‘CORBYN MADE A MISTAKE IN FIRING ME’
LABOUR’S Owen Smith says Jeremy Corbyn made a “mistake” by firing him from his Shadow Cabinet.
The MP for Pontypridd was sacked from his role as shadow Northern Ireland Secretary on Friday following an article he wrote for the Guardian calling for a second referendum.
Mr Smith, who challenged Jeremy Corbyn for party leadership in 2016, wrote that the “damage a disorderly and ill-thoughtout Brexit could do in Ireland is enormous” and urged his party to reopen the question of whether Brexit was right for Britain.
Jeremy Corbyn asked Mr Smith to stand down on Friday. He has been replaced by Rochdale MP Tony Lloyd.
The Labour leader is also facing unrest over his response to a Facebook post by street artist Mear One about the plan to paint over a mural seen as anti-Semitic.
Speaking about his sacking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, Mr Smith said: “I think it is a mistake, for Jeremy Corbyn in particular, who has always understood the value of people standing by their principles.
“It is the position that he has often adopted, and it is certainly a value in him that others have extolled.”
In his piece for the Guardian, Mr Smith said that the EU transition agreement failed to adequately address the issue of the UK’s future relationship with the Republic of Ireland.
He said the economic border that a hard Brexit would impose on Ireland would be the “hardest ever” and undermined the country’s obligations under the Good Friday agreement.
Speaking on BBC’s Breakfast, Mr Smith said: “The views that I am reflecting are the views of the vast majority of Labour Party members including those who supported Jeremy Corbyn in the leadership contests over the last few years, and indeed the vast majority of Labour supporters across this country.
“To be honest I am not sure I was speaking against Labour Party policy. You have got to remember the Labour Party at its conference, which is sovereign in terms of policy, passed a motion last year that said exactly what I said in my article for the Guardian newspaper.”
He added that other members of the Shadow Cabinet, including Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, had recently articulated “almost exactly the same views”.
Ms Abbot said on Friday that Mr Smith could not sit on Labour’s front bench while advancing a position against the party.
It comes as the Labour leader found himself entangled in another anti-Semitism row after he said he had been wrong to support graffiti artist Mear One in 2012 whose work in London’s East End appeared to depict Jewish bankers playing a game of Monopoly, with the board balanced on people’s backs.
The artist denied being antiSemitic, saying the mural is about “class and privilege”.
Mr Corbyn said he made a “general comment about the removal of public art on grounds of freedom of speech” but acknowledged he should have looked more closely at the image before posting on Facebook in 2012.
He said: “I sincerely regret that I did not look more closely at the image I was commenting on, the contents of which are deeply disturbing and anti-Semitic.”