MAY ON THE MARCH
As they plunge to catastrophic defeat in their heartlands, despairing members say the ‘radioactive’ leader is killing their party
Labour candidates turned on Jeremy Corbyn last night after he led his party to an unprecedented defeat in the local elections.
The party lost more than 380 seats – far more than expected – including shock defeats in their heartlands of Wales and the north east.
In a hugely significant result, Labour narrowly lost the mayoralty of the West Midlands to the Tories – putting many of its MPs in the region at risk.
a Conservative was also elected mayor of the deprived Tees Valley, an area which has backed Labour for decades.
In Wales, the party lost control of the formerly rock- solid councils of blaenau Gwent, bridgend and Merthyr Tydfil – the mining town whose former MP was Labour founder Keir Hardie.
In Scotland, they lost Glasgow and suffered the humiliation of coming third across the country in terms of number of councillors.
Last night Mr Corbyn admitted it would be a ‘challenge on an historic scale’ for Labour to win on June 8. ‘The results were mixed,’ he said. ‘We lost seats but we are closing the gap on the Conservatives.
‘We have five weeks to win the general election so we can fundamentally transform britain for the many, not the few.
‘We know this is no small task – it is a challenge on an historic scale. but we, the whole Labour movement and the british people, can’t afford not to seize our moment.’
However, the results sparked a backlash
wipeoutfrom one Labour describedin the candidates,generalMr Corbyn election. worriedas ‘radioactive’about a on the doorstep, while another said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn is killing the Labour party in its heartlands. This is an earthquake.’
Stephen Kinnock, the son of the former leader who is standing in aberavon next month, blamed the ‘pretty disastrous’ results squarely on Mr Corbyn – saying he had moved the party too far towards the ‘hard Left’.
Defeated Labour candidate for the West Midlands mayoral post, former MP Sion Simon, accused the leadership of abandoning the party’s traditional values.
and the former leader of Derbyshire Council – now a Tory authority – called on Mr Corbyn to ‘do the honourable thing’ after the general election and resign. Privately, senior Labour figures described the results as catastrophic, but in public the party line was that the results had been ‘mixed’.
Mr Corbyn, appearing alongside one of the party’s few victors – Steve rotheram, the new mayor of Liverpool City region – admitted Labour ‘disappointinghad had results’.to swallow some Embarrassingly for him, Mr rotheram admitted that Mr Corbyn was ‘Marmite’ on the doorstep – and revealed he had kept him off his election literature. Yesterday’s results marked the first time that an opposition party lost seats in local elections for three years in a row. There were a small number of good results for Labour, which increased its majority at Swansea and retained control of Cardiff, Newport and Durham councils – all places which should be easy for the party to win. The party also won two elected mayoralties – Liverpool and Greater Manchester, which was seized by former health secretary andy burnham. However, Mr burnham snubbed Mr Corbyn by not appearing at his own victory rally last night. While Mr Corbyn addressed the rally, he preferred to celebrate in a restaurant with champagne. Mr Corbyn claimed Mr burnham was ‘already hard at work’ on his new job. He ignored calls of: ‘Where’s andy?’
overall the results were disastrous for Labour, which lost control of seven councils. In Derbyshire, the Tories took 19 seats from Labour as the county passed directly from one party to the other.
Mr Kinnock told bbC News yesterday: ‘We can’t just put a spin on this – the fact is that Jeremy’s leadership does come up on the doorstep on a very regular basis.’
Dave Wilcox, former Labour group leader in Derbyshire, said: ‘We heard it time and time and time again on the doorstep… we are not voting for you while you have Jeremy Corbyn as leader.’
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell appeared to be in denial, claiming voters will swing towards Labour the more they see of Mr Corbyn. He told radio 4’s Today programme: ‘It has been tough, there’s no doubt about that, but it hasn’t been the wipe-out that some people predicted.’
‘His leadership comes up time and time again’