LABOUR leadership hopeful Lisa Nandy has demanded “Empire” be removed from OBE honours because it offends people.
The Wigan MP said the move would ensure a more inclusive society rather than alienating Brits from BAME backgrounds.
ON THE OFFENCE
Ms Nandy pointed to the example of poet Benjamin Zephaniah, who turned down an OBE in 2003 because it reminded him of “thousands of years of brutality” in Britain’s colonial past.
She wants to replace it with the word “excellence”, to “celebrate those who built us” rather than “seek to alienate them”.
Ms Nandy said: The self-confident, empowered country I will lead will be one that is different.
Where people like Benjamin Zephaniah can accept the Order of Excellence not reject the Order of the British Empire.
That celebrates those who built us not seeks to alienate them.
To remake this country as it should and can be, Written, as he says, in ”verses of fire”.’
Writing in The Guardian, 17 years ago, acclaimed poet Mr Zephaniah said he refused the OBE because it reminded him of how his ancestors were “raped” and “brutalised”.
He said: I get angry when I hear that word empire; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised.
Benjamin Zephaniah OBE – no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.
MOVE ON
Ms Nandys call to change the honours system came after she and leader favourite Rebecca Long-Bailey urged the party to accept Brexit and move on.
The pair, who both represent Leave voting constituencies, said efforts should now be made to ensure a good trade is struck with the EU.
But shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said talks with the bloc were doomed to fail and Labour would need Remain-backing leader who had been “on the right side of the argument all along”.
Ms Long-Bailey told supporters at the hustings in Bristol that the party could not campaign at the next general election with the message of “we told you so” if the country’s economic fortunes took a dip after leaving the EU.
She admitted it was “sad” to see the UK’s divorce from Brussels finalised this week but said the “debate is over” on Brexit.
“We cannot spend the next four years waiting to tell our constituents we told you so and that we knew it was going to be this bad all along,” the Corbynite MP urged.
‘LOOKING BACKWARDS’
Ms Nandy accused the leadership under Jeremy Corbyn of looking “backwards” after the result rather than “looking forward to the country we can be”.
She said: “We completely missed the point of that political earthquake, which was a clamour for more power, more control and more agency across this country.
The former shadow energy secretary, who voted for the PMs Brexit deal, admitted she had failed in her push for a Brexit deal that kept a close relationship with the EU.
But Ms Thornberry said Mr Johnson would not be able to broker a deal with Brussels and claimed the country would be “back in no-deal territory by the summer”.
She told the hustings: “What do we do at that stage? We need to have someone leading the fight who was on the right side of the argument all along.
Remainer Sir Keir Starmer, one of the architects of Labour’s second referendum policy, said the divide between Leave and Remain voters must end.
However, he accused the Government of failing to address the “underlying reasons” why the electorate voted out before Friday’s historic moment.
Poet and actor Benjamin Zephaniah Zephaniah said he refused an OBE in 2003 because it reminded him of how his ancestors were ‘raped’ and ‘brutalised’
