Missed this repulsive comment, apparently from Nov last year. The 'labour source', one journalist saying 'senior', Yvette Cooper claiming it didn't come from 'anywhere near the leadership', has never been named and apparently not been disciplined. (Interesting that most commenters presumed it was Akehurst even back then.) Change the religion/ethnicity to Jews being referred to as parasites and imagine the outrage. They'd be bringing back the death penalty over it.

jeers,
I

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https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/17tntzw/labour_comments_on_shaking_off_the_fleas_quote/

Labour comments on "shaking off the fleas" quote
r/LabourUK
7 mo. ago
CelestialShitehawk

You may remember a few weeks ago long term Labour right leak outlet Lee Harpin posted a tweet saying

Lab source on the few quitting the party over party stance on Hamas. "Shaking off the fleas."

Harpin quickly deleted the tweet after people pointed out how openly racist it was.

To be honest I expected this to be one of those things that simply never get mentioned again, however today we have two Labour figures commenting on the quote.

In an article from a few days ago that was posted here earlier sometimes journalist sometimes Labour advisor (not actually sure which she is right now) Ayesha Hazarika says:

Just as he has done important work regaining the trust of the Jewish community, so must he treat the Muslim community with care and respect. We are worth no less just because we are Muslim. After the resignation of Muslim Labour councillors, a senior Labour source was quoted saying it was a sign the party was “shaking off the fleas”.

This is the kind of dehumanising language one would expect from the Home Secretary, not the Labour Party.

I understand this was not a member of Starmer’s team and that he and General Secretary David Evans were furious about this briefing, and rightly so. That is not what Labour should ever be about. And I don’t believe that’s who Starmer is.

And this morning Yvette Cooper on Laura Kuenssberg's show said:

My understanding is that did not come from anyone anywhere near the Labour leadership and that the party has made that abundantly clear and I understand that that has been recognised and accepted. Clearly it's a disgraceful thing to say and that's why nobody in the Labour leadership would have said it.

I'm not totally clear that Cooper actually means when she says "the party has made that abundantly clear and I understand that that has been recognised and accepted", since these are the first public comments I've seen on it.

Anyway I think Andrew Fisher put this very well on twitter when he said.

Yvette Cooper says the briefing from a Labour source that people resigning over Gaza was "shaking off the fleas" did not come from anyone in the Labour leadership.

Which suggests they do know where it did come from. So has that person been disciplined?

Additional blast from the past here in that this very much reminds me of anonymous racist comments around the Batley and Spen by election, which Angela Rayner promised to investigate, and which I have heard nothing about since.

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Links mentioned fyi:

https://archive.is/vztHO#selection-1267.17-1267.22 (independent)
https://archive.is/ac1xt (graun)
https://twitter.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1723642041685442693 (Yvette Cooper)