Corbyn: I won’t step in to halt the purge of my moderate MPs
JEREMY Corbyn enraged Labour moderates last night by refusing to stop no-confidence votes – just as yet another MP faced deselection.
As he addressed a stormy meeting of backbenchers, a spokesman for the Labour leader insisted it was not his place to interfere in the ‘democratic rights’ of the party at a local level.
Rosie Duffield became the latest Labour moderate to be threatened with censure, with a no- confidence vote in Canterbury tomorrow night over accusations that she supports pro-Israel groups.
But the vote was called off at the 11th hour last night by her local party following uproar from Labour MPs.
She was the fourth Labour MP to face a vote in recent days after Joan Ryan, chairman of Labour Friends of Israel, Gavin Shuker and Chris Leslie received similar treatment.
Many Labour moderates fear a purge by Corbyn loyalists.
On another dramatic day for the party union boss Len McCluskey told Labour moderates to ‘leave, go elsewhere’ or back the leader and former home secretary David Blunkett told Mr Corbyn to ‘lay off’ Labour MPs and urge his allies to end the ‘witch hunt’.
At the Labour MPs’ meeting last night, Mr Corbyn faced demands to prevent the disciplinary meeting against Miss Duffield.
But a spokesman said he would refuse to interfere in the ‘ democratic rights’ of any part of the Labour Party.
Two Labour MPs stormed out after Mr Corbyn said he would not step in on behalf of MPs, and in the event, his intervention was not required. But speaking afterwards, Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh denounced the leader, saying noconfidence meetings had to be ‘ conducted in a proper and respectful way... and the idea that the leader of our party has no responsibility for that is completely wrong’. The no-confidence vote was to debate a motion signed by a number of pro-Palestinian Labour supporters.
They claimed Miss Duffield had supported movements that ‘groundlessly accuse the party of systematic anti-Semitism’ after she attended a protest against racism in Parliament Square.
‘Corrupting the party with racism’
Meanwhile, fears of a purge of the moderates were intensified yesterday as Len McCluskey, head of the Unite union, warned rebels to ‘leave and go elsewhere’.
He told the Trades Union Congress there needed to be ‘unity behind our leader, our party’, adding: ‘Those people who don’t want to unite in this great cause... should leave and go elsewhere and let the rest of us fight on.’
Lord Blunkett accused the hardLeft of targeting those whose only failing was to support the state of Israel.
He said: ‘Any move to deselect MPs that are patently serving their constituency and people that they represent will not only be unacceptable to a great swathe of the Labour Party, but will be the greatest possible put- off for the electorate as a whole. Now if an MP is simply not doing the job, not serving their constituencies, not holding advice surgeries, that’s a different matter.
‘That isn’t the case with Joan Ryan, Chris Leslie and Gavin Shuker. The argument is, “We don’t like you being pro-Israel or still defending the achievements of the last Labour government”.’
He added: ‘It’s a basic precept of leading any organisation that within reasonable bounds you defend the people who you rely on to win votes in parliament. I wish Jeremy would make it clear that he values his own colleagues.’
Caroline Flint, Labour’s former Europe minister, also urged the party to end talk of threatening some MPs with deselection. She called on the leadership to act against ‘vile people’ who were ‘corrupting the party with racism’.