Jeremy Corbyn might have wanted to wipe the slate clean and start over with his MPs after the summer’s leadership contest. But the mood on the Labour conference fringe shows that this is going to be extremely difficult in practice, even if the Labour leader does everything that his MPs ask of him (which he won’t). Many members are furious with the MPs for orchestrating a coup against their leader and forcing a leadership contest; many MPs are utterly defiant about the importance of said coup, even though it failed, and aren’t prepared to fall meekly behind the leader, no matter how much members tell them to. Indeed, if the stand-off between a group of leading moderate MPs and members at a fringe event at lunchtime today was anything to go by, things can only get more bitter.
Chris Leslie, Caroline Flint, Steve McCabe, Gavin Shuker and Stephen Timms, who are all chairs of the parliamentary Labour party’s backbench policy committees, were repeatedly nagged and criticised by members in the audience for the way they had spoken out against the leadership and the effect that those members felt it had had on the party’s standing in the polls.
Britain’s best politics newsletters
You get two free articles each week when you sign up to The Spectator’s emails.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate, free for a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first month free.
UNLOCK ACCESS Try a month freeAlready a subscriber? Log in