Jeremy corbyn

Labour has gone oddly quiet today, and that’s not just because the party is enjoying the mayhem in the Conservative leadership contest. After a very well-organised week of resignations, the rebels have now decided to sit back and wait for Jeremy Corbyn to come to terms with what the party he leads now looks like. The leader today appointed Angela Rayner as Shadow Education Secretary, which was a matter of necessity as it is Education Questions in the Commons on Monday, and the party didn’t have anyone to face Nicky Morgan. But the Labour frontbench generally looks like a Swiss cheese after the mice have been at it. There are

Referendum day is as nondescript and wet as the day before, happily spent in Cambridge at my son’s Leo’s graduation. Even here the coming vote intrudes. Some students say that the master of Trinity College has come out for Brexit. Leo’s boyfriend Eddie, newly graduated in German studies and about to head to a job in Berlin, worries about job prospects. Our lunch table is shared with genial and smiling but very divided family. The polling station is equally lively, a place for chat with neighbours. The working day is uneventful. Dinner with friends in the evening, asleep before the first results. I wake in the middle of the night,

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,

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

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