What do you do if you are an outsider in the Labour leadership race and need to grab some extra attention fast? Answer: come up with something eye-catching that you think will go down well with party members even if it is not necessarily a realistic proposition.
First we had Jess Phillips suggesting that she might campaign to rejoin the European Union. Now we have Clive Lewis calling for a referendum on the monarchy.
‘Why not have a referendum on the future of the Royal Family?… I’d rather see us as citizens than subjects in the 21st Century,’ said Lewis, who is currently short of the 22 Labour MPs or MEPs he needs to nominate him if he is to make the leadership ballot paper.
Just as Phillips swiftly rowed back on her anti-Brexit flight of fancy, Lewis also abandoned the republican gambit from his campaign launch today, tweeting soon afterwards:
‘In response to my comments about the royal family.
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