Monday, December 18, 2023

You're nicked!

Labour's former whip and cabinet minister Nick Brown MP has announced he has resigned from the Labour Party and will not be standing at the general election next year. A complaint against him had been submitted to the Labour Party in September last year though there is no explanation as to what was at the centre of it. Whatever the basis of the complaint happens to be, the fact it is unresolved 15 months later does strike me as contrary to natural justice. Brown was suspended from Labour last year and with the complaint dragging on, it was looking likely that he would have been blocked from standing for Labour at the general election. After 40 years as MP for Newcastle East, he has thrown in the towel and announced his retirement.

There will of course be a stampede of hopeful Labour candidates aiming to fill the vacancy in the redrawn constituency. It would not surprise me if the powers-that-be in the Labour Party parachute in Nick Forbes, former Leader of Newcastle Council. His political career was cut short after a Labour selection meeting, attended by 13 members, chose a different council candidate, leaving poor Nick without a seat on the council. So could Nick Forbes be about to step out of the political graveyard? We shall see!

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