Shambolic Labour ‘is in worst-ever crisis’

Burnham tears into ‘weak’ Harman 1 in 3 new MPs defied party whip on benefits Blunkett: Vote shows just how divided we are

LABOUR was mired in its most serious crisis for years last night with even a leadership contender admitting the party was in a ‘mess’.

It follows Monday night’s damaging Commons rebellion on welfare cuts by 48 MPs – a fifth of the parliamentary party.

They snubbed interim leader Harriet Harman’s orders to abstain on Tory plans to cut tax credits and other benefits, after a Labour amendment was lost, and instead voted against.

The rebels included a third of newly-elected MPs, indicating how the party has moved to the Left.

Leadership candidate Andy Burnham said it was a mess. In a clear dig at Miss Harman, the Labour health spokesman said the Opposition had botched its approach to the Government’s Welfare Bill and was ‘crying out for leadership’.

Former home secretary David Blunkett said Labour, still reeling from May’s election defeat, was facing an ‘emotional trauma’, while one backbencher said it had gone ‘ back to the 1980s’. A jubilant George Osborne lapped up the chaos in the party, saying Labour was turning ‘left, left, left – away from the centre ground of British politics and away from support for working people’.

Labour frontbencher Stephen Timms accused rebels of ‘undermining’ the party in its fight against the Tories, but Left-wing leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn claimed the rebels had actually strengthened it.

While Mr Corbyn voted against the welfare reforms, Mr Burnham abstained, saying he did not want to split the party. But his decision sparked a backlash among his supporters, with one saying: ‘I was wavering between him and Corbyn, and this vote has decided it for me.’

And while Mr Burnham did not rebel, 15 of the MPs who nominated him for the leadership contest did.

Kim Howells, a former Labour minister, said: ‘I think it is the most serious crisis I can remember in Labour’s history.’

Mr Burnham told Radio 4’s The World At One that the compromise position adopted by Miss Harman ‘wasn’t strong enough for me’, and pledged to oppose the Bill ‘outright’ if he is leader when it returns to Parliament in September.

He said: ‘It was a mess, wasn’t it? The run-up to this vote was a bit of a mess. It is quite clear that this is a party now that is crying out for leadership and that is what I have shown in recent days.

‘I as leader would have opposed this Bill outright last night and would do so if I was elected leader. But I wasn’t prepared to split the party and make the job of opposition even harder.’

Mr Blunkett said that all the Labour rebels had done was show up how divided the party was.

‘It’s bound to be, after the loss in May and the bewilderment about where we go from here,’ he said. ‘What we are not doing, of course, is debating enough about where we go from here. So, last night, once again, focused on us being divided rather than what the Tories are doing, a lot of which is unacceptable.

‘ I meet young people saying to me, “Look, why is your party opposing the idea of saying to people, in the future, if you have more than two children then you have to be responsible in determining how you are going to pay for them”.

‘They expect people to make logical, rational decisions about whether they can afford it rather than the State and the rest of us picking up the bill.

‘We’ve got to have a narrative that plays with the people who know that they are sympathetic to the people who can’t help themselves, but they also know that the best form of welfare is work.’ Mr Timms, an employment spokesman, said he was concerned that so many of the new intake of Labour MPs had rebelled.

‘I hope as we go into the summer recess they will conclude that they really want to be supporting our party’s efforts to replace the current government rather than undermining them,’ he said

Mr Corbyn insisted he was right to oppose the Bill, which imposes many of the £ 12billion benefit reductions outlined in Mr Osborne’s summer Budget and scraps child poverty targets, because of the effect it will have on children of large families and because of the effect the lower benefit cap will have, particularly in high-rent inner city areas.

Nicola Sturgeon attempted to gain from Labour’s chaos by saying the vote showed that the SNP was the ‘real opposition’ in the Commons. Stewart Hosie, the party’s deputy leader in Westminster, said the party is in ‘absolute meltdown’.

‘Crying out for leadership’