Just as Labour seemed to be changing their stance on a second Brexit referendum, suggesting a party moving towards a more anti-Brexit stance, they also made a very surprising move: Alastair Campbell, who can be controversial for many reasons, but not for his lack of devotion to Labour, was expelled for voting for the Lib Dems in the European elections.

What followed was an astonishing backlash: other veterans of the Labour Party, such as Cherie Blair and Betty Boothroyd, revealed they too had voted for other parties not due to a lack of allegiance to Labour, but as a vote to show that they were more interested in a second referendum than in party politics. Many, even those who had never been on the side of Alastair Campbell, or even Labour, despaired at the move. “Friends said it was the first time they’d seen editorials in the Daily Mail on my side,” said Campbell, laughing.

A few days later, GQ caught up with Campbell to talk about the firestorm that continued to rage around him. “I was genuinely surprised,” he said. “Not least because even if they felt that it was worthy of expulsion, I've never ever – in the Labour Party – never known anything move so fast.”

‘I've never ever – in the Labour party – never known anything move so fast’

Campbell had spoken to lawyers, including his brother-in-law, who told him that there's a crucial difference between going out and endorsing another party pre-election and doing it after the event with no power to influence it. When he received an email from the Labour party, the three cuttings sent to him were reports of his having said he was voting Lib Dem only after the polls closed. Besides, there are instances in which Labour members did speak out pre-election and there was no action: “which Corbyn might remember from when Frank Dobson was fighting Ken Livingstone [in the 2000 mayoral election]”, added Campbell.

Plus, Campbell said, he always knew he wasn't alone in voting the way he did. He can't believe the Labour Party weren't fully aware of how widespread it was both before and after the vote. Ever since, many of the most powerful members of the current shadow cabinet have come out in support of Campbell: “Keir Starmer, who's my local MP, and Tom Watson... John McDonnell thinks it's crazy, Emily Thornberry, Shami Chakrabarti... and I'm not convinced that Jeremy Corbyn doesn't think that it's crazy,” he said. “But he does what he's told by Milne and McCluskey.”

For a party leader often accused of courting a cult of personality, Campbell paints the Corbyn of 2019 as a man controlled by advisers who have very little interest in the true aims of the Labour Party. “I think the fact Karie Murphy is both the chief of staff and general secretary is a problem." Len McCluskey doesn't represent his member's interests either, argued Campbell. Then there are other inadvisable advisers, like Andrew Murray ("basically an aristocrat") or Seamus Milne: "a "posh boy revolutionary, no real connection with or interest in working class people".

Meanwhile, Campbell is inundated with emails from people, many of whom are heavily critical of him after Iraq, forwarding their resignations from the Labour Party, siding with Campbell and his criticism of the current way the party is going.

“Fiona [Millar, Campbell's partner] was saying that whatever people think about me, nobody inside the Labour Party thinks I'm anything but Labour,” he said. But most importantly it just looks like a daft decision, punishing someone who has been pushing for a second referendum, which looks set to become Labour policy. It suggests, says Campbell, that “[Labour] doesn't really care about winning elections.”

Campbell's partner had already left the Labour Party due to a combination of the anti-Semitism allegations, their Brexit flimflammery and a lack of strong education policy. “Fiona thinks I'm mad: how can you want to be in a party where the leadership is being investigated for racism, who trash the record of the leadership you gave your life to?” he recalled. “But if everyone legs it, what does it become?”

If Labour is left in the clutches of the clique who can make decisions such as his expulsion, he argues, it cripples the party, splitting it into pieces when it needs to be a robust opposition more than ever. “If Boris Johnson becomes prime minister, and I think it's a big if,” said Campbell, “if the Labour Party is as low in the polls as it is now, he will think that he can win a general election and get a mandate for no deal. And if he does win, then Labour will be every bit as much to blame.”

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