12 Nov Defence Secretary accuses Sadiq Khan and Keir Starmer of ‘politicising’ Remembrance weekend
DEFENCE Secretary Grant Shapps has accused the Mayor of London and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer of politicising Remembrance weekend.
He told GB News: “What we’re hearing this weekend is people trying to play politics with the serious points which are being made, which is it would of course, one, be better for people not to have protested and secondly, it’s very important that we see action taken…
“Our Home Secretary is perfectly within her rights to call for strict action to be taken, for the full force of the law to be used.
“I’m not really keen on the idea that in retrospect, whether it’s the leader of the opposition or the Labour London Mayor, that they then come in and try and politicise this weekend of all weekends. It should not be about politics. It should be about the men and women who given themselves for this country. That is what we should be talking about this weekend.”
Asked by Camilla Tominey if the Home Secretary was playing politics as well, he said: “Her job as Home Secretary is to make sure that, quite properly, that the powers exist and then the powers are then used within the operational independence of the police to make sure the marches and protests are properly policed, and where the laws have been broken, as they clearly have been in some cases, that those prosecutions take place.
“That is what a Home Secretary is there for, Now, I wouldn’t quite put it in her language. It’s not the language I would have used, but the point still stands.
“I don’t think, whether it’s just Keir Starmer or the London mayor coming in, I don’t think their contribution is particularly helpful.”
He added: “People going around and shouting jihad as if that somehow it can be okay. I don’t see how it can ever be okay, to be totally blunt, and I think that we need to make sure that examples are made where people don’t feel they can do that with impunity.”
