Laura Pidcock has warned Labour MPs to reject the suggestion they need to be “racist” in order to appeal to working class voters
“There is a bit of a conversation going at the minute in the Labour Party that I find a little concerning, that we are not appealing to working class people, and specifically white working class people,” she said.
“To try and appeal to more working class people, we have to completely dismantle the notion we have to be racist.”
The Labour MP for North West Durham was speaking on Tuesday afternoon at meeting at The World Transformed, the Momentum organised festival on the fringe of the Labour Party conference in Brighton.
Pidcock, a strong supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, said she won her seat, which is overwhelmingly white and working class, at the snap election by “speaking to issues” not pandering to anti-migrant sentiment.
“I didn’t have to be Ukippy,” she said. “Jeremy wasn’t Ukippy, was he.”
The newly elected MP worked for anti-racism charity Show Racism the Red Card before entering parliament.
Her comments came after a series of Labour MPs warned the party’s general election campaign had spoken more to middle class voters than the country at large.
Speaking today, Pidcock, mocked “the divinity” Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg believed he had.
She said the fact the Conservative backbencher, who emerged as an unexpected Tory leadership favourite over the summer, chose to “lie down” on the Commons benches showed he believed he “deserved” to be there as result of his class.
Pidcock, a former local councillor, also said she believed “hard class politics” needed to return to local councils across the country.