Deputy leader candidate’s Ash Wednesday message attacks lack of ‘confession’ of responsibility by candidates who helped bring about hard right government
Deputy leadership candidate Richard Burgon – by far the outstanding candidate in that contest – delivered a blistering and humorous rebuke to ‘chicken coup’ MPs last night when he spoke at a rally in London.
Speaking on Ash Wednesday, the traditional festival of contrition and reflection that marks the beginning of Lent, Burgon was clearly aiming at centrist Labour MPs when he told his audience that he believes in forgiveness because he went to Catholic school – but that to be forgiven you’re supposed to confess your sins first.
Right-wing so-called ‘moderates’ and their media friends have instead attempted to rewrite history and apportion blame everywhere else but on their own heads, in spite of their ceaseless attempts to resist and end the party’s left-wing leadership and to insult and demonise the left majority among Labour’s members.
Burgon went on to describe his memories of the notorious ‘chicken coup’, in which right-wing MPs resigned hourly in an attempt to force Corbyn out of the leadership to which he had been overwhelmingly elected.
And he put the blame squarely on the shoulders of those MPs for the hard-right government under which the country’s millions of vulnerable people are now suffering:
Burgon is standing for Labour’s deputy leadership, but his message was also a powerful and relevant one for the party’s leadership contest.
Both Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy resigned during the chicken coup – with Starmer’s resignation letter weakly claiming he was doing so because everyone else was.
And Starmer’s responsibility for the Tory government is all the greater because he was the chief architect of the disastrous pivot to supporting a new referendum that cost Labour more than fifty parliamentary seats in December.
When challenged by Labour members and media, neither he nor Nandy have confessed their roles in preventing a Labour government – let alone shown contrition, but are asking Labour members to present them to angry voters as the new face of the party.
Those who are thinking of voting for them should reflect on that truth.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.