'No ifs, no buts, no caveats' - Gordon Brown says Jeremy Corbyn has to make a 'full apology' for anti-Semitism within the Labour Party
Former Prime Minister says Jeremy Corbyn has to make a "full apology" for anti-Semitism within the Labour Party.
Reacting to the news that Mr Corbyn has been reinstated as a member of the Labour Party, Mr Brown told Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid: "Jeremy has got to make a full apology. No ifs, no buts, no caveats, no qualifying sentences. He has got to admit he got it wrong. There is no place for anti-semitism, no place for any form of discrimination in our society. And if people are in any doubt about where he stands, he has got to make it absolutely clear that he will have no truck with anti-semitism at any time in the future and until he makes that clear, Keir Starmer will, I suppose, continue to insist that he stays outside the Labour party in parliament, even though he is a member of the Labour Party.”
On whether Corbyn is welcome in the Labour Party, he said: "Well, you see Jeremy said that the problem had been exaggerated but I say that if there is even one case of anti-semitism, you have got to deal with it. It is completely unacceptable and you have got to apologise, you have got to say sorry and you have got to reassure people. This is a matter of people’s personal safety… You have got to reassure people that there is no place in this country for any form of racism whatsoever...That is true of every community in our country. They need that reassurance."
During the interview, Mr Brown also insisted that Boris Johnson has “got to change his attitude” over devolution.
On Boris being divisive over his stance on devolution, he said: "When I was Prime Minister, Boris Johnson said that no Scot should ever be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom… He has got to change his attitude. He has got to find a way of saying, ‘I am the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, it is my job to bring people together. It is not my job to divide and rule’... There is no chance of ending devolution as he is suggesting, it is going to continue because the mayors in the north and Wales and Northern Ireland all welcome that they have got some local decision making… But people know they have got to co-operate… We have got to find a better way of bringing people together to do that.”
"I think we are all fed up. In every part of the United Kingdom people don’t feel they have been consulted… They feel people are holed up in No. 10 infection ridden and not making the right decision," he said.
"Really you have got to bring the country together. Boris has got to consult the regions and the nations. We have got to find a better way after this crisis of working together, we should be talking to each other… I think that’s what is missing and I think that’s why there is not the sense of unity, the sense of common purpose that we had at the beginning of the crisis," Mr Brown said on the subject of the pandemic’s impact on devolution."
Amid the reports that the UK could potentially face another lockdown in January to allow relatives to gather over the Christmas period, Mr Brown said: "Start now. Put in the measures now in the next few days that make it possible for us to make a reasoned decision about what we do in the Christmas week. I think you have to act now. Talking about what happens after Christmas is not as good as talking about what Boris Johnson could do today."
"If he is worried that we can’t have a relaxation at Christmas, he needs to step up the measures now. Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Boris Johnson have to get together and find a basis on which we can have common rules so that people can, if it’s possible, travel to see their loved ones in different parts of the country," he added.
Watch the full interview above.
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