A Labour Minister was dismissed following the exposure by The Mail on Sunday of his racist and sexist messages. Among these messages was a particularly offensive post where he expressed a wish for a pensioner who did not vote Labour to die before the next election.
Andrew Gwynne also made anti-Semitic slights and ‘jokes’ about a constituent being ‘mown down’ by a truck.
Upon being informed of the contents of the WhatsApp messages, Keir Starmer removed Mr. Gwynne from his position as Health Minister and suspended his Labour Party membership. In response, the MP issued an apology for what he described as ‘badly misjudged comments’.
In response to the situation, a Government spokesperson stated, ‘The Prime Minister remains committed to upholding high standards of conduct in public office and will not hesitate to take action against any Minister who falls short of these standards, as has been the case in this instance.’
this case.’
In one particularly shocking comment, the Gorton and Denton MP says he hopes a 72-year-old woman will soon be dead after she dared to ask about her bins.
The Stockport resident wrote to her local councillor saying she hadn’t voted Labour, but added: ‘As you have been re-elected I thought it would be an appropriate time to contact you with regard to the bin collections.’
Andrew Gwynne made a post saying he hoped a pensioner who didn’t vote Labour would die before the next election
Keir Starmer at a Labour Party cabinet meeting in Salford with Mr Gwynne in 2019Â
After the councillor shared the letter among fellow Labour figures in the WhatsApp group, Mr Gwynne wrote a suggested response: ‘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.’ ‘All-outs’ are elections at which every council seat is contested at once.
Accepting his fate last night, Mr Gwynne wrote on social media: ‘I deeply regret my badly misjudged commments 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.’
The messages were exchanged in a group called Trigger Me Timbers, which Mr Gwynne shares with more than a dozen Labour councillors, party officials and at least one other MP, all based on the outskirts of Manchester.
The MoS gained access to thousands of messages from the closed group, which was set up in 2019, and discovered a barrage of abusive texts. Among them are:
- Mr Gwynne saying someone ‘sounds too Jewish’ and ‘too militaristic’, apparently from their name alone;
- Racist comments about veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott, mocking her historic achievement in becoming the first black MP at either Despatch Box for Prime Minister’s Questions;
- Sexist comments about Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner performing a sex act;
- Mr Gwynne mocking a local Labour leader as ‘Colin C*mface’.
Mr Gwynne also made race-based jokes on Trigger Me Timbers while talking about veteran black Labour MP Diane Abbott (pictured)Â
The politician also made offensive remarks about Jewish people.
Discussing an upcoming Labour meeting, a member of the group asks if Marshall Rosenberg would be there, in apparent reference to a late American psychologist whose conflict management techniques might have been useful in heated debates. Mr Gwynne responds: ‘No. He sounds too militaristic and too Jewish. Is he in Mossad?’
In 2018, Mr Gwynne made headlines when it was revealed he was in a Facebook group called Labour Supporters in which anti-Semitic messages were shared. At the time he responded: ‘I was added to this Facebook group without my knowledge or permission. I DO NOT support the posts and I ABHOR anti-Semitism. It has absolutely NO place in the Labour Party or in society. End of.’
But months later, he was taking part in anti-Semitic banter in the WhatsApp group, including taking an apparently mocking tone to those who thought it inappropriate. ‘Geoffrey the Giraffe says don’t be nasty to the Jews,’ he posted. It’s not clear who he was referring to, but Geoffrey was the logo of the Toys R Us stores.
Alex Hearn, co-director of Labour Against Anti-Semitism, said asking if a person with a Jewish name is an agent of the Israeli spy agency Mossad feeds to an enduring anti-Semitism trope.
The Prime Minister stripped Mr Gwynne of his job as Health Minister and suspended his membership of the Labour Party when he was told about the content of the messages today
He said: ‘This so-called ‘banter’ about Jews was unnecessary and unpleasant. Themes of disloyal infiltrators crosses the line into classic anti-Jewish racism, and should not be acceptable discourse among Labour officials, activists or anywhere in our society.’
Mr Gwynne also made race-based jokes on Trigger Me Timbers while talking about veteran black Labour MP Diane Abbott, when she stood in for Jeremy Corbyn at Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons in October 2019.
In the historic move, she became the first black parliamentarian to represent their party at the weekly clash. When one member asks if this pioneering moment for black Britons was a ‘joke’, Mr Gwynne told the group it was ‘because it’s Black History Month apparently’.
A councillor then suggests other black Labour MPs, living and dead, asking: ‘Was David Lammy not available? I’d also take the corpse of Bernie Grant [the black Labour MP who died in 2000].’
Mr Gwynne adds: ‘Or Desmond Swayne? Justin Trudeau??’
At the time, both Tory MP Swayne and the Canadian prime minister were engulfed in racism rows after photos of them in offensive ‘blackface’ caricatures had emerged in two separate incidents.
Bishop Desmond Jaddoo, a prominent black campaigner, said: ‘It’s amazing when a black person rises to prominence, they have to put up with these outrageous comments. They have racial connotations that have no place in our society. If a Minister has these kinds of views, then they should take stock.’
The Gorton and Denton MP said he hopes a 72-year-old woman will soon be dead after she dared to ask about her bins
Angela Rayner was also mocked by the group, particularly by Mr Gwynne. In March 2021, when the deputy Labour leader faced criticism for claiming £249 Apple wireless headphones on expenses, Mr Gwynne reposted a tweet from the parody account Tammy Pax MP. It read: ‘I don’t see what the problem is. It’s literally impossible to give a b*** *** while wearing wired headphones. Anyone with a similar background to Angela would understand this.’
Another outrageous exchange came after a councillor mentions a constituent called ‘Nick’ who asked for more cycle lanes. Mr Gwynne replies: ‘I had positive visions of him getting mown down by an Elsa Waste HGV while he’s cycling to the Fallowfield Loop [cycle lane]. We couldn’t be that lucky!’ The MP also mocked a senior party figure in Tameside called Colin Bailey, 61, the vice-chair of Labour’s Audenshaw branch.
In January 2019, appearing to reference a local party victory, Mr Gwynne asked: ‘How did Colin C*mface take it?’ He added later: ‘Can we post the Colin C*mface Tory supporting tweets now?’
A shocked Mr Bailey – who has campaigned for Mr Gwynne in the past – told the MoS yesterday: ‘I am angry about this, if this is directed at me. Andrew never said anything like this before.’
Nigel Huddleston MP, co-chairman of the Conservative Party, said: ‘These comments are sickening. It is shameful that a Labour Minister thinks it is appropriate to wish for the death of one of his own constituents – especially as his government has cruelly taken away Winter Fuel Payments and left vulnerable pensioners to freeze, and just goes to show how out of touch Labour are.’
And David Sedgwick, the councillor who posted a photo of the letter from the pensioner about the bins, said Mr Gwynne’s comments ‘are totally not acceptable’.
Mr Gwynne has been in politics since 1996, when he was elected as England’s youngest councillor at the age of 21. He became an MP in 2005, and after last year’s General Election was appointed Minister for Public Health.
Labour last night confirmed Mr Gwynne had been ‘administratively suspended’ from the party while the messages were investigated. They added: ‘Swift action will be taken if individuals are found to have breached the high standards expected of party members.’
