Labour awaits leadership ruling:
The socialist head of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, will discover on Tuesday whether he has the automatic right to defend himself from a leadership challenge — a key moment in the running battle for control of the party. The turmoil within the 116-year-old party, which governed Britain for 13 years until 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, comes as the country’s political landscape is changing fast following a June 23 vote to leave the European Union.
While the ruling Conservative Party has quickly appointed a new leader, Theresa May, to take over from Prime Minister David Cameron and pilot the ‘Brexit’ process, Labour’s left-wing leadership is locked in a bitter internal power struggle with its more moderate members of parliament (MPs).
As Labour looks to define its priorities for the upcoming negotiations, rival MP Angela Eagle has triggered a leadership contest, saying Corbyn has failed to connect with voters and is not capable of winning a national election.
Corbyn has said he will not resign, citing the overwhelming mandate he won from the party’s grassroots members when they elected him leader in September last year. That has sparked fears that the party could split, as it did in the 1980s, and dilute the centre-left influence over Brexit negotiations. The party’s internal strife has fuelled tensions among its supporters, and police said on Tuesday Eagle’s constituency office in northern England had been vandalised. Corbyn said he and other lawmakers had received death threats. (RTRS)