After Emily Thornberry storms PMQs, Chuka Umunna stabs her in the back
Chuka Umunna.
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What is the matter with Chuka Umunna? Is he psychologically disposed to do the wrong thing?
Today, he has appeared in the Huffington Post, attacking Emily Thornberry over her reaction to his rebel amendment on the Queen’s Speech, about Brexit. This, after she scored a huge victory over Damian Green in Prime Minister’s Questions on July 12!
Whose side is Mr Umunna on?
I mean, isn’t it strange that the vote on his Brexit amendment was two weeks ago, and he hadn’t got around to voicing his opinions until now – when it was likely to damage his party?
He says he isn’t trying to split Labour, or reopen hostilities between right-wing and left-wing Labour MPs – but isn’t that exactly how the vote on his amendment, which was supported by 74 Labour MPs and peers, was reported?
He knew exactly what he was trying to do.
His only regret is that he has not succeeded.
But that won’t stop him trying!
This Writer has tried to avoid commenting on recent attempts to create divisions within Labour. Most of them aren’t worth the time it takes to comment, being attempts to make mountains from metaphorical molehills, but I couldn’t let this one pass.
It is time Mr Umunna realised that he is trying to start “faux battles”; he is being “silly”. He is trying to split Labour, when Labour is at its strongest in years.
He is trying to help the Conservative Party.
And that is no way for a Labour politician to behave.
If he really feels this way, he should resign as an MP and allow Streatham to have a new representative who supports the Labour Party.
Alternatively, he could just grow up.
Here’s the article:
Emily Thornberry was “disrespectful” when she accused Labour MPs who rebelled over a Brexit vote as “virtue signaling”, according to former Shadow Cabinet colleague Chuka Umunna.
Some 74 Labour MPs and peers backed amendments to the Queen’s Speech calling for the UK to stay in the Single Market and customs union – going against instructions from Jeremy Corbyn.
Three Shadow Ministers were sacked because of their votes – with another quitting – and Thornberry accused the rebels of starting “faux battles” and being “silly.”
Deputy leader Tom Watson also described the amendment as “unhelpful”.
Speaking about the matter for the first time since the vote, Umunna told HuffPost UK he was disappointed with how Thornberry in particular had treated him, and contrasted it with the support he gave her after she tweeted out a picture of the St George’s flag outside a house in Kent during a 2014 by-election campaign.
In an interview in his constituency of Streatham in South London, Umunna hit back at suggestions he was deliberately trying to split the party or reopen the war between Labour MPs and Corbyn.
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Why would you divert attention from the criminal social, economic and moral weaknesses of your opposition, when you could leave them to stew in the Brexit juices of their own creating?
“We will scrap the Conservatives’ Brexit White Paper and replace it with fresh negotiating priorities that have a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the Single Market and the Customs Union – which are essential for maintaining industries, jobs and businesses in Britain. Labour will always put jobs and the economy first.” Labour Party Manifesto, GE17
So what you are saying is Labour would ignore the democratic process, something Corbyn has says he would not do and keep us in the eu, because that is what being in the single market and the customs union means, and all those of ups who support labour and voted out find this nonsensical claim that it is only the conservatives, and that brexit is a mess the economy is bombing is the sort of revisionist claptrap that is described by Orwell in 1984.
If I understand you correctly… No. That’s not what I’m saying.
I was commenting on a vanity move that was unnecessary, given the manifesto, so therefore patently designed to further personal ambition. There are plots afoot.
On the doorstep I am constantly having to defend against accusations that the party is split. “Labour in disarray” being a constant meme. When, in real life, do people use the word disarray? This is a media meme put out to discredit Corbyn and weaken labour in the polls. So many people started with ‘I’m not voting Labour because they’re in disarray’. Many came back to us in the light of direct experience of both Corbyn and our manifesto but it was too late to avoid damage in the locals.
The PLP need to recognise that some of them are continuing to damage us electorally by parading their right wing preferences in public. They certainly cost us some excellent local councillors and control of our local authority.
Chukka Amuna, Stephen Doughty et al please stop trying to ruin our electoral chances.
Once again he’s acting like a spoiled brat – he really does need to grow up.
He’s trying to loose labour the next election to further his career, being a right wing politician, just reminds me of ids or Boris Johnson doing similar stuff to the tory party!!! Career politicians put themselves first!!!
Disrespectful! Wow. He sounds like a drug baron complaining about another drug baron ” invading his territory”!! He has been watching too many episodes of Narcos on Netflix by the sound of it.
He doesn’t need to grow up, he doesn’t need to stop attacking the Labour Party, but he does need to F”$£ off out of the Party and go and join his evil mates on the opposite benches
He obviously sees her as an obstacle to his ambitions.
Surely he could save us all a problem and defect to the Tories?
He’s NOT trying to “reopen” or rather restart, the war between £abour M.P.s and Mr. Corbyn; fir him, it seem, the war wasn’t over. He’s like a plant, a saboteur, a double-agent! Why is it that these people cannot settle internal disputes and differences internally?
It can only be up to Jeremy. He knows what he’s doing and when to do it. Now he and his team have spoken to the EU team, confidence in them will once again have reason to spread
.
Chukka outer is just another blue one in a party returning back to its roots
Why oh why can’t these right wingers accept that the Labour Party is following the wishes of it’s main membership, the people? Stop their right wing raves and move towards the left ground so that, instead of playing both right wing Labour and (Always) right wing Tory and losing everything the good people of Britain worked for well over a century to achieve, join the move towards the centre left of Labour and build up the Party to the strength it was when they created a fair and socially strong Britain. If they lose the spirit of the people then the party will die. Is that what they want to assure their wealth? then they are Tories to their core and we shall have to sack them and elect real Labour supporters into their jobs. STOP FOLOWING THE SUN! That is not what Paul McCartney and John Lennon meant!!!!
If Umunna and other Progress members insist they’re Labour they need to act like it or be removed. Progress is actively trying to nullify any semblance of left wing politics in Labour.. They’re rooted in New Labour and need to hold no influence any more. Their time was over ten years gone.