Sir Keir Starmer in ANOTHER u-turn as he plans to 'flood Lords with MORE Labour peers' | The Sun
SIR Keir Starmer was accused of another u-turn as it emerged he wants to flood the House of Lords with Labour Peers.
Just the day after he vowed not to have a resignation honours list of his own, the Labour boss is reportedly planning how to stuff the Upper Chamber with friendly Peers.
And it comes despite his promise to abolish the House of Lords altogether.
The Conservatives have the most peers at 263, with 174 Labour ones, and 183 non-alligned.
A source close to the leadership told The Times: “We will need to level the playing field to get any of our legislation through.
"And abolishing the Lords is hardly mission critical to the first three years of a Labour government."
But there is a precedent that the Lords do not block policies which the winning party puts in their election manifesto.
Tory MP Mark Jenkinson slammed the news, saying: “I thought Sir Flip-Flop was against handing out peerages and was going to abolish the House of Lords?”
Lee Anderson added: "Slippery Starmer."
The SNP turned fire on him too, with Tommy Sheppard saying: "You simply cannot believe anything Starmer says.
"At Westminster they can debate the ‘calibre’ of Lords nominees until the cows come home. With independence, we can truly be rid of this unelected institution for good. #AbolishTheLords."
The Labour boss has indicated his previous promise to scrap the Lords might have to wait until a second term in office – as he prioritises other things instead.
The paper also reported that they were looking to use the Lords to beef up ministerial roles in the event they won the election.
Sir Keir has spent the last week slamming Boris Johnson's resignation honours, and said yesterday he would not have his own list if he becomes PM.
And he called on those partygate-goers who got gongs to hand them back.
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A senior Labour source dismissed the report as "speculation" and "inaccurate" as "you can't just replace the need for Commons ministers with Lords ministers.
"We’re confident that if elected we would have high quality ministers in both houses of parliament.
"We're really excited about the new intake of Labour MPs. The whole reason for our strict candidates process is to ensure we have a high quality PLP."
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