TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE FOR LABOUR’S BREAKAWAY BAND

SPECULATION about the launch of a new political party has been sweeping Westminster this week as Labour divisions over Europe deepened.

Backbencher Chris Leslie yesterday admitted his patience with Jeremy Corbyn’s constantly shifting stance on Brexit was “wearing pretty thin”.

His outburst followed Owen Smith, who once challenged Mr Corbyn for the party leadership saying he was among “lots of people” considering walking out of the party. Behind the scenes, plotting has been going on for months about raising funds and building a party structure for the new political force.

Labour moderates have been threatening a breakaway ever since the hard-Left firebrand seized control of their party just over three years ago but have repeatedly failed to act. Memories of the failure of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 1980s, which broke from Labour in the years of Tony Benn and the Militant Tendency, have deterred them from walking out.

As a result, disillusioned Labour MPs have reluctantly stayed and endured a leader who has hailed terror groups as “friends”, presided over an explosion of allegations of anti-Semitism and misogynist harassment in party ranks, resisted condemning Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for the deployment of a chemical weapon in Salisbury and lauded the disastrous socialist experiment in Venezuela.

It has taken Mr Corbyn’s refusal to pledge a second EU referendum to drive them to the brink of quitting.

The long years of prevarication mean that, if a significant number of Labour MPs do break away, their new party may well not be launched until after Brexit has taken place. By then, their demand for a second referendum would be irrelevant.

A party that exists simply to turn back history by reversing the decision to quit the EU does not sound like one with a compelling vision for the future. Westminster already has such a party, in the much diminished shape of the Lib Dems.

Mr Corbyn’s critics have had good reason to walk away from their hard-Left gripped party for years. By clinging on in the hope of thwarting Brexit, they have delayed the day of reckoning. They may well have missed their chance to break the Westminster mould.