ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
JEREMY Corbyn faced open mutiny in his party’s ranks last night as senior Labour MPs defied his attempt to ban them from joining emergency Brexit talks with Theresa May.
The Labour leader has boycotted the cross-party meetings organised in the Prime Minister’s effort to solve the EU deadlock, and sent an email to his backbenchers instructing them not to engage with the Government in the push for a new national consensus.
His diktat was fired off soon after former ministers Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn strode into the Cabinet Office on Whitehall to take part in the discussions.
Other Labour figures are expected to ignore his orders by joining the talks in the following days to deliver another shattering blow to his authority over his party.
Labour and Tory MPs yesterday united in savaging Mr Corbyn over his drive to cause parliamentary mayhem in the hope of achieving his dream of seizing power in Downing Street. In a blistering attack, Labour backbencher Mike Gapes said: “Apparently Corbyn is prepared to hold talks with Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad and Iran without preconditions.
“But not with the UK Prime Minister. Why?”
Former Tory Cabinet minister Damian Green said: “What we’ve seen over the last 24 hours is the Labour Party, Labour Party leadership specifically, being as unhelpful, and frankly not looking at the national interest, as it’s possible to be.
“Jeremy Corbyn has agreed in the past to talk to all sorts of completely unsavoury people, claiming piously that it’s the way forward.
“I think he’s behaving in a way that’s unnecessarily partisan at a point where many people in all parties are looking much more hardly at the national interests than their own parties.
“I want there to be a deal, I voted for a deal, but Jeremy Corbyn should have a conversation with the Prime Minister.
“It’s completely absurd at a time like this for the leader of the opposition to say ‘I’m not going to talk to the Prime Minister’.”
Tory frontbencher Guy Opperman said: “I’d like Labour to stop playing politics, get round the table, and identify specifically what in the withdrawal agreement and the political agreement they manifestly disagree with, because until they spell out their position – and the other parties, but the main one is Labour – we don’t know where the common ground is.”
Mrs May last night accused the Labour leader of attempting to place an “impossible condition” on any potential talks. In a letter, she said: “I recognise that you would want to put forward your own proposals and I would be happy to discuss them with you.
“You have always believed in the importance of dialogue in politics.
“Do you really believe that, as well as declining to meet for talks yourself, it is right to ask your MPs not to seek a solution with the Government?”
Mr Corbyn repeated his demand for an immediate general election and called for a Brexit deal including a permanent customs union with Brussels, close links to the single market and protections for workers and the environment.
The Labour leader was yesterday seen holding a piece of music called Perigoso – which means dangerous in Portuguese – as he made his points during a party rally in Hastings, East Sussex.