The fall of the occupant of one of the ‘great offices of state’ is a major political event – and a huge scalp for the opposition. The Establishment will not willingly let the plaudits for such an occurrence go to anti-Establishment figures.
Many ‘MSM’ outlets are attempting to credit Labour back-bencher Yvette Cooper for Rudd’s downfall – and certainly Ms Cooper played a part, but she was not one of the few MPs who voted against Theresa May’s 2014 measures that created the abuse of the Windrush generation. Instead, as Shadow Home Secretary she pushed for the party to abstain on the immigration bill and to take a tougher ‘line’ on immigration:
The real driving forces behind Amber Rudd’s departure this evening have been three black Labour MPs – now being conveniently ignored by the MSM – who combined the emotion of genuine indignation with a forensic dissection of Rudd’s – and her leader’s – guilt in the Windrush scandal and created a weight of evidence and outrage that the now-former Home Secretary was unable to withstand.
David Lammy
David Lammy’s performances in the Commons and in televised interviews has been powerful. With a strong personal investment in the plight of Windrush citizens, his outrage was still tempered by a measured delivery that scorched its targets – and his withering list of the things Amber Rudd claimed not to know left her nowhere to hide.
Dawn Butler
When the media estate and much of Parliament was still equivocal about – or actively covering up – the significance of the Windrush scandal in terms of the careers of its perpetrators, Dawn Butler mercilessly hunted down the lies that were being told to cover their guilt.
She also refused to soften her conclusion about the motivations behind the treatment of Windrush citizens, stating forcefully that it was driven by racism – and that an apology was in no way adequate for such a scale of wrongdoing.
When Theresa May tried during PMQs to divert blame for the scandal onto the Labour Party by lying to the House and to the nation about the decision to destroy Windrush arrival documents, Ms Butler refused to let the matter pass.
Diane Abbott
But perhaps the most significant role has been Diane Abbott’s. When even Lammy was saying just today that Rudd’s resignation was a matter for her, Ms Abbott has called frankly from the beginning for Rudd to go – and has ruthlessly and forensically dissected her attempts to avoid responsibility.
Ms Abbott was also one of only a handful of MPs – alongside Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell – to vote against May’s racist 2014 legislation.
And today she used Tory chair Brandon Lewis’ dissembling on the BBC’s Marr show to underscore both his and Amber Rudd’s fundamental dishonesty – in what was probably the final nail in the coffin of Rudd’s ministerial career.
Comment:
Many have played a part in the thoroughly-deserved downfall of a politician whose reinforcement and application of racist policies caused misery for thousands of Windrush citizens – including Yvette Cooper and with a far from insignificant role for Labour activists on social media, whose output forced the ‘MSM’ to be far more honest than they might otherwise have been.
But any interpretation by the media that does not attribute a starring role to Lammy, Butler and Abbott is as misleading as Amber Rudd’s attempts to explain away her department’s policies and targets.
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