Suspended Labour MP Claudia Webbe said that the “rich must be abolished” in order to confront overpopulation and the so-called “climate crisis”.
Taking to social media on Tuesday evening, Webbe wrote that the “Earth is overpopulated; there are too many rich people,” adding: “To solve the climate crisis; the rich must be abolished”.
Her comments came in response to a report from the Cambridge Sustainability Commission on Scaling Behaviour Change, which claimed that the wealthiest 5 per cent of the global population were responsible for 37 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions growth between the years 1990 and 2015, more than double that of the bottom 50 per cent of the world’s population.
The lead author of the report, Prof Peter Newell of Sussex University told the BBC: “Rich people who fly a lot may think they can offset their emissions by tree-planting schemes or projects to capture carbon from the air. But these schemes are highly contentious and they’re not proven over time.”
Prof Newell said that wealthy people “simply must fly less and drive less. Even if they own an electric SUV that’s still a drain on the energy system and all the emissions created making the vehicle in the first place”.
Echoing the demand, the far-left MP wrote: “Eliminating energy and resource intensive lifestyles of the richest would by far rapidly reduce emissions.”
The irony of Webbe’s call to abolish the rich was not lost on social media users, who pointed out that with her salary as an MP she is in the top one per cent of earners globally.
ConservativeHome’s Mark Wallace noted that she earns £81,932 per year as an MP, which even accounting for taxes puts her in the top income bracket in the world.
“I’m not even kidding, Claudia Webbe has just called for herself to be abolished,” Wallace quipped.
On Wednesday, the Leicester East MP doubled down on pushing her green agenda, theorising that migration to Western nations from the “global south” has come as a result of the “devastation” caused by climate change.
“This is a climate emergency we must dramatically start reducing our emissions. Our solidarity and action is needed now,” she wrote.
Webbe became the MP for Leicester East in 2019, replacing disgraced Labour MP Keith Vaz. She was suspended from the Labour Party last September amid allegations that she threatened a woman, for which she is currently on trial.
Separately in February, Webbe was found to have breached Parliamentary standards by failing to declare her second income as a London councillor — an extra £10,000 a year on top of her Member’s salary. Webbe apologised, and said she had failed to understand what was required of her as a member of the house because she was a newly elected MP and the Coronavirus crisis had distracted her, local paper the Leicster Mercury reported.
Prior to her election, Webbe served as a member of the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee and as councillor for Islington between 2010 and 2018. She also formerly worked as a political advisor to then-Mayor of London Ken Livingstone.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka