B*ll*cks! Now Jeremy Corbyn ally ‘rubbishes’ one of Labour’s key Brexit tests

“Deeply sorry”: Barry Gardiner said he did not think the Good Friday Agreement was unimportant
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Kate Proctor10 April 2018
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Labour was plunged into fresh embarrassment today after it was claimed one of its frontbenchers had rubbished part of its Brexit policy.

Barry Gardiner, trade spokesman and an ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, was recorded during a question session at a think tank discrediting one of the party’s proposed “six tests” on whether Labour should support a Brexit deal in Parliament, according to the BBC.

Mr Gardiner was forced to apologise today for apparently describing the Good Friday Agreement, the culmination of Northern Ireland’s peace process, as outdated at the same event.

In the recording he allegedly discusses Labour’s “six tests” on whether it will vote for a final deal. He reportedly said: “Well, let’s just take one test — the exact same benefits. Bollocks.”

He had already come under intense criticism for describing the Good Friday Agreement as a “shibboleth”, a Hebrew description of a custom that is no longer of use.

He said today: “I am deeply sorry that my informal remarks in a meeting last month have led to misunderstanding on that point — in particular, that my use of the word ‘shibboleth’ in its sense of ‘password’ or ‘test of membership’ gave the impression that I thought the Good Friday Agreement was in any way outdated or unimportant. I absolutely do not.”

Mr Gardiner had been accused by Owen Smith, Labour’s former shadow Northern Ireland spokesman, of being “reckless” when trying to downplay the role of border arrangements in the Brexit talks.

Meanwhile former US president Bill Clinton, former British prime minister Tony Blair and former Irish premier Bertie Ahern, the architects of the peace deal, were due to meet in Belfast this afternoon to mark the 20th anniversary of the agreement.

Mr Blair said: “We used to wake every day in the UK to fresh outrages, terrorism, sectarian hatred, death, destruction. We’ve come a long way and we’ve got to be vigilant in preserving it.”

Northern Ireland has been without an executive for 15 months since talks broke down between the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, while Brexit has also thrown the future of its border with the Republic into flux.

There is concern that Britain will not be able to leave the EU without introducing checks and controls on the Irish border — contrary to the terms of the 1998 agreement.

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