You’re a scab, Left tells Dennis Skinner
DENNIS Skinner was branded a ‘scab’ by Left-wing activists yesterday after defying Jeremy Corbyn over the Brexit vote.
The veteran Left-winger was one of seven Labour MPs to vote in favour of the EU Withdrawal Bill in defiance of party orders in the early hours of yesterday.
Another 14 Labour MPs did not vote – despite strict orders from the party whips.
Bolsover MP Mr Skinner, 85, has been lionised by the Left for decades. But the decision of the former miner – nicknamed the ‘Beast of Bolsover’ – to side with the Government over Brexit prompted a torrent abuse from Left-wing activists on social media yesterday.
One Twitter user, who described himself as ‘Left-leaning’, told Mr Skinner: ‘ How could you? You voted with the Tories to give them powers to over- rule democracy. Never thought I’d call you a scab.’
Another wrote: ‘Can we stop calling Dennis Skinner “the Beast of Bolsover”? He’s earned the name “scab of Bolsover”.’
Activist Aaron Bastani, a prominent supporter of Mr Corbyn, said: ‘Every Labour MP who voted with the Tories tonight should find another job. This isn’t taking back control, it’s giving it up.’
Several other prominent Labour MPs received abuse after ignoring Mr Corbyn’s order to vote against the legislation.
Former Europe minister Caro- line Flint received hundreds of messages on social media criticising her for abstaining on the Brexit legislation.
One Twitter user accused her of an ‘astounding betrayal of your party and the electorate’.
Another told her: ‘You voted to hand dictatorship like powers to the Tory government. Caroline you should be utterly utterly ashamed of yourself. Disgusting.’
Others called for her to be deselected as an MP.
Miss Flint’s daughter Hanna said her mother had been the victim of ‘ sexism’, and suggested that she had faced more abuse than Mr Skinner despite only abstaining rather than voting against the measure.
‘Nice to see the amount of vitriol aimed at my mum for abstaining tonight’s vote and the lack thereof aimed at Dennis Skinner,’ she said.
Mr Skinner yesterday insisted that he had a consistent track record of backing Eurosceptic causes in Parliament.
He said he agreed with Labour criticism that the Bill represents a ‘power grab’.
But he added: ‘I voted against the EU. I voted in line with the 70-odd per cent vote of my constituents that expected me to vote that way.
‘I have never ever changed my mind, unlike many people in the Labour Party who moved side to side.’
Miss Flint declined to comment yesterday.
But she told MPs on Monday that they had a duty to pass the legislation following the result of last year’s referendum.
‘You should be ashamed’
TEN years ago tonight, the BBC’s Robert Peston broke the news that the Bank of England had been forced to step in to rescue Northern Rock from collapse, prompting endless queues to withdraw savings over the following days.
Though the authorities were slow to realise it, this was the first outward sign of a greed-fed cancer infecting the entire financial system. Indeed, it marked the start of an epic crisis whose consequences we still suffer today.
With businesses driven to the wall and taxpayers stung for massive bailouts, the public finances were laid to waste. Borrowing soared to terrifying heights – and debt is still rising in 2017, towards an unimaginable £2trillion.
Meanwhile, household incomes have been painfully squeezed, while savers and pension funds have been hammered by a decade of historically low interest rates.
Yet ten years on, no banker has been jailed for the sharp practice that brought this country to the brink of ruin.
Extraordinarily, nor has there been a full inquiry to establish the lessons of the crisis (though after the comparatively footling scandal of voicemail hacking by rogue redtops, the Coalition had no hesitation in ordering one into the conduct and ethics of the newspaper industry).
What is so deeply worrying is that, even now, none of those lessons appears to have been learned. Indeed, there are abundant signs that the cancer is back.
As greedily as ever, bankers are inflating a debt bubble – handing out excessive mortgages, cheap car loans and credit cards with zero interest rates fixed for months.
Meanwhile, the old racket of trading bundles of sub-prime debt continues as if nothing untoward happened in 2007.
Now, as then, the banks have far too little capital in reserve to weather a storm. The difference is that in 2017, with taxpayers milked dry, the Government will be unable to mount anything like a similar bailout.
The City must act now to shore up its defences. Otherwise, there can be no telling how the next crisis will end.