McDonnell gave speech during ‘Rage’ group demo
JohN McDonnell attended a protest by the Marxist group organising the ‘Day of Rage’ that they hope will bring London to a standstill.
The Shadow Chancellor said yesterday he ‘ repudiated’ the march, organised by the Movement For Justice By Any Means Necessary (MFJ).
But the Mail can reveal he spoke at an event organised by the very same far-Left group in 2014.
Today the MFJ will hold a march from Shepherd’s Bush to Parliament Square. It hopes the event will help to ‘bring down the Government’ and ‘shut down London’.
Earlier this week the two churches helping victims of the Grenfell fire issued a joint statement accusing the MFJ of ‘hijacking’ the tragedy for their own political ends.
Mr McDonnell confirmed yesterday that he would not attend today’s rally – even claiming at first not to know who had organised it.
But in June 2014, when he was a backbencher, he attended a protest organised by the group outside a detention centre in west London. The Shadow Chancellor was pictured holding one of the group’s placards, which read: ‘Money for jobs and education, not for racist deportations’.
Last week he also urged union militants to put a million protesters ‘on the streets’ in an attempt to oust Theresa May. Mr McDonnell called on Left-wing activists to turn a unionorganised march on Parliament next month into a mass protest.
Yesterday the Tories accused Labour of seeking to overthrow the election result. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said Mr McDonnell’s rhetoric was ‘unacceptable’.
‘We were by far the largest party,’ he said. ‘The Labour Party is strutting around as if it won the general election. ‘We had the Shadow Chancellor calling people on to the streets to try and overthrow the result of democratic election – which is an extraordinary place to be. It’s absolutely unacceptable in a democratic society.’
Today’s ‘Day of Rage’ was originally organised to respond merely to the Queen’s Speech, but was extended to harness anger caused by the Grenfell fire, which killed at least 79.
The MFJ claimed victims of the blaze had been ‘murdered by this rotten capitalist system, which puts profit before people’. The group called on activists to play truant from school, call in sick from work or strike to ‘bring down the Government’.
A spokesman for Mr McDonnell defended his appearance at the 2014 rally. ‘This was a peaceful demonstration attended by faith leaders,’ he said. ‘John has already said that everyone planning on demonstrating against Theresa May’s government over the next few weeks must keep these protests peaceful.’
Last night Tory MP James Cleverly said: ‘The fact that the Shadow Chancellor has shared a platform with this divisive group which aims to shut down London shows just how out of touch Labour are. John McDonnell should condemn this action.’
AT the height of Project Fear, Mark Carney missed no opportunity to talk Britain down, predicting disaster if we broke free from Brussels. What a difference a year makes.
In a fine speech yesterday, the Canadian Governor of the Bank of England went in to bat for Britain, delivering a blunt warning to the EU: hands off the City.
Spelling out a much-needed lesson in global finance, he warned Germany and France they would inflict massive damage on Europe’s economies if they pushed through their long-held ambition to steal part of London’s mammoth currency trading business.
As he pointed out, Frankfurt and Paris are simply not big enough to handle the £750billion of euro trading carried out smoothly every day in the Square Mile, with its world-beating expertise.
True, Mr Carney couldn’t resist warning that the early stages of withdrawal may be painful. But how his tone has changed since the referendum. He now speaks like a true Briton, determined to make Brexit a success and even applying for UK citizenship. The Mail rejoices that, at last, he seems firmly on Britain’s side.