By Andrew Young-
The mayor of Newham’s political advisor should be expelled for his offensive tweets in 2016.
Ian McKenzie, a former aide to John Prescott, is to face disciplinary action over two tweets about the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, being beheaded by Islamic State.
He was suspended for alleged misogynistic tweets made over two years ago prompted outrage, but then rowed back and suggested the tweets were simply being investigated.
He was today forced to step down over the derogatory tweets he wrote about the shadow home secretary. He is currently suspended,
The senseless tweets were shared between December 2015 and January 201. In the tweets, he stated that Islington South and Finsbury MP Emily Thornberry was “too old” to be made a sex slave by the Islamic State terrorist group, also known as ISIS or IS.
He also tweeted: “They’ll behead her and dump her in a mass grave.”
Mr Mckenzie had been running the Labour branch of Lewisham East ahead of the local by-election. He’s been suspended from this role pending investigation.
In a letter to her Labour colleagues, Ms Fiaz wrote: “In the last 24 hours there has been a lot of commentary on social media about Ian Mckenzie – who the council commissioned to provide external policy support for me on an external basis.
“In light of today’s developments, Ian has decided to step down from his role. I have accepted his decision as being the right one in this instance. I want to take this opportunity to thank Ian for the support and advice he has provided to me.”
Mr Mckenzie discovered he was suspended from the Labour Party this morning by email, although he claimed journalists had already been briefed.
In a later statement to the Huffington Post, Mr Mckenzie defended his tweets, saying they were taken out of context. He said: “I sought to show the absurdity of negotiating with these murderous misogynistic barbarians [ISIS]. I wasn’t advocating sex slavery, but condemning it.
“I hope that this unfortunate conflagration can be swiftly ended and that I may be able to go back to doing what I do best: asking people to vote Labour.”
Mckenzie manner of showing the absurdity of negotiating with misogynistic barbarians was incredulously stupid. Going into graphic detail about what terrorists have not done, but are capable of doing, exposes his ignorance and foolishness. Considering his post as an advisor, it now seems that he himself needs plenty of advice on how to conduct himself on a public platform
A Labour Party spokesman said: “The Labour Party takes all complaints of abuse and discrimination extremely seriously. Any complaints are fully investigated and any appropriate disciplinary action taken in line with our rules and procedures.”