Benn's call for SF to take seats

Benn's call for SF to take seats

Sinn Fein won five seats in the general election but has a policy of abstentionism.

This means its MPs refuse to swear the oath of allegiance to the Queen and so cannot enter the commons chamber.

Mr Benn said he understood Sinn Fein's position on British sovereignty but still thought it made good political sense for them to put their point of view across in the Westminister chamber.

"The thing about it that's offensive is that it requires MPs to swear allegiance to the Queen.

"If you're an MP your allegiance is to your constituents, to your party to your conscience so really MPs have to lie in order to sit in Parliament. I had to tell 17 lies."

Tony Benn, four years after retiring from Parliament "to devote more time to politics", remains a fascinating character. The purest of the lefty pure - the closest American equivalents would be a Paul Wellstone or a Bernie Sanders. Yet he's the son of nobility and led a challenge to the system in the 1960s when he inherited his family title and had to fight to renounce it and stay in the House of Commons. No friend of New Labour, he seemed hardly disturbed when his seat went Lib Dem on his retirement.

UK Election