Latest updates from Brighton as former party leader says Andy McDonald’s resignation from the shadow cabinet was not a Machiavellian plot
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The conference is debating various composites this morning, including one on LGBTQ+ rights, and it was moved by a delegate who said she was herself the victim of transphobic abuse in the hall at the weekend
Patricia Hannah-Wood, from Pendle CLP, said that on Sunday evening, shortly after a debate that covered antisemitism, homophobia and other forms of discrimination, she was abused.
On Sunday evening, straight after this motion was debated, I was in the loo downstairs with a few of my colleagues from the north-west when I was transphobically abused, in this conference centre, by one of our sisters. It should not happen.
The LGBT community is one of the few that comes under constant attack, alongside our black, and BAME colleagues. We are under constant attack every single day, and it comes from all walks of life, within our families, without our families, within our workplace, here, as I’ve just said, within our own conference. This is not acceptable.
At the fringe meeting he attended this morning Jeremy Corbyn said he spoke to Andy McDonald yesterday before McDonald announced his surprise resignation from the shadow cabinet. But he denied being involved in an anti-Starmer plot. He told the meeting:
We had a series of private conversations as very close friends. They were private conversations. I was there to give Andy support in whatever decision he decided to make.
Andy worked very closely with us in the shadow cabinet and he took what was for him a personal and very difficult and very principled decision.
If this had been some sort of Machiavellian plot, then why do you think Andy would’ve gone back to London? He was actually going to be speaking here about fire and rehire, which he’s absolutely passionate about.
He knew that he could get an audience from himself and do that, if that had been something he had wanted to cause disruption by rather than simply a personal decision … then he would’ve been here, he would’ve been grandstanding.
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