Peer who quit says it’s game over for Labour under Corbyn

YOU CAN hear the pain in Parry Mitchell’s voice. But it is matched with a sense of indignation at what has happened to his party.

The peer, who resigned from Labour on Sunday following the re-election of Jeremy Corbyn, believes he is witnessing a complete re-drawing of the British political scene.

“The game is lost,” he says, 24 hours after announcing that he will now sit on the cross-benches in the House of Lords.

“Having resigned, nobody has followed me. It’s no surprise. People are saying to me now, ‘we have to fight this thing, and you can only fight from the inside’.

“But for an awful lot of people in the Jewish community, putting a cross next to a Labour candidate is a very difficult thing to do.”

The 73-year-old has given years of service to Labour, but believes the party will never return to government in his lifetime. He explains: “Jeremy Corbyn will not resign in 2020 Lord Mitchell if he loses the election, unless he has a health issue. If he does, John McDonnell, or someone else will take over. These people are not going away. It’s a grim outlook.” Lord Mitchell, an IT entrepreneur who grew up in Hendon, north-west London, is an unashamed Blairite and was ennobled by the former prime minister in 2000. He served on the front bench as a shadow business minister in 2012 and 2013 under Ed Miliband. “I’m New Labour to my core, which is very much out of vogue, I accept that,” the peer says. “But nevertheless, under Tony Blair we won three elections, not having won one since 1974. We haven’t won one since. You cannot come to power in this country without taking Middle England with you.” It is the shift from the centre-left positions of the 2000s to the policies being introduced by Mr Corbyn that convinced the peer to leave. Lord Mitchell explains: “T h i s l o t are quasi-Marxist in my view. I gave it a year to see what happened. When it became pretty obvious that Corbyn would win again and all these messianic types were getting very excited about the new beginning under Jeremy — I said this is not a party for me.

“It’s really hard. I haven’t just resigned over the antisemitism issue. That was the catalyst, but for me, the party has gone hard-left on all the issues that I hold dear: Nato, Trident, America, business, enterprise.”

His frustration with the Chakrabarti report on antisemitism in Labour is evident. There is particular anger over Baroness Chakrabarti’s decision to rule out life bans for those expressing antisemitic views. It is an example, Lord Mitchell believes, of double standards. If someone made an anti-Muslim or anti-black comment they would “be out of the party forever, banned for life”.

“Why doesn’t that apply as far as antisemitism is concerned?” he asks.

The seeping away of Jewish support for the party is, he believes, a “great tragedy”.

He adds: “In the Lords I will vote almost always with the Labour Party. That’s where my heart and soul is. Independent Labour is how I’ll think of myself.”