Labour’s David Lammy has insisted that comparing the Brexit-supporting European Research Group (ERG) to the Nazis “wasn’t strong enough” and suggested the BBC should deplatform them, shortly after demanding an amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.
Lammy, a Minister of State for Culture in the Tony Blair era, is a fanatical anti-Brexiteer, having pleaded “Wake up. We do not have to do this. We can stop this madness through a vote in Parliament” just days after the vote to Leave the European in 2016.
Challenged on previous comments “comparing the ERG to the Nazi party” on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Lammy was unapologetic, replying, “Andrew, I would say that that wasn’t strong enough.”
“Let me just me clear, I’m an ethnic minority,” emphasised the London MP, who is a strong proponent of racial identity politics.
“We have, in the ERG, in Jacob Rees-Mogg, someone who is happy to put on his web pages, the horrible, racist, [Alternative for Germany] party… that’s Islamophobic and on the far right,” he accused, referring to a tweet in which Rees-Mogg referenced a speech by the leader of the German populist party in which she accused the EU of acting in bad faith in the Brexit negotiations.
“Never will I back off on this,” Lammy declared. “And the BBC should not allow this extreme, hard-right fascism to flourish,” he exclaimed.
Attempting to inject balance into the conversation, the presenter countered: “Well, these are elected Conservative MPs”.
“I don’t care how elected they were, so was the far right in Germany!” Lammy shot back.
“They’re often elected, often giving a cover for the thugs on the ground, and I’m afraid when people are experiencing rising hate and extremism in this country, we must not concede ground, we must fight it and call it out for what it is!”
Rees-Mogg, for his part, offered a characteristically mild reply to the Labour MP, saying only, “I feel sorry for Mr Lammy, comparing a Parliamentary ginger group with an organisation and creed that killed six million Jewish people makes him look foolish and his comments unbalanced.”
“It damages his reputation,” he added.
Lammy, however, has simply continued to double down, responding directly to Rees-Mogg in a tweet accusing him of making “dinner plans… with groups who want to repatriate black Britons” and vowing “I will never relent from fighting the extremism you both represent and legitismise [sic].”
The fiery exchange took place shortly after Lammy demanded a general amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in the left-wing New Statesman, which has recently been under fire for getting conservative philosopher Sir Roger Scruton kicked off an unpaid post on an architecture commission after publishing a hit piece interview.
“If you read the tabloid press, you would be forgiven for thinking that there are millions of people living without status, but the numbers are probably closer to 600,000,” Lammy claimed, before suggesting that extending legal status to them would result in some sort of financial windfall as they began paying tax and National Insurance contributions.
However, David Wood, a former Director General of Immigration Enforcement, has estimated that there are in fact “probably over a million foreigners here illegally”, who are exploiting the healthcare system and other public services with relatively little interference from the authorities.
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