The firing squad turns on Corbyn

NINE top MPs take aim at Jezza and tell him: We’re heading for oblivion. . . and it’s all YOUR fault

JEREMY CORBYN’S Labour leadership was hanging by a thread last night after details of two extraordinary showdowns with rebel Labour MPs were leaked.

Nine prominent Labour MPs, including senior figures who have hitherto remained loyal to him, joined forces to warn him that the Party was heading for disaster under his leadership.

There was fury when Mr Corbyn brushed aside a protest by Halifax MP Holly Lynch, 30, who told him she had a wafer-thin 428 majority and faced losing it at the next Election because of his unpopularity.

The Labour leader shrugged his shoulders and rebuked her: ‘I have just been re-elected by Labour members.’

One eyewitness said: ‘It was shocking. He more or less said he couldn’t care less about her because his job was safe.’

And Corbyn cheerleader, film director Ken Loach who made I, Daniel Blake, was dragged into the row, accused of fuelling the revolt by launching his own attack on rebel MPs in a newspaper article.

Stoke North Labour MP Ruth Smeeth told Mr Corbyn it was ‘outrageous’ for Mr Loach to claim that Labour MPs were to blame for the Party’s dismal showing in the recent Copeland by-election.

The scale of the revolt that threatens to engulf Mr Corbyn was reflected in surprise comments yesterday by his close ally, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.

He said Labour’s defeat in Copeland, Cumbria, previously a Party stronghold, had left it looking ‘over the cliff edge’, adding that powerful and anonymous figures were out to destroy Mr Corbyn because of his socialist beliefs.

The confrontations with rebel MPs took place at two separate meetings; at Tuesday’s Shadow Cabinet and Wednesday’s Labour Parliamentary Committee, a small group of MPs and peers.

Shadow Brexit Minister, lawyer Keir Starmer, urged Mr Corbyn to follow his own lead when he had been head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

‘When I led the CPS I always carried the can when things went wrong,’ he said. ‘That is what

HOLLY LYNCH HALIFAX MP ‘I only won my seat by 428 and I’m going to lose it because of you, Jeremy. We’re heading for oblivion.’ RUTH SMEETH STOKE NORTH ‘Your friends like Ken Loach make out it’s all our fault. It’s outrageous.’ JOHN CRYER CHAIRMAN PLP ‘Stop rubbishing people who have given their lives to this party.’ BARONESS ANGELA SMITH LORDS LEADER ‘I am fed up of your team attacking the last Labour Government. We did great things.’ TOM BLENKINSOP MIDDLESBROUGH ‘You have the worst electoral record of any Labour leader in history.’

you should do. You can’t keep making excuses.’

Shadow Trade Minister Barry Gardiner, who has supported Mr Corbyn in public, said the Labour leader and the Shadow Cabinet should be in no doubt about the widespread opposition to him from his MPs.

Labour’s election campaigns chief Andrew Gwynne, who led the Party’s unsuccessful bid to retain Copeland, said he feared the Tories were on course for a landslide Election victory with Labour losing up to 50 seats.

And Lancaster and Fleetwood MP Cat Smith, Labour’s spokeswoman on ‘voter engagement’ and a former policy aide to Mr Corbyn, protested at having been mocked for putting a brave face on the Copeland defeat on TV, describing it as an ‘incredible achievement’ for Labour.

‘I got monstered for saying Copeland was a great result but it was Labour officials who told me to say it,’ said Ms Smith.

Meanwhile, Labour’s leader in the Lords, Baroness Angela Smith, revealed she was ‘fed up’ with Mr Corbyn’s supporters attacking the last Labour Government. ‘We did some great things,’ she said.

Mr Corbyn’s lone defender was Wansbeck MP and ex-union leader Ian Lavery, who said: ‘We have to learn lessons from the by-elections but it is absurd to say it is all the leader’s fault.’

Mr Corbyn was subjected to another onslaught 24 hours later at a meeting of the Party’s Parliamentary Committee. Ms Smeeth tore into Mr Corbyn over an article by Mr Loach in that day’s edition of the pro-Labour Guardian newspaper, in which the filmmaker berated Labour MPs for a ‘silent mutiny’ against their leader. ‘The MPs are doing immense damage,’ said Mr Loach. ‘It was their Labour Party, not Corbyn’s, that lost Scotland, lost two elections and seen Labour’s vote shrink inexorably.’

But Middlesbrough MP Tom Blenkinsop told Mr Corbyn bluntly: ‘You have the worst electoral record of any Labour leader in history.’

John Cryer, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, added that Mr Corbyn must ‘stop rubbishing people who have given their lives to this party.’

Mr Corbyn said: ‘I intend to keep reaching out.’ An MP who was present said: ‘He seemed to be on another planet.’

CAT SMITH VOTER ENGAGEMENT SPOKESWOMAN ‘I got monstered for saying Copeland was a great result – your office told me to say it.’ ANDREW GWYNNE LAB CAMPAIGN CHIEF ‘We are on course to lose 50 seats at the next Election.’ BARRY GARDINER SHADOW TRADE MINISTER ‘We all have to know as a Shadow Cabinet what Labour MPs are saying about Jeremy.’ KEIR STARMER SHADOW BREXIT MINISTER ‘Leaders carry the can when things go wrong – not make excuses.’