Labour’s floodgates ‘are on the verge of bursting’
JEREMY Corbyn was last night branded ‘Stalinist’ in his response to MPs quitting Labour as he faced the threat of more resignations.
The party yesterday blocked MPs and local officials from accessing its databases, claiming one of the defectors had tried to steal members’ data.
Meanwhile, the party announced plans to force by-elections in the constituencies of those leaving by allowing voters to stage recall petitions.
And Corbyn-backing Momentum said it would canvass in the defectors’ constituencies to warn voters they had ‘joined a Blairite-Tory coalition’ after Conservative MPs Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston joined their ranks yesterday.
Labour sources said the ‘floodgates were on the verge of bursting’ after Joan Ryan became the eighth Labour MP to quit this week in protest at Mr Corbyn’s leadership.
A string of Labour MPs warned they were considering defecting, issuing ultimatums to Mr Corbyn that he needed to change or they would go too.
But the Labour hierarchy stepped up its attacks on the defectors, branding The Independent Group an ‘establishment coalition’ based on the ‘failed politics of the past’.
Mr Corbyn’s spokesman claimed the group had endorsed tax cuts, austerity and privatisation at its launch – even though none of these were mentioned at the event.
Yesterday, Labour sources claimed that one of the party’s breakaway MPs had tried to access its supporters’ data, prompting it to shut down its key canvassing software.
General secretary, Jennie Formby, wrote to staff reminding them of their responsibility to guard canvassing information.
The Independent Group’s Chris Leslie denied the claims, accusing Labour of ‘throwing mud’. Siobhain McDonagh, Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden, con-
‘Stalinist and authoritarian’
firmed that she was one of those considering quitting, warning: ‘The ball is in Jeremy Corbyn’s court.’
She added: ‘In recent months I have watched in horror as the scourge of antiJewish racism has reared its ugly head in the party that I love.
‘There can be no doubt: There must be a zero-tolerance approach in rooting out all anti-Semitism from our party.
‘The leadership of the Labour Party needs to decide whether it will remain a hard-Left rump that gets some MPs in Parliament but never become a Government, or a wide, inclusive, broad coalition that wants the best for this country.’ She slammed a Labour plan to allow voters to stage recall petitions when MPs switch sides, which could trigger a series of by- elections, as ‘Stalinist’ and ‘authoritarian’.
Birmingham Yardley MP Jess Phillips demanded that Mr Corbyn ‘call out’ the anti-Semites among his supporters, as she suggested she could follow the quitters.
‘I was born Labour and I felt like I’d die Labour, but when I listen to my colleagues speaking, I find it very hard to disagree with a lot of what they were saying,’ she told Sky News. ‘And so now I pass that baton to Jeremy Corbyn and expect him to really listen and take action. If those people don’t feel welcome in the Labour Party any more, we have a problem.’
Dame Margaret Hodge tweeted: ‘The leader of our party must really listen, really understand and really change. If he does not do so, then he will be culpable for sabotaging the values that led to the creation of the
Labour Party and responsible for the withering away of a once great political force.’ Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson branded the party’s attempt to force byelections ‘spiteful’.
Currently, recall petitions can be run only in certain circumstances, such as a serious breach of parliamentary rules or a criminal conviction of an MP.
But Shadow Cabinet Office minister Jon Trickett has put forward a plan, with the approval of the Labour leader’s office, to change the law so defecting MPs could be challenged too. As he hosted a radio phonein on LBC, Mr Watson said that whatever the merits, ‘it just looks spiteful’.
‘Those people that left the Labour Party did so with a heavy heart, and it looks like we are kind of reflexive and trying to be knee-jerk about it, rather than looking at the actual issue, which is Brexit and the state of British politics,’ he said. Announcing plans for canvassing events, Momentum’s national coordinator Laura Parker said: ‘Their constituents voted for a Labour MP standing on a Labour manifesto. Now they’ve left the party and joined a Blairite-Tory coalition standing on a completely different platform. This is not what their constituents voted for. The only fair and decent thing to do is give their constituents a choice and call a by-election.’