’ rally in London and leading a group of neo-fascists to the Dachau former Nazi concentration camp – have sent shockwaves through Westminster.
Labour has defied a torrent of demands to return the £540,000 given to Mr Watson. In the Commons yesterday, the unrepentant Mr Watson told MPs: ‘If I thought for one moment he held those views contained in that leaflet of 57 years ago, I would not have given him the time of day.
‘He is a man, though, who in the face of great family tragedy and overwhelming media intimidation, chose to use his limited resources to support the weak against the strong.’
Culture Secretary Matt Hancock suggested Mr Watson would be ‘thinking very hard’ about returning the money after Tory MP Simon Hoare raised the issue in the Commons by asking: ‘Could I invite (Mr Hancock) to maybe share his thoughts as to whether ... in order to ensure a free and open democracy, the responsible thing to do for honourable members is to hand back racially-tainted money?’
A string of senior Tory figures have called for Mr Watson to return the cash including deputy chairman James Cleverly, former Cabinet minister Priti Patel and MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said the party and his frontbench team, including Mr Watson, will not accept any more donations from Mr Mosley, but has stopped short of ordering the return of the money already received.
Three days after the scandal broke, Mr Mosley’s continued refusal to apologise for publishing his virulently racist leaflet at the Moss Side by-election in Manchester was branded ‘shocking arrogance’ by locals there last night.
Scotland Yard is now examining whether Mr Mosley committed perjury at his 2008 High Court trial against the News of the World when he claimed under oath that the leaflet never existed. Police were passed the Mail’s dossier by the Crown Prosecution Service on Wednesday. Mr Mosley has strenuously denied lying at his trial and said the suggestion was offensive.
In a blustering interview on Channel 4 News on Tuesday night, he admitted his leaflet had been racist but said he was not a racist and had never had been. But he point-blank refused to say sorry.
He issued a statement saying: ‘My political views have changed since the early 1960s. My record in motorsport demonstrates that I do not tolerate racism. It appears that this historical investigation is yet another misconceived attempt to intimidate and deter me and others from supporting the vital reforms needed to protect ordinary people against the bullying of newspapers like the Daily Mail.’
In another statement, he said: ‘Now that I’ve seen copies of this leaflet, I still do not recognise it. It is not something I would have ever wished to be associated with.’
He said ‘the Daily Mail’s attack over my work for my father’s party’ was a response to his demands that newspapers delete records of his 2008 sadomasochistic orgy with prostitutes. He added: ‘Like many people, my views have changed over the last half-century.’
‘Demands that the cash is returned’