Umunna recruits in bid to rout Left

LABOUR leadership hopeful Chuka Umunna is planning to orchestrate a drive to recruit tens of thousands of new party members as part of a secret putsch to overturn Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

The former Shadow Business Secretary has told friends that ‘the time has come’ for Labour moderates to challenge Corbyn’s power base among ordinary party members.

Corbyn has clung onto power – despite being opposed by the overwhelming majority of his MPs – because the party’s grassroots, which plays a pivotal part in leadership elections, is packed with his supporters: around 300,000 out of the 528,000 party members back Corbyn.

But now Umunna, pictured right, is urging his colleagues to launch a membership campaign to outmuscle the hard Left.

It comes as new figures suggested that Corbyn’s supporters are starting to drain away from the party. Almost 26,000 Labour members have deserted since last summer, with about 7,000 alone leaving after the Labour leader forced his MPs to vote for the Government’s Brexit bill last month. Two-thirds of Labour voters backed Remain in the referendum.

Sources expect there to be a further exodus in the wake of Corbyn’s humiliating loss of the Copeland byelection – the first time the party has not held the seat since 1931 and the only gain by a sitting Government in a byelection since 1982.

A senior source said: ‘Chuka thinks that now is the time to strike. The moderates are in despair at the supposed iron grip of the hard Left but, as disillusionment sets in among the ordinary membership, he thinks we can eat into the 62 per cent of the vote Corbyn claimed in last year’s leadership election.’ Another option being considered by moderates is to force through changes to the leadership rules to return it to the previous system. Prior to changes introduced by former leader Ed Miliband, the votes of full party members made up just one of three electoral colleges that chose the new leader. Now the leader is elected using a one-member, one-vote system. But any rule change would have to be agreed by the party’s ruling National Executive Committee, which is in the grip of Corbyn supporters.

Umunna withdrew from the 2015 Labour leadership contest at an early stage, complaining that his then girlfriend felt hounded by the press. But the 38-year-old former lawyer, who is now married, has told friends that if the leadership became vacant again – and he could secure enough support among MPs – then he would enter the race.

Umunna declined to comment.