Jewish donor slams Corbyn team as Nazi stormtroopers
Leading Labour supporter accuses hard-Left of using threats and intimidation
THE battle for the future of the Labour Party intensified last night as a Jewish donor likened Jeremy Corbyn’s inner circle to the Nazis.
Michael Foster, who gave Labour £400,000 at the last Election, described the team around the leader as his Sturmabteilung – the full name for the Nazi regime’s SA, or stormtroopers.
Mr Foster said Mr Corbyn’s team was an ‘aggressive, holier-than-thou cadre of committed hard-Left socialists’ who ‘excluded, briefed against, often threatened and intimidated’ opponents.
The Brownshirts were key to the Fuhrer’s rise to power, defending venues where he gave speeches and disrupting opponents’ meetings.
Mr Foster’s remarks, in an article for today’s Mail on Sunday, follow a series of allegations of violent and antiSemitic incidents in Labour.
They also come after Court of Appeal judges boosted the chances of leadership challenger Owen Smith by ruling on Friday that 130,000 members who recently joined the party – most of whom are thought to back Mr Corbyn – could not vote in the contest.
However, Mr Corbyn is still expected to win the leadership election next month and party donors fear his victory would lead to a damaging split.
Many of his 230 MPs are considering whether to break away from his leadership. Earlier this summer, more than 170 Labour MPs backed a no-confidence motion in their leader.
The threat is being taken so seriously within Mr Corbyn’s team that aides have discussed with Commons Speaker John Bercow’s office whether he could remain as official Leader of the Opposition if the rebels become the second largest group in the House after the Conservative Party.
Sources close to Mr Corbyn insisted the Speaker’s guidance was that rebels would have to register a new party with the Electoral Commission before they could be considered the official Opposition.
A source said: ‘Bercow has said that to form the Opposition, they would have to show themselves to be a party – not just a rival bloc.’
Labour MPs last night predicted party rising star Dan Jarvis would eventually challenge for the leadership – pointing to his ‘war chest’ of donations from backers.
The latest MPs’ register of interests reveals that Mr Jarvis, a former paratrooper, has so far this year received more than £80,000 in donations – with
‘A holier-than-thou cadre of socialists’
£35,000 in the last month alone. Separately, John Mills, who is Labour’s largest single donor, today warns that a split would hand Theresa May a thumping Commons majority.
‘Most Corbynistas accept that a Corbyn-led party would inevitably be trounced at the next General Election. Experts suggest that Theresa May would be on course to win a majority of at least 100,’ he told The Mail on Sunday.
‘But if Labour fragmented into a socialist party supported by many Labour activists and a social democratic party representing the vast majority of Labour MPs, the left-of-centre vote would split and Mrs May could end up with an even greater majority, say 150.’ A spokesman for Mr Bercow said that the Speaker’s position on the issue had not changed since he told MPs in June that Labour ‘currently’ constituted the official Opposition.