Labour revolt after heavy losses in heartlands
LABOUR candidates turned on Jeremy Corbyn after he led his party to an unprecedented defeat in local elections.
The party lost more than 350 seats, including shock defeats in their heartlands of Wales and North-East England.
Labour narrowly lost the mayoralty of the West Midlands to the Tories and a Conservative was also elected mayor of the deprived Tees Valley, which has been Labour for decades.
In Wales, the party lost formerly solid councils of Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend and Merthyr Tydfil – the mining town whose former MP was Lanarkshire-born Labour founder Keir Hardie.
The results sparked a backlash from Labour candidates, worried about a wipeout in the General Election on June .
One described Mr Corbyn as ‘radioactive’ on the doorstep, while another said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn is killing the Labour party in its heartlands. This is an earthquake.’
Stephen Kinnock, the son of the former leader who is standing in Aberavon next month, blamed the ‘disastrous’ results on Mr Corbyn, saying he had moved the party too far towards the ‘hard Left’.
The losing West Midlands mayoral candidate accused the leadership of abandoning traditional Labour ‘values’.
Labour’s former leader of Derbyshire Council, now a Tory authority, called on Mr Corbyn to ‘do the honourable thing’ after the General Election and resign.
Mr Corbyn, appearing alongside one of the party’s few victors – Steve Rotheram, the new mayor of Liverpool City Region – admitted Labour had had to swallow some ‘disappointing results’. But he claimed Labour could still win next month because it still had ‘four weeks to get a message out of the kind of country we could be’.
John McDonnell appeared to be in denial over the local election results, claiming voters will swing towards Labour the more they see of Jeremy Corbyn.
The shadow chancellor said the party’s performance had been ‘mixed’ – despite the loss of dozens of seats.
He added: ‘It has been tough, there’s no doubt about that, but it hasn’t been the wipeout some people predicted.’