Thread by @PickardJE

so @thangammp just dodged motion criticising her for attending pro-Jewish rally after 108-84 vote in her favour in Bristol West.

Another amendment seeking to end “guilt by association” for those unwittingly consorting with anti-semites was more narrowly beaten after 2 recounts.

a lot of local organising went into that vote, chivvying dormant members, trying to prop up the beleaguered MP: fascinating insight into the low-level battles that will convulse the Labour Party for years.

I also walked past one of my favourite ever graffiti

And now @ThangamMP has stormed out of the meeting as members started heckling and calling for her deselection.

am going to stick my neck out and observe that many of the 84 were probably motivated mostly by anger at (in their view) Corbyn being maligned

but yeah they should understand the optics of appearing to protest against anti-anti-semitism

now some of my new twitter *friends* are claiming that the motion wasn’t critical of @ThangamMP

it’s true that another more personal motion wasn’t voted on.

but you don’t have to name someone to criticise them...perhaps you can spot the implicit criticism in this paragraph?

meanwhile I’d love to know which genius came up with this sentence amid an otherwise reasonable passage

and lastly, the motion advocated affiliating to Jewish Voices for Labour, the group who ran the tiny counter-protest in Parliament Square against the one the MP went to - presumably that’s not implicit criticism of her either?

as a passing note here’s the other more directly critical motion that was passed by up to 20 members of the Ashley ward a few days ago: tonight it was merely “noted” and not voted upon

and here is my full @FT article which hopefully explains both sides of the Bristol West row, why the Corbynistas perceive a smear and why @ThangamMP thinks even the watered-down motion was an implicit criticism of her attendance at the Jewish rally

ft.com/content/561864…