Braverman urges Starmer to sack team members who support eco-zealots

Suella Braverman urges Keir Starmer to sack any member of his top team who supports eco-zealots in fresh row over Just Stop Oil for Labour

• Sir Keir has rejected claims his officials had met eco activists

Suella Braverman yesterday challenged Sir Keir Starmer to sack any member of his top team who supports eco-zealots in a fresh row over Labour’s links to Just Stop Oil.

The Home Secretary accused the Leader of the Opposition of hypocrisy for ‘saying one thing one day and doing the exact opposite the next’.

It came after one of Sir Keir’s closest advisers allegedly sought to broker a secret meeting with the protesters, who have blocked motorways, roads and disrupted major sporting and cultural events.

Ms Braverman called on the Labour leader, who condemned JSO activists as ‘wrong’ and ‘arrogant’, to stop ‘bowing to fringe lobbies and extremists’.

And she said he should sack those within his party who sided with the eco-protesters. 

Suella Braverman (pictured) yesterday challenged Sir Keir Starmer to sack any member of his top team who supports eco-zealots in a fresh row over Labour’s links to Just Stop Oil

She named Labour MP Jessica Morden, Sir Keir’s parliamentary private secretary, who The Mail on Sunday said covertly offered activists the opportunity to ‘come in and chat’. Sir Keir described the claims as ‘nonsense’.

Ms Braverman said in an open letter to the Labour leader: ‘I am in one sense surprised by this remarkable act of bad faith. In another sense, however, saying one thing one day and doing the exact opposite the next day is typical behaviour for you and Labour, including with your own flip-flopping on support for Jeremy Corbyn and Brexit. 

For the sake of the country’s energy security, for the sake of the thousands of jobs which will be destroyed by your North Sea policy, and above all to show that anti-democratic wreckers cannot dictate to democratic politicians… I appeal to you to behave in the same way both in public and in private. 

That must mean sacking Jess Morden MP and all your other frontbenchers, such as [climate change spokesman] Ed Miliband MP and Kerry McCarthy MP, who have expressed sympathy with JSO or Extinction Rebellion.

‘It must mean ordering all office-holders in your party, including your government in Wales, to end contact with the extremist groups.’

Sir Keir has faced a fierce backlash from union allies, industry leaders and his own MPs over the party’s multi-billion-pound green energy plans.

Sir Keir Starmer (pictured) has refuted all claims his officials had met eco activists

Green energy pioneer and JSO backer Dale Vince has donated £1.5 million to Labour in the past decade, and experts fear Labour’s plans to ban new North Sea oil projects risk haemorrhaging skilled jobs.

Sir Keir denied his officials had met eco activists.

The Labour leader told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: ‘There haven’t been meetings.

‘I’ve not met them, my team aren’t meeting them. It’s a complete distraction.’

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