Union group threatens ‘Judas’ Labour MPs with deselection for backing Syria air strikes

The parliamentarians hope ordinary party members will defy Corbyn as they daren’t do so themselves

A BRANCH of Unite has accused Labour MPs who backed Syrian air strikes of behaving like Judas towards Jeremy Corbyn and threatened them with deselection.

Twenty-three MPs were sent a letter at the weekend claiming that they voted for military action to undermine Mr Corbyn rather than defeat Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

It said it was right that MPs who voted against Mr Corbyn were targeted with “severe and emotional criticism”. There was also a warning of deselection, saying parliamentary candidates would be picked on “strict loyal support for party policy”.

Recipients of the letter, sent by Mike Le Cornu, chairman of Unite’s Retired Members’ Association, included Harriet Harman, the former interim leader, Alan Johnson, the former home secretary, Angela Eagle, the shadow business secretary, and Dan Jarvis, a tipped future leadership contender. A total of 66 Labour MPs, including 11 of Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet ministers, voted in favour of air strikes. The letter says: “We find it distasteful that some of you indulged in what can only be described as a ‘Judas’ congratulations to Jeremy when his overwhelming victory was announced.

“As for those of you who excuse yourselves for voting on the basis of conscience, we wish to make it clear to you that selection for MPs cannot be based on individual conscience but on strict loyal support for party policy as determined democratically by the majority of the membership. We can be forgiven for concluding that maybe it’s not Isis or Assad that you are interested to remove but Jeremy Corbyn. It should not surprise anyone that those of you in the forefront of disruptive behaviour should be the recipients of severe and emotional criticism.”

Ken Livingstone, the former London mayor, has hinted he could enter Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet by reportedly saying he would take up a peerage if asked. According to the Evening Stand

ard, he said: “If Jeremy wanted me to do anything like that, I would do it.”

Over the weekend, The Sunday

Telegraph revealed that Labour’s plucky resistance fighters have a cunning plan to unseat Jeremy Corbyn. They are going to recruit an army of 100,000 “moderate” new activists, with a view to mounting a successful leadership challenge. The intention is for the rebels to “fundamentally re-energise their wing of the party so they are ready to win in 2017”.

As ever with Labour’s Secret Army, however, the devil lies in the detail. In particular, it lies in the fact that this bold new strategy requires 18 months to implement. That’s 18 months of effectively lying low. “Corbyn will survive 2016 because over the summer the press will be obsessed with the EU referendum. It is all about 2017,” one conspirator said.

Since Jeremy Corbyn’s election, several plans have been formulated to bring his leadership to a swift and brutal end. First there was the plan that within weeks of his election Labour MPs would force a fresh leadership challenge, while denying him sufficient nominations to allow him back on the ballot. Then there was the plan that involved using next May’s local elections – and Labour’s predicted poor showing – as the springboard for a coup. And now we have the “100,000 Boots On The Ground” plan.

Each has had different architects, timetables and strategies. But each has had one thing in common. They don’t actually involve doing anything. At least, not now. In a week – maybe. In a few months – perhaps. In a year or two – possibly. And that is because they are not – in truth – meant to provide a blueprint for action. Instead, they are intended to provide a convenient excuse for inaction.

Let’s take those 100,000 new members who are supposedly set to come riding to Labour’s rescue. What sane pragmatist would seriously contemplate becoming part of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party? Rational people leave the foundering ship, they don’t clamber aboard it. Last week a senior Labour Party official told me that on current membership trends, next month will see the number of people leaving Labour start to exceed those joining for the first time since Corbyn became leader.

And Labour MPs know this. They know they are conjuring phantom armies. Yet they calculate it’s much better to conjure a phantom army than march into battle themselves.

Let us for a moment entertain this fantasy, and engage with those Labour MPs who talk wistfully of Corbynism being defeated by a “grass-roots revolt”. When they say the opposition to Jeremy Corbyn must be driven by ordinary Labour Party members, what do they actually mean?

It is this: that ordinary Labour Party members should do the Parliamentary Labour Party’s dirty work for them. The student. The pensioner. The single mother. They should take the fight to the Corbyn fanatics. Stand up at meetings and subject themselves to the taunts and abuse and vitriol that faces anyone who dares speak out against the “kinder, gentler politics”. And then, in a couple of years’ time – when they judge a tipping point has been reached – these brave Labour MPs might just contemplate slinking out of hiding and re-joining the fight.

It isn’t actually the Corbynites who are going to kill the Labour Party. It will be the MPs who saw their party dying in front of their eyes and didn’t lift a finger to stop it.

Not all Labour MPs are guilty. The innocent include Hilary Benn, the 10 other shadow cabinet ministers who voted for military intervention in Syria, and 54 of their colleagues. Among them is Jess Philips, who voted against action, but who yesterday said that if the moment came, she would be prepared to stab her leader in the front, not the back, to save her party.

But there are many Labour MPs who do not want blood on their hands under any circumstance. Let’s call them the “Hilarycrits”: those who stood in the chamber and applauded Mr Benn to the rafters, then tucked their tails between their legs and trooped meekly through the lobbies behind their leader.

They are not “biding their time”, waiting for the optimum moment to strike. They are forever deferring the moment, while praying that something, or someone else, will turn up. Perhaps it will be mass shadow cabinet resignations. Maybe a dramatic stalking-horse challenge. Or poor health. Even an act of God. The bulk of the Parliamentary Labour Party yearns for anything that will bring an end to their Corbyn nightmare. Anything, that is, that does not require an act of courage or defiance from themselves.

And these people actually aspire to govern us. They have the nerve to represent themselves as our future leaders. These are the men and women who ask us to place in their trembling, fumbling hands decisions of life and death, health and happiness, war and peace.

They will not get their wish. There is no 100,000-strong army of “moderates” riding to their rescue. Good. Labour’s spineless parliamentarians no longer deserve salvation.