BREAKAWAY MPs who quit the Labour Party to set up their own group have become completely irrelevant following the “futile gesture”, the shadow chancellor has said.
John McDonnell branded the decision of eight of his party’s MPs to leave and form The Independent Group (TIG) “absolutely bizarre”, and warned any support for them risked handing power to the Tories.
It came as he announced a Labour Government would create 50,000 new jobs in Scotland as part of a “green industrial revolution” which would see hundreds of wind turbines constructed north of the Border.
Addressing a fringe meeting at the Scottish Labour conference in Dundee, Mr McDonnell said he was “disappointed and to a certain extent perplexed” that Labour MPs had left the party for TIG, which is made up of 11 pro-Remain MPs.
READ MORE: John McDonnell says Labour is preparing for Government
He said one of the main reasons they gave was Labour’s failure to support a People’s Vote. However, the party’s Brexit approach was decided at its conference, he said, and the week after the MPs left it backed a public vote.
“So it just seemed completely futile that they left for that reason,” he added. He later said: “For them to walk out at this stage I just found bizarre, absolutely bizarre.”
Mr McDonnell said the move would end up being “not just a waste of time for them personally, but also any others who support them as well.”
Rejecting claims there was a major schism in his party, he said: “They are a group of people who for some reason, I’m not completely sure why, were disgruntled, [and] chose an issue to leave the party on. Within a week that issue was no longer relevant, I don’t think. I just find it a futile gesture.”
He added: “The Independent Group is looking increasingly completely irrelevant.
“I’ve not found in the meetings that I’ve been doing that people are even talking about them anymore.”
He said “not one” of his constituents had raised it, adding: “I think they’ve become irrelevant very, very quickly.”
The shadow chancellor said those who had left Labour “need to think about the responsibility that they have, because if they are taking votes away from Labour, it won’t mean that they get elected, it won’t mean there will be a TIG government – it will mean the Tories go back into power”. He added: “And I think that’s the responsibility that some people who may have been thinking of supporting them need to think hard about.”
Mr McDonnell made the comments at a fringe meeting before addressing delegates from the main conference stage on Sunday.
READ MORE: John McDonnell attacks ‘rip-off’ privatised electricity market
He vowed a Labour Government would deliver 50,000 new well-paid and unionised jobs for Scotland as part of plans to massively expand employment in the green energy sector.
He said: “Labour has developed ambitious plans for expanding onshore wind. At least 60 per cent of that new capacity will be here and could mean 20,000 new jobs in Scotland.
“With another 42 gigawatts of capacity under Labour from offshore wind, that’s another 15,000 jobs in Scotland. And when we roll out our UK-wide home retrofitting programme, that could be close to another 15,000 more jobs in Scotland.”
He earlier told the BBC he welcomed a potential investigation into complaints of anti-Semitism in Labour, as he wanted the party to be a “shining example” in how it tackles such issues.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel