MP claims his research on 50 northern seats was ‘unwelcome and suppressed’ by partyThe Labour MP and shadow cabinet minister Jon Trickett says he warned the party’s leadership earlier this year about the risks of ignoring northern voters, but his research was “unwelcome and suppressed”. Trickett and his shadow cabinet colleague Ian Lavery collaborated on a 36-page study called Northern Discomfort, based on research into 50 seats, the vast majority of which Labour went on to lose in last week’s general election. The pair said they had taken their findings to Jeremy Corbyn, warning that Labour risked being abandoned by voters outside London. He told the Guardian: “At every juncture, every shadow cabinet meeting, I was telling people what was going to happen here: I was banging my head against a wall, saying what was going to happen. And I said, it’s not the Liberal Democrats we need to worry about, it’s the Tories and the Brexit party in the north.

Source: The Guardian December 19, 2019 06:00 UTC