Now even Red Ed turns down place in Corbyn team

TRYING to lure Ed Miliband back to frontline politics was always going to be seen as a desperate move by Jeremy Corbyn – even if it had succeeded.

But the man who led Labour to election defeat in 2015 yesterday snubbed the approach from his successor, who has been hit by a string of resignations from his front bench team.

Mr Corbyn was said to have lined up Mr Miliband to take over as business spokesman from Clive Lewis who has threatened to quit over Brexit. ‘They really want Ed to come back. They’ve wanted him for quite a while and in some ways this is the ideal brief,’ a Labour source told the Daily Mirror.

But friends of Mr Miliband said he had consistently expressed his desire to ‘make his contribution supporting Jeremy and the party from the backbenches’, adding that they did not expect this to change.

Some Labour frontbenchers have resigned because of Mr Corbyn’s insistence that his MPs must vote in favour of Brexit.

The party also lost 7,000 members in the last week of January over the leader’s edict that his MPs had to back the Government’s Bill triggering Article 50, which starts the process of leaving the EU.

Mr Corbyn faces tension from both Leave and Remain supporters in the party. Mr Lewis, who backed the Article 50 Bill at second reading this week, has said he would have to vote against it in its final Commons stage if Labour cannot pass any amendments to it.

The Government is refusing to accept a series of Labour amendments and Mr Corbyn has decreed that Shadow Cabinet members who vote against Article 50 must quit.

He has already lost three members of his top team, and Mr Lewis could be the fourth. Mr Corbyn was reportedly hoping to lure Mr Miliband back to replace him.

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, managed to be absent for a crucial Commons vote on the Article 50 Bill this week, blaming a migraine for her lack of attendance. She has been given the rest of the week off to recover.

Labour’s desperation was reinforced by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell who admitted the party is experiencing the ‘toughest of times’ it has seen under Mr Corbyn.

In an article for The Morning Star newspaper, Mr McDonnell wrote: ‘Let’s be straight about this. This is the toughest of times we have experienced so far and it is not only also absolutely predictable and understandable but also something we can completely deal with.’

He added that winning the leadership twice was ‘relatively easy’ for Mr Corbyn and his supporters, but warned ‘we have now reached the toughest period yet’.

However, Mr McDonnell blamed Labour’s woes not on Mr Corbyn’s leadership, the party’s chaotic organisation or its policies, but ‘the full forces of the Establishment [that] are being thrown against us’.

‘In no way will the elite Establishment tolerate the popular election of a socialist leader without a bitter fight,’ he said.

Activists who supported Mr Corbyn are feeling betrayed by his support for Brexit, according to the New Statesman magazine. Mr Corbyn has said Labour ‘respects the result of the referendum’.

‘The toughest of times’