Richard Burgon, the ‘Palestine’ obsessed far Left MP for Leeds East, did not get a position in the Shadow Cabinet when the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had his recent reshuffle. This is unfortunate as a greater prominence for Burgon might have helped to damage the Labour Party’s public image even more than has been achieved already.
But this bloviating fatberg from Leeds East hasn’t been forgotten. He’s back in the news again for both promoting taxation policies that failed dismally in Britain during the 1970’s and for failing to condemn the obscene treatment of Chinese Uighar Muslims by the Communist government of the People’s Republic of China.
First up here is Burgon promoting policies that Britain once tried in the 1970’s and which led to a brain drain as those capable of earning high salaries and with portable skills, decided that they would be better off on a taxation front by leaving the UK and becoming tax exiles.
Next up is Burgon refusing to condemn the Chinese government’s policy of putting Uighar Muslims into concentration and slave labour camps.
Gudio Fawkes said that in a recent interview with the LBC radio station Burgon refused six times to condemn the Chinese government and gave a waffling answer about the need to condemn all human rights abuses. Burgon is pretty vocal on other foreign policy matters such as the Middle East conflict so we have to ask why Burgon is so unwilling to speak out about human rights abused by the Chinese Government? It would not have cost him anything personally to do so and as he’s not a member of the Shadow Cabinet he is not bound by any collective responsibility duties. He could have spoken up but did not.
Burgon is a truly appalling MP who I’d hate to have representing me and my interests. It’s a wonder how people like this get elected to Parliament but then I recalled that Leeds East is one of those constituencies where you could pin a red rosette on a dog turd and the local voters would elect it to the Commons. This is a place where tribalistic or rather mindlessly tribalistic voting is a massive factor in elections. Leeds East has not had a Tory or a Liberal MP since 1900 with the seat going Labour in 1906 and staying that way as the seat for former Chancellor Dennis Healey and other Labour representatives and is now in the less than capable hands of Burgon. Personally I think that the people of Leeds East deserve better than their current representative, but the question is will they be able to overcome generations of habit of voting Labour and abandon the party that has clearly abandoned them and vote for something and someone better?
