Labour below fireplace over ANOTHER vile WhatsApp chat: Minister ran group which branded veterans and pensioners ‘nazis’ and featured AI photograph of Rishi Sunak being deported to Rwanda
A third Labour MP has come under fire for running a WhatsApp chat which branded veterans and pensioners ‘nazis’.
Education Minister Stephen Morgan was allegedly the administrator of the ‘Portsmouth Labour’ group, which featured 143 other members, including Labour councillors and local activists.
Some members accused a group of pensioners, veterans, and disabled people – who took part in an anti immigration protest at the city’s Guildhall Square last year – of being ‘nazis’, ‘fascist thugs’ and ‘terrorists’.
The group had taken to the streets just days after the Southport riots in July in a protest where they carried banners reading ‘Veterans before asylum seekers’.
When they were later ambushed by counter-protesters who screamed ‘Nazi scum off our streets’, members of the chat were reportedly in favour of their actions.
One Labour councillor, Asghar Shah, allegedly wrote she ‘appreciated’ the actions of the counter-protesters and likened the opposite group to ‘criminals’.
The messages, which were leaked to The Sun, also featured an AI photo of Rishi Sunak being led to a Rwanda deportation flight by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
These latest revelations will undoubtedly pile pressure on the party amid a growing number of vile comments, including those unearthed by The Mail, previously shared online by Labour councillors.
Labour MP Stephen Morgan has come under fire for running a WhatsApp chat which branded veterans and pensioners ‘nazis’
Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer with Portsmouth South MP Stephen Morgan during the party’s General Election campaign in June last year
The messages, which were leaked and seen by The Sun, also featured an AI photo of Rishi Sunak being deported to Rwanda
Even after members of the Portsmouth chat called for restrain on the use of language such as ‘racist’, another member hit back saying: ‘I agree that we shouldn’t be calling them fascist thugs.
‘They are terrorists who want to divide our community through hate and fear.
‘Hopefully coming together shows some of them that they are outnumbered and there is another way, that we are one community and can live together free of hate.’
Members of the group also shared an AI-generated image of Rishi Sunak holding the hand of Keir Starmer, with the caption: ‘C’mon, you don’t want to miss the Rwanda flight.’
Another message also mocked Lib Dem Councillor Lee Hunt’s surname, with someone likening it to another four letter slur.
After one person shared Mr Hunt’s email in the chat, another replied saying: ‘Only one letter off from what he is, lol.’
Members also reportedly accused Israel of committing ‘genocide’, while another branded the country a ‘failed project’.
The Sun claimed that none of the messages showed Mr Morgan or his fellow administrator of the group Portsmouth North MP Amanda Martin, challenge or moderate the language used in the chat.
Stephen Morgan, MP for Portsmouth South (left) and Amanda Martin, MP for Portsmouth North lay wreaths at the Portsmouth war memorial following a Remembrance Sunday service in Guildhall Square
Another message also mocked Lib Dem Councillor Lee Hunt’s surname, with someone likening it to another four letter slur
One Labour Councillor Asghar Shah allegedly wrote she ‘appreciated’ the actions of the counter-protesters and likened the opposite group to ‘criminals’.
Mr Morgan and Ms Martin stepped down from their role in the chat after a Portsmouth Independent Party Councillor leaked some of its messages back in November.
A Portsmouth Labour spokesperson said: ‘We acknowledge some of the language used in this chat should be of a higher standard. Portsmouth Labour will continue to campaign relentlessly for the change that residents want, and for the services Portsmouth council taxpayers deserve.’
Mr Morgan and Ms Martin have been contacted for comment.
This latest revelation comes just days after Labour has suspended 11 councillors over another vile WhatsApp group where members mocked pensioners and made misogynistic and homophobic remarks.
They were suspended from the party as part of its probe into the ‘Trigger Me Timbers’ WhatsApp group which saw a former minister sacked and a second MP lose the whip.
It is understood the councillors are from Tameside and Stockport and include sacked MP Andrew Gwynne’s wife, Allison Gwynne. The group reportedly contained around 44 people.
When some of the vile posts were originally revealed, it led to the dramatic sacking of health minister Mr Gwynne after The Mail on Sunday brought them to the attention of Downing Street.
It later emerged that Oliver Ryan, the 29-year-old MP for Burnley, was another leading member of the group, where he posted more than 2,000 messages. He was the second MP to be suspended.
Keir Starmer at a Labour Party cabinet meeting in Salford with Andrew Gwynne in 2019
Mr Ryan is a long-time friend of Mr Gwynne (right, pictured with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2019), who posted messages which involved him mocking a pensioner who did not vote Labour and wishing her dead
In the private chat, called Trigger Me Timbers, Mr Ryan takes part with others in apparently homophobic banter as they joke about a fellow Labour MP being gay (pictured)
The vile posts led to the dramatic sacking of health minister Andrew Gwynne (right, pictured with his wife Allison Gwynne, left) after The Mail on Sunday brought them to the attention of Downing Street on Saturday
Thousands of the disturbing comments stretched as far back as 2019 all the way to 2022.
A Labour Party spokesperson said in regards to the suspension of the 11 councillors on Tuesday: ‘As part of our WhatsApp group investigation, a group of councillors have been administratively suspended from the Labour Party.
‘As soon as this group was brought to our attention, a thorough investigation was launched in line with the Labour Party’s rules and procedures and this process is ongoing.
‘Swift action will always be taken where individuals are found to have breached the high standards expected of them as Labour Party members.’
The Guardian reported that the suspended Tameside councillors include Gwynne’s wife, along with former council leader Brenda Warrington, and Claire Reid, a member of Labour’s national policy forum.
The suspension of the Tameside councillors comes after three Labour members of the local authority ‘stepped away’ from their duties on the Council, pending an investigation into the messages.
Councillors Jack Naylor, Claire Reid, and George Newton – who were also members of the WhatsApp group – are also being investigated by Labour.
Gerald Cooney, the former leader of Tameside council, also claimed he warned officials about the vile WhatsApp group over a year ago.
Oliver Ryan (right), the 29-year-old MP for Burnley, was a leading member of a WhatsApp group in which racist, sexist and anti-Semitic messages were exchanged
Mr Gwynne (right, pictured greeting the late Queen) was sacked immediately as a minister and also suspended from the Labour Party pending an investigation
But a Labour source said the party did not receive any formal complaint about the group.
The Guardian reported that Gwynne described a fellow councillor as a ‘fat middle aged useless thicket’ in the group.
He also called neighbouring MP Nav Mishra, a ‘splitter’ for forming a group of leftwing Labour MPs in 2022, it was claimed.
And year after the death of Prince Philip – Gwynne’s colleague Claire Reid, a senior Labour official – said her ‘go-to phrase’ was: ‘You’re so old. You’re like a young Prince Philip’. Gwynne replied: ‘But less dead.’
Labour is not the ‘nasty party’, a minister has insisted, after one of her frontbench colleagues was sacked for joking about the death of a constituent.
Asked on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme about the ‘pretty nasty messages’, skills minister Baroness Jacqui Smith said: ‘I completely agree they are completely unacceptable.
‘Nobody, whatever party they’re in, whatever job they’re in, should be saying those sorts of things about other people.
‘What is in stark contrast to what we’ve seen previously is a prime minister who has acted quickly to demonstrate that those things are unacceptable and to take action against those people who did them.’
LEFT: Claire Reid, a member of Labour’s national policy forum. RIGHT: Cllr Charlotte Martin
LEFT: Jack Naylor. RIGHT: George Newton, who were also said to be suspended
LEFT: Brenda Warrington. RIGHT: David Sedgwick are also named
LEFT: Holly McCormack. RIGHT: George Jones
LEFT: Vincent Ricci. RIGHT: Alison Gwynne
Pictured is Cllr Denise Ward,who is also said to be suspended
Quizzed about the group – which also contained racist jokes about veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott, and anti-Semitic slights – BBC presenter Amol Rajan asked: ‘Isn’t the horrific picture that’s emerging from these WhatsApp messages one wherein the Labour Party is the nasty party now?’
Baroness Smith denied that Labour was now the ‘nasty party’ – Theresa May’s famous description of how people once viewed the Tories.
In response to the same question, she later added on GB News: ‘No, we’re not. We’re not the nasty party. What we are is the decisive party.’
The Daily Mail also learned that Greater Manchester Police are assessing a number of complaints made about the WhatsApp group’s offensive content.
