Anti-war heckler voted to NEC
A pensioner thrown out of the Labour conference last year for heckling Jack Straw has been elected to the party’s governing committee.
Walter Wolfgang, an 83-year-old from south London, has been voted to sit alongside Tony Blair and Gordon Brown on the National Executive Committee (NEC) for the next two years.
The pensioner became famous after being manhandled out of the Labour conference in Brighton last September for shouting “nonsense” at Mr Straw, then foreign secretary, as he defended the war in Iraq.
Labour chairman Ian McCartney later apologised to Mr Wolfgang, who was prevented from returning to the hall that day under anti-terrorism powers.
However, the incident caused a media storm, and today’s announcement that he is a new constituency member for the NEC is unlikely to be welcomed by the Labour leadership.
There were reports of a dirty-tricks campaign against Mr Wolfgang, with the Independent quoting a number of his supporters claiming that party officials were lobbying to get candidates elected who were more acceptable to Labour HQ.
Mr Wolfgang, a veteran peace campaigner, told the BBC that his election was partly a reaction to the “control freakery” of the party, shown by his eviction.
He said he believed the NEC had to make its voice heard more strongly – although the committee is supposed to oversee the overall direction of Labour policy, key decisions are increasingly being taken by the leadership.
“If this Lebanon war is still going on in October – and there needs to be a ceasefire before that – we need to do something about that and stop the fighting,” he said, looking ahead to this year’s Labour conference in Manchester.
“The second thing is we have to get our troops out of Iraq. We have to get the Americans out too but getting our troops out will encourage that.
“I am also very much opposed to Britain having nuclear weapons and want to get discussion going on that.”
Other NEC members elected today to represent Labour constituencies were Ann Black, Ellie Reeves, Christine Shawcroft, Peter Wheeler and Peter Willsman. Jeremy Beecham and Sally Powell have been elected as members representing local government.
