Robin Wales and Clive Furness with Nigel Farage (picture via London Evening Standard)
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Sir Robin Wales and his long-time ally and fellow Blue Labour acolyte Clive Furness have defected to Reform UK.
Wales will be joining as ‘Director of Local Government Development’ and Furness will be the party’s candidate for Mayor of Newham.
Both men have long promoted a politics well to the right of mainstream Labour opinion and their recent piece in Spiked about why they left the Labour Party was merely a trailer for this announcement.
This blog was largely founded as a way for me to express my disgust and amazement that Wales, a man who so clearly possessed no Labour values whatsoever, was in any kind of leadership position at all, much less the all-powerful and unchallengeable directly elected mayor. And it turns out, in the end, I was absolutely right.
Those currently running what remains of the Labour Party in Newham – hollowed out by five long years of suspension – should have a long hard think about their decision to turn their backs on the last eight years and embrace the politics of the previous 20.
Wales and Furness have gone. Good riddance. Their politics should go with them.
Update: Wales’ new title at Reform is Director of Local Government Development, not Director of London Local Government as I previously had it. Apologies.
forestgatedotnet 