Jeremy corbyn

Thursday

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Jeremy Corbyn sparks anti-Semitism row… at Labour’s anti-Semitism inquiry press conference

Given that Jeremy Corbyn set-up Labour’s anti-Semitism inquiry to examine the extent of the problem in the party, he will have been hoping that it would help resolve the crisis. In fact, given that Shami Chakrabarti’s inquiry concluded today that the Labour Party is not overrun by anti-Semitism or other forms of racism (though there is an ‘occasionally toxic atmosphere’) you could be forgiven for thinking it’s done exactly that. Alas things haven’t gone quite to plan today thanks to… Jeremy Corbyn. Speaking at the press conference, Corbyn concluded: ‘Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

The Spectator podcast: The Tory leadership contest turns nasty

To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. A week after Britain backed Brexit, politics shows no sign of slowing down. David Cameron has resigned, Michael Gove has pulled out of Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign before launching his own. And Boris has decided not to run in the contest. We now have a final slate of five candidates vying for the top job. In his Spectator cover piece this week, James Forsyth says the Tory party is in a ‘deeply emotional state’. But he also points out that the leadership candidates who

Ariane Sherine

Left bereft

Dear Jeremy, Please don’t go. I know you’re even more unpopular than the England football team right now — your shadow cabinet is currently emptier than the promise of a weekly £350 million for the NHS. Every few seconds a disloyal minister sends you an insincere letter full of veiled enmity which might as well say: ‘Dear Jeremy, since nobody likes you I’ve decided I don’t like you either, so I’m taking my ball back! Find someone else to play with — if you can.’ So I thought I’d write you a letter of my own, to let you know that someone still thinks you’re wonderful and wants to be

Wednesday

James Forsyth

MPs gave a pantomime response to Ukip at today’s PMQs

PMQs was always going to be an odd event today. David Cameron is going as Prime Minister and Jeremy Corbyn is trying to survive wave after wave of resignations from his front bench. When Corbyn rose to his feet, there was almost complete silence from the Labour benches—there was the odd chuckle from the Tory one. The first few exchanges were relatively flat. But then Cameron was clearly riled by Corbyn suggesting that the referendum had been lost because voters didn’t think the status quo was working for them. Cameron swiped back that if the EU referendum was Corbyn putting his back into something, as the Labour leader had claimed,

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Watch: David Cameron tells Jeremy Corbyn to resign – ‘for heaven’s sake man, go!’

As Jeremy Corbyn faces even more Shadow Cabinet resignations today, it’s becoming difficult to locate a Labour MP who thinks he should stay in the post. Now the Prime Minister has added his voice to the cause. David Cameron — who is stepping down in the autumn — used today’s PMQs to call on Corbyn to resign: ‘It might be in my party’s interest for him to sit there, it’s not in the national interest and I would say for heaven’s sake man, go!’ Mr S suspects that this will only heighten the Corbynistas’ desire for Jezza to stay put.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Corbyn hit by further resignations

In the past week, David Cameron has had to resign after losing the referendum on Britain’s European Union membership, and yet is still heading into Prime Minister’s Questions in a stronger position than his opposite number, who has not resigned. Jeremy Corbyn is now a Labour leader whose MPs have overwhelmingly stated that they have no confidence in him. His Shadow Education Secretary Pat Glass, who was only appointed at the start of this week, has just resigned saying that the ‘situation is untenable’. Emma Lewell-Buck has also stood down as a shadow minister, saying she is ‘heartbroken at state of party and recent events’. That Labour is so unstable

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Union leaders vow to help Corbyn fight Labour coup – ‘the Blairite virus is spreading again’

After a motion of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn passed at 172 votes to 40, a Labour leadership election looks on the cards. With Corbyn vowing to stand again, his opponents hope that — post-Brexit — a high enough proportion of the membership will choose to oust him. Yet in a sign that a lot of the grassroots support remains for Corbyn, the trade unions are preparing to stand by their man. After the vote results were announced on Tuesday, Len McCluskey told MPs that if they wish to contest a Labour leadership, it must be done ‘democratically through an election, not through resignations and pointless posturing’. He warned that ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters throughout the movement will

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Labour MPs pass vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn

Labour MPs have passed a motion of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn 172 votes to 40. There were 216 votes cast (out of 229 Labour MPs). This means that the Labour leader will continue to serve without the support of a majority of his MPs. Unless he decides to resign, he will lead Prime Minister’s Questions for the Opposition tomorrow as normal. I have spoken to the key plotters against the Labour leader, and though they considered not turning up to tomorrow’s session, they have decided that the most important thing for backbenchers to be doing is to be holding the government to account, even if their frontbench is incapable

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Jeremy Corbyn decides Shadow Cabinet broadcast is a ‘bad idea’… after filming begins

As the Labour party slowly implodes, Jeremy Corbyn is doing his best to keep the show on the road. To do this, the Leader’s Office today agreed that it would be a good idea to let Sky News film a meeting of the new Shadow Cabinet. Although Corbyn’s director of communications Seumas Milne clearly hoped this would prove that everything was tickety boo, the Labour leader had doubts. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, his doubts only surfaced once Sky had actually arrived and started filming: Jeremy Corbyn reshuffles the shadow cabinet – literally – before TV filming https://t.co/7D7wyfdN1c https://t.co/ceabdcinNd — Sky News (@SkyNews) June 28, 2016 Corbyn can be heard muttering that

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Amidst the noise at the Corbyn rally was the sound of a political movement throwing itself into the abyss

Whenever I write – or think – about Jeremy Corbyn supporters, I sound like Quentin Letts. For this I apologise. It probably did not help that the first thing I found at the pro Corbyn rally in Parliament Square yesterday was an anti-Semitism special in a far left newspaper. (It is their bar of shame). It suggested that calling dead Zionists not only complicit in the Holocaust but welcoming of it, for the future possibilities of persecuting Palestinians it involved, is an acceptable thing to say. The PA system does not work. To hear the speakers, you must be within 50 metres of the fire engine on which they stand. So the two

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

‘We are going to have to lock some people in a cupboard’: Labour plotters prepare for coup

Labour MPs are today voting on the motion of no confidence on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. The rebels expect the vote to pass with 2:1 support from the parliamentary party. But what they do not know is whether the party membership has really shifted enough for Corbyn to lose when it moves to a new contest. Corbynite sources are adamant that he will win again, and reports of disillusionment amongst activists, while striking, are only anecdotal. But Labour MPs who oppose Corbyn’s leadership now see the coup us unstoppable, and believe that if necessary they will have to hold repeated votes and leadership contests in order to dislodge him. They think

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Listen: Diane Abbott says it’s ‘Westminster-centric’ to ask if Corbyn can win an election

With Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet now somewhat depleted, brains at Labour are left with less choice when it comes to who to send onto the airwaves to protect the leader’s honour. As a result, readers ought to expect to hear a lot more from Diane Abbott — the newly appointed Shadow Health Secretary — in the coming days. Alas this may not be exactly what the beleaguered Labour leader needs as he continues to try and fend off the threat of a vote of no confidence. This morning Abbott appeared on the Today programme to make the case for Corbyn’s survival. Abbott said that if there was another leadership election, she was confident

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Labour MPs advised on personal safety after pro-Corbyn demo

The demonstration in support of Jeremy Corbyn is starting to dissipate, but Labour MPs have this evening been contacted by their whips to advise them on their personal safety as they leave Parliament after the late votes. They have been advised on what entrances are being kept open for their safety, and told that anyone who is worried should contact the Serjeant at Arms. Labourites are particularly annoyed that their party’s whips have had to send this message to them given they confronted Jeremy Corbyn at the parliamentary Labour party meeting this evening over the behaviour of the grassroots group Momentum. Ian Murray received a big cheer for telling him to ‘call

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Team Corbyn defiant after parliamentary party turns on him

Journalists aren’t allowed inside the meetings of the Parliamentary Labour Party. But this evening they got a glimpse of just how high tensions had been running when Jeremy Corbyn faced his MPs when the press briefing from the Labour leader’s spokespeople descended into a loud stand-off in the corridor between them and one of his most vocal opponents, John Woodcock, who took issue with the official account of the meeting that was being offered, accusing the aides of a ‘highly distorted account’. Other MPs leaving the meeting said it was ‘heartbreaking’, and ‘awful, just awful’. They could be heard applauding criticisms of the Labour leader during the meeting. Senior figures

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Watch: Labour’s new shadow Justice Secretary turns on his fellow MPs at Momentum rally

While Corbyn faced an open revolt from MPs at tonight’s meeting of the PLP, over in Parliament Square the Corbyn fightback got underway as hundreds gathered for a Momentum rally in support of the Labour leader. Not content with the drama at the meeting, Richard Burgon — Labour’s former blunder-prone shadow City minister who has just been promoted to Shadow Justice Secretary —  left early to attend the rally. In his speech to the Corbynistas, he turned on his fellow MPs, accusing them of ‘behaving like bullies’ inside Parliament: https://twitter.com/katyballs/status/747493155621199873 ‘I think everyone in the Parliamentary Labour party can hear you shouting tonight. Cos I’ll tell you this, I’ll be quite open about it: some people

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Watch: Jeremy Corbyn heckled by his own MPs – ‘resign!’

It’s not proving to be a great day for Jeremy Corbyn. After over half of his Shadow Cabinet resigned, the Labour leader has now faced a revolt in the Chamber. While giving a statement on the European referendum, Corbyn called for MPs to refrain from in-fighting: ‘The country will thank neither the benches in front of me or the benches behind for indulging in internal factoring maneuvering at this time.’ Alas his words on party unity hit a bum note with those on the Labour benches. MPs looked incredulous as Corbyn spoke, and shortly began a chorus of heckles urging him to resign — with Toby Perkins and Chris Evans leading

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour makes a mess of holding the Government to account as Parliament returns

Even when Britain has just voted to leave the European Union, Commons business must go on. And so this afternoon the first item on the agenda in the Chamber was not the statement from the Prime Minister on Brexit and his own resignation, but Defence questions.   This should have been awkward for the Government, which is in chaos at the moment. But instead it was awkward for Labour, whose newly-appointed Shadow Defence Secretary Clive Lewis was unable to get back to Westminster from the Glastonbury Festival in time. Despite kind offers to help from supportive friends of Jeremy Corbyn, Emily Thornberry stepped into the breach instead, telling the Chamber that

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn is going to fight to the bitter end

Despite the rolling programme of frontbench resignations in the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn is clearly planning to fight to the bitter end. Labour sources are repeatedly insisting that he will definitely be on the ballot paper in a new contest, and referring to the mandate he has already been handed by members. A Corbynite source said: ‘We are not going to betray that trust by dumping the democracy of the Labour party if there is a leadership challenge. ‘The only way that the leadership of the party will change will be if the members decide that.’ The reason Corbyn is staying put is because he still believes that the membership

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Coffee House shots: Tory turmoil, Jexit and Boris’ bid for No.10

As the spate of resignations from the Labour shadow cabinet continues this morning and the rival candidates in the race to replace David Cameron as Prime Minister step up their campaigns, politics shows no signs of slowing down today. Boris Johnson and Theresa May are the front runners in the upcoming Conservative leadership contest – but who will emerge on top? And amidst Tory turmoil, the crisis at the top of the Labour party continues this morning. On today’s edition of our Coffee House shots podcast, James Forsyth tells Isabel Hardman that: ‘One of the rules for politics at the moment is that however bad things are for the Conservatives

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Jeremy Corbyn’s new Shadow Defence Secretary goes MIA on first day

Given the flak that Tom Watson  received for partying until 4am at Glastonbury on Saturday as his party imploded, one could be forgiven for thinking that any remaining Labour MPs at the annual festival would have got out of there as soon as possible. However, there is a rumour doing the rounds that Corbyn’s new Shadow Defence Secretary Clive Lewis will not make it to Defence Questions today as he is… still on his way back from Glastonbury. While Lewis’s office is yet to respond to Mr S’s request for comment, Corbyn can take heart that the Labour MP has at least been flying the flag for him at the music