James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour MPs tear strips off each other at party meeting

Whenever the Parliamentary Labour Party meets, journalists gather outside the room in the hope that those leaving the meeting will reveal what went or that the argument will get so heated that they will be able to hear what is going on behind closed doors. Those of my colleagues who turned up to tonight’s PLP meeting were very much in luck.

George Eaton reports that Ben Bradshaw, the former culture secretary, left declaring the meeting ‘a total f*** shambles’ and that Emily Thornberry could be heard loudly upbraiding MPs for texting journalists about what was going on inside this supposedly private meeting.

So, why was his meeting so rowdy? Well, many MPs are still furious about having had a Jeremy Corbyn leadership imposed on them by the party membership. This mood hasn’t been improved by the establishment of the Corbynite pressure group Momentum which many moderate MPs suspect will be used to purge them.

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