I am shocked, chilled and appalled by what I’ve just seen on Panorama. Hearing the testimony of party members and former staff was harrowing. They are not “disaffected”, they have been incredibly brave. Very serious questions now have to be answered.
— Tom Watson (@tom_watson) July 10, 2019
Truly, truly awful watching @BBCPanorama tonight – to see the stress of former staff members who were trying to stand up to antisemitism but most of all to see the pain of Jewish members who our party has so badly let down
— Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) July 10, 2019
I know some of the staffers on tonight’s Panorama. They joined the Labour Party, like me and most party members, because they hate racism as much as they hate poverty. A statement accusing them of having “political axes to grind” is deeply wrong and indefensible
— Lisa Nandy (@lisanandy) July 10, 2019
Tonight’s @BBCPanorama powerful and shocking. Huge bravery shown by the young people who spoke out. This goes to the soul of what Labour stands for. And it’s not just about processes – it’s about the world view that created the permissive environment for all this.
— Pat McFadden (@patmcfaddenmp) July 10, 2019
Terrible to see vile abuse suffered by our Jewish comrades & the agonies of staff trying to kick racists out of our party, undermined at every turn by Leader’s office. #BBCPanorama
— Mary Creagh (@MaryCreaghMP) July 10, 2019
Attacking those who are brave enough to call out antisemitism is pathetic. And trying to silence anybody who challenges Corbyn’s failure to tackle Jew-hate is truly reprehensible.
If you deny Labour has a problem then you are part of the problem.— Margaret Hodge (@margarethodge) July 10, 2019
After watching @BBCPanorama tonight, it’s hard not to conclude that Labour is being destroyed before our very eyes. We have been an anti-racist, internationalist, progressive party for a century. Corbyn & his clique are destroying our heritage, our reputation & our future 1/2
— Owen Smith (@OwenSmith_MP) July 10, 2019
Well I’m saying it even if no one else will. The buck stops with Jeremy Corbyn. I said at PLP a couple of months back that if we cannot deal with internal problems like this, we cannot ask the public to put us into Downing Street.
— Anna Turley MP (@annaturley) July 11, 2019
Is this the moment when Labour MPs finally stand up and do something about it? Or do they just go back to campaigning to make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister anyway?
Labour MP and former leadership candidate Mary Creagh has been branded “painfully out of touch” after whinging about a late night at work on Twitter. She tweeted to complain that she was still waiting to speak at 10:45pm. The MP, who earns £77,379 plus expenses, was inundated by exasperated replies from hard-working nurses, police officers and others for whom waiting in the plush and warm surroundings of the Palace of Westminster to speak in a debate isn’t exactly the most pity-inducing thing in the world…
“The party of working people”…
It’s unusual to see UKIP backing a Labour candidate, especially so when that Labour candidate is an arch-Remainer who voted against triggering Article 50. UKIP are not running in Wakefield and the party’s candidate in the neighbouring seat is instead urging voters to choose Mary Creagh over the Brexit-backing Tory. UKIP’s candidate in Normanton Lewis Thompson says:
“I’m urging the people of Wakefield to vote Labour. We can’t let the Tories get a huge majority.”
Wakefield is a winnable Tory target seat: the Labour majority is 2,613. Creagh is a huge Remainer, she said in February that she could no more vote against EU membership than she could vote against her “own DNA”. The Tory candidate Antony Calvert is an avowed Brexiter and the constituency voted 66% to Leave. UKIP’s councillors in Wakefield are backing Calvert, so why is their parliamentary candidate in Normanton backing Labour?
Mary Creagh has come up with a brilliant environmental justification for staying in the EU. Apparently we have Brussels to thank for “seals and even dolphins making regular appearances down river… where once it was dangerous to swim or swallow the water, it is now safe for humans and wildlife”. Righto…
Does Creagh’s argument that “the EU played a huge part in these environmental improvements” stack up? Well, the EU’s $100 billion-a-year Emissions Trade Scheme infamously bankrolled a scam allowing Chinese and Indian firms to generate a harmful greenhouse gas called HFC-23, then claim money from European taxpayers to destroy it. The Environmental Investigation Agency called it the “biggest environmental scandal in history”. Even if EU membership means we can drink from the Thames, not sure that makes up for the millions of taxpayer cash blown on a greenhouse gas scam…
Seven minutes in which she managed to say absolutely nothing at all…
Mary Creagh’s coded attack on Ed Miliband…
‘I want the country to be united behind a single vision, we aren’t going to do it by sort of having a Rubik’s Cube approach to politics’.