In an urgent question debate in the Lords Labour has been attacked on multiple fronts for the events unfolding in Epping. The Commons has risen for recess, the Lords is still going until tomorrow…
While Home Office minister Lord Hanson complained about “misinformation being spread deliberately to to encourage disorder” Eleanor Laing – formerly MP for Epping Forest for 27 years – pointed out that Labour reopened the Bell Hotel in the area after it was closed for asylum seeker use:
“It has long been recognised that the Bell Hotel is not a good place for asylum seekers to be housed. And I’m sure the minister will recall that the Conservative Home Secretary closed the Bell Hotel in Epping in April 2024 and these asylum seekers were dispersed to other places. The minister’s colleagues reopened the hotel without any consultation with the district council which is somewhat unfortunate.”
Lord Hanson had no response to the attack. Claire Fox then took Labour to task over its focus on ‘misinformation’ driving ‘violence.’ Co-conspirators will remember that it was Essex Police who escorted pro-migrant demonstrators closer to the ongoing protest…
“Does the minister recognise the legitimate fury and frustration of local people whether in Epping about the fact that they feel their voices are not heard in relation to the concerns about hotel and their genuine fear for their children… does the minister acknowledge that some misinformation can be in calling those local people ‘far-right thugs,’ which to a certain extent is the most insulting thing you can call people who are genuinely protesting. Will the minister distance himself from that misinformation as well as the other misinformation he’s mentioned?”
The Labour minister declined to distance himself from those accusations and instead said it’s vital to “ensure that we find political solutions to some of the challenges that we have but not in any way shape and form to inflame or encourage inflammatory action against the police, the community or indeed people who are not committing crimes who happen to reside in a particular place at a particular time.” After Essex Police’s disaster press conference today Labour’s line appears increasingly tone deaf…
Lucy Powell told Sky News that the Ed Miliband-Russell Brand interview happened in part because the ‘social media age’ had not begun by 2015:
“Look, I mean, he approached the Labour Party, he approached the campaign team, and we’re in very different times now. We weren’t in the social media age at the time – where you could maybe search things up and see allegations about somebody at the time. and as I say, if there was any suggestion at all, we were dealing with someone who was a known sexual predator at the time, then, of course, you know, no one would have done that. But as I say, he was a well known public figure. Lots of people from Hollywood to the BBC to many others gave this person a very, very powerful platform. And we didn’t know at the time, unfortunately. It was a different era.”