BENN PLOTS A CORBYN COUP
Shadow Cabinet told to stage mass resignation if doomed leader won’t quit 150 Labour MPs want him out... but he says he’ll stand for election AGAIN
PRESSURE was mounting on Jeremy Corbyn last night after Hilary Benn was revealed to be spearheading a plot to topple him as leader.
The Mail on Sunday understands that Mr Benn, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, has asked his Shadow Cabinet colleagues to resign en masse if Mr Corbyn refuses to quit over a vote of no confidence put forward by two of his MPs.
Sources said that Mr Benn, himself seen as a potential replacement for Mr Corbyn, had decided the crisis over the Labour leader’s position had to end.
The plot emerged after defiant Mr Corbyn vowed yesterday to fight off any challenges to his leadership, telling a crowd of supporters that he would run again if his opponents forced a contest.
Amid growing anger against Mr Corbyn’s allegedly ‘lacklustre’ performance for Remain in the EU referendum, there were also claims last night that more than 150 Labour MPs may back the no confidence motion – which could be decided in a secret ballot to be held on Tuesday.
Last night, senior Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who proposed the noconfidence vote, said that although it would not be binding on Mr Corbyn, he should quit if it passed.
‘If the motion is carried, I hope he does the decent thing and resigns.’
The possibility of a coup came as a Mail on Sunday poll found that 55 per cent of voters think that Mr Corbyn should step down as Labour leader, compared with 26 per cent who think he should not.
Among Labour voters, 53 per cent think he should go, while 37 per cent want him to stay.
Among potential rivals, London mayor Sadiq Khan is rated most highly in the poll, with 30 per cent of Labour voters describing him as ‘impressive’. Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham is next with 26 per cent and ex-front bencher Chuka Umunna ties with Yvette Cooper on 15 per cent in third place.
The growing rebellion comes after a furious reaction by pro-EU Labour MPs to what they saw as Mr Corbyn’s ‘half-hearted’ referendum performance and amid fears that they must oust him soon in case a new Tory leader calls a snap General Election this autumn.
Mr Corbyn, previously a consistent opponent of the EU, was accused of privately not being bothered if the Remain camp lost and of driving many working-class Labour supporters into the Brexit camp.
Sources also revealed that, at last week’s Shadow Cabinet meeting, Ian Murray, the party’s Scottish spokesman, bluntly said that Mr Corbyn needed to ‘speak to the wider public and not just his admirers’.
Rebels yesterday said they hoped to persuade the Labour leader voluntarily to step down and allow a ‘caretaker’ to take the reins – with some wanting current deputy leader Tom Watson to take over. But embattled Mr Corbyn said: ‘Yes, there are some people in the Labour Party, and the Parliamentary Labour Party in particular, who probably want someone else to be the leader – I think they’ve made that abundantly clear.’
He cited a petition calling on him to stay on, saying: ‘What I’m totally amazed by is that 140,000 people have said they do not want the party to spend the next two months debating the leadership of the party.’
Mr Corbyn also tried to answer Labour critics who accused him of playing down immigration worries during the referendum, saying that ‘we can’t duck the issue of immigration’. But at a later appearance at London’s Pride event, he was confronted by protesters over the referendum outcome.
One protester, Tom Mauchline, said: ‘It’s your fault Jeremy. I had a Polish friend in tears because you couldn’t get the vote out in Wales, the North and the Midlands.
‘You ran on a platform of mobilising the North and working-class votes, and you’ve failed considerably.
‘Stop using the gay movement as a shield to protect your weak leadership.’
In the filmed exchange, posted on Twitter, Mr Corbyn could be heard responding: ‘I did all I could’.