WATCH Labour frontbencher Kate Osamor plagiarises acceptance speech from Barack Obama
3 min read
A leading member of the Shadow Cabinet plagiarised Barack Obama in her acceptance speech after being re-elected last year, PoliticsHome can reveal.
Sections of Shadow International Development Secretary Kate Osamor's address are identical to the speech the former president gave when he was first elected in 2008.
Ms Osamor was re-elected MP for Edmonton last June with an increased majority of 21,115.
After being declared the winner by returning officer Christine Hamilton, she told the crowd: "If there is anyone out there who doubts that Edmonton is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of hope is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
"It's the answer told by the lines of people stretched around polling stations, schools and churches. By young people who queued, many for the first time in their lives because they believed that voting for Labour this time must be different, that their voices could be the difference."
The words are almost identical to those spoken by President Obama after his victory nearly a decade ago.
Addressing a huge crowd in his home city of Chicago, he said: "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
"It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference."
Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said: "They say plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, but Kate Osamor is no Barack Obama."
A spokesman for Ms Osamor said: "Kate deliberately invoked a victory speech so famous that she thought it needed no introduction."
The incident echoes the time American First Lady Melania Trump appeared to copy verbatim from a speech given by Michelle Obama in a speech to the Republican convention in 2016.
SYRIA
It is not the first time the close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, who was first elected in 2015, has been at the centre of controversy.
In an interview with The House magazine last month, she defied the Labour leader to call for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to be "removed" if he was found to be responsible for a chemical weapons on his own citizens.
She said: "Intervention must take place if evidence comes back that the PM or the president or whoever the leader is, is gassing his own people. Get them out,” she said.
"If a leader is killing their own they need to be removed. We don’t keep them there. They need to go. He needs to be removed."
Ms Osamor later insisted her comments had been misinterpreted.
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