Corbyn hit by candidate’s vile wife beating jibe
JEREMY CORBYN is under fresh pressure to sack a would-be Labour MP he heaped praise on just days ago, after The Mail on Sunday exposed his ‘vile’ comments about wife-beating.
Ian Byrne, candidate in a rocksolid Labour seat in Liverpool, sparked outrage after it emerged he had appeared to make light of domestic violence against women.
It is understood Labour last night launched an investigation into the Facebook post by Liverpool councillor Mr Byrne from 2013, written after Everton lost an FA Cup match 3-0 to Wigan.
He posted that ‘Everton wives should get the suitcases out of the loft’ – seen as a thinly veiled reference to wife-beating.
‘Everton wives run for your lives’ is a controversial, but popular, Liverpool FC chant – with Mr Byrne a known ‘red’ – that alludes to angry rival fans returning home to assault their partners after losing a match.
Last night, Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins said: ‘Domestic violence isn’t a joke – it’s a devastating crime that tears lives apart. It is shocking that a Labour candidate for public office should make light of something so serious.’
She added: ‘Jeremy Corbyn must condemn this vile comment and drop this candidate immediately.’ The remark came to light just over 24 hours after Mr Byrne was forced to apologise for having previously shared a Facebook post which called a female Tory peer a ‘c***’.
He has previously told The Mail on Sunday how sorry he was that he once made a tasteless rape joke involving Boris Johnson’s 55-yearold mother. Embarrassingly for Mr Corbyn, the candidate’s latest comments emerged after t he
Labour leader spoke of his pride over Mr Byrne and other parliamentary candidates.
Mr Byrne, selected for the Liverpool West Derby seat, looked on from behind the Labour leader on Thursday as he said: ‘I am very proud of the work done by all my colleagues, some of whom are behind me here today.’
Former print shop worker Mr
Byrne told this newspaper in September he was ‘mortified’ over old Facebook posts and ‘ sincerely sorry’ when exposed over other rants. One month later, he was selected by local party officers to inherit a huge 32,908 majority from retiring MP Stephen Twigg in the plum Merseyside constituency.
Mr Byrne again said last night he was ‘mortified’ by ‘deeply insensitive and offensive’ social media postings. He said he had since met ‘local organisations doing inspiring work to keep women safe from domestic violence’.
And amid a deepening crisis over the quality of Labour’s would-be MPs, the MoS can also reveal the daughter of a union kingmaker ‘foisted’ on to a safe seat in Warrington tweeted in 2013 her support for ‘full Communism’.
The party was plunged into a new candidate row over the Marxist sympathies of Charlotte Nichols, allegedly ‘parachuted’ by Labour HQ into the Warrington North seat over a local councillor candidate.
She has also spoken of paying ‘respects’ to Karl Marx at his grave in London’s Highgate Cemetery.
Last night, Ms Nichols insisted she was not a communist but seeking a ‘socialist government’.
Ms Nichols defended her selection, saying that having lived in the North-West ‘for a number of years… I know the devastating impact that Conservative cuts have had in Warrington.’