Angela Eagle MP hosts Q&A with College's Politics students

Member of Parliament for Wallasey, Angela Eagle, visited the College for a probing Q&A session with A Level Politics students.

Labour MP, Ms Eagle, has represented the Wallasey constituency for over 25 years and even ran in a leadership race against sitting Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in recent years.

Second year Politics students took the opportunity to grill the seasoned politician, asking highly considered questions about vital topics such as LGBT rights, Brexit and the internal goings-on within the Labour Party.

The first openly gay female Minister in Parliament since coming out in 1998, Ms Eagle took time and consideration answering whether rules should be tightened in using offensive homophobic terminology. She outlined that all instances of bigotry, racism, sexism and homophobia are unacceptable but that perhaps the answer lay in educating young people rather than handing out stricter punishments.

The topic of questioning then led to reports of antisemitism within the Labour ranks, to which Ms Eagle replied: “I find it disgusting. There are now over 600,000 member of the Labour Party and that figure is growing by two thirds per year. There are some people on the outskirts of the Party who wish to condemn all Jewish people for actions of the Israeli government, which itself is antisemitism. It needs to be dealt with, and it is being dealt with.”

The MP, who originally hails from Liverpool where her twin sister, Maria, is also an MP for Garston and Halewood, brought questions about Brexit and the future of the Labour Party around to education, saying: “The funding cuts to education under the Tory government don’t affect those who have the ability to be educated outside of our system. I am, and I always have been, convinced that the only way that the majority of hard-working people in this country can get the best possible start in life and have the chance to further themselves is under a Labour government.”

Mental health in young people was also brought to the fore, with Ms Eagle singling out social media for playing a huge role in affecting young people's mental wellbeing, with online bullying being rife across the board. She explained that a change in her Facebook profile picture brought 49,000 individual pieces of abuse directed at her, many of them about the way she looked. The MP recognised that, as a public figure, she is more open to such attacks but suggested that young people who are still growing up and may harbour insecurities about their appearance are at major risk from sources so easily accessed by the phone in their pockets.

The contentious topic of Theresa May’s continued tenure as Prime Minister was the final point to be addressed, after second year, Connor, asked how long Ms Eagle thought the Conservative leader had left in power.

The Wirral MP postured: “If she had an obvious successor then I think that she would be gone already. But they don’t … she may be there for longer than we think.”