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At a dinner to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Progress, Wes Streeting extended the hand of friendship to an unlikely section of the Parliamentary Labour Party. As George Eaton reported, the Health Secretary said he would “always defend the tradition of the [Socialist] Campaign Group in this party and this movement”.
Streeting and the Socialist Campaign Group (SCG) – the faction founded to assist Tony Benn in his 1981 deputy leadership bid, and once home to Your Party co-founder Jeremy Corbyn – are not easy bedfellows. Streeting is a Blairite, a wing of the PLP not known for its closeness to SCG members. But the Health Secretary’s rumoured designs on the Labour leadership mean he can’t afford to be picky. Streeting added: “We might not always agree, we might not always share the same branches of our party and our movement, but we do have lots of ideological roots in common.”
SCG members aren’t so convinced. Speaking to the Pygge ahead of Streeting’s dinner-time appearance, one member said: “Anyone who thinks Wes Streeting is the next leader of the Labour Party is not asking themselves the right question.” Group member Richard Burgon told the New Statesman before Christmas: “If Wes Streeting stood to be leader of the Labour Party, the Socialist Campaign Group would not support him.”
Responding to this attempted olive branch, one member of the SCG told the Pygge: “If you believe that, then have you heard the one about the guy with the ten leadership pledges?” At least Streeting tried.
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[Further reading: Is there a strategy behind Kemi’s Jenrick purge?]
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