Latest from campaign trail sees leader of the opposition head to Scotland, after his visit to WalesLabour’s leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, has been asked for his opinion on the row over Diane Abbott’s selection during an interview this morning with the BBC to promote Labour’s new energy plans. He did also get a chance to talk about those, I’ll come to that in a minute.He said:It’s not for me to decide who our candidates are in England. I wouldn’t take kindly to anyone trying to tell me who our candidates should be in Scotland, so I’m not going to do it the other way around. It’s for the NEC to decide.What I’m very clear about is that Diane has a proud history in the Labour party. She has been a great servant of our party, our country and the community that she serves.Look, I don’t accept that, because I look at the diverse candidates we have here in Scotland, from every wing of our Labour party, fighting for change across the country. And I recognise people from across the political spectrum standing as candidates.Our party is unified on the purpose of getting rid of this rotten Tory government who’ve done so much damage to Scotland and the UK over the last 14 years. And we’re unified and delivering the change our country needs.I’m sure there’s lots of conversations going on. They will be going on in as sensitive a way as possible. Diane was a trailblazer. We have a lot of respect for that. This election, though is about the future. And the NEC will be making sure that our party is fit for the future. And I think all these things will be discussed. They will come to a decision in the coming days.These are real issues about standards, and I’m not going to apologise for the fact that Keir Starmer, when he became leader of the Labour party, raised the standards by which sitting MPs, candidates, anybody that represents the Labour party and speaks on his behalf, are held.That is why just today another Tory MP endorsed the Labour party That is because of the standards that we’re holding ourselves to and we are holding ourselves to extremely high standards.It looks utterly shambolic to me, in ways that are probably predictable, in the sense that you need a system of regulation which is transparent, as swift as it can be, and consistent in outcome.And when you have situations where the various factions are able to point to unequal treatment, or lack of consistency, it allows them to argue that this is a system which is factional. Continue reading…
Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/may/31/uk-general-election-2024-conservatives-labour-tories-rishi-sunak-keir-starmer-diane-abbott
Author : Martin Belam
Publish date : 2024-05-31 08:01:53
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Keir Starmer to unveil Labour’s energy plans during Scotland trip – UK general election live
