Coffey: Why I quit Labour
STOCKPORT MP Ann Coffey says issues including ‘rife’ anti-semitism and abuse from ardent Jeremy Corbyn supporters forced her to quit the Labour Party.
She told the M.E.N. that the decision had not been easy.
But failures to address anti-semitism and concerns over the direction of the party is heading in have forced her hand, she says.
She will now play a part in the formation of the new Independent Group, along with another six former Labour MPs.
Long-standing Labour MP Ms Coffey, 72, says there were a number of issues.
“In a sense they have overwhelmed me, the many issues with which I disagree,” she said.
“Of course anti-semitism is an issue, of course the leadership is an issue, and the line on Brexit.
“We are seeing a party that used to be a broad church, in which there was possibility to have discussions, turned into a party in which any criticism of the leader or any different voice is responded to by being called a traitor.
“There comes a time when I have got to do something about it.
“I have spent a long time in the Labour party. I don’t want to see young people faced with the terrible choice of hard left or hard right.”
Ms Coffey, who has served constituents in Stockport for almost 27 years, insists that the move will not affect her efforts on local issues and her campaigning work.
“I have a long association with the town itself,” she says. “It’s not me who has changed. My values have not changed.
“I don’t think people want a hard right party or a hard left party. Most people are in between. They want practical solutions to the problems they face.
“I think both the majority parties have become more extreme and I think both parties are now tending to represent interests of party members, not of the people who vote for them.
“Parties don’t own voters. The Conservatives don’t have a right to demand votes from people who vote Tory and the Labour party don’t have a right to demand votes either. This is part of the problem.”
Hundreds of people, including Ms Coffey, gathered in Parliament Square last year to protest about the lack of progress the party has made in taking disciplinary action against members who have made antisemitic remarks.
The MP, who lives in Heaton Moor, said she does not yet know if other Labour MPs will join her and the ‘Gang of Seven’ in the Independent Group. “A lot of colleagues have privately expressed their concerns,” she said. “People come to different decisions – this is the decision I have come to. It’s an offer we are making.”
Ms Coffey insists that the changes will in no way affect her work as the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults.
Originally from Inverness, Ms Coffey began her career as a social worker in the Midlands before moving to help families in Stockport in 1975.
She was elected to Stockport council in 1984 and led the council’s Labour group for four years until 1992, when she defeated Conservative MP Tony Favell. She has remained MP in the town ever since.