Unions and Watson in last ditch bid to dump Corbyn

Deal needed as hard-Left fighting fund hits £11k a day

LABOUR’S deputy leader Tom Watson will today hold a crunch meeting with unions in a ‘last throw of the dice’ to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Watson had a one-to-one session with the embattled leader yesterday morning, when he urged him to step aside after losing the confidence of his MPs.

But hours later, Mr Corbyn released a video on social media, insisting he was going nowhere – and demanding that MPs and members ‘come together’ to support him.

At a tumultuous meeting of Labour MPs and peers last night, former leader Lord Kinnock received a standing ovation as he repeated his demand that the hard-Left leader should go and insisted that the party would not split.

Other MPs at the meeting – which was not attended by Mr Corbyn – said they wanted their party back and complained it had been taken over by Marxist-Leninists.

It came as hard-Left activist group Momentum revealed it was raising thousands of pounds a day as it vowed to defeat the bid to ditch Mr Corbyn. Moderate MP Chuka Umunna lambasted Mr Corbyn for encouraging Momentum to become a ‘party within a party’.

And Angela Eagle, the former shadow business secretary, gave her clearest hint yet that she would stand against him if he refused to go.

Mr Corbyn is still in the post a week after the vast majority of his Shadow Cabinet and frontbench team resigned in an effort to force him out. At the 20-minute meeting at Westminster yesterday morning, Mr Watson told Mr Corbyn he could not carry on as Labour leader without the backing of the party’s MPs.

Mr Corbyn was said to have responded by making it clear he had no intention of leaving.

Sources said union leaders had ‘reached out’ to Mr Watson to see if they could find a negotiated settlement, with talks expected to take place this morning.

At the weekly meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party at Westminster, Mr Watson told MPs: ‘It is the last throw of the dice.’

Lord Kinnock made an ‘incredibly powerful and impassioned speech’ arguing: ‘We believe in a parliamentary road to socialism but not the revolutionary path to socialism’.

Earlier Mr Watson met Miss Eagle and ex-shadow work and pensions secretary Owen Smith, who are both considering a challenge to Mr Corbyn. Both were said to have agreed to hold back while there was still a chance of a negotiated settlement which would see Mr Corbyn finally walk away.

‘Tom said he is aware the window is closing very rapidly,’ the source said. Details of the meeting with the union leaders – where Mr Watson will be joined by the parliamentary Labour party chairman John Cryer – were still being thrashed out last night.

Yesterday it emerged that Momentum has doubled its membership since MPs began

‘Window closing rapidly’

their plot against the Labour leader, with £11,000 being donated every day.

Mr Corbyn was challenged about the hard-Left group as he appeared before the Commons home affairs select committee yesterday in a session to discuss anti-Semitism in the party.

Mr Umunna, the former shadow business secretary, said many of Momentum’s members ‘do not have the best interests of the party at heart’ – and called for it to be ‘wound up’.

‘Frankly, Momentum is a party within a party posing as a movement, which is why many of our trade unions refuse to fund it,’ he said. Mr Corbyn yesterday posted a video on Twitter in which he said: ‘Only nine months ago I was very honoured to be elected leader of our party with 60 per cent of the votes, I have a huge responsibility, I’m carrying out that responsibility.’ As he released the video, it emerged that another Labour frontbencher has resigned from his position.

Fabian Hamilton said he had told his constituency party of his decision to resign as a shadow foreign minister, saying he had been very concerned at the way Jewish MP Ruth Smeeth was treated at the launch of an antiSemitism report last week.

Miss Eagle, who was expected to launch her bid for the top job last week, warned the threat of a contest had not gone away. She told Sky News: ‘There are many people, MPs, party members up and down the country, asking me to resolve the impasse and I will if something isn’t done soon.’