MP Long-Bailey deletes tweet that cost her job

REBECCA Long-Bailey has deleted the tweet which led to her being sacked from the shadow cabinet.

Last week, the Salford and Eccles MP shared an interview with actress Maxine Peake which Labour leader Keir Starmer said included ‘an anti-semitic conspiracy theory’.

Ms Long-Bailey was asked to step down from her post and has since been replaced by Stretford and Urmston MP Kate Green.

In a statement released after losing her position, she said her re-tweet was ‘in no way’ an intention to endorse every part of that article and that the Labour Party’s head office had asked her to remove both the original re-tweet and a subsequent attempt at clarification.

The post was not deleted until Tuesday when it was removed from Ms LongBailey’s Twitter feed late in the evening.

In a statement issued last week, a spokesman for Sir Keir Starmer said: “The article Rebecca shared earlier today contained an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

“As leader of the Labour Party, Keir has been clear that restoring trust with the Jewish community is a number one priority. Anti-semitism takes many different forms and it is important that we all are vigilant against it.”

In the interview, the actress had claimed that US police learnt the practice of kneeling on people’s necks ‘from seminars with Israeli secret services’.

In response to the controversy, Ms Long-Bailey had issued subsequent tweets in which she explained that she had intended to highlight points made during the interview over the government’s handling of the covid crisis.

She wrote: “I retweeted an interview that my constituent and stalwart Labour Party supporter Maxine Peake gave to the Independent. Its main thrust was anger with the Conservative government’s handling of the current emergency and a call for Labour Party unity.

“In no way was my retweet an intention to endorse every part of that article.”