The crusader who had to fall on his sword

WHEN Tom Watson stood up in the House of Commons and declared the existence of a historical paedophile ring at the heart of Westminster, there was only one problem: he had got it completely wrong.

But Mr Watson’s fateful intervention in 2012 would set in chain an extraordinary series of events. It led to Theresa May establishing a public inquiry into historic child sexual abuse – that is still running and will cost the taxpayer upwards of £200million – and prompt police, under Mr Watson’s watchful glare, to falsely accuse a string of VIPS of participating in torture, sadistic abuse and murder.

Mr Watson would wrongly brand Leon Brittan, the former home secretary, just days after his death, of being as “close to evil as any human being could be”. But he was quoting, as it transpired, Carl Beech, a fantasist and paedophile, who was jailed this summer for perverting the course of justice, fraud and sexual offences.

The association with Beech – Mr Watson met him face to face just once but they exchanged email and phone messages – would lead to a series of dignitaries to demand his resignation as Labour’s deputy leader.

However, in 2012, when Mr Watson stood up in Parliament, his stock was high. The “witch-finder general” had

Tom Watson

@tom_watson

After 35 years in full-time politics, I’ve decided to step down and will be campaigning to overcome the Tory-fuelled public health crisis. I’m as committed to Labour as ever. I will spend this election fighting for brilliant Labour candidates and a better future for our country.

by then established himself as a champion of the people, a crusader against injustice, over his role in exposing phone hacking by the News of the World that would lead to the tabloid newspaper being shut down.

He wrote a book, Dial M for Murdoch, on the back of the scandal and was promoted by Labour leader Ed Miliband to deputy chair of the party, running campaigns and elections. Yet he was forced to resign in 2013, on the back of claims that he had helped his office manager, Karie Murphy (she would later be appointed to run Jeremy Corbyn’s office), to win the nomination as candidate for Falkirk constituency. She later withdrew her candidacy.

The “Falkirk affair” was only a temporary setback. Mr Watson was voted Labour’s deputy leader in 2015 as Operation Midland, the police inquiry into Beech’s claims, was in full swing. Police had declared the allegations “credible and true” and Mr Watson seemed to have struck a blow at the heart of the Establishment.

He was beginning to look the part too, losing an incredible seven stones in just two years and reversing his Type 2 diabetes. Here was Mr Corbyn’s most likely and most presentable challenger as he railed against the new Labour leader’s failure to tackle anti-semitism in the party.

Then Operation Midland began to unravel, and so too did Mr Watson’s credibility. The Met paid out damages to Field Marshal Lord Bramall, a veteran of the D-day landings, and to Lady Brittan, Lord Brittan’s widow, for “illegal” raids on their homes based on Beech’s deluded claims.

Harvey Proctor, a former Tory MP who was falsely accused of murder, had threatened to oppose Mr Watson in West Bromwich East. Last night, he declared Westminster a “healthier place” without Mr Watson and said that by standing down he had done his constituents “a great favour”, adding: “He will be unable to use public office in future to promote false accusers for personal and political ends.”