Lisa Nandy's calm, measured and articulate performances during the 2020 Labour leadership election impressed many, including critics of her party. At times it appeared as if she was the one candidate who could pose a significant threat to Boris Johnson. Then came her interview on Good Morning Britain in which she was torn to shreds by Piers Morgan over the left's conundrum between trans vs women's rights. It was a car crash interview that exposed a crucial weakness in Nandy's armour - despite being tarred a 'centrist' by Corbynistas, in actual fact she embraced the wokery of the hard left.
After finishing a strong third in the leadership election, Nandy was given one of the top jobs on Starmer's front bench - Shadow Foreign Secretary. However, despite Starmer's overtures to the patriotic leanings of working class voters, Nandy has gone from woke to worse. Recently she endorsed a report that suggested replacing the British Army with the name 'Gender-Balanced Human Security Corps'. She referred to the report as 'inspirational' in a leaked Zoom call obtained by the Guido Fawkes blog.
Her apparent disdain for Her Majesty's Armed Forces is in line with previous statements she has made about the monarchy, the British Empire and Churchill. During one leadership debate she said she would back the abolition of the monarchy, albeit she would put it to a referendum. This was the most extreme view on the panel, with even hard left Long-Bailey saying she would maintain the status quo. And in a pathetic signal to woke viewers, Nandy joked that she would have liked to have seen 'Queen Meghan at some point'.
Earlier on in her campaign Nandy had also criticised the British Empire, calling for the word 'empire' to be removed from honours and replaced with 'excellence'. These views were expressed prior to the BLM uprising, as was her refusal to acknowledge Churchill as a hero figure. She returned to Churchill again more recently by voicing support for the BLM vandals who defaced his statue last summer, accusing Boris Johnson of trying to 'start a culture war over a statue'. In the same interview she also praised Joe Biden as a 'woke guy' who stood up for BLM. She had hoped to attend his inauguration, but lockdown restrictions prevented her.
Last summer Nandy also spoke of her pride in BLM protesters.
Then again, none of this should come as a surprise considering her family background. Her father is Dipak Nandy, an Indian immigrant and lifelong Marxist activist who appears to have a huge chip on his shoulder where Britain and the Empire is concerned. He is a founder of the left-wing Runnymede Trust, a 'charity' that dedicates itself to race baiting and racially divisive campaigns. No wonder Lisa adores BLM and its devastating effect on race relations.
While she made astute self-serving moves over Brexit to placate her Leave-voting constituents in 2019, Nandy appears to have no reservations about alienating them with woke politics. Her views are more at home with the middle class metropolitan elites of our capital city, rather than the working class voters of Wigan who gave her a kicking in the 2019 general election, slashing almost 10,000 votes from her 16,000 majority.
If Starmer is serious about appealing to the old red wall seats he may do well to consider ditching Nandy at some point. Consolidating your London base is pointless if you continue to fail elsewhere.
