Question time cuppa with Keir
HYNDBURN Labour supporters were among members of the Lancashire public to receive an invite for a ‘cuppa’ with the Leader of the Opposition at an online question and answer session.
Sir Keir Starmer spent an hour answering public questions at the event dubbed ‘Call Keir - Lancashire’, telling questioners to just call him Keir.
Starmer, who took over the leadership of the party from Jeremy Corbyn in April following last December’s miserable general election defeat, was keen to seek out how the new-look party was viewed.
He was quizzed on subjects including the need for more black teachers and awareness of black history in school education, physical education in primary schools, and child poverty.
A core theme was, perhaps unsurprisingly, winning back trust from Leave voters in previous heartland seats which turned in their droves to Boris Johnson’s Conservatives at the election.
Tony Grogan, a new Oswaldtwistle Labour member, asked his party leader: “My dad is a voter who has moved between Conservative and Labour. He was adamant at the last election he was not willing to vote Labour. He says ‘they don’t connect with us, they’ve forgotten about us now’. How do you show that you connect with constituencies such as Hyndburn &
Haslingden and convince that voter to come back to Labour?”
Sir Keir, who was Labour’s Brexit spokesman under Mr Corbyn, replied that there was no substitute for going out to different towns and villages and talking to people there.
He said: “We’ve got to do it by talking to people like your dad. It’s me that’s got to do the bridging and the hard work. I think having key people in the Shadow Cabinet who are from outside London is really important. I hope for the first time we have got a Shadow Cabinet which is not London-centric. Send our best wishes to your dad and tell him we will have a cup of tea!”
Told his party had recently been seen as “the face of an anti-democratic” movement to stop Brexit, Starmer, who referenced his Remain vote at the referendum, claimed the debate had now moved on.
He said: “We’ve left the EU. There’s no question about that anymore. Now what we have got to do is facing getting the best deal we can with the EU and support our businesses across all parts of the UK.”
But questioner John Lynch, from Chorley, warned: “It was so demoralising for people, that [just] saying ‘It’s gone’ will not be enough. You will have to address this and knock it on the head. Trust won’t come back like that.”
Kimberley Whitehead, constituency secretary for Hyndburn Labour Party, asked what the party was doing to tackle intolerance and racism in light of the death of the Black Lives Matter campaign.