Kate Hoey MP, Faces De-Selection Call – “a highly principled woman I have known for 40 years” – George Galloway.

“..a highly principled woman I have known for 40 years.” – George Galloway.

Hoey is in the news today,

Kate Hoey vows to face down local activists over bid to deselect her

Activists in Vauxhall, south London, unanimously backed a motion of no confidence in the MP and called for party bosses to suspend the whip from her.

They also said she should be made “ineligible for re-selection or endorsement as a Labour party parliamentary candidate”.

And they accused her of “collaborating” with Tory Brexiteers and the DUP and “propping up a failing government”.

Ms Hoey has faced a barrage of internal criticism after she was among four Labour MPs who helped the Government defeat an attempt to force Britain to sign up to a customs union with the EU.

The no-confidence motion claims that defeat in the Commons vote could have brought down the Government and led to a general election that Labour was “widely expected to win”.

However, the backbencher vowed to take on attempts to push her out, despite conceding that those in her Lambeth seat voted overwhelmingly in favour of staying in the EU.

The MP told the Guardian in a statement that the motion was “not a surprise”.

“My local party activists are solid EU remainers. I will always put my country before my party and helping my constituents is a priority,” she said.

“After 29 years as an MP I am quite relaxed about the vote and it won’t influence in any way how I vote in future.”

The motion carries no official force, but local members hope it will pile pressure on the leadership and that it could lead to a so-called “trigger ballot” to remove her ahead of the next election.

The Constituency Labour Party motion on Thursday read: “In June 2017 Kate Hoey was elected on a manifesto which explicitly rejected Theresa May’s approach to Brexit and pledged in a letter to constituents that she endorsed Labour’s plans.

“This CLP censures Kate Hoey MP for repeatedly reneging on those commitments, and ignoring the clearly stated views of her constituents and the national and local Labour Party.”

In her report to the meeting, Ms Hoey said: “Whilst many of you may disagree with my views, I have voted in line with the manifesto and the result of the referendum – to leave the single market and the customs union.

“All my votes are on the issue being debated and not in support of the Government.”

Last night Vauxhall CLP unanimously, 42-0, passed no confidence motion in their MP Kate Hoey, ask she be suspended from PLP whip removed and ineligible to stand as Labour candidate. After 29 yrs as an MP to not find a single supporter to vote for her is some achievement. pic.twitter.com/RRCja9rCso

— Mark Perryman (@MarkPerryman) July 27, 2018

Yes, she had nobody to back her as Shiraz also points out.

 

That’s as may be, but Hoey has the comfort of the backing of her comrade George Galloway:

She @KateHoeyMP is a highly principled woman I have known for 40 years. Some of her principles I agree with #Palestine #Iraq #Trident #Brexit #Corbyn others not #Ireland #Foxhunting But give me Hoey over a hundred of the Blairite backstabbers pic.twitter.com/trn1mynFT5

— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) July 27, 2018

Kate Hoey has, as the former leader of Respect’s Tweet picture indicates, a past on the radical left.

She was a member of the International Marxist Group (IMG).

There are a number of anecdotes about those days and the affiliation, such as this,

 

Living in London in the early 1970s she became a vice-president of the NUS.[Jack Straw was NUS president at the time]. Returning from an overseas conference, she found herself sitting next to Tariq Ali on the plane. Tariq persuaded her to join the IMG, which she did in summer 1971.

In subsequent years she used to muddy this connection by claiming that she was in the Spartacus League, a short lived youth wing of the IMG. She was never at ease with the Irish Republican Trotskyism of the IMG and was also very inimical to Gery Lawless an IMG member at the time.

She felt that having Lawless as a member discredited the IMG. Under the influence of Brian Trench [political influence of course!] she joined the IS in 1972 but her stay there was also limited.

She joined Hackney Labour party and supported the Troops Out Movement for a period before becoming a supporter of the BICO front organisation, Campaign for Labour Representation in Northern Ireland.

This is what she now says of this experience, (2nd of January 2016. Guardian)

She also became vice-president of the National Union of Students, and was briefly was a member of the International Marxist Group, because it “probably had better-looking young men” than other radical-left groups.

As ex-IMG myself I can’t disagree with that.

During the Europe Referendum Hoey made herself conspicuous by appearing with Nigel Farage, and,  at the risk of repeating the message of the picture which heads this post, popped up with Galloway at least once on his RT ‘show’.

Her views were informed by these ideas, attacking Labour’s failure to stand up for Country and lack of patriotic fibre, which she shares with figures such as Paul Embery of the Arron Banks backed Trade Unionists Against the EU,

Hoey blames her party’s “extremely unpatriotic” outlook for its increasing alienation from its traditional working class supporters. “They feel very strongly about their country and we have been extremely unpatriotic as a party to our country. There’s just a feeling that we’re half-hearted about being British, we’re half-hearted about the monarchy, we’re half-hearted about the way we see our country in the world. I’m very proud of being British and I think the United Kingdom is a force for good in the world and we seem to feel all the time that we have to put ourselves down because somehow that might upset people”.

New Statesman. 17th of June 2015.

Another prominent supporter of Brexit was the man who recruited her to the IMG, Tariq Ali.

LIke Kate Hoey Ali was happy at the Leave vote, “Tariq Ali ‘Pleased’ Brexit Has Given EU ‘Big Kick’ up ‘Backside'” reported the Venezuelan repressive regime mouthpiece TeleSur on the 24th of June 2016.

Ali’s expressions of solidarity to his old comrade-in-arms Hoey are yet to be made public.