Keir Starmer slaps down Barry Gardiner over Good Friday 'shibboleth' and 'b*******s' Brexit jibe
2 min read
Keir Starmer has hit back at Barry Gardiner for appearing to suggest the Good Friday Agreement is outdated and describing a key plank of Labour's Brexit policy as "b******s".
The Shadow Brexit Secretary said his Labour frontbench colleague's remarks to a Brussels thinktank were "just wrong".
In remarks which were secretly recorded, Mr Gardiner said the Northern Ireland peace deal was a "shibboleth" and also suggested that Dublin was using the issue to secure a better deal in the Brexit negotiations.
The Shadow International Trade Secretary was forced to apologise after his comments were revealed by the Red Roar website.
In a further embarrassment, the same site then published a second recording in which Mr Gardiner said Labour's vow to only back the EU Withdrawal Bill if it guaranteed the same benefits as single market and customs union membership were "b******s".
Sir Keir told an Institute for Government event in central London this morning that anyone who played down the importance of the 20-year-old peace agreement did not “understand the history of Northern Ireland”.
Asked by PoliticsHome what he would say to those who believed the Good Friday Agreement was a "shibboleth", he said: “Anybody who downplays [the peace deal] from whichever political party is just wrong.”
He added: “If anybody thinks that all that matters in Northern Ireland is the technical question of how you get people and goods over a border, they simply don’t understand the history of Northern Ireland.
“Having no border there is the manifestation of peace. It is the symbol of peace. It’s in the heart.”
On Mr Gardiner's "b******s" remark, Sir Keir told PoliticsHome that anyone who thought such a thing was “plain wrong”.
And he insisted Labour would only support the final Brexit deal when it comes before parliament for the promised ‘meaningful vote’ if all of its six tests were met.
WINDRUSH CHILDREN
Elsewhere, Sir Keir suggested the Home Office debacle over the Windrush children did not bode well for EU nationals who have been told they can stay in the UK after Brexit.
The British residents, who came from the Caribbean some 70 years ago - often on their parents' passports - have been hit by changes to immigration rules, with some facing threats of deportation.
Sir Keir told PoliticsHome the “hostile” government approach to immigration by the Home Office, which was started under Theresa May, was partly to blame.
“Coupled with the numbers based approach, the maintenance of a hostile environment is the wrong combination to go into the sort of relationship that we need with the EU going forward,” he said.
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