Corbyn put on spot over Copeland loss
Critics keep theircounsel before key meeting
Jeremy Corbyn will come under further pressure at Westminster tonight after being challenged to explain the Copeland by-election humiliation to members of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
JEREMY CORBYN will come under further pressure at Westminster tonight when he is asked to explain the Copeland by-election humiliation to members of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Disgruntled MPs and peers have contacted PLP chairman John Cryer to request the Labour leader’s presence so Mr Corbyn, and his election co-ordinators, can explain why they lost the safe seat of Copeland in Cumbria for the first time in 80 years. Though he does not attend every such meeting, sources say it will be “cowardly” if he does not in these circumstances.
Backbenchers also want to question Labour’s newly-appointed campaign chief Ian Lavery after he suggested Mr Corbyn’s leadership was not a factor on the doorsteps.
Mr Corbyn’s many critics were maintaining a low-profile over the weekend – several former shadow ministers have told The Yorkshire Post that they do not want their disquiet to be portrayed by the leadership as acts of disloyalty.
This follows another torrid weekend for the Opposition leader in which Mr Corbyn’s valedictory speech to Labour activists in Scotland was eclipsed by the political paralysis gripping the party after Copeland marked the first occasion, since 1982, that a governing party had won a by-election from its chief opponents.
Former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who grew up in Leeds, said Labour was now further from power than any time in the last 50 years while deputy leader Tom Watson maintained that now was not the time for a third leadership contest in two years.
A damning opinion poll revealed that more than one-third of Labour members wanted Mr Corbyn to quit while one in six believe the party does not have policies that can win the next election.
This verdict came after Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti, the Shadow Attorney General, was mocked for blaming Storm Doris, and Labour voters not owning cars, for losing Copeland to a Tory party still resurgent under Theresa May.
She also criticised BBC broadcaster Andrew Marr for having Labour grandee Peter Mandelson as a guest on his Sunday morning politics programme in the week of the by-elections in Copeland and Stoke Central where Labour survived Ukip’s threat due to growing misgivings over its own leader Paul Nuttall.
Barnsley MP and former Shadow Culture Secretary Michael Dugher was among those to ridicule Baroness Chakrabarti.
Mr Dugher tweeted: “Pearls of wisdom from the never-havingstood-for-election, joined-tenminutes-ago wing of the Labour Party: Labour voters ‘don’t have cars’.”
Former Copeland MP Jamie Reed, who quit his seat to work for the Sellafield nculear plant, added: “She’s an unstoppable vote-harvesting-election-winning machine. Or the epitome of what Labour voters just rejected. I wonder which one?”
A senior Yorkshire MP told this newspaper that Labour should be setting the economic parameters for next week’s Budget. “We’re not even on the field of play,” they lamented.
There were empty seats in the Perth conference hall where Mr Corbyn rallied supporters ahead of May’s local elections where Labour could lose control of its totemic council of Glasgow, which it has controlled since 1980.
“The Tories claim they want to take back powers from Brussels and the SNP want to take back power from Westminster,” Mr Corbyn said. “But neither of them wants to take economic power back from multi-nationals and big business. We can and will fix this rigged economy and make Britain a fairer, more just and equal place.”
80 The number of years Labour has held the safe Copeland seat, now lost to the Conservatives.
THE YORKSHIRE Post gained no pleasure from demanding Jeremy Corbyn to resign in Saturday’s newspaper. This decision was not taken lightly – the Labour leader is clearly a man of humanity. Yet this stance – it is still rare for editorials to demand the resignation of prominent public figures – is vindicated by a torrid weekend in which the utter despair of respected Labour figures was self-evident while Shadow Cabinet members tried, and failed, to defend the indefensible rather than forming credible policies.
Labour cannot fulfil its democratic duty, the need to hold the Government to account, because of the vacuum that now exists and Mr Corbyn’s reluctance to bow to the inevitable, and step aside, is now one of the worst examples of hubris, even arrogance, in contemporary politics. Even though he has twice been elected by a landslide, and is clearly a thoughtful man of great intellect, he does not have the qualities that modern leaders require, hence last week’s byelection humiliation, or the confidence of the country on issues pertaining to national security for example.
However, while a defiant Mr Corbyn told activists in Scotland that now is not the time to “retreat, run away or give up”, the desperate excuses offered by loyalists like Shami Chakrabarti, the shadow attorney general, bordered upon the risible. She even blamed the party’s defeat in Copeland on Storm Doris, neglecting to mention that inclement weather had not deterred Labour voters previously, and Andrew Marr’s longstanding Sunday morning politics programme on the BBC not giving sufficient airtime to those supportive of Mr Corbyn. A credible Opposition is essential to the political process. Even the most vociferous Tory rightwingers recognise this. If they can, why can’t Labour?
The only honourable and dignified course is for Mr Corbyn to resign now. As this column advised him 48 hours ago: “Your time is up.”