SHEERMAN LOSING PLOT

At 83 and still clinging to the Westminster gravy train, Huddersfield's Barry Sheerman appears to be losing the plot.  On Thursday evening a bizarre tweet appeared from his Twitter account, a photograph of a meme that was on a laptop screen.  The meme in question has become very popular in Wales thanks to recent events, but it seems that old Bazza hadn't seen it before and was clearly quite taken by it (see below).

The problem for Barry is that the meme is used by opponents of Mark Drakeford's absurd 20mph decree - a Labour policy.  It's not clear if Sheerman was aware that Labour govern Wales or whether he is just past caring with his time on the gravy train (finally) drawing to a close at the next election.  Either way, he deleted the tweet a few minutes later - but not before a screen grab by BTLP.

What a clown?

WHAT ABOUT BROWN, BARRY?

Barry Sheerman is no spring chicken, that's for sure.  81 years of age, he is Labour's longest continuously serving MP, elected for Huddersfield East in 1979.  Like most MPs, Barry has a Twitter page, from which he often appears to tweet before putting his brain in gear.  That is assuming Barry still has a brain.

In his latest daft tweet Barry took aim at the Tory leadership contest.

It didn't take long for Twitter users to raise the spectre of Gordon Brown.  In 2007 - midway through the parliament, as we are now - Tony Blair resigned.  However, unlike the current Tory leadership contest - in which two candidates will face a members' vote - Blair's successor was appointed unopposed.  Gordon Brown did not even face a members' vote.

Twitter user Rob Gudgeon noted: "Did you complain similarly when Gordon Brown was slotted into No.10?  If not, perhaps you should keep quiet now?"

James Declearagh wrote: "Our Barry of course also demanded on a regular basis that Gordon Brown call an election in the weeks and months following his ascension to PM!  He did, didn’t he?"

No, of course he didn't.

This was such an obvious own goal from Barry, one wonders if he is suffering from memory loss or just plain stupidity.  Given some of his previous tweets, the latter is strongly suspected.  In March he tweeted that Britain should put boots on the ground in Ukraine, bringing our country into direct conflict with Russia.  In August 2020 he made two blatantly anti-Semitic tweets for which he later had to issue multiple apologies.

We'll leave the last word to Barry's former leader, who sums up Mr Sheerman by way of a hand gesture...

SHEERMAN CALLS FOR RUSSIA WAR

Labour's Barry Sheerman has surpassed his colleagues in warmongering zealotry by calling for direct armed conflict with Russia.  In an outrageous tweet on Tuesday evening he called for British troops on the ground in Ukraine.

Such a move could potentially lead to a third world war and nuclear apocalypse - the primary reason that NATO does not engage Russia directly.  Are Barry's Huddersfield constituents OK with their MP spouting this stuff?  After-all, in the event of a nuclear war they all would be killed.  The map below ably demonstrates what would happen to the north of England if nuclear warheads struck the cities of Manchester, Leeds and Hull.  Huddersfield is situated between Manchester and Leeds, but an attack on Leeds alone would likely reduce the town to ash and incinerate all its residents.

Even if an Anglo-Russian confrontation did not result in nuclear war, many British troops would perish in the face of a far greater force.  Would Barry be happy to send his own son to Kiev to face off against Russian tanks, artillery and air strikes?

Sheerman's eagerness to sacrifice our lads for another far-off conflict should come as no surprise.  He has repeatedly backed British military involvement overseas during his 43 years as an MP - including voting for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

We must not allow warmongers like Barry to spin the narrative towards something that could end life on earth.  The war in Ukraine is abhorrent, as are all the other wars currently raging across the planet that the media (and politicians like Barry) continue to ignore.  None of these conflicts are worth nuclear apocalypse.

SHEERMAN'S ALL APOLOGIES

Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman is to take a break from Twitter following his controversial tweets on Sunday.  In addition to his online apologies, the backbencher also expressed remorse in a letter to local members, a copy of which was also sent to Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, chief whip Nick Brown and the Board of Deputies of British Jews (see below).

Dear member, 

I want to offer you my heartfelt apology. 

You may have heard that there has been a great deal of criticism of my recent tweets regarding my strong reaction to Boris Johnson’s list of people who he might place in the House of Lords. 

Some of these people hold partial responsibility for our decision to leave the EU, and our subsequent heavy losses in the General Election. They included people whose elevation to the Lords would not be our country’s best interest, but would instead be a reward for loyalty and support for the Conservative Party.

I was so angry I was intending to liken the places in the Lords as a “thirty pieces of silver' type of reward. 

This alone is an unpleasant thing to say but I tried to be too clever and looked up the currency that might have been used 2,000 years ago, and found information suggesting it was the shekel. 

I used this in my comment. 

In a separate comment, I also chose two rich businessmen who have received negative press attention as examples of the types of people being raised to the Lords by the Government. 

It never entered my head when I was making that comment that the two people I mentioned were Jewish. 

I can see how offensive my comments have been, given this, and I am profoundly sorry. It was never my intention to make any implication about Jewish people, and I am horrified that I inadvertently did so.

I spoke at our CLP’s online meeting on Friday about how the Party needs to be strong on anti-Semitism, and I have always greatly valued the Jewish community who I have worked alongside since I joined Labour Friends of Israel at university. 

I am ashamed that my remarks were ill thought through, and that I have subsequently hurt people. 

I am going to give Twitter a rest for a period to reflect on my thoughtlessness and how I can do better. 

I want to assure you that I pledge to continue to work with all members in our common struggle for a more equal, just and sustainable society. 

Yours, 

Barry

The letter was reportedly sent after Barry was contacted by the chair of the Huddersfield Constituency Labour Party.  Paul Cooney told the Huddersfield Examiner that he recommended that the letter be written and that the MP also withdraws from Twitter.  Referring to the Twitter suspension, Cooney said it was "something which we had previously suggested to him on other occasions recently".  Sheerman is known for his blunt language on Twitter and apparent inability to think before he tweets.  Last month the ardent Remainer demanded another EU referendum, despite the fact the UK left six months ago.

Sadly for Barry, his letter and apology was still not quite enough for the CLP as they are still writing a formal complaint about his alleged anti-Semitism to head office.  It appears that Labour's longest serving MP is not universally popular in his local branch.  The 79-year-old has represented Huddersfield since 1979, but has avoided deselection processes ahead of the last two elections.  A local party member told the Huddersfield Examiner last year: "There's a cohort of members who are absolutely pissed off as [him continuing to 2024] will take him to 84 years old.  Members want someone younger who's more approachable and there's also a lot of union pressure on him".

It's unlikely that Sheerman will face disciplinary action and he will be thankful for that.  He has previously expressed a wish to become the 'Father of the House', a title bestowed on the Commons' longest serving member.  Prior to the 2019 election the title was held by Ken Clarke and would have passed to Labour's Dennis Skinner had he not lost his Bolsover seat.  The title has now passed to Sir Peter Bottomley, the Tory MP for Worthing West.  Sheerman is next in line.  In any other profession people tend to retire by the age of 70, but this is the Westminster gravy train...

A TWEET TOO FAR FOR BARRY

Avid tweeter Barry Sheerman often lets rip without putting a great deal of thought into his posts.  On Sunday the Huddersfield MP strayed into the realms of anti-Semitism with a tweet about 'silver shekels'.  Asked to elaborate on what he was referring to, Barry doubled down by naming two prominent Jewish businessmen who he joked had been rejected for peerages.

Hapless Barry quickly deleted the tweets and embarked on an evening of grovelling apologies, issuing three tweets around 45 minutes apart.  Looks like daft Barry put more thought into these...

Barry's inability to put his brain into gear before he spouts off is something that he exercises beyond social media.  Despite his constituency backing Leave in 2016, Barry told the Beeb in 2017 that 'better educated people voted Remain'.  Watch below.

No wonder Barry's majority crashed from more than 12,000 to less than 5,000 on December 12th.

MORE THAN A 'CRASH' JEZ

Jeremy Corbyn has been heavily criticised over his reaction to the downed Ukrainian plane that was shot down by Iran.  On both his Facebook and Twitter accounts he described the incident as a "plane crash" and although there was a reference to an "appalling act", there was a complete lack of condemnation.  Sound familiar?

It's very much similar to his reaction to the Islamist attacks in London and Manchester in 2017, which he referred to as 'incidents' (as did Diane Abbott).  However, later that year he condemned the attack on Muslim worshippers at Finsbury Park as an "act of terror".  It's not difficult to see where his loyalties lie.

At a speech he gave to an 'anti-war' demonstration in London yesterday he said there "was no excuse for shooting down an airliner and there's no excuse for a targeted assassination either".  As he addressed the assembled mob of leftists he was shadowed by the controversial anti-Semite Salma Yaqoob.  She only joined Labour last year, but inexplicably rose to prominence and is the hard left's preferred candidate for West Midlands mayor in May.

Jeremy Corbyn in London yesterday with Salma Yaqoob (right)

Corbyn wasn't the only Labour figure to express Iranian sympathies yesterday.  The odious member for Huddersfield took the following sideswipe at President Trump.

No-one wants a war with Iran, the left do not own that sentiment.  Their so-called 'anti-war' message is nothing but opportunistic anti-West rhetoric and one-sided condemnation, twisted by anti-Semitism and Islamist sympathies.

MOST UNWANTED POLL

It's a bit later than promised, but the results from the above Facebook post can finally be revealed.  There were almost two thousand responses when we went through them over the weekend and 186 names were submitted.  Not all of them were defending their seats at this election.  The most obvious example was Ken Clarke (six votes) - he stood down.  Around a quarter of the votes were ineligible because they failed to observe the simple rules set down in the post - excluding party leaders, name one MP.  Votes for Corbyn (there were at least a few dozen) and Swinson (a handful) were ignored, as were votes that named more than one individual (hundreds).  There were also a number of votes rejected that we suspect may have been intended for John McDonnell, but were submitted as 'McDonald' and could have been potentially been intended for his colleague Andy McDonald.

These were the top responses and as you can see it was a very close call between the top two.  In brackets we've included the likelihood of them actually losing their seats.

1)   Anna Soubry - 234 (gone tomorrow)

2)   Diane Abbott - 231 (safe as houses)

3)   Yvette Cooper - 137 (under threat)

4)   John McDonnell - 103 (likely safe)

5)   Emily Thornberry - 65 (safe as houses)

6)   Dominic Grieve - 52 (gone tomorrow)

7)   Ian Blackford - 37 (under threat)

8)   Jess Phillips - 35 (likely safe)

9)   Dave Lammy - 32 (safe as houses)

10) Hilary Benn - 15 (safe as houses)

11) Laura Pidcock - 12 (under threat)

11) Barry Sheerman - 12 (under threat)

11) Chuka Umunna - 12 (gone tomorrow)
14) Richard Burgon - 11 (safe as houses)
15) Barry Gardiner - 10 (likely safe)
15) Angela Rayner - 10 (likely safe)
17) Dennis Skinner - 9 (likely gone)
18) Naz Shah - 8 (safe as houses)
18) Keir Starmer - 8 (safe as houses)
18) Anna Turley - 8 (under threat)
18) Karl Turner - 8 (under threat)

THE TOP 20 CHICKENS

Following Labour's u-turn, the government's general election bill was passed in the Commons by a whopping 418 majority.  It still has to pass through the House of Lords, but is likely to gain royal assent by the end of the week.  Predictably it won't move as swiftly as the Benn Surrender Act did.  Nothing moves that fast!

Embarrassingly for Corbyn almost half of his own MPs refused to back his newfound enthusiasm for a general election. 104 abstained in the final vote, while a further 11 voted against, making a complete mockery of Corbyn's triumphant announcement earlier in the day that his party was "totally united".

There were 20 MPs in total who opposed the final reading of the bill, many of whom clearly desperate to cling on to the Westminster gravy train for as long as possible.  More than half of them were Labour, including the most despicable parasites of all ie. those who are standing down anyway at the next election, but who wanted to stay on and milk the system just that little bit longer.  They are all unapologetic Remainers, so some of them will be fearing the election of a pro-Leave Parliament.  We've put our suggestions for their main motives in italics.  Obviously there's no doubting the motives for Change UK...

Labour

Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) - huge Leave vote in his constituency, running scared
Margaret Beckett (Derby South) - big Leave vote in her constituency, running scared
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) - standing down, wanted to ride the train a bit longer
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) - standing down, wanted to ride the train a bit longer
Peter Kyle (Hove) - safe seat, doesn't think Labour can win
Dave Lammy (Tottenham) - safe seat, doesn't think Labour can win
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) - standing down, wanted to ride the train a bit longer
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) - standing down, wanted to ride the train a bit longer
Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) - has not yet been reselected, fears deselection
Owen Smith (Pontypridd) - announced after the vote that he is standing down, didn't think Labour could win
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) - recent poll suggests a Lib Dem surge could unseat him, running scared

Change UK

Ann Coffey (Stockport) - cheerio, cheerio, cheerio
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) - cheerio, cheerio, cheeri-oooo
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) - cheerio, cheerio, cheerio, cheeri-oh

Plaid Cymru

Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East & Dinefwr) - constituency voted Leave, running scared
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) - shrinking majority, running scared
Hywel Williams (Arfon) - wafer thin majority, running scared

SNP

Angus MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an lar) - shrinking majority, running scared

Green

Caroline Lucas (Brighton Pavilion) - safe seat, fears a Brexit majority

Independent Unionist

Lady Hermon (North Down) - shrinking majority, running scared

HUDDERSFIELD VOTED LEAVE, BARRY

Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman has released a little video justifying his Brexit blocking actions.  In it he states that in the coming weeks and months he will be "fighting to keep this town and this country in the European Union".  At least he's honest.  Most Brexit blocking MPs are operating under the pretence that they are merely trying to stop a no deal Brexit, whereas we all know they want to reverse the entire process.

Problem is, not only did Huddersfield vote Leave (52%), two years ago Barry voted to trigger Article 50.  What changed?

THE TRAITORS LIST

Below is a comprehensive list of serving Members of Parliament who have publicly backed a second EU referendum in defiance of the People's Vote of 2016.  Labour MPs are in bold.

Rushanara Ali – Labour

Heidi Allen – Conservative

Rosena Allin-Khan – Labour

Tonia Antoniazzi – Labour

Guto Bebb – Conservative

Margaret Beckett – Labour

Luciana Berger – Labour
Ian Blackford – SNP

Roberta Blackman-Woods – Labour

Ben Bradshaw – Labour

Tom Brake – Lib Dems

Chris Bryant – Labour

Karen Buck – Labour

Richard Burden – Labour

Vince Cable – Lib Dems

Ruth Cadbury – Labour
Alistair Carmichael – Lib Dems

Ann Clwyd – Labour

Ann Coffey  – Labour

Neil Coyle – Labour

Mary Creagh – Labour

Stella Creasy – Labour

Janet Daby – Labour

Ed Davey – Lib Dems

Geraint Davies – Labour

Stephen Doughty – Labour

Rosie Duffield – Labour
Angela Eagle – Labour

Maria Eagle – Labour

Julie Elliott – Labour

Louise Ellmann – Labour

Tim Farron – Lib Dems

Paul Flynn – Labour

Mike Gapes – Labour

Roger Godsiff – Labour

Kate Green – Labour

Justine Greening – Conservative

Dominic Grieve – Conservative

Paul Farrelly – Labour

Helen Hayes – Labour

Wera Hobhouse – Lib Dems 

Margaret Hodge – Labour

Rupa Huq – Labour

Christine Jardine – Lib Dems

Darren Jones – Labour

Susan Elan Jones – Labour

Peter Kyle – Labour

Norman Lamb – Lib Dems

David Lammy – Labour

Chris Leslie – Labour

Caroline Lucas – Green

Kerry McCarthy – Labour

Siobhan McDonagh – Labour

Alison McGovern – Labour

Catherine McKinnell – Labour
Anna McMorrin – Labour

Madeleine Moon – Labour

Layla Moran – Lib Dems

Stephen Morgan – Labour

Ian Murray – Labour

Jess Phillips – Labour

Bridget Phillipson – Labour

Stephen Pound – Labour

Steve Reed – Labour

Ellie Reeves – Labour
Rachel Reeves – Labour

Liz Saville Roberts – Plaid Cymru

Joan Ryan – Labour

Virendra Sharma – Labour

Barry Sheerman – Labour

Tommy Sheppard – SNP
Tulip Siddiq – Labour

Andy Slaughter – Labour

Angela Smith – Labour

Jeff Smith– Labour

Owen Smith – Labour

Alex Sobel – Labour
Anna Soubry – Conservative

Jo Stevens – Labour

Jamie Stone – Lib Dems

Wes Streeting – Labour

Jo Swinson – Lib Dem
Gareth Thomas – Labour

Stephen Timms – Labour
Anna Turley – Labour
Chuka Umunna – Labour

Catherine West – Labour

Martin Whitfield – Labour
Paul Williams – Labour
Phil Wilson – Labour

Sarah Wollaston – Conservative

Daniel Zeichner – Labour

HUDDERSFIELD GROOMING - FOUR MORE SENTENCED

Four more members of the Huddersfield grooming gang (above) were sentenced today.

Mohammed Akram, 33 - received a 17 year prison term

Asif Bashir, 33, received an 11 year term

Niaz Ahmed, 54, received a five year term

Mohammed Imran Ibrar, 34, received a three year term

The youngest known victim of the Huddersfield grooming gang was 11 years old.  Barry Sheerman, the Labour and Co-operative MP for Huddersfield, has so far tweeted 22 times today, but not a single mention of these hideous crimes.  The Muslim Labour leader of Kirklees Council has condemned them multiple times, why the big silence Barry?