Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

No fanfare, no cheers, and a thin turnout at PMQs

A thin turnout for Theresa May’s penultimate PMQs. Labour members were skulking in corridors plotting to oust their leader. And Tories, especially devout Remainers, were busy talking to journalists about their lifelong commitment to a no-deal Brexit.

Mrs May seemed to be angling for the post of chief attack dog at the next election. Jeremy Corbyn asked her about climate change but she raised Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis.

‘You have failed the test of leadership,’ she said, bending the rules by addressing him directly.

‘Stand up and apologise.’

Breaches of protocol always add extra juice to Commons rows.

Corbyn retorted that Labour was the first party to pass anti-racism legislation in Britain. May snapped back with a quote from Trevor Philips, once head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission:

‘Labour today presents like a textbook case of institutional racism.’

Corbyn performed a not-so-subtle switcheroo and brought up Tory Islamophobia.

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