The UK’s Labour Party has suspended 11 councillors in Greater Manchester as part of an investigation into a WhatsApp group where offensive messages were shared.
These investigations have already resulted in the suspension of two other Labour MPs in the region - with Minister Andrew Gwynne losing his health portfolio.
UK correspondent Gavin Grey says investigations are still ongoing - and it's not a good look for the Government.
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Episode Transcript
I like to welcome to the program Gavin Gray from
the UK. Hello, Gevin, Hither Andrew a Palestinian family they
used to live in Gaza have now been given the
right to live in the UK. It was not easy
for them to get that right.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
No, indeed not, and this is because they applied under
a scheme for Ukrainian refugees. I'll explain that in a minute.
But the ramification of this is now that this could
open up the floodgates form many many more from Gaza
to say well, if that case, then we can come
(00:35):
to the UK as well. The government has been contesting this.
So anyway, the mother, father, and their four children were aged.
The children aged between seven and eighteen, were displaced after
the home was destroyed by an airstrike in the Israel
Hamas War. Now, they applied to the UK using the
Ukraine Family scheme because they said there was no other
(00:58):
way that they could apply for refugee status in the UK.
So they applied under that Ukrainian scheme to join the
father's brother who's lived in the UK for seventeen years
and is a British citizen. Their application was refused. The
Home Office here said that the requirements of the scheme
were not met. The family of six have been granted anonymity.
(01:18):
They had an appeal dismissed. However, they then went to
another appeal and are the Article eight of yes, you
guessed it, the European Convention of Human Rights, which protects
the right to family life. The judge there decided they
should absolutely be allowed to stay in the UK because
their lives were at risk. As I said, now we
get the government here saying they are going to contest
(01:39):
this and other applications that now come in.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Okay, interesting, interesting, But it shows a desperation of the
Palestinians that they look at a creative way of actually
becoming a refugee.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yep, yep, absolutely, and their needs and desperate desires too. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Okay, Now tell me about the WhatsApp scandal that's coming
out of Mentius.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah. So this is getting particularly bad for the government.
These are all Labor Parties supporters or members or in
a couple of cases MPs. The WhatsApp group has shared
effectively racist, homophobic, agist comments, particularly unpleasant even about some
of those in the Labor Party themselves. One Health minister
(02:22):
has been sacked, another MP was suspended after admitting some
badly misjudged comments. The hunt has been on from a
right wing newspaper to identify the rest of the WhatsApp group.
Sounds easy to do, but it's quite difficult if you're
not a member of it to work out how to
get those other numbers and then work out who those
numbers belong to. And now all of a sudden, the
(02:44):
Labor Party, which is the party of government here in
the UK, has suspended eleven of its own counselors in
Greater Manchester as part of this investigation. And it looks
like they think they've probably got a lid on it
now that this drip drip drip of people coming out
as being Labor members, Labor supporters, Labor MPs who are
(03:04):
part of this group with these highly offensive messages, Well
that's been very damaging for this governor.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yes, well yes, and the Labor patty always prides itself
as being at a higher morality wise. But who was
it Andrew gwyn got suspended.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, that's right, and he was suspended on Saturday. As said,
his comments were badly misjudged. Just to give you an
idea in some of the messages that have been revealed.
One of those in the group said they hope a
seventy two year old woman would soon be dead after
she wrote to her local counselor about ben collections.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Mister Gwinn, by the way, was a health menurser, so
that's not a good look as well. Now the de
industrialization of oil in Europe. Now we've been talking about
this because of ineos who have withdrawn from wanting to
fund allbecks Jerseys. BP says that they are in trouble.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, and this is all because they said they were
focusing a lot more on green energy and they're rowing
back on that now, in line incidentally with other some
big energy jants. Last week, the Norwegian energy giant Equanor
said it would harve its investment in renewable energy over
the next two years while increasing oil and gas production.
(04:20):
Of course, Donald Trump famously said the drill, baby, drill
when it comes to oil and gas, and now Oil
Giant BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, says it will
quote fundamentally reset its strategy. With profits dropping sharply. Last year,
profits fell from fell to fourteen billion from some roughly
(04:42):
twenty two billion the previous year, and It said lower
oil and gas prices and lower profits from its refineries
had dented how much money it had made. But this
is a big change for BP because five years ago
it set to target a fifty gigawad of renewables generation
capacity by twenty thirty, and we expect that to be abandoned.
(05:02):
A major change of strategy to announce at the end
of this month, with the company set to scale back
massively on its renewables. And as I said, it's not
the first big company and it won't be the last,
and I think to announce something similar.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So to put it in a nutshell, they're making less
than they used to make from oil, but they're making
even less from the renewables, and so it's a double wemming.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, And they're not going to invest as much in
the research and into getting that renewable off the ground
as they once were. It had set out a commitment
of ten billion US dollars in renewables until twenty thirty,
and it's expected that they could well announce they're going
to have that good stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Kevin, I thank you so much for your expertise and
your information.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
For more from hither Duplessy, Alan Drive, Listen live to
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