Labour's Lucy Rigby has been confronted by a GB News viewer in a heated exchange over Labour's handling of Britain's growing crime rates, as the MP defended Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's handling of this summer's violent demonstrations.
Following the special GB News leadership event Decision Time: The Race to Lead, one member of the audience confronted the Labour representative on their recent prison early release scheme, urging the Government to "stop blaming the Tories".
The audience member told Rigby: "Perhaps Labour and the Tories should stop blaming each other as to why we're in the mess and start talking about how we're going to fix it and get out of it."
Rigby interjected, claiming that the Government "is talking about it", to which the viewer then retorted: "Well, you just spent a few minutes blaming the Tories for not building enough prisons whilst you just let prisoners out, only to send a lot of them back."
Labour MP Lucy Rigby was confronted by a GB News viewer on Thursday night's show over Labour's 'two-tier policing'
GB News
Acknowledging the viewer's argument, Rigby admitted he was "absolutely right", before explaining: "I explained why we're in the crisis that we're in, and I also talked about building more prisons, more neighbourhood policing, more police officers.
"I could talk about violence against women and girls and how we're going to tackle that as well."
Hitting back at Rigby, the viewer then fumed: "Let's see it then. Let's see your leader, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, actually do something."
Agreeing with him, Rigby exclaimed: "Do you know what? I totally agree with you. We are doing stuff and you're going to see it, we're going to see it."
The Labour MP defended the PM's handling of the violent demonstrations that followed the Southport attack in July
GB News
Rigby then claimed that Britons "saw how the Prime Minister handled that violent disorder over the summer", which was met with resounding boos and groans from the audience.
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Infuriated by Rigby's remark, the audience member jibed: "Oh, we saw it, and I don't think a lot of us liked it."
Former Tory MP Ranil Jayawardena also offered his view on Starmer's handling of this summer's event, claiming it was "two-tier policing".
Rebutting Jayawardena's comment, Rigby hit back: "You just mentioned two-tier policing, that's a really, really insidious to say.
"Policing is without fear or favour. The police officers in this country, they are putting their lives on the line. Some of them got injured, they ended up in hospital. To suggest that they're not doing their job..."
The audience member told Rigby that 'a lot of people didn't like what they saw' of Starmer's handling of this summer's riots
GB News
Jayawardena disagreed with Rigby, telling GB News: "Two-tier policing is exactly what we're seeing. The police are being directed by your Government.
"There are now more police on our streets and crime has fallen, but we've got to deal with the problems. We do know that we need to build more prisons, I think everyone's agreed on that.
"And Robert Jenrick said earlier that we built more prison places than when Labour was last in.
"But Kemi put out a clarity I've not seen for a long time, which is prison works, and we should be prepared to lock violent offenders up and not allow those sorts of people to be released, which is exactly what we're seeing, sadly, under this Government."
