Thursday 21st February 2019
Parliament Street Board Director, Elizabeth Anderson, appeared on BBC Two Current Affairs program, Victoria Derbyshire, earlier today
Elizabeth was invited to share her thoughts on how the political earthquake of the week; the formation of the new Independent Group of MPs, in the House of Commons, had actually managed to alter the fundamentals of British politics.
As a longstanding Conservative Party activist, and a Vote Leave campaign coordinator, in the 2016 EU Referendum, Elizabeth is both qualified and able to swat back any assertion that the Conservative Party, which she steadfastly supports, has been blinded by the right and is now run by its most extreme elements.
She did not hesitate to call out the claims, made by when three Conservative MPs defected to the Independent Group yesterday, as little more than, “clever rhetoric on Anna Soubry’s part” which does not stand up to scrutiny. Taking apart Ms. Soubry’s claim that the Tory Party was now a “hard right, extreme, anti-EU Party”; Elizabeth challenged that “when she says that, then what she is also saying is that 52% of the population is hard right because they voted to leave the EU.”
Being fair and balanced, Elizabeth did see find the criticisms the former Labour members of the Independent Group had of their former Party. It is her hope that the defections of these former Labour stalwarts will be the wake up call the Labour Party need, to properly tackle the serious problem of anti-antisemitism, within their own ranks.
Elizabeth told Victoria Derbyshire:
“The Labour Party has been needing to fight antisemitism for so long; it’s growing, it’s taking root in the Party. It could well be that these eight people, or at least some of these eight people – particularly Luciana Berger – feel that the only way to actually make him (Corbyn) to take note and do something about it – is to do something drastic and that I really respect”
Elizabeth didn’t go too easy on the Labour defectors; she also lay down the gauntlet during the interview, urging them to all hold by-elections in their respective constituencies, within short order.
Speaking for many voters, Elizabeth gave the following unsolicited advice:
“If these 11 MPs all feel so strongly that they are in the right, and they have captured the public mood; then they should do what others have done when they have defected – force a by-election and allow their constituencies to decide.”
You can watch the whole program on BBC iPlayer here.
