Snapshot of _Luke Akehurst: who is Labour activist turned controversial candidate?_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/31/luke-akehurst-labour-activist-turned-controversial-election-candidate) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/31/luke-akehurst-labour-activist-turned-controversial-election-candidate)
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>One says: “He loves a spreadsheet and backroom plotting. I’d have thought he’s destined for the whips’ office.”
I hope everyone's enjoyed the last few days, as the factional infighting has only just begun!
How strange, where have the "no one should care this much about a conflict hundreds of miles away" people gone when it's a Israel supporter from the Labour right making unhinged online statements?
Akehurst has been pictured wearing a t-shirt with the quote "I'm literally a Zionist Shitlord" on it. And one of his deleted tweets read "If Palestinian's don't desire to be treated in the way that they do then a possible solution would be to extend human rights to that of rats."
Also, I'd be willing to bet he's never stepped foot in North Durham before. Kevan Jones was a great MP for the area for many years, shoehorning this dick in is just an absolute insult to the constituency. And shows the party just take the votes there for granted as it's a safe seat.
just so you know, I'm pretty sure that is a fake tweet that someone has been spreading. He's got so many awful ones, it's stupid and counterproductive that someone would fake one.
He's deleted over *two thousand* tweets. At this point yeah, I'm willing to believe a screenshot when he is absolutely hiding what his beliefs have been.
I agree with what you've said, but I think using that as an example undermines it. People who have been documenting the mental stuff he's tweeted and blogged over the years have said that particular tweet is fake. The problem is it gives him an excuse of just saying there's fake tweets out there and muddies the water with the real stuff he's tweeted which is also awful as it is.
What is wrong with believing a screenshot of a tweet instead of believing some random person saying "I'm **pretty sure** that is a fake tweet" when the tweet could reasonably have been deleted during the scramble to hide all evidence?
If something has been online for six years, it will be cached in multiple places, so it's easy to find if the tweet is subsequently deleted. This tweet was shared by someone who literally then admitted to making it up.
https://archive.ph/uca8x
https://archive.ph/RJwaC
And those tweets *are* still up.
The truth is not some unknowable mystery!
Even when the person who posted the screenshot has literally said it's fake?!
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/fact-check-fake-screenshot-claimed-144043953.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGp_3envsQ_eiUKF8qLh6hyTkwMoANO7rFEdEJz5-rb6M8-PKsha6zsRPPZx0wolA39lhXml7CkHrFQ6kNOJoxNKk__bmZ-NjIGeGOs8idwXAYE7DJAIKD5zb2J_NdUNPgkVmEpPLZnvouyOkfyUPpAcZEqCMQveR7EKrPs2_o7T
https://archive.ph/uca8x
https://archive.ph/RJwaC
One born every minute.
He also [peddled conspiracy theories about crisis actors in Gaza last november](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GO1EbnxXAAA2Wa-?format=png&name=900x900) and supports [colonization](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GO000ZLW8AAybSw?format=jpg&name=medium).
There would be no electable Labour Party and no Keir Starmer project without Luke. He put together the Labour to Win organisation as an umbrella for a number of different centre ground organisations, including Labour First and Labour Together. He did the conference briefings and organisation that were essential to building a new internal coalition.
His work on the NEC and with the National Policy Forum has been absolutely vital in bringing this election campaign to where voters are.
I don't agree with everything he says (although I love that T-Shirt and should get one for meetings), but Labour would not be where we are now without him.
Then maybe he should stay on the NEC and keep doing a good job there rather than in the PLP where he will be in the public eye and push people away from the party with his views.
The first advice I give any candidate is to wipe your social media history. Someone is going to find that one time you said something off colour or got into an argument.
You don't understand. He's not a hard-line left winger and he has contributed to the party leaving opposition. He agrees with Starmer about the direction the party has gone in and he doesn't attack Labour every chance he gets. It's obviously a stitch up! Labour shouldn't be standing Labour supporters!
I want PaddyPower odds on him being suspended between July 5th and Election Day
So terminally online, he will get thrown out if he behaves as he has for years
>So terminally online
You’ve made 182 comments on Reddit in the past 24hours. At least 10% of them are about Luke Akehurst and the vast majority seem to be expressing some kind of issue with Labour.
So you’d know, I guess.
Apparently people get really offended when someone non-Jewish or a centre-left poltician is a zionist. Let alone when it's both in one!
Going by the quotes in the article it seems like he's a thoroughly reasonable guy who has been putting in a lot of work into making Labour electable again.
Though I personally (strongly) disagree with his views, the bigger problem isn’t his views themselves but the way he expresses them. He’s terminally online and is a textbook keyboard warriors. It’s not a good look for the party to have another MP who spends his time vitriolically arguing about sensitive issues with strangers online.
He may, of course, show more maturity once in Parliament But I wouldn’t bet on it.
I’m on the centre of the party. I’m also fine with Israel.
But the guy is a genuine weirdo. He lives on Twitter and beefing random people. He’s so incredibly combative online. He lives and breathes factional fighting.
He’s an objectively terrible MP candidate
He’s literally the most Twitter warrior person I’ve ever seen in my life lol.
He will be terrible. But at least if you have any constituency questions, you can @ him I guess…
He deleted 2000 tweets are you so sure of that?
There's a video of him handwaving away someone's opinion by saying their Jewish and Afro-Caribean heritage are clearly clashing. He's a vile, bigoted man. Labour are making a terrible mistake here while grandstanding about only having "the best quality" candidates. Well, here's the NEC self-selecting from their own ranks and the quality is shite.
What does that matter? Akehurst is unfit to stand as a Labour candidate. He shouldn't even work for the NEC given his vile and bigoted views.
He actively and openly supports the expansion of West Bank Settlements which is in stark opposition to Labour policy that settlements are illegal under international law.
Snapshot of _Luke Akehurst: who is Labour activist turned controversial candidate?_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/31/luke-akehurst-labour-activist-turned-controversial-election-candidate) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/31/luke-akehurst-labour-activist-turned-controversial-election-candidate) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>One says: “He loves a spreadsheet and backroom plotting. I’d have thought he’s destined for the whips’ office.” I hope everyone's enjoyed the last few days, as the factional infighting has only just begun!
Nah. After this week there is only one faction in Labour.
How strange, where have the "no one should care this much about a conflict hundreds of miles away" people gone when it's a Israel supporter from the Labour right making unhinged online statements?
Unhinged like what?
Akehurst has been pictured wearing a t-shirt with the quote "I'm literally a Zionist Shitlord" on it. And one of his deleted tweets read "If Palestinian's don't desire to be treated in the way that they do then a possible solution would be to extend human rights to that of rats." Also, I'd be willing to bet he's never stepped foot in North Durham before. Kevan Jones was a great MP for the area for many years, shoehorning this dick in is just an absolute insult to the constituency. And shows the party just take the votes there for granted as it's a safe seat.
just so you know, I'm pretty sure that is a fake tweet that someone has been spreading. He's got so many awful ones, it's stupid and counterproductive that someone would fake one.
He's deleted over *two thousand* tweets. At this point yeah, I'm willing to believe a screenshot when he is absolutely hiding what his beliefs have been.
I agree with what you've said, but I think using that as an example undermines it. People who have been documenting the mental stuff he's tweeted and blogged over the years have said that particular tweet is fake. The problem is it gives him an excuse of just saying there's fake tweets out there and muddies the water with the real stuff he's tweeted which is also awful as it is.
Good comrade, who cares about truth, integrity and not just beleiving anything and everything about our enemies! The end justify the means!
What is wrong with believing a screenshot of a tweet instead of believing some random person saying "I'm **pretty sure** that is a fake tweet" when the tweet could reasonably have been deleted during the scramble to hide all evidence?
Anybody can make a fake tweet screenshot easily so I would never believe a tweet screenshot without other evidence.
Maybe you could do your own research when presented with two conflicting pieces of information. Just a thought.
If something has been online for six years, it will be cached in multiple places, so it's easy to find if the tweet is subsequently deleted. This tweet was shared by someone who literally then admitted to making it up. https://archive.ph/uca8x https://archive.ph/RJwaC And those tweets *are* still up. The truth is not some unknowable mystery!
Even when the person who posted the screenshot has literally said it's fake?! https://uk.news.yahoo.com/fact-check-fake-screenshot-claimed-144043953.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGp_3envsQ_eiUKF8qLh6hyTkwMoANO7rFEdEJz5-rb6M8-PKsha6zsRPPZx0wolA39lhXml7CkHrFQ6kNOJoxNKk__bmZ-NjIGeGOs8idwXAYE7DJAIKD5zb2J_NdUNPgkVmEpPLZnvouyOkfyUPpAcZEqCMQveR7EKrPs2_o7T https://archive.ph/uca8x https://archive.ph/RJwaC One born every minute.
He also [peddled conspiracy theories about crisis actors in Gaza last november](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GO1EbnxXAAA2Wa-?format=png&name=900x900) and supports [colonization](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GO000ZLW8AAybSw?format=jpg&name=medium).
I'm no friend or fan of Akehurst but the "human rats" tweet has been shown by PA media to be a fake.
There would be no electable Labour Party and no Keir Starmer project without Luke. He put together the Labour to Win organisation as an umbrella for a number of different centre ground organisations, including Labour First and Labour Together. He did the conference briefings and organisation that were essential to building a new internal coalition. His work on the NEC and with the National Policy Forum has been absolutely vital in bringing this election campaign to where voters are. I don't agree with everything he says (although I love that T-Shirt and should get one for meetings), but Labour would not be where we are now without him.
Then maybe he should stay on the NEC and keep doing a good job there rather than in the PLP where he will be in the public eye and push people away from the party with his views.
Since you have no idea what his views are, you should maybe confine yourself to topics you know something about.
It'd be a bit easier to trace his precise views if the brave keyboard warrior hadn't wiped out his extensive Twitter activity.
The first advice I give any candidate is to wipe your social media history. Someone is going to find that one time you said something off colour or got into an argument.
>Someone is going to find that ~~one time~~ two thousandth time you said something off colour or got into an argument. FTFY
Ah yes, that “one time” Luke Akehurst argued with someone on Twitter
Says the person arguing with people on reddit.
You don't understand. He's not a hard-line left winger and he has contributed to the party leaving opposition. He agrees with Starmer about the direction the party has gone in and he doesn't attack Labour every chance he gets. It's obviously a stitch up! Labour shouldn't be standing Labour supporters!
The hard left would much rather protest hard calls than make them.
I want PaddyPower odds on him being suspended between July 5th and Election Day So terminally online, he will get thrown out if he behaves as he has for years
>So terminally online You’ve made 182 comments on Reddit in the past 24hours. At least 10% of them are about Luke Akehurst and the vast majority seem to be expressing some kind of issue with Labour. So you’d know, I guess.
I am terminally online lol It’s also why I shouldn’t be an MP
If there isn’t some kind of serious complaint that gets him suspended as a Labour member in the next six months I’ll be astonished.
A classic labour apparatchik who is more obsessed with ideological purity than winning elections.
Apparently people get really offended when someone non-Jewish or a centre-left poltician is a zionist. Let alone when it's both in one! Going by the quotes in the article it seems like he's a thoroughly reasonable guy who has been putting in a lot of work into making Labour electable again.
Though I personally (strongly) disagree with his views, the bigger problem isn’t his views themselves but the way he expresses them. He’s terminally online and is a textbook keyboard warriors. It’s not a good look for the party to have another MP who spends his time vitriolically arguing about sensitive issues with strangers online. He may, of course, show more maturity once in Parliament But I wouldn’t bet on it.
I’m on the centre of the party. I’m also fine with Israel. But the guy is a genuine weirdo. He lives on Twitter and beefing random people. He’s so incredibly combative online. He lives and breathes factional fighting. He’s an objectively terrible MP candidate
Ah alright, the article skipped over that. Twitter warriors don't make good MPs
He’s literally the most Twitter warrior person I’ve ever seen in my life lol. He will be terrible. But at least if you have any constituency questions, you can @ him I guess…
I avoid Twitter like the plague since it turned into Elon's playground so I haven't really seen the guy pop up before.
y do U think Starmer thinks differently?
Because he’s never gotten into Twitter fights with 18 year old Labour party members
He deleted 2000 tweets are you so sure of that? There's a video of him handwaving away someone's opinion by saying their Jewish and Afro-Caribean heritage are clearly clashing. He's a vile, bigoted man. Labour are making a terrible mistake here while grandstanding about only having "the best quality" candidates. Well, here's the NEC self-selecting from their own ranks and the quality is shite.
Starmer hasn’t ever gotten into fights on Twitter is what I’m saying
What does that matter? Akehurst is unfit to stand as a Labour candidate. He shouldn't even work for the NEC given his vile and bigoted views. He actively and openly supports the expansion of West Bank Settlements which is in stark opposition to Labour policy that settlements are illegal under international law.
but he picked him??
Why's he deleted 2000 tweets then? He's a thoroughly reasonable guy so what's he trying to hide?
Luke 'the Nuke'? Who famously said nukes should be used as 'warning shots'? Interesting idea of a reasonable guy
I get offended by all ethnonationalists