Call for probe into Corbyn conduct
seem to want to insist upon.” His broadside came after Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington, effectively Theresa May’s deputy, attempted to down play the row by defending the Chancellor.
He said the Treasury forecasts were “not new” and claimed Mr Hammond was “absolutely committed” to the Government’s policy.
He said: “This is provisional analysis that the Treasury published back in January this year and I think all Philip was doing was simply referring back to that in response to a senior member of Parliament.”
Optimistic
Mr Lidington admitted not being aware of the Chancellor’s letter before it was published but claimed the timing was not significant.
“I don’t check my colleagues’ letter any more than they check mine,” he said, adding: “I really don’t think that there is anything new about this. What is clear is that no deal is not a desirable objective.”
He insisted he was “optimistic” about the Government agreeing a Brexit deal with Brussels.
“I am not a betting man. I remain both determined and optimistic about this,” he said. JEREMY Corbyn was facing a parliamentary standards probe last night after a Tory MP claimed his remarks about British Zionists had brought Westminster “into disrepute”.
Backbencher Helen Grant wrote to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards alleging the Labour leader had breached the MPs’ code of conduct.
Earlier this week, a video emerged of the Labour leader claiming British Zionists have “no sense of English irony” during a speech in 2013.
He said: “They clearly have two problems. One is they don’t want to study history and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either.”
Mrs Grant’s complaint came after the ex-leader of the British National Party and a former Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan sent Mr Corbyn supportive messages on social media. “Go Jezza!” ex-BNP chief Nick Griffin wrote on Twitter in response to the video, while US white supremacist David Duke backed the Labour leader’s vow to challenge the “stranglehold of elite power and billionaire domination over large parts of our media”. On Twitter, he wrote: “He’s right, you know”.
Labour MP Luciana Berger called Mr Corbyn’s remarks “inexcusable”. She said the video “makes me as a proud British Jew feel unwelcome in my own party. I’ve lived in Britain all my life and I don’t need any lessons in history/irony”.
Mrs Grant, in her letter to parliamentary standards commissioner Kathryn Stone, wrote: “Mr Corbyn has undoubtedly brought this House into disrepute.
“It is clear Mr Corbyn has not reached the bar set by the code of conduct for members, and I therefore ask that you investigate.”