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A war of words has broken out amongst the two biggest parties on the left of British politics. Representatives of Labour and the Greens exchanged barbs on Sunday, following Alastair Campbell’s appearance on Sky News.
The former Labour supremo defending members of his party for failing to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Palestine conflict. In the end, only 125 elected MPs backed the motion in Parliament, after Keir Starmer instructed his colleagues not to show their support.
However, a number of shadow ministers have since been removed from their positions after defying the Labour leader. In response, the Green Party published a list of all Labour MPs who voted against the ceasefire – and it has angered Mr. Campbell.
He branded the Greens ‘strange’ for sharing the list, and accused them of ‘nasty behaviour’. He also reminded the organisation of the rhetoric which resulted in the deaths of serving MPs Jo Cox and David Amess.
“I think there’s something very strange about this. We all want violence to stop. But the Green Party, listing Labour MPs who voted against the ceasefire, there’s a nastiness to it all. People have short memories, two MPs have been killed in this country.” | Alastair Campbell
Zack Polanski is the Deputy Leader of the Green Party. He has wholeheartedly rejected this characterisation as ‘disgusting’, claiming that Labour are now ‘running-scared’ of their left-wing opponents. Polanski went on to condemn the official opposition further:
“The Labour Party are so worried about the Green Party. ‘This behaviour’ is highlighting the fact that majority of their MPs supported the Government and didn’t vote to support a call for ceasefire. Information already publicly available & part of our democracy.”
“Intimidation of politicians is never acceptable. But what Labour are doing is trying to conflate pointing out their voting record with murder. It’s disgusting. All it does is just keep people talking about what an utter shameful party Labour has become.” | Zack Polanski
