“I won’t be alone in Liverpool today feeling deep anger…”
The Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside has invited party leader Keir Starmer to come to the city and meet the families of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster.
It’s after Starmer wrote an op-ed in Sunday’s edition of The Sun, a paper that is boycotted in the Liverpool for it’s coverage of the disaster in 1989.
The MP for Liverpool Riverside, Kim Johnson, said that the people of the city felt “betrayed” by Starmer’s piece, and hoped that by meeting the families of victims of the Hillsborough tragedy he would then “understand the depth of anger and anguish across the city” towards the paper.
In a statement shared on Twitter, Kim Johnson said: “I won’t be alone in Liverpool today feeling deep anger that the leader of my Labour Party has chosen to write an op-ed piece in The S*n, the newspaper that spent 15 years demonizing Liverpool fans, blaming them for the Hillsborough disaster – the avoidable Hillsborough disaster – before issuing a half-hearted apology for their lies and smears against the Liverpool fans.
“I’ve written to Sir Keir Starmer to ask him to come to Liverpool to meet the families of the unlawfully killed 97, the survivors of that tragic day, and the campaigners who have stood alongside the families for 32 long years, fighting for justice and accountability, and accountability recently denied.
“I hope he will then understand the depth of anger and anguish across the city, the Merseyside region and beyond against this newspaper, and why we feel so betrayed today.”
My statement today, responding to Keir Starmer writing for The S*n. My solidarity especially with the families of the 97 and the survivors of that tragic day. #JFT97 #YNWA pic.twitter.com/BFC0aNhpvn
— Kim Johnson MP (@KimJohnsonMP) October 3, 2021
On Saturday night, Labour MP for Coventry South, Zarah Sultana, called Starmer’s decision to write a piece in The Sun as one that is “deeply insulting to the people of Liverpool,” pointing out that the city remained one of the Labour Party’s strongest basis of support.
Writing for The S*n is deeply insulting to the people of Liverpool — one of Labour’s strongest bases of support — & the football community as a whole.
Trying to win back voters lost to the Tories by alienating a group of core working-class supporters is a recipe for disaster.
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) October 2, 2021
In the op-ed, Starmer called the current situation in the UK a “worrying time for working people,” blaming the current fuel crisis on Downing Street and the “Prime Minister’s incompetence.”
During his Labour leadership campaign last year, he had said he would not speak to the paper.
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