CORBYN CUT TO RIBBONS
Dwindling band of MPs vent fury at leader in bloodbath meeting… but he’s STILL in denial
Jeremy Corbyn was ‘cut to ribbons’ last night as he faced his remaining band of mPs for the first time since he led them to the party’s worst defeat for more than 80 years.
His two and a half hour long meeting with the Parliamentary Labour Party descended into a bloodbath as mP after mP lined up to give him a verbal bashing.
At times the fury was so loud that mPs’ words could be clearly heard in the corridor outside the House of Commons meeting.
One mP angrily told him the reason for Labour’s catastrophic defeat ‘was you’. Another said there was ‘total denial from the top table’.
On Thursday Labour went down to its worst General election defeat since 1935, losing 59 seats. Last night mr Corbyn apologised to his mPs for his failure to win the election.
But he continued to blame Brexit and the media for his failure, and claimed he had succeeded in changing the terms of the debate.
Left-wing mPs who stood up to defend the Labour leader were heckled – including one who claimed there was ‘lots to celebrate’.
One person in the meeting said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn is being cut to ribbons. The anger is so strong you feel as if mPs are about to storm his area.’
Jess Phillips, a possible leadership contender, read out a text from defeated Great Grimsby mP melanie Onn, who complained about the lack of support from Labour HQ.
Clive efford said it would be a disaster to go for another hard-Left manifesto and accused the leadership of ‘trying to do it all again by fixing the result’ of the leadership contest.
He said: ‘When the [ballot] boxes opened in my working-class areas, council estates in my constituency, it was 50/50 with the Tories. Unacceptable!’ mr efford added that the problem wasn’t just mr Corbyn but the ‘people around you’.
Afterwards, mP Wes Streeting said: ‘Nothing we heard reflected that this was the worst election defeat since 1935. We have three seats left in the Black Country. It’s just like business as usual.
‘If we try to go for Corbynism without Corbyn we are setting ourselves up for generations out of power.’
Colleague rachel reeves told reporters: ‘I told him, “you can say all you want that it was about Brexit, that it was about the mainstream media, about people not voting. But the biggest drag on support in this election was him and his leadership”.
‘If we want to change the lives of those we came into politics to serve then we’ve got to win power and that’s not been possible two times under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
‘We need radical change. We need a party and a leader that the country can trust. We need economic policies that add up.’
Veteran mP Dame margaret Hodge said: ‘There’s complete amnesia and denial. There’s huge huge anger. Nobody disagreed with the analysis that the question of his leadership came up on the doorstep five times more than Brexit.
‘One or two of the new people he fixed the seats for sang from a different hymn sheet. On the whole it was fury, despair, miserable and I just felt that there was total denial from the top table – and corporate amnesia.’
She added: ‘Some of us don’t trust the system that is in place to select the next leader. They talked about vetting new members.’
During the meeting, mr Corbyn had said: ‘I am very sorry for the result for which I take responsibility. I will continue to lead the party until a new leader is elected. I want us to have the smoothest possible transition for the sake of the party…’
He added: ‘Despite our best efforts, I believe this election was ultimately about Brexit. The Tory campaign amplified by most of the media managed to persuade many that only Boris Johnson could “get Brexit done”. That will soon be exposed for the falsehood it is.
‘We must now listen to those lifelong Labour voters who we’ve lost. I believe that Brexit was a major – although not the only – reason for their loss of trust in us.’
Labour’s ruling NeC will carry out an investigation into the mistakes which led to the party’s defeat.
A party spokesman confirmed that all new members would be vetted to weed out people who had voted Tory or Change UK. He said mr Corbyn had welcomed mPs’ honesty.