The Labour Party has been left red-faced after posting a St George’s Day message on the wrong date.
The official Labour Party Twitter account posted “Happy St George’s Day! With the next Labour government, we’ll celebrate the patron saint with a bank holiday — and bank holidays for St Patrick, St David and St Andrew too” a day early, on April 22nd. Clearly realising their error it was soon taken down, only to be reposted earlier today.
One Twitter follower commented, “I’m looking forward to their Christmas Day message… on the 24th December’ while another said: “Labour — the party that wants to run this great country can’t even get the date of St George’s Day right.”
The incident was the second social media embarrassment for Labour this week as they previously posted a picture celebrating Passover, using a picture of a loaf of leavened bread. Leavened bread is forbidden by the Jewish faith on Passover.
One Conservative MP, James Cleverly, commented that “After the Passover bread tweet, and the St George’s Day on the wrong day tweet, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Labour digital team did a #ff [follow Friday] tomorrow.”
Labour’s Passover message, featuring a video of Jeremy Corbyn has been branded “cynical” by many in the Jewish community in light of Labour’s ongoing antisemitism controversies.
One Jewish commentator, Dr David Hirsh, author of Contemporary Left Antisemitism and a former member of the Labour Party, said it was “a cynical and barefaced attempt to whitewash Labour and its antisemitism problem”.
Labour are not alone in mistaking St George’s Day, the day to mark England’s patron saint, however. In 2016, Facebook posted a St George’s Day message 24 hours early, as well.
These isolated examples may be symptomatic of something bigger, with a survey in 2018 showing that Britons believe national pride is at an all-time low. Of the 2,000 adults surveyed, 22 per cent believed they would be made to feel ashamed for expressing national pride.
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