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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Danny Rigg

Liverpool MP calls on Keir Starmer to ban The S*n from Labour Party conference

Liverpool Labour politicians have contacted party leader Keir Starmer to say The S*n newspaper is not welcome at the party's conference in Brighton next week.

Liverpool has boycotted the tabloid since it falsely accused Liverpool FC fans of being to blame for the deaths of 97 fans in the Hillsborough tragedy of 1989.

Riverside MP Kim Johnson voiced her disapproval in a WhatsApp message to the Labour leader on Wednesday evening.

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She told the ECHO : "I challenged The S*n being used during the Batley and Spen by-election, and I challenged it at a [Parliamentary Labour Party ] meeting, saying that they shouldn't be using it, given the strength of feeling of so many, not just Liverpudlians, because our blue-nose comrades feel exactly the same.

"It's a united front across the city, and beyond, in terms of the reprehensible way they treated the victims and family members in 1989 and Hillsborough.

"It was just disgusting and will never be forgotten."

Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram was at the match on April 15, 1989, and he has campaigned for justice for the Hillsborough families as a politician.

He took to Twitter to criticise his party for allowing the paper that smeared those victims at conference.

Mayor Rotheram said: "I will be making my views known to the Labour Party leadership regarding the offensive decision to allow The S*n anywhere near the Labour Party conference in Brighton.

"It is NOT welcome. Full stop."

Maria Eagle, the Labour MP for Garston and Halewood, quote tweeted the Metro Mayor 's statement, saying: "Quite right."

At the 2016 Labour Party conference in Liverpool, copies of The S*n were removed from the ACC after being left for attendees to take.

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