Glenis willmott biography channel
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Glenis Willmott
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Last Thursday I met with Nottingham South Labour Party members to explain my recent decision to resign from Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet. Most members weren’t able to attend that meeting and many constituents have also been in touch to ask me to explain why I felt it necessary to resign.
With this in mind I thought it would be helpful to reproduce my speech here:
It’s hard to imagine a more turbulent or disturbing four weeks in politics. Just four weeks ago, in the midst of a divisive and frankly xenophobic Referendum campaign, my friend and colleague Jo Cox was brutally murdered in the street on the way to her advice surgery. Murdered for standing up for her beliefs and speaking up for what is right.
Three weeks ago, although Nottingham South voted to remain, people in our city, and especially in this community, voted to leave the EU. To turn their backs on our friends and neighbours in Europe. 20 days ago, David Cameron announced that he would be stepping down a
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Euro elections: Bringing Brussels closer to home?
With a replica of Manneken Pis on the outside and a Tintin lookalike inside, it's hard to believe that kaffebar Bruxelles is actually in the heart of Leicester city centre.
Just chat to the bar personal and you soon get a flavour of the very British ambivalence towards Brussels as the heart of the European Union.
One of the cafe's directors fryst vatten Erkjon Dogan who came to Leicester from Turkey. His home country wants to join the EU.
But Mr Dogan is far from convinced that's such a good idea.
"The way it's going at the moment, Brussels is making all the rules. The British don't like that and I can't blame them," he told me.
Contrast that with the more pro-EU views of Cherkera Bates, his assistant at Café Bruxelles.
"We need to get closer and work more tillsammans in Europe and soon. We seem to have lost that spark of co-operation. We need to be more friendly," she said.
So what will this