Mhairi Black, Britain’s youngest MP, has called for Labour to “get over” its general election defeat and work with other opposition MPs.
In an article for the Guardian, the MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South writes that Labour MPs remain angry with the Scottish National party instead of forming an alliance to defeat Conservative laws.
It follows the government’s climbdown over proposals to relax the UK’s foxhunting ban after the SNP said it would vote against the change.
Black, whose maiden speech in the Commons this week was greeted positively, said Labour was in shock after its defeat, which had led to a rejection of working with the SNP.
“It seems that Labour just do not like voting alongside the SNP – whatever the issue,” she writes.
“The general election result was, of course, crushing for Labour MPs south of the border as well as north, and the wounds are still very open and very sore. I fully appreciate that simply on a human level it must be a blow to see so many colleagues, and often friends, losing their jobs. But, as my SNP parliamentary colleague Tommy Sheppard once said, they must get over it.”
In her Commons speech on Monday, Black attacked cuts in housing benefit. To laughter from fellow MPs, she declared she was the only 20-year-old in the country whom George Osborne was helping with her housing bill.
“My housing [in London] is subsidised by the state … but, in this budget, the chancellor abolished any housing benefit for anyone under the age of 21,” she said. “We are now in the ridiculous situation whereby, because I am an MP, not only am I the youngest, but I am also the only 20-year-old in the whole of the UK who the chancellor is prepared to help with housing.”
.jpg?w=600)
