Johnson: ‘Labour will end in tears’

Labour is in the “worst position since the early 1980s” Alan Johnson has said.

The former home secretary raised concerns about the current state of his political party, saying he believes it will “all end in tears”.

Speaking at a conference in Brighton, Mr Johnson also dismissed Labour’s pledge to scrap tuition fees in England as “a crazy piece of populism”.

Mr Johnson said: “We are in a worse position than we were 0 Alan Johnston said his party was returning to the 1980s in the early 80s, when Militant tried to take over the party.”

Militant was a Trotskyist group in control of Liverpool City Council during the 1980s and which dominated the Labour party.

Mr Johnson said the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had a “particular niche” as a backbencher and argued that two factors had fuelled his successful bid for the leadership – a move by former leader Ed Miliband to change the voting system and allow people to join the party for £3 and take part in the vote, and a decision by some senior Labour figures to nominate Mr Corbyn to put him on the ballot paper, but not support his campaign.