‘Mainstream’ media acting as if shocked at Alastair Campbell’s expulsion from Labour – but he knew it would happen. But one response to his own ‘outrage’ at result makes whole thing worthwhile

Ex-Labour member Alastair Campbell

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All too predictably, the so-called ‘mainstream’ media and Alastair Campbell are whipping up a storm about his equally predictable expulsion from the Labour Party.

Labour’s rules are clear – members who support a rival party expel themselves (known in rules jargon as ‘auto-exclusion’) – so Campbell’s statement on radio that he voted LibDem in last week’s EU elections and his encouragement of others to support ‘remain’ parties was an act of self-expulsion:

His letter from the Labour Party simply confirmed something that had already happened.

Campbell, as a longtime Labour member and employee, would have been well aware of this – and is on record admitting that he knew it, during an interview with journalist Owen Jones:

Jones today described the furore about Campbell’s expulsion as “silly and disingenuous” and he is absolutely right. If Campbell was surprised at the result of his behaviour, it can only mean that he expected to be immune – that the rules couldn’t apply to him.

In case you think that video was a one-off and it slipped Campbell’s mind since, here’s another:

Nonetheless, Campbell has publicly expressed his ‘disappointment’ and has said that he intends to appeal – a process that will, of course, yield further opportunities for him and the ‘MSM’ to express their outrage.

The media, meanwhile, is ignoring every interview he’s given since Corbyn became leader and is claiming that there has been no more aggressively pro-Labour voice, as this clip found by Dev Raval typifies:

But the joy of Labour members at finally seeing a senior Blairite fail to act with impunity has made it more than worth it.

And when Campbell tried to ‘stir’ further with a tweet claiming an unspecified number of Labour staff and elected officials had voted for other parties, Tom Walker’s response was the icing on the cake:

Campbell, who was intimately connected to the UK’s involvement in the Iraq invasion, was notoriously involved in ‘sexing up’ a ‘dossier’ concerning weapons of mass destruction to shore up Tony Blair’s decision to support George W Bush.

These things have a way of coming back around.

The media are asking ‘how much of a problem will this be for Jeremy Corbyn?’ The answer is, ‘It won’t‘. Blairite obstructions self-purging is no kind of problem at all and is excellent for the morale of good members.

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