Barred from the bars: Labour Remainer who launched a four-letter rant against Brexiteer
A LABOUR MP has been suspended from House of Commons bars after he allegedly launched a foulmouthed anti-Brexit rant in Westminster’s famous Strangers’ Bar last week, it was claimed last night.
Staunch Remainer Neil Coyle is accused of bawling ‘f**k you’ at a Labour aide who insisted that Brexit had worked out ‘fine’ for the UK.
And when a Tory MP tried to intervene to calm the row, Mr Coyle allegedly replied: ‘F**k off and lose some weight.’
Mr Coyle, 43, was accused of a separate row in the Strangers’ Bar the following day.
Now sources say that after a complaint to the Commons authorities, Mr Coyle, has been temporarily barred from all bars in both the Commons and the Lords pending an inquiry.
The row erupted on the very first day of the reopening of Strangers’ – Westminster’s famous Thamesside watering hole – for MPs and staffers after it was closed during the Covid pandemic.
Witnesses say that Mr Coyle, known for his pungent anti-Brexit views, brought the bar to a standstill on Monday evening with an expletive-laden rant at a young Labour aide who suggested the party had got it wrong on Brexit.
They say the MP erupted after the researcher, who works for another Labour MP, suggested that Brexit had not been a disaster for Britain.
The aide is said to have added that Labour could have been spared its disastrous 2019 General Election – where it argued for a second referendum – if only it had taken a different position.
Mr Coyle then allegedly startled everyone in the bar by yelling: ‘F**k you! What are the benefits of Brexit?’
He was also said to have shouted: ‘Are you f**king insane?’
And when a backbench Tory MP attempted to defuse the row, Mr Coyle is said to have retorted with ‘f**k off’ , followed by a dig at the MP’s weight.
But just 24 hours later, Mr Coyle – MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark since 2015 – was apparently embroiled in another row in the same bar.
Sources said the two incidents led to a complaint being lodged, followed by a decision by the Sergeant at Arms – the Commons’ senior official – to issue the temporary bar ban on the MP.
Asked to comment last night, the House of Commons would only say that there was ‘zero tolerance for abuse or harassment’ at Parliament.
The spokesperson said: ‘Parliament’s Behaviour Code makes clear the standards of behaviour expected of everyone in Parliament, whether staff, members of the House of Lords, MPs or visitors.
He added: ‘The Behaviour Code is supported by the Independent Complaints and Grievances Scheme (ICGS), which provides for the investigation of complaints of bullying, harassment or sexual misconduct.’
Mr Coyle could not be reached for comment.
But in 2020, he was forced to apologise over a now-deleted tweet which effectively branded Tory Brexiteers ‘fat old racists’ and ‘absolute sh***bag racist w ***** s’.
He had launched the tirade after wading into the row over the BBC’s plan to play only instrumental versions of Rule, Britannia! and Land Of Hope And Glory, and omit the lyrics, at the Last Night Of The Proms. Mr Coyle later apologised, saying his tweet ‘fell below standards I set myself as well as those expected of me by constituents and Keir Starmer’s Labour Party’.
A Labour spokesperson said last night that the party ‘expects the highest standards of behaviour from all of our MPs and takes any allegations of this nature very seriously’.