Labour must not dismiss calls for general election as ‘foreign interference’
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Labour MPs must not to dismiss calls for a general election as “foreign interference”, a Conservative MP has urged. Debating a House of Commons petition signed by 3.02 million people, Father of the House Sir Edward Leigh warned “public disappointment and anger” could give rise to “populism” throughout the country, if the Government cannot allay it.
Signatories to the petition, which members of the public can use a UK postcode to sign, have called for a fresh vote. It followed a poll in July last year, which saw Labour win by a landslide, securing 411 seats to the Tories’ 121. In Westminster Hall on Monday, Labour’s Yasmin Qureshi said: “We found that when Labour got elected, they found the first thing was a £20 billion of deficit – a big black hole which no one knew about.
“So therefore we had to take decisions – do you know what? You can try to shout, whatever. I’m not going to give up, so let me speak please, whoever is making the noises – £20 billion black hole. “Obviously, therefore, the Government had to take some policies in order to plug that black hole and that means a rise in the winter fuel, it means introducing inheritance tax, it means a national insurance contribution (rise).”.
Some MPs groaned when the MP for Bolton South and Walkden said: “This petition has grown, some of it to do with a lot of misinformation, some it it to do with foreign interference. “You may laugh at it, but that happens to be correct as well.”. But Sir Edward warned MPs that the petition was an “expression of public disappointment and anger”.
