Jeremy Corbyn’s much-awaited appearance at the weekly meeting of the parliamentary Labour party didn’t go particularly well this evening, which means that for the group of increasingly determined MPs trying to oust him, it was a hugely successful session.
MPs were reminded that the meeting is off the record at the start, before being given a lecture by the leader about the importance of message discipline. They were told that there would be weekly messages that MPs should stick to. A number of MPs found this ‘unpalatable’, and some left.
There was also a ‘dismal’ PowerPoint presentation from Jon Trickett which apparently promised a great deal but revealed little, telling the party that more details of the economic strategy were forthcoming and presenting what some presented described as a ‘Tories are bad and Labour is good’ narrative.
A division then meant that it would have been too late for Corbyn to return to the committee room to take questions from MPs and make his commitment of filming The Agenda for ITV tonight. When it became clear that he was not returning, many more MPs were upset and left the meeting. John McDonnell also confirmed to the meeting that Yanis Varoufakis would be appearing at a Labour event. Corbyn will return next week to answer questions.
There was an interesting division in the Labour MPs I spoke to this evening. And it wasn’t over whether or not to abide by the instruction to keep the meeting off the record. All agreed that it was a miserable show. But some were miserable that it was miserable because they are desperately worried about their party. Others are grimly pleased that this first session between the leader and his parliamentarians went so badly, because it helps their mission to persuade as many members of the PLP as possible that something must be done sooner rather than later.
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