Tag: Scottish Labour Party

Jeremy Corbyn has downplayed the Brexit crisis by claiming that poverty and climate change are far greater priorities for Labour and the country. Addressing Scottish Labour’s annual conference, Corbyn said his party was not “obsessed by constitutional questions, like the others are. And fundamentally, the destruction of our climate is a class issue,” he said. “We believe that the real divide in our society is not between people who voted yes or no for [Scottish] independence. It’s not between people who voted to remain or to leave the EU,” he told party members in Dundee. [There] is no such thing as a Labour Brexit or a jobs-first Brexit”. The Scottish party has been beset by bitter rows over Europe after a conference statement by its two MEPs, David Martin and Catherine Stihler, was allegedly edited to remove remarks in support of a people’s vote. Corbyn said Labour would commit his party to a target of reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, a goal many climate experts and campaigners say is not fast or ambitious enough to halt runaway climate change. It’s not just an ecological priority – it’s a socialist priority too.” Corbyn also addressed the antisemitism problems engulfing Labour, saying he was “utterly determined” to rid the party of the scourge. “The only thing that can hold us back is if we were to turn our fire on each other rather than on the Tory government and the wealthy establishment interests they represent,” he told delegates.

Scotland’s transport minister, Humza Yousaf, has demanded that a councillor who made an Islamophobic comment about him be expelled from the Scottish Labour party. “I am angrier than I’ve ever been about abuse of this nature, and I’ve not been able to shake it off. It was the brazen nature of the remarks, which were made in front of my officials and members of the public.” He also warned that diversity training, which Dempster has asked to attend, “shouldn’t be seen as a punishment”. A senior Transport Scotland official who attended Tuesday’s meeting reported that Dempster had been stating his opinion that Yousaf was not concerned about road transport issues in the local area. Dempster was told the minister had attended the south-west transport conference and had met residents in the village of Springholm, to which he replied: “He may have been at Springholm but no one would have seen him under his burqa.” Yousaf was supported by the former Scottish Labour leadership candidate Anas Sarwar, who launched a cross-party group on tackling racism and Islamophobia last month. Sarwar described the comment as “crass, stupid, offensive and unacceptable”, adding that it was right to challenge it “no matter who or where it is from”. This comment was crass, stupid, offensive & unacceptable. Our society & institutions are not immune to it. Lots of work to do. Last month, one of the party’s Westminster MPs, Hugh Gaffney, apologised after making “deeply offensive and unacceptable” remarks about the LGBT community and Chinese people at a Burns supper in Edinburgh.