Labour pledges to penalize any MP involved in Andrew Gwynne WhatsApp group scandal
Labour is facing increasing pressure to take action after it was revealed the group chat Andrew Gwynne sent his vile comments into contained at least one other Labour MP.
Health minister Andrew Gwynne was sacked and suspended from the Labour party on Saturday over comments posted in a WhatsApp group.
The MP for Gorton and Denton sent a post saying he hoped a pensioner who did not vote Labour would die before the next election, according to The Mail on Sunday.
Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook told LBC’s Lewis Goodall that there is a ’live investigation’ underway.
Mr Pennycook said: "The party has suspended Mr Gwynne’s membership, he’s lost the whip, and the Prime Minister quite rightly - given those unacceptable comments - has dismissed him as a minister because we are determined as a minister to uphold the very highest standards in public office.
"Your listeners can take from how quickly and decisively we’ve acted...that those comments are completely unacceptable."
He declined to comment on whether Mr Gwynne should resign.
Also speaking Lewis Goodall, shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart said: "I think these are some very serious revelations... Keir Starmer has made a big thing about having cleaned up the Labour party but it appears it hasn’t happened.
"You have a very senior Labour politician here using totally unacceptable language on a Labour WhatsApp group with a lot of other people.
"I think we all need to know whether they called him out on that, whether they made any remarks themselves and what action is going to be taken against all of them.
"If Mr Gwynne used racist language then his position is untenable. It’s not just enough to suspend Mr Gwynne and say it’s done."
In the group chat, named Trigger Me Timbers, Mr Gwynne shared the posts with more than a dozen Labour councillors, party officials and at least one other MP, all based on the outskirts of Manchester, according to the Mail.
Mr Gwynne allegedly shared a letter from a 72-year-old Stockport resident regarding bin collections, who said she did not vote for Labour, but "As you have been re-elected I thought it would be an appropriate time to contact you with regard to the bin collections."
The newspaper reports the minister sent an image of the letter to the WhatsApp group and said: "Dear resident, F*** your bins. I’m re-elected and without your vote. Screw you. PS: Hopefully you’ll have croaked it by the all-outs."
Mr Gwynne also is alleged to have made anti-Semitic ’jokes’ about a constituent being ’mown down’ by a truck.
He joked that someone’s name sounded ’Jewish’, saying: "He sounds too militaristic and too Jewish. Is he in Mossad?"
The minister made comments about MP Diane Abbott, when she stood in for then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for Prime Minister’s Question in October 2019.
He said: "Was David Lammy not available? I’d also take the corpse of Bernie Grant.
"Or Desmond Swayne? Justin Trudeau??"
The Mail on Sunday gained access to the closed WhatsApp group, which was started in 2019.
His offensive comments included ’jokes’ about Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner performing a sex act.
Gwynne has become the fourth high-profile figure to leave Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Government since the party’s election victory in July last year.
His sacking comes after the departures of Tulip Siddiq as Treasury minister in January, Louise Haigh as transport secretary in November and Sue Gray as Downing Street chief of staff in October.
Mr Gwynne said: "I deeply regret my badly misjudged comments and apologise for any offence I’ve caused. I’ve served the Labour Party all my life and it was a huge honour to be appointed a minister by Keir Starmer.
"I entirely understand the decisions the PM and the party have taken and, while very sad to have been suspended, will support them in any way I can."
A Government spokesperson said: “The Prime Minister is determined to uphold high standards of conduct in public office and lead a government in the service of working people. He will not hesitate to take action against any minister who fails to meet these standards, as he has in this case.”
A Labour spokesperson said: "Andrew Gwynne has been administratively suspended as a member of the Labour Party. We are investigating comments made in this WhatsApp group in line with the Labour Party’s rules and procedures. Swift action will be taken if individuals are found to have breached the high standards expected of them as Labour Party members."
Nigel Huddleston MP, Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party, said: ’’There is a clear contempt for pensioners in the Labour Party. This clearly goes beyond Andrew Gwynne and there is a rot in Labour that needs fixing. Andrew Gwynne should not remain a member of the Labour Party - they need to act.’’
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