Dan Hannan – a slightly eccentric Tory MEP – claims:
Labour MPs affiliated to the All-Party Cuba Group, who traded their votes for the Government’s support for lifting the very mild political sanctions which the EU imposed on Cuba when the Castro regime imprisoned a number of dissidents in 2003.
In return for backing a regime that locks up innocent people, these MPs have voted to lock up people in this country who have not even been accused of breaking the law. To support an authoritarian Cuba, they have made Britain a little bit more authoritarian. ¡Qué vergüenza!
Is this true? Shiraz Socialist has heard the rumours too:
Even more extraordinary (if true) are the rumours that at least a few Cuba-supporting Labout MP’s were bought off with promises that Brown will push for a relaxation of the EU’s trade restrictions on Cuba. Talk about “for export-only” leftism! I know that the Cuba Solidarity Campaign is a single-issue movement and I have no reason to believe that it in any way approved of what these (so far unnamed) MPs are alleged to have done: but even so, if the rumours prove to be true, Cuba Solidarity really ought to make it clear that it didn’t ask for and doesn’t want that sort of support.
The Times says:
Two members of the all-party Cuba group were told that the Government would not oppose attempts to lift European sanctions at a meeting of EU foreign ministers next week.
The subject was touched upon at in a Downing Street briefing, yesterday: but inconclusively.
