British MPs and peers cut short their holidays to reconvene for a special Parliament session on Wednesday to pay tributes to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. However, reflecting the deeply divisive legacy of Britain’s former Conservative Prime Minister, several lawmakers plan to boycott the debate in the House of Commons and House of lords called to consider “the matter of tributes” to the “Iron lady”.
Prime Minister David Cameron will lead the tributes to Thatcher, who died on Monday aged 87 after suffering a stroke. According to reports, labour leader Ed Miliband is expected to tell MPs where he thinks Thatcher “went wrong”.
In a sign of the deep unease in the labour ranks after he instructed his MPs to act in a respectful manner, former housing minister John Healey is among a group of MPs expected to boycott the tributes.
“Parliament is being used today for narrow political gain by the Prime Minister, as a platform for his party’s ideology not just eulogy. He’s wrong to recall Parliament, and wrong to hijack it in this way. I will play no part and I will stay away, with other things to do at home in the constituency,” Healey said. PTI