Angry members of the Labour Party chanted and booed at their Conservative counterparts in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom on Tuesday, ending with an impromptu singing of The Red Flag, a nineteenth century socialist anthem.
As tension between supporters of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, leader of the Conservatives, and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn have reached a fever pitch over the possibility of a “no-deal Brexit,” Labour members of Parliament have been outspoken in their criticism.
The chorus of Labour MPs singing The Red Flag also prompted outrage by Conservatives in the House of Commons as well as those who voted in favor of Johnson’s party and Brexit. One Conservative voter referred to the singing of the song, often associated with Marxism, as “disgusting.”
“I’m sure the irony of Labour MPs in particular ‘singing’ in their HoC protest against holding a GE & in favour of keeping on handing governance over this country to Brussels will become the stuff of ‘legend’, but not in a way that will make them proud,” another Conservative voter said.
Others lampooned the singing as a dramatic expression that emboldened political positions antithetical to freedom and Democracy. “Utter rubbish,” one user said on Twitter. “Extreme Left wing alternative? Singing the Red Flag sums it all up.. Communism, Corbyn and lala land economics will damage the UK.”
Labour supporters lauded the singing as a touching tribute in the face of British controversy, which Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell compared to the bloody English Civil War in 1642 that claimed the lives of over 200,000 people and resulted in the execution of King Charles I. “The closing down of Parliament by Johnson & the Tories provoked anger in the Commons but also in the final moments of this Parliamentary session a defiant burst of singing of the ‘Red Flag’ by Labour MPs” McDonnell said in a tweet.
“We will never let this extreme right wing Tory sect silence our democracy,”
The closing down of Parliament by Johnson & the Tories provoked anger in the Commons but also in the final moments of this Parliamentary session a defiant burst of singing of the “Red Flag” by Labour MPs. We will never let this extreme right wing Tory sect silence our democracy. https://t.co/0HLwcUQAdr
— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) September 10, 2019
