Political Aspirations
It was reported in the Liverpool Daily Post in May 2007 that Hatton had recently rejoined the Labour Party and intended to seek selection as a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate in the North West. Hatton also said that his ambition is to be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and that he would run for the office in the summer in the unlikely event of his being able to enter Parliament via a By-election. Hatton made clear that he is no longer a Trotskyist, but maintains that he remains firmly on the Left of the Party, expressing his belief that Labour has to abandon New Labour ideology (or "neo-Tory", as Hatton puts it) and return to its traditional values.
He appears to contradict this view when in an October 2008 interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Hatton reveals that he has become a capitalist running a property company in Cyprus and drives a £60,000 Range Rover. He justifies his change in attitude as "My days in politics were a very long time ago and I lost interest in it after I was expelled from the city council."
Hatton gave another interview to the Liverpool Daily Post in December 2008 in which he stated that his previous claim to the paper that he wanted to be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party was a joke referencing his time holding this position - and the de facto leadership - in Liverpool City Council. However Hatton also said that his other statements had been meant seriously and that he would seek selection as a Parliamentary Labour candidate for one of the Liverpool constituencies (or failing that, another North West constituency) at some point in the future and that he has had a strong ambition to be a Liverpool MP for several years. Hatton stated that he may challenge "one of the neo-Tory types currently representing Liverpool, like Maria Eagle maybe".
Read more about this topic: Derek Hatton
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