Boost for Ukip as Tristram f lees Corbyn’s sinking ship
He takes top job at V&A ... and triggers by-election where 70% voted Leave
JEREMY Corbyn was forced to deny that he had ‘lost control’ of his party last night after another moderate MP quit – and triggered a Brexit by-election.
Tristram Hunt is to stand down from his Stoke-on-Trent seat to become director of the Victoria & Albert museum.
The move sparked immediate speculation that up to a dozen Labour MPs could go in protest at Mr Corbyn’s lacklustre leadership, which has left him up to 14 points behind Theresa May in the polls.
TV historian Mr Hunt is the second MP to stand down in a month, after Jamie Reed quit his Copeland seat in Cumbria to take a job at Sellafield nuclear power plant in December.
Stoke-on-Trent Central will now become the focus of a Brexit byelection in a seat where nearly seven in ten voters backed Britain leaving the EU, one of the biggest Leave majorities in the country.
There was immediate speculation that Paul Nuttall, the newly elected Ukip leader, will attempt to make an early bid for Parliament.
Ukip sources said Mr Nuttall was ‘seriously considering’ a run in a seat where his party came second in 2015, only 5,000 votes behind Mr Hunt. The Tories were third.
The seat should be safe territory for Labour, which has held it since 1950, but given the Brexit factor and Labour’s appalling poll ratings both Ukip and the Tories will fancy their chances. Mr Hunt’s resignation was another blow to Mr Corbyn’s beleaguered leadership at the end of a disastrous week.
On Tuesday the leader’s longplanned New Year relaunch collapsed within hours after he disowned claims he would attempt to limit free movement.
He also announced, and then abandoned shortly afterwards, a proposed salary cap, before announcing hikes to taxes on the middle class.
Asked what the resignations meant for his authority, Mr Corbyn said yesterday: ‘I haven’t lost control of the party. The party isn’t out of control. We are a very large party with a growing membership, we have a vibrant policy-making process. We have a party which is very active.’ He added: ‘I’m not expecting any other MPs to resign.’
But Tottenham MP David Lammy told ITV News that Labour needed to ‘look like a government in waiting and there are colleagues concluding that’s not the case’.
Mr Hunt insisted his resignation was not part of any orchestrated move against Mr Corbyn, but admitted he had found being an MP at times ‘intensely frustrating’.
After Mr Corbyn was elected leader, Blairite Mr Hunt refused to serve in his Shadow Cabinet. He also once warned the party would face a ‘historic wipeout’ if it went into an election with him as leader. Allies of Mr Corbyn categorised him as ‘hostile’.
Mr Hunt’s constituency faces changes to its shape under a review of boundaries which could mean hard Left activist allies of Mr Corbyn attempt to deselect him.
In his resignation letter Mr Hunt wrote that there were ‘very few jobs’ which would have convinced him to stand down. He added: ‘The post of director of the V&A – the world’s greatest museum of art, design and performance – is just that.’
Moving to the museum, in South Kensington, is likely to mean a significant pay rise from his current salary of £74,962. His predecessor, Martin Roth, was paid a salary of around £150,000 as part of a total package worth up to £230,000.
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson said he was ‘disappointed to see a talented MP like Tristram step down’.
Tory chairman Patrick McLoughlin said: ‘With MPs abandoning Corbyn, Labour are just too divided, chaotic and incompetent to deliver for ordinary working people.’ Lib Dem president Baroness Brinton said Mr Hunt’s resignation was ‘a sign of how Labour are ripping themselves apart’.
AT first sight, Labour MP Tristram Hunt’s resignation is yet another blow to his party’s hopes of regaining power. But look at the plum job he’s going to, and a different picture emerges.
Why on earth should this undistinguished TV historian be thought fit to run one of Britain’s greatest cultural institutions, the Victoria and Albert Museum?
The disturbing truth is that in taking this post, Mr Hunt will be joining multitudes of like-thinking Left-wing luvvies who run almost every public body and quango in the country.
Indeed, seven years after voters kicked Labour out, the Left retains its grip on power and influence by unelected means. Isn’t it high time the top public-sector jobs started going to candidates more in tune with the people who pay for them? IDEALLY, witch-hunts against British troops over their conduct on active service should be scrapped altogether. But the plan by Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon to put time limits on investigations, with an age ceiling and sentencing cap on those prosecuted, is a hugely welcome step in the right direction. It deserves every success.