Expelled Labour MP to fight on

Labour Party: Scots left-winger vows to fight verdict while Tom Sawyer tells of the struggle to defeat the militants

THE SCOTTISH MP Tommy Graham was expelled from the Labour Party last night in a move to demonstrate Tony Blair's determination to stamp out the image of sleaze and cronyism dogging the party north of the border.

After a two-day hearing, a panel of Labour's National Constitutional Committee took just five minutes to find the Renfrewshire West MP guilty of five charges of misconduct, including offering sexually compromising pictures of a trade union official in exchange for information on a party rival.

Mr Graham emerged from the party office in Glasgow "shocked" but defiant, saying he would not resign his House of Commons seat and would try to get the decision overturned in the civil court.

"This is not justice. This is an absolute sham of justice," Mr Graham said. "I believe no matter what I had said, at the end of the day I was going to be expelled. There was too much for them to lose."

Mr Graham railed against party figures who, he said, would be "drinking champagne and smoking cigars" over his expulsion.

Though the bulky spectre of Mr Graham is likely to haunt Labour for months to come the verdict and sentence of the party's quasi-court will boost Labour's efforts to regain public support in the run-up to next May's election to the Scottish Parliament.

Labour's popularity has been severely dented by a series of public relations disasters ranging from financially inept councils to faction fighting and allegations of cronyism.

Donald Dewar, Secretary of State for Scotland, said: "This decision shows that the Scottish Labour Party can and will act decisively to defend standards of Scottish public life. It has inevitably been a difficult and unhappy business and everyone in the party will be relieved to see it resolved."

Mr Graham was suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party last August after the suicide of Gordon McMaster, MP for Paisley South.

A suicide note left by the MP lent weight to the charge that Mr Graham was behind a smear campaign that Mr McMaster was homosexual. However, internal inquiries cleared Mr Graham of contributing to the causes of the suicide.

An air of paranoid secrecy has surrounded the investigation of Mr Graham and his trial. Party officials have refused to give any details of the charges the MP faced.

The party is anxious to avoid a repeat of the humiliation it suffered when Pat Lally, the Lord Provost of Glasgow, took legal action to force the party into an embarrassing retreat over his suspension.

Mr Graham's lawyer, Ian Robertson, said he would seek a judicial review of the NCC decision. He confirmed the charges related to the pictures Mr Graham was said to have offered, constituency membership irregularities, "bad mouthing" Irene Adams, MP for Paisley North, and the catch-all offence of sustained conduct prejudicial to the party. "No photographs were ever produced," Mr Robertson said.

Mr Graham, 54, has anything but a New Labour profile. A 20-stone, salty- tongued former tool fitter, his response on leaving the hearing after the first day's nine-hour session was typical: "I'm just going down the road to get a nice wee whisky and soda water and then going home and kiss my darling wife."

His wife Joan was a witness in her husband's defence - outnumbered by the two MPs and senior party executives who had spoken against him.

Mr Graham was born in Govan, Glasgow, the son of a shipyard worker and a factory hand, and though his Renfrewshire seat has a rural ring it is really an extension of industrial Clydeside.

A Strathclyde councillor turned MP in 1987, Mr Graham has a reputation as a street fighter but the allegations that emerged after Mr McMaster's death suggested he could fight dirty.

Mr Graham was incensed when boundary changes transferred his own power base of Linwood to Mrs Adams's constituency. And his home and even his constituency office are still in Linwood.

Mr Graham intends to take a holiday at his cottage "Sunny Govan" on the northwest coast of Scotland to recover from what he describes as "14 months of hell".

He said he would also be sitting down with his lawyers to consider action against tabloid and Sunday newspapers over some of the lurid stories about him. Peter Carter-Ruck, the leading libel lawyer, is reported to be advising the MP.