Brian Leishman won't guarantee no further rebellion after Labour suspension
He was suspended alongside Neil Duncan-Jordan, Chris Hinchcliff, and Rachael Maskell.
Their suspension was due to leading a backbench rebellion against planned welfare cuts.
Mr Leishman said he could not guarantee Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer that he would not rebel again.
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Powys County Times
11 minutes ago
- Powys County Times
Powys MP 'incredibly concerned' by Labour MPs suspension
Montgomeryshire MP Steve Witherden has said he is 'incredibly concerned' after several Labour MPs were suspended from the party. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer removed the whip from four MPs, and Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr MP Steve Witherden has now said he is 'incredibly concerned' over the issue. On July 16 it was revealed that Neil Duncan-Jordan, Brian Leishman, Chris Hinchliff and Rachael Maskell, were suspended while three other Labour MPs - Rosena Allin Khan, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Mohammed Yasin - were stripped of their trade envoy roles. The move comes after all four of the suspended MPs and the former trade envoys voted against the government's welfare reform bill earlier in July, among 47 Labour MPs who rebelled against the government's proposed cuts to welfare. Mr Witherden was also among the Labour MPs who rallied against the proposed cuts and criticised the grounds for suspending the four Labour MPs, warning they were responding to 'cuts that would have impoverished many people'. He said: "I am incredibly concerned at the treatment of many of my Labour colleagues – good friends amongst them – who have been suspended from the party or stripped of their roles as trade envoys over the past few days. "The grounds for punishment seem to be standing up for constituents, voting against cuts that would have impoverished many disabled people, and fighting for marginalised people in the communities they represent. "When I was elected a year ago, I vowed to put my constituents first and speak out when required. It now seems that doing so can be a punishable offence. These principled MPs have my full support." The four suspended MPs had also rebelled against the government in votes on other issues and pieces of legislation, including the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the Public Authorities Bill. Shortly after the MPs were suspended, Mr Witherden retweeted a post from Brian Leishman, MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, on his suspension from the party. The post contained statements from Clackmannanshire and Dunblane constituency Labour Party and Falkirk East constituency Labour Party expressing support for Mr Leishman, with Falkirk East saying he 'has the full support and backing of our members'. In the post Mr Leishman said: 'Thank you to both of my Constituency Labour Party's and the wonderful members in them. Your support and solidarity shows the very best of our movement.'
The Independent
11 minutes ago
- The Independent
Diane Abbott may not be right – but is she entirely wrong on race?
Diane Abbott has been suspended by the Labour Party… again. They have said that they're taking 'incredibly seriously' an interview she gave to James Naughtie's Reflections programme on BBC Radio 4 conducted back in May, but only aired yesterday. During the interview, the veteran Labour MP said she did not look back with regret on comments she previously made in 2023 in a letter to The Observer, in which she was seen to be downplaying the discrimination received by groups such as the Jewish, Irish and Traveller Communities, by comparing it to that experienced by Black and Brown people. She had written that what they suffer from is 'prejudice' – which although similar to racism, isn't the same – and said that people use the two words as though they are interchangeable. After the outrage, she apologised for any anguish caused by her remarks and claimed that her letter had been a 'first draft' and a mistake. She was ordered to undergo an online two hour e-training module which was apparently a two-hour antisemitism awareness course. Her comments concerning the Irish and Traveller communities were not addressed. I suspect Abbott had been rather keen to clarify the comments in the Naughtie interview and didn't anticipate this reaction from Labour HQ. She has posted the excerpt from the interview that is causing all of the controversy to her X account in which she can be heard saying: 'Clearly there must be a difference between racism which is about colour, and other types of racism because you can see a Traveller or a Jewish person walking down the street. You don't know… but if you see a Black person walking down the street, you see straightaway that they're Black. They are different types of racism.' She added: 'I just think that it's silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism.' This is a salient point. There's clearly a marked difference in how a Black person or person of colour suffers racism compared to someone who is 'white passing'. When there were riots in Southport last year, racist thugs didn't double-check the identity of the Black or Brown people they were attacking – they worked solely on the basis of skin colour. Naughtie pressed further, saying the effect is 'the same if you are, going to a synagogue on a Saturday morning and you have to have guards outside because some people might come along and want to insult you or even throw things at you'. 'That's pretty much the same as the kind of thing you describe in your book is happening to you as a Black person,' he said. 'The fact is one is a person of colour and one isn't, is neither here nor there. If you suffered it, it's still damaging.' Abbott replied: 'It is here, because you can spot that person of colour from hundreds of yards away. That is what is different.' I understand what she means – but I see why the second point she made could be construed as dismissive. The fact is, if you go to the synagogue on Shabbat and are Jewish – and have white skin – that is not going to protect you from any antisemitic attack. We've not been able to have a grown-up conversation around race in the UK for quite some time now. For me personally, I felt a significant shift around the time of the Brexit vote, Trump's first victory across the pond and Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party. This is when, instead of being able to simply speak about my own lived experiences, I was being called upon to compare them to others – forced to participate in some sort of 'oppression Olympics' which I hadn't trained or signed up for. I've always believed that intersectionality is the way to best understand what other people are going through. You can draw on some of your own experiences, look at the similarities and listen when they explain the difference in order to be able to empathise. What Abbott is trying to highlight here, however clumsily, is assimilation. I know many people from Jewish families who have Anglicised names and this was a deliberate choice, but it's important to point out not all of us can do this successfully. Despite many people from the Caribbean community (which I am from) having Anglicised names, it makes no difference to the racism we face. In some cases, it only delays the inevitable. I've heard plenty of stories of our people turning up to a job interview and witnessing the palpable disappointment of the panel when they realise 'Jason Davies' is actually a Black man. I deliberated long and hard on what to name my son, and in the end, I decided to give him an unmistakeably African name so people knew what they were getting – and there would be no surprises. My friend Iain decided to give his daughter an Anglicised name so that she could at least get her foot in the door, knowing that sometimes CVs and applications are thrown away just because you have a Black-sounding name. This is how early we start to worry about these things. But my experience is also different in other ways. I don't have to sit listening to people crack racist jokes because they don't realise I'm Black – that is obvious to them – yet my Jewish friends have had to listen to tasteless Holocaust jokes, because no one realises they're Jewish. Racism is often doled out due to perception. Gary Lineker, for example, has discussed being racially abused as a child because of his dark skin, despite being white; yet Meghan Markle has spoken about not suffering the level of racism growing up as she does now because people didn't realise she was half Black. Orthodox Jews are identifiable from the religious attire they wear in the same way that some Muslims are (those who wear thobes or hijabs.) But in dire circumstances, such as threat to life, these things can be removed. In Islam there is something called Taqiyya (annoyingly misused on social media) which allows you to conceal your faith in times of danger and persecution. Black people can't do this. If only Stephen Lawrence or Anthony Walker had been able to run around a corner and remove their skin in order to save their lives. The GRT (Gypsy, Roma and Traveller) community may able to walk down the street as individuals and blend in to mainstream society in a way that I can't, but that doesn't negate the horrendous levels of discrimination they face within the education system, the legislative changes and even just trying to have a drink or a meal. They are refused service and suffer crude racism in a way Abbott confidently asserts doesn't happen as overtly to Black people anymore. She said, 'they may think the same thoughts, but they know it's not acceptable to express them.' To my mind, Starmer has either made a serious mistake here, or the disrespect he has repeatedly shown Abbott and the wider Black community since the start of his leadership is set to continue. His failure to address the findings in the Forde Report (which was commissioned to examine the level of anti-Black racism and Islamophobia in the party) resulted in many leaving the party altogether. Some found a home elsewhere, while other MPs disengaged with politics altogether. The blind loyalty afforded to the Labour Party over the years since the overtly racist 1964 Smethick campaign where the Tories used the slogan: 'If you want a n****r for a neighbour, vote Labour' no longer exists. Now, a new generation of voters – some of whom are going to be as young as 16 – are looking at how Starmer's Labour operates a hierarchy of racism; how he gave a speech on immigration that many compared to Enoch Powell and then stood by his comments that the UK risked becoming an 'island of strangers'. Downing Street said Starmer 'completely rejected' suggestions he echoed Powell. In the words of Professor Gus John, if he didn't know what he was invoking, he is simply not fit to be prime minister. Racism manifests itself in different ways. There is nothing wrong with pointing this out. And unless we are able to have difficult conversations around the subject – which includes allowing people to make honest mistakes – we will never even come close to starting to resolve it. But maybe some people just don't want to.
The Independent
11 minutes ago
- The Independent
Britain is ‘not safe' and critically underprepared for war, warns former Nato chief
British people are 'not safe' and describing the country as underprepared for war is an 'understatement', a former Nato chief has warned parliament. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen gave a scathing assessment of the UK's readiness for war following a year examining defence policy for the government 's Strategic Defence Review, released early last month. 'Over the years, we have allowed our forces and our defences to become hollowed out,' the former Nato secretary general told the House of Lords today (18 July). 'When we say in the report that we are 'underprepared', it is an understatement. We don't have the ammunition, the training, the people, the spare parts, the logistics, and we don't have the medical capacity [for] high intensity warfare.'
