Little says a restaurant opening is an event for right wingers only

NewstalkZB reports:

Wellington Mayoral candidate Nick Leggett appears to be public enemy number one for the Labour Party as its MPs are forbidden from associating with him.

Labour Leader Andrew Little has pulled rank, preventing MP Stuart Nash from speaking at an event where Mr Leggett was also speaking.

Mr Little said the event was for right-wingers who have routinely sought to undermine the Labour Party and it’s not right for a Labour MP to share a platform with people who do that.

So what was this event? Phil Quin explains on FB:

A mate of Nick Leggett and mine, Shane Philiips, is launching a beaut new restaurant in Auckland called White Rabbit on the Park. Shane and I have been Labour comrades and good mates for three decades, and he loves politics and elections every bit as much as NIck and me.

Shane kindly asked me along to address his inaugural Kai & Korero at the White Rabbit last Wednesday, where interested patrons can come along and chin-wag about politics; the US election on this occasion. It was en route from Saigon to Wellington, so it worked in beautifully.

So it was two old mates supporting the restaurant opening of another mate. And this is so terrible that Andrew Little bans Stuart Nash from attending. How incredibly petty.

As it happens David Shearer was there also. Will Shearer be disciplined for attending a restaurant opening and a talk on US politics?

And he’s making it clear he considers Nick Leggett, a former Labour Party member, a right-winger.

Just being more centrist that the current Labour leadership doesn’t make you a right winger. But no once more Labour seems to treat a difference of opinion as akin to heresy.