Mcdonnell blames Brexit as his forecast of huge gains backfires

JOHN MCDONNELL, the shadow chancellor, was left with egg on his face after a bold forecast on the eve of local elections that the party would win hundreds of seats came to nothing.

Mr Mcdonnell claimed in a radio interview hours before polls opened that he was “aiming for about 400” Labour gains in the English council elections.

By late yesterday the party had lost more than 60 council seats. As the results came in Mr Mcdonnell cut a more forlorn figure, blaming the Brexit paralysis in Westminster for the result.

He wrote on social media: “So far, message from local elections – ‘Brexit – sort it’. Message received.”

Labour’s tally of councillors was reduced by more than 65 overnight and it lost control of heartland authorities Bolsover and Hartlepool, as well as Wirral. The impact of independents was particularly stark in Bolsover, Derbys, where Labour lost control for the first time in 40 years. Labour lost 14 seats, leaving it with just 18 in the Leave-voting area.

The independents were boosted to 16 councillors, with the Tories taking two and the Liberal Democrats one. In Trafford, where the party won overall control for the first time since 2003, Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, conceded he was “very sorry” at the scale of losses.

But he hailed positive swings in some areas that he said gave Labour hope of winning marginal seats such as Swindon, Peterborough and Thurrock at a general election.

He said: “I wanted us to do better, of course. Results across the country are interesting, to put it mildly.

“But I also say the swings to Labour in many parts of the country show that we can win seats in a general election, whenever that comes.” He said the results meant that, regarding Brexit, there was “a huge impetus on every MP ... that an arrangement has to be made, a deal has to be done and Parliament has to resolve this issue”.

Ian Lavery, the party chairman, said that he hoped Labour could “get a deal and exit, as promised in the manifesto”. The remarks were seen as an apparent signal that Labour is now determined to bring a resolution to cross-party talks with the Government over a compromise Brexit deal.

Mr Corbyn’s team will next meet Tory negotiators on Tuesday.

The poor results led to fellow frontbencher Barry Gardiner telling James Cleverly, the Brexit minister, in a television panel discussion that the party was trying to “bail out” the Tories because its MPS could not agree a deal.

But Chris Bryant, a former Labour minister, said that the party’s policy of “constructive ambiguity” on Brexit had undermined its chances at the election.

There was a further blow when Sir Tony Robinson, the actor who played Baldrick in Blackadder, announced on Twitter he had left the party.

He said: “I’ve left the Labour Party after nearly 45 years of service at branch, constituency and NEC levels, partly because of its continued duplicity on Brexit, partly because of its antisemitism, but also because its leadership is complete s---.”