Brass neck Labour MPs paying tribute to Ann Widdecombe perhaps need to take a look in the mirror, says Patrick Christys

Labour MPs have a brass neck saying nice things about Ann Widdecombe, given some of the horrible, hateful stuff some of their colleagues said about her and her party whilst she was alive.

Let's take David Lammy. Back in 2019, he called Ann Widdecombe "poisonous" after she said science may produce an answer to being gay.

He said: "Bigots like Ann Widdecombe want to drag us back to the 19th century, throwing minorities out in the cold along the way. We must stand up to them before it's too late."

He's got form though, hasn't he?

He's previously claimed "Brexiteers were worse than Nazis", and he was forced into issuing a clarification after he said that Nigel Farage "flirted with the Hitler Youth".

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Green Party councillors were caught attending a transgender rights rally where some protesters repeatedly stabbed darts into an effigy of Andy Burnham.

And in response, David Lammy comes out and said this: "This disgraceful act took place just days after the murder of a senior politician, the third of my colleagues in a decade.

"It is a shared responsibility of all of us in our democracy to call out and condemn violence and threats against politicians. I hope the Green Party leadership takes appropriate action this time."

Well, I'm sorry, but I don't really think Lammy is in much of a position to take the high ground here!

Let's look at Jess Phillips. In 2010 when Ann Widdecombe was on Strictly Come Dancing, Jess Phillips said: "Ann Widdecombe better go this week.

"Not only is she a little fascist beast, she is also an anti-abortionist, what a lovely woman."

I'm not saying that David Lammy or Jess Phillips have caused Ann's death or contributed to it in any way, but I don't think they've helped dial down the rhetoric, have they?

Take Lucy Powell, for example, Labour's deputy leader. She referred to Reform, Ann's party, as a "cancer" and a "poison".

And then she has the brass neck to stand up in Parliament and say this: "I join the Home Secretary in paying my respects and condolences to the family of Ann Widdecombe. We might not have agreed politically, but I always greatly admired and respected her outspokenness, her fearlessness and her ability to not take herself too seriously.

"I think she was one of a kind, Mr Speaker, and of the like frankly we don't make any more."

Then you've got the actual Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Nathalie Fleet.

Ann Widdecombe was very much a woman who had just been brutally, violently killed - and Fleet mocked Reform's calls for more security, and called Reform politicians a "gang of binmen".

She's apologised and said her thoughts have always been with Ann and her family. Well, to me that seems hard to believe, doesn't it?

When Ann returned to frontline politics in 2019 to try to get a proper Brexit done and stand up for the democratic will of the people, the Sussex Labour Representation Committee published an official statement attacking her positions on LGBT rights and conversion therapy, labelling her an "intolerant hate-monger".

They explicitly wrote that Widdecombe's views "would be best classed as torture or brain-washing and left in the dustbin of history — where Widdecombe also belongs".

It's always the left that criticised people's language - but they're not very careful with their own, are they?

Then we've got former Labour Party candidate, now employee of Aberdeen University Heather Herbert, a trans rights activist who said they hoped Ann died "chained to the bed and was tortured".

And broadening it out even more, there does seem to be a theme here with various Labour Party figures.

Following a highly controversial column written by Jan Moir about the tragic death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately, Wes Streeting tweeted in 2009: "There would be nothing natural about Jan Moir's death if I shoved the bigoted old bag under a train."

He apologised for those comments, but only in 2022 when they resurfaced.

Again, I'm not saying that these people have caused violence against Ann, or anyone for that matter - but the point is this - they always accuse the likes of Nigel Farage or Kemi Badenoch of being responsible for violence with their rhetoric. So perhaps they need to take a look in the mirror.

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