Labour hopefuls fear Corbynista plot to sabotage contest
Key members on teams of Emily Thornberry and Sir Keir Starmer in firing line, claim supporters
By Harry Yorke and Edward Malnick
SUPPORTERS of Emily Thornberry and Sir Keir Starmer fear that Jeremy Corbyn’s allies are preparing to lay off key members of their staff in an attempt to derail their bids for the Labour leadership.
Amid a bitter internal struggle to replace Mr Corbyn, senior party figures have warned that aides working for the two front-runners could become “collateral damage”.
The Sunday Telegraph understands that Ms Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, has privately expressed concern that members of her team could be targeted in the redundancy round now being conducted in the wake of the election defeat.
The disclosure comes as John Healey, the shadow housing secretary, who has served on the Labour front bench for 18 years, uses an article below to call for the party to focus on winning over “Britain’s real middle”.
The MP for Wentworth and Dearne, South Yorks, warns that under Mr Corbyn’s leadership voters have been given the impression that the country’s poorest voters “are our sole concern”.
Mr Healey, a former parliamentary aide to Gordon Brown, also urges the party to embrace patriotism once again and show “pride in the national flag”.
Across the shadow cabinet, there is deep disquiet about the uncertainty hanging over political advisers just days before Christmas, with several aides describing the process as “insulting” and “emotionally draining”. An aide to one frontbencher claimed that colleagues outside the Leader of the
Opposition’s Office were being eyed as “low-hanging fruit”, while Mr Corbyn’s own senior staff appeared to be shielded from the cuts.
The focus of their anger is directed at Seumas Milne, Mr Corbyn’s director of communications, and Karie Murphy, Labour’s election chief, both of whom are understood to be on permanent party contracts.
It comes just days after staff and advisers working for the offices of the Labour leader and shadow ministers received a letter from human resources, inviting them to one-to-one meetings to discuss their futures.
Party insiders claim that as many as 20 staff working for the front bench could be laid off due to Labour losing an estimated £1.2million in short money – the taxpayer funds allocated to political parties according to their parliamentary strength.
In recent days, Sir Keir and Ms Thornberry have been subjected to a series of hostile briefings by supporters of the “Corbyn project”, who claim that the next leader cannot be a Remainer from London or the South East.
The attacks have been interpreted as an attempt to knock their leadership bids off course and pave the way for Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary, to take over as the “continuity” candidate.
One backbencher said: “It’s very clear that they have been out to get Emily and Keir since the general election. It would be deeply unfair if their staff are used as collateral damage given how hard they’ve worked.”
Echoing their concerns, a friend of both MPs warned that any attempt to “stitch them up” would provoke outcry among moderates and intensify calls for Mr Milne and Ms Murphy to be ousted.
Spokesmen for Sir Keir and Ms Thornberry declined to comment.
A Labour source said: “These rumours about special protection and pay-offs for senior staff are nonsense. The party is not imposing any redundancies.”