Richard Leonard shades Keir Starmer with message for…

Richard Leonard shades Keir Starmer with message for Labour to 'lead its leaders'

A NEW video has been released about a radical socialist MP who denounced the leader of the Labour Party for his rejection of socialism and adoption of Tory policies …

And before you think you know the story – it does not in fact star Jeremy Corbyn OR Keir Starmer.

The former Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard has told the tale of a Scottish MP whose actions in the face of Labour leadership (which may sound familiar) inspired a generation.

Jennie Lee, who was brought up in Cowdenbeath, was first elected to parliament in the North Lanark by-election of 1929 aged just 24, before she was even old enough to vote (at the time, women had to be 30).

Lee became the youngest ever female MP.

In the video, posted to Leonard’s social media channels, he quotes her: “We want ideals, not idols."

That proved a rallying cry, criticising the then Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald for his rejection of socialism.

Is the MSP reminding anyone of this cry for a reason?

He goes on to explain how Lee lost her seat in the General Election of 1931 when Labour was routed across the country after MacDonald’s “treacherous collaboration” with the Tories in Government earlier that year.

Anyone else hear those bells ringing?

Leonard adds: “She came back as an MP for the coalmining community of Cannock in the socialist dawn of the 1945 General Election.

“In the intervening years she had married Aneurin Bevan. One historian noted: ‘If he was a visionary, she was a life force’.”

He then traces her record in government, founding the Open University – “a fitting legacy” – and opening new cultural venues across the UK as minister for the arts.

He describes her as: “An internationalist, a dissenter, a radical, a pioneer, an inspiring orator, and a socialist.”

The video closes by saying that Lee wrote in 1947: “The Labour movement is getting ready to do what it has done so often in the past: lead its leaders.”

And there's the shade.

To The Jouker, this looks like a rallying cry to both Scottish and UK Labour members to currently “lead its leaders” such as Starmer.

“Her words echo down the ages,” concludes Leonard, “a reminder that it is time to reawaken that spirit again.

“We want ideals, not idols. Every time.”