Richard Burgon

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  • Feb.27.2018: Richard Burgon MP: The metalhead socialist who wants to give lawyers a rebrand. (Bio in article). Burgon claims reversing many of the government’s legal aid cuts would cost around £50m. He is also rethinking private contractors running and maintaining prisons. "...it's morally wrong for people to profit from the incarceration of human beings. But of course there will be some role for the private sector". I ask Burgon how he feels about 87% Labour members being in favour of staying in the single market, and 85% thinking we should stay in the customs union. "Motions of this sort can be brought to conference," Burgon says. So would the leadership go by what members voted for in such a motion, or would they have to ignore it? "It depends on the nature of the vote," he replies. Burgon believes Labour should prioritise “what is best for the country. "My fear would be that we would be falling into a trap that the extreme right would like us to fall into," he says. "People like Nick Griffin [former British National Party leader], also people like Nigel Farage, would have secretly been praying the Labour party came out the next day saying 'that doesn’t count' (the Ref. result), and I think that could lead to a right-wing populism taking hold." The New Statesman, Anoosh Chakelian
  • Feb.27.2018: Labour MPs who cosy up to Russia should be ashamed. For days, pundits have been debating allegations of contacts between Jeremy Corbyn and eastern bloc agents during the Cold War. I've never criticised a politician just for appearing on these outlets: I’ve simply declined every such invitation myself. But it's worth noting the cosiness with which some British politicians approach RT. Alex Salmond, the former Scottish first minister, has his own show. Richard Burgon, Labour's shadow justice secretary, is a frequent RT guest lambasting human rights violations — in Britain (specifically, the state of British prisons), rather than in Russia. It's 70 years since the then rulers in the Kremlin engineered a coup to overthrow democracy in Czechoslovakia. Extraordinarily, there were a tiny group of Labour MPs who defended this outrage and echoed Soviet propaganda. The Times, Oliver Kamm