Starmer was speaking at a press conference on the second day of the G20 summit. The FT‘s George Parker asked if he would condemn the arrests of 47 pro-democracy campaigners in Hong Kong today “in the strongest possible terms” or if he will “now have to bite your tongue as you’ve tried to forge this closer economic partnership with China.” Starmer chose option two…
“Well we want that close economic partnership and we know China is the second biggest economy in the world, and therefore I see that as an area where we can cooperate. But I do also think it’s right that where we have differences and a frank discussion about them as we did yesterday in relation to Hong Kong so I do think both of those things need to happen.”
The weakest possible terms, and not even a condemnation there…
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was asked if Burnham will take Britain back into the EU:
“Yes, sure – his commitment is authentic. He really does understand from the grassroots up why restoring what I think of as normality in our continent is vital for every party economically, politically, culturally, in terms of security, and he’s able to articulate it in language that people can understand. So yeah, he is definitely”.