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How London's Labour MEPs voted on Iraq
June 7, 2004 12:00 AM
By Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP in Guardian
By Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP in Guardian
Dear Sir, Labour representatives from Ken Livingstone to MPs and candidates are making strenuous and even comical efforts to distance themselves from their party's policy of disastrous and illegal participation on George Bush's coat-tails in the Iraq war.
In your columns Livingstone has portrayed himself as anti-war, and in public meetings assertions are made about the anti-war credentials of the 'entire' Labour party in London.
So let's be absolutely clear about the position of London Labour MEPs. When given the chance in a European Parliament vote last March to 'strongly deplore the unilateral decision by the war coalition' and condemn 'the absence of UN legitimacy', all three of them abstained or voted against.
They therefore contributed to the defeat of an anti-war resolution and, to compound the sin, Robert Evans then actually supported a Right-wing one which accepted the justification of the invasion while Claude Moraes and Mary Honeyball did not oppose it.
I'm afraid Labour representatives, even when they are trying to be all things to all voters, cannot wriggle out of their association with the Blair-Bush axis as easily as they would like.
Yours sincerely, Sarah Ludford, Liberal Democrat MEP for London
(This is the full text of the letter - the version published in the newspaper was slightly reduced)
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