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Sad death of 100th Service person in Iraq


John Hemming MP together with Lorely Burt MP, John Barrett MP, John Leech MP and Richard Ross MP attended the vigil in memory of the deaths of 100 British Servicemen and Women at 5pm on Tuesday 31st January 2006.

The Liberal Democrat MPs shared in the reading out of the names of the servicepeople who had died.

John Hemming MP said, "The government have a key responsibility for the lives of our service people. They need to recognise that there is no good reason for keeping our boys and girls as military targets in Iraq. Work should commence for their return to the UK."

"This war was a mistake. The continued occupation is also a mistake."

"We do recognise that in theory we could have been arrested for reading the names of the service people. However, it is important that MPs stand up for free speech and the right for people to have their voice heard."

Lorely Burt MP said, "Our hearts go out to the families of the service people who have been killed in Iraq. We only hope that there will be no more tragedies as happened today."

Comments

Richard Gadsden said…
Uh, John, probably not 31st March...
John Hemming said…
I did not see any Labour or Tory MPs there.

Secondly, I did not move to have Tony Foley expelled from the Lib Dems.

Thirdly, if you are a member of a political party then you cannot campaign against that party. There is a limited extent to which the party can be criticised and as soon as people say "don't vote for this candidate" they are going beyond that limit. That is not a constraint on free speech it is a constraint on membership of a political party.
John Hemming said…
There is a difference between quietly not doing anything and running an Evening Mail press story about ripping up membership cards.

A story which might (given that it was reprinted by Labour and delivered across the constituency) have resulted in us losing the by-election.
John Hemming said…
I have since found the article. In fact you were ripping up a party poster.

It says "City Liberal Democract activists have withdrawn their support for candidate ..."

It has a photo of you and Maxine tearing up a poster.

That is publicly campaigning against a candidate.

It is not the same as not supporting someone in an internal party election.

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