Blairites are vile gits and scumbags, fumes Corbyn aide
JEREMY Corbyn has angered his MPs by appointing a political adviser who has criticised senior Labour figures in a series of foul-mouthed Twitter rants.
Andrew Fisher described Tony Blair as a ‘scumbag for hire to scumbags’, the party’s previous Shadow Cabinet as ‘the most abject collection of absolute s***e’, and celebrated the downfall of former Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls.
Mr Fisher, a former activist for the RMT union, called former Home Secretary Jack Straw a ‘vile git’, and accused Yvette Cooper of pushing a ‘vile and racist’ welfare policy when she was Shadow Home Secretary. The
‘Vile and racist welfare policy’ ‘Oligarchy of corporations’
morning after the general election, he hailed the defeat of Mr Balls, writing on Twitter: ‘ Fitting that the architect of Labour’s miserable austerity-lite economic policies should lose.’
The former trade union organiser described Mr Blair and his former spin doctor Alastair Campbell as ‘scumbags for hire to scumbags’, the Royal Family as ‘bastards’ and Prince Andrew as a ‘parasite’.
One tweet last November was aimed at the then shadow work and pensions secretary, Rachel Reeves. It read: ‘Oi, Ed Miliband! Have you noticed Rachel Reeves seems to have defected to Ukip this morning?’
At an angry meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, senior MPs Caroline Flint and Siobhan McDonagh grilled Mr Corbyn over why he had appointed Mr Fisher as his political adviser. Mr Fisher is also the subject on an internal investigating over a tweet that urged voters in Croydon South to boycott Labour candidate Emily Benn. Instead, he supported Jon Bigger, a candidate for the Class War party.
On August 13, 2014, he tweeted: ‘FFS if you live in Croydon South, vote with dignity, vote @campaign- beard’, referring to Mr Bigger. Mr Fisher, 35, is the author of The Failed Experiment and How to Build an Economy that Works, which argues that ‘politicians of all parties in government ceded power over fundamental sectors of our economy to a new oligarchy of corporations’.
The book is described as being ‘about the much larger political crisis that ... threatens our living standards – and how we can resolve it.’
Mr Fisher was joint secretary of the Labour Representation Committee, formed in 2004 as a socialist pressure group to counter-balance the Blairite-dominated Labour party. The chairman was John McDonnell, the current Shadow Chancellor.
Mr Fisher spent six years as a parliamentary researcher and in 2006 he cofounded the Left Economics Advisory Panel. He worked as a political officer at the Public and Commercial Services union.
Many of Mr Fisher’s tweets were deleted on Monday but not before others had copied them and retweeted them. His robust views are in direct contrast to Mr Corbyn’s plea in his party conference speech for a new, ‘kinder’ political culture and an end to online abuse.
A spokesman for the Labour leader would not comment on the issue. Mr Fisher did not respond to requests for comment.