MP quits Labour after ‘ hard Left takes over’

A LABouR MP who is a leading critic of Jeremy Corbyn has quit the party, saying it has been ‘taken over by the hard Left’.

John Woodcock will sit in the Commons as an independent after issuing a scathing attack on Mr Corbyn, saying he posed a ‘threat to national security’.

In his resignation letter, the Barrow and Furness MP said Labour was no longer an ‘inclusive, mainstream electoral force’.

He told Mr Corbyn: ‘I now believe more strongly than ever that you have made the Labour Party unfit to deliver those objectives and would pose a clear risk to uK national security as prime minister.

‘The party for which I have campaigned since I was a boy is no longer the broad church it has always historically been.

‘Anti- Semitism is being tolerated and Labour has been taken over at nearly every level by the hard Left, far beyond the dominance they achieved at the height of 1980s militancy.’

Mr Woodcock, 39, has been suspended from the party since April while he is investigated over an allegation of sexual harassment.

He denies claims that he sent inappropriate texts and emails to an ex-staff member between 2014 and 2016.

In his letter, he dismissed Labour’s disciplinary process against him as ‘rigged’ and said there was ‘clear evidence that the process has been manipulated for factional purposes’. He also said Mr Corbyn refused to appoint an independent investigator to rule on his case.

The MP, a former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel, claimed he had obtained an email sent last year that shows senior party figures were determined to prevent him standing as a Labour candidate again because of his criticisms of Mr Corbyn’s stance on nuclear weapons and the Labour leader’s response to claims of antiSemitism in the party.

At that time, no formal complaint had been made against Mr Woodcock.

Labour said the email was ‘a red herring and a smokescreen’, adding: ‘ Jeremy thanks John for his service to the Labour Party.’