Why no Tory should join Labour’s splitters

DISPLAYING his unerring knack for political miscalculation, Jeremy corbyn suggested yesterday that the independent group of breakaway MPs no longer wanted to be part of the Labour party.

As anyone who watched their emotional joint resignation knows, this is pure humbug. indeed the very opposite is true.

They desperately, passionately want to be part of the decent, inclusive party they joined and have cherished all their lives.

But the sad truth is that they can no longer stand the intolerant, vengeful hard-Left cult their beloved Labour has become under Mr corbyn and his Momentum bullyboys. They are not so much rebels as refugees – bereft and stateless.

Yet Mr corbyn shows no hint of contrition. His insouciant response to their complaints shows just why they felt impelled to leave.

Anti- Semitism? dealt with. MPs not being consulted? They should listen more. commit Labour to a second referendum? All options must stay on the table.

if there were any lingering doubt that Mr corbyn is deaf to criticism, and untroubled by the hatred festering in his party’s ranks, they must surely have been dispelled.

Even Shadow chancellor John Mcdonnell – who has spoken of lynching a female Tory MP, would like to have murdered Lady Thatcher and has called churchill a villain while honouring ira murderers – called for a more conciliatory approach.

deputy leader Tom Watson, meanwhile, is almost weeping with despair.

What a shocking indictment of this once great party’s vertiginous fall from grace.

Last night Sir John Major appealed to Tory ‘moderates’ not to quit and join the splitters in their new independent group.

While sympathising with them, he said the conservatives needed their voices of moderation to combat the Brexit zealots.

He is right, of course, but committed remainers also need to emerge from their dugouts and seek common ground.

The party is not yet engaged in the sort of existential struggle that Labour has inflicted on itself. But Brexit divisions are as raw, and as dangerous, as ever.

if they are to show the voters they are fit to govern, Tories of all stripes must find the pragmatic compromise that will guide us to an orderly EU withdrawal.

Fail in that task and they may achieve the seemingly impossible – to make Jeremy corbyn and his economically-illiterate Marxist bigots a viable electable force.