Granddaughter of Tony Benn trolled over attack on leader
THE granddaughter of Tony Benn has been branded ‘a disgusting little Tory mouthpiece’ after criticising Jeremy Corbyn over anti-Semitism.
Emily Benn tweeted on Friday that the Labour leader’s attempt to address the concerns of the Jewish community in a Guardian article was ‘utter rubbish’.
The 28-year- old added he had taken ‘no responsibility’ and there will be ‘no change while he is leader’.
She immediately faced a barrage of abuse by online trolls – many of whom bombarded her with comments about her late hard-Left grandfather.
One Twitter user told her: ‘The great Tony Benn would have been ashamed to call this disgusting lying little Tory mouthpiece girl as his granddaughter.’
Meanwhile, ray Ellis, a national officer for the CWU union, said: ‘Could probably power a medium sized town from the energy generated by your grandfather’s rate of rotation in his grave.’
In response to the tweet from ray Ellis, Miss Benn replied: ‘Hey @CWUnews – just wondering if you think this is an appropriate way for your National Officer to behave?
‘Attempting to use the memory of a dead relative to shame someone?
‘It’s 1. rubbish, and therefore 2. I don’t care, but – to me at least – seems lacking in basic decency.’
She also corrected the comment by pointing out that her grandfather was actually cremated.
ray Ellis later deleted the tweet and apologised. But Miss Benn remained unimpressed and fired back: ‘I am afraid I cannot accept your “on reflection” apology. How can anyone, EVEr, think it’s an acceptable thing to say?’
Miss Benn resigned as a Labour councillor for Croydon Council in 2016 to move to New York for a job with bank UBS. She is currently a graduate research assistant at The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
In her initial tweets responding to Mr Corbyn’s comments, she wrote: ‘This is utter rubbish. No responsibility taken for the Antisemitism and those antisemites he has supported for years.
‘@uklabour has become an Insitutinally Anti-Semitic Party under Jeremy Corbyn. It will not change while he is leader,’ she added.