Public swearing fits, battles with booze and an internal investigation – it’s been a busy year for MP Neil Coyle, albeit not the one he would have expected.
Ten months on from an outburst which saw the MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark accused of racism, Coyle’s political future is on tenterhooks – subject to an investigation.
In a News exclusive, Coyle would open up about his battle with alcoholism, revealing that he was drinking twelve pints five days a week around the time of the incident.
He said that drinking “undoubtedly affected my demeanour and attitude and contributed to my own suspension from the Labour Party earlier this year”.
Coyle first made headlines with a sweary outburst in February, in Parliament’s Strangers’ Bar, which had only just reopened after the pandemic.
He was accused of a potty-mouthed rant, reportedly shouting “f**k you” at a Labour aide and telling a Tory backbencher to “f**ck off and lose some weight” when he intervened.
A hard-line remainer, Coyle was allegedly enraged by the aide’s suggestion that Labour shouldn’t have backed a second referendum, reportedly saying: “Are you f**king insane?”
He was suspended from all bars in the House of Commons and Lords but, only the next day, was digging himself a deeper hole.
A month earlier, it had been revealed that Labour MP Barry Gardiner had received £500,000 from a Chinese agent engaged in “political interference activities”.
Referring to the revelations just a day after the Stangers’ Bar incident, Coyle joked that Gardiner had received money from Fu Manchu – a fictional Chinese supervillain.
When Business Insider journalist Henry Dyer told Neil Coyle he was British-Chinese, Coyle reportedly said he could tell “from how you look like you’ve been giving Remnibi to Barry Gardiner”.
Neil Coyle was quickly suspended from the Labour Party pending an ongoing investigation.
Coyle soon apologised for his “insensitive behaviour”, said that his brother was married to a Chinese woman, and that he was proud to represent a “vibrant and diverse” constituency.
The MP has since explained that drinking contributed to his behaviour although admitted that alcohol “in no way excuses bad behaviour”.
He said: “I was routinely drinking a dozen or more pints an evening, five days a week. The volume meant I could not stop ‘cold turkey’ but had to reduce gradually.
“Health tests done to check for any long-term damage revealed my heart was beating so fast and irregularly I was at significant risk of a stroke.
“The truth is, if I’d continued drinking, I may not have survived and that is a very scary thought with a six-year-old daughter.”
In October, Coyle said the investigation into him would conclude in November but, now in January, he is still awaiting their decision.
Nowadays, Coyle is teetotal but still supports the Bermondsey beer mile and Southwark’s hospitality sector.
“Given our local community, alcohol will always feature somewhere in my work, just not in my system,” he said.
READ MORE – REVIEWS OF THE YEAR 2022 – below:
-
The Weirdest News Stories
-
Killings in 2022
-
The Most Shocking Stories
-
The Funniest Headlines
-
How we covered Her Majesty’s passing
-
We look back at the people taken from us in 2022
-
How locals responded to the cost-of-living crisis
-
How we stood with Ukraine
-
Labour tightened its hold in the local elections
-
Southwark Soapbox hit the screen
-
Squabbles over MP Harriet Harman’s succession
-
Mass strike action
-
Winning the war against the bus cuts
-
Primary schools faced closure and the battle to stay afloat continues