YOU’D FIND A PERKIER ATMOSPHERE AT DIGNITAS

ANEW British political movement was born yesterday. Such rare events tend to be cheery, giddy occasions that call for jubilation and congratulatory back-slapping. However, on this dank Monday morning, we witnessed little by way of celebration. No Cuban cigars being flamed up, no vintage bottles of Pommery popping.

Instead, the mood inside a cramped room on Westminster Bridge – squashed in like pilchards we were – was one of deepest gloom. Long faces all round. You would more likely find a perkier atmosphere in the waiting room at Dignitas.

We were pre-warned that a group of disenfranchised Labour MPs had resigned to form the Independent Group with a view to starting their own party. Which lacklustre spark dreamt up that name? It sounds like a mid-market insurance provider.

In they filed, one by one. Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Ann Coffey. As a newcomer to the parliamentary estate, I confess I’d never heard of Gavin Shuker. Judging by some of the befuddled looks around the room when he took his seat, I may not have been alone.

This was hardly a group of political colossi. They possess none of the intellectual vigour or cross-party appeal of Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams or any of the other so-called ‘Gang of Four’ who deserted Labour to form the SDP.

But their collective message was no less devastating: Under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour has become a toxic stinkhole of bullying and bigotry. We could not put up with it any longer.

Brave is a much overused word around these parts, but considering the backlash they now face from Labour’s unpleasant forces, their decision took considerable guts. It is also worth noting there was an inherent decency to the proceedings throughout.

Ms Berger (Liverpool Wavertree), who is heavily with child, rose to the lectern first. Glossy-maned and dressed sombrely in all black, she mistakenly introduced herself as a ‘Labour MP’. Cue stifled giggles among the audience and her sudden realisation that her actions meant she was no longer a Labour MP.

Luciana has had a rough old time in recent years. Of all the abuse Corbyn’s rabble have flung, on social media and elsewhere, she’s had to endure the most acrid. Remarks about her Jewish ancestry and her unborn baby. Horrid, evil stuff.

So it is understandable if she was a tad emotional. At one point, her hands were shakier than a whippet.

‘I have become embarrassed and ashamed to remain in the Labour Party,’ she declared. ‘I have come to the sickening conclusion that it is institutionally anti-Semitic.’

Mr Leslie (Nottingham East), a rampant Remainer who’s still harping on about a second referendum, announced that enough was enough. ‘The Labour Party that we joined, that we campaigned for and believed in, is no longer today’s Labour Party,’ he said. ‘We did everything that we could to save it. But it has now been hijacked by the machine politics of the hard-Left.’

Wobbly-voiced Ms Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) treated us to a syrupy meander through her upbringing. She spoke of how her parents raised her on working-class values that she said were no longer reflected in Corbyn’s party. Instead, it was ‘characterised by intolerance and fuelled by hatred of anything other than a hard-Left agenda’ and was ‘unfit for government’.

Mr Gapes (Ilford South), a staunch Labour man since 1968, said he was ‘sickened Labour is now a racist and anti-Semitic party’. As for its leader, he added, his voice briny with disgust: ‘A Corbyn government would threaten our national security and our international alliances.’

POOR old Gapes. He looked so shattered when he sat back down that, for a fleeting moment, I thought he might break down and blub. Mr Shuker (Luton South), a lively, eager-to-please creature who was once a worker ant for London Mayor Sadiq Khan, said Labour had ‘turned its back on the British public’. No doubt he meant every word. But there was a nagging suspicion he was delighted to just be there being noticed.

Mr Umunna (Streatham) – his suit neatly cut and head as shiny as a cue ball – was last up. He wore none of the remorse of his colleagues. You got the feeling the ambitious ex-lawyer has been itching for this breakaway moment for quite some time.

The most charismatic member of the group was in ‘Year Zero’ mode. Britain, he said, has had enough of ‘old-fashioned politics’. Time for something new. What it needed, he never quite spelt out. More Chuka, I’m sure is what he meant.

We got a lot about how terrible Labour has become, but little of what the Independent Group would be about. Did they expect recruits to join soon? Did they plan to target the forthcoming by-election in Newport West? They were keeping schtum. Except that they will hold their first formal meeting this week.

Presumably a discussion will have to be raised at some point over who will lead this eclectic gaggle of political nomads.

Judging by the puckish grin he afforded himself on his way out, we were left in little doubt who smoothychops Chuka thought it should be.