McDonnell’s ‘joke’ shows he’s unfit for high office, say MPs
JOHN McDonnell was accused of a sinister bid to ‘silence’ his opponents last night after he appeared to suggest Labour would put political enemies on trial.
The Shadow Chancellor said he ‘might want to invent’ a law to lock up Conservative MPs he has branded ‘social criminals’ for cutting benefits.
Tory MPs seized on the remarks, saying that they showed Mr McDonnell was unfit for high office.
A source close to Mr McDonnell said the comments were a ‘joke’ and he was speaking ‘at the Edinburgh Festival where no speech should be without a joke’.
But Treasury minister Simon Clarke said: ‘These are not the comments of a man fit to be Chancellor – or to hold any office – in a Western democracy. A blatant affront to the rule of law.’
Ian Austin, an MP who left Labour this year, tweeted: ‘Can you imagine any senior Labour figure of the past threatening to lock up Tory MPs for voting for laws they didn’t like? What would people like McDonnell call Right-wing politicians who send opponents to prison?
‘These people are extremists and they’ve poisoned the Labour Party.’
Chancellor Sajid Javid said the comments showed Mr McDonnell was ‘not fit to be an MP, let alone Shadow Chancellor’.
Mr McDonnell’s remarks came in an interview with broadcaster Iain Dale on Tuesday afternoon at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Dale quizzed the Shadow Chancellor on comments he made in 2011 when he called Tory MPs ‘social criminals’ and added: ‘We will try them.’
Asked by Dale if he could really ‘try’ politicians in a court of law, Mr McDonnell said: ‘I wouldn’t mind it actually.’ He added that he ‘might want to invent’ a law to allow such prosecutions.
At another event in Edinburgh yesterday, Mr McDonnell said Jeremy Corbyn would demand to be allowed to take over in No10 if Boris Johnson lost a confidence vote but refused to resign.
He said: ‘I don’t want to drag the Queen into this but I would be sending Jeremy Corbyn in a cab to Buckingham Palace to say, “We’re taking over”.’