Labour party

In the past few minutes, Owen Smith has been sacked from Labour’s Shadow Cabinet after he wrote an article calling for a second referendum and continuing single market membership. The party this evening released a statement from Jeremy Corbyn which did not thank Smith for his work but instead praised the record of his successor as Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, Tony Lloyd: ‘Tony is a highly experienced former Government Minister who is committed to ensuring that peace in Northern Ireland is maintained and helping to steer the devolution deal back on track.’ This is an interesting time of the day to put out a statement about a sacking. It’s also

Privately educated. Mother of Len McCluskey’s child. Close ally of Jeremy Corbyn. Jennie Formby’s appointment as Labour general secretary is a heartwarming tale of how one woman managed to overcome all her connections to make it to the top. More than that, it is confirmation that The Corbynite Takeover Of The Labour Party Is Now Complete (TCTOTLPINC). There seems to be another TCTOTLPINC moment every few weeks and, in all honesty, the authentic one was probably summer 2016 when Corbyn was able to cling on despite mass resignations and a vote of no confidence. That was the point Labour ceased functioning as a political party and went into the personality

The Electoral Commission has released details of the different parties’ spending on the snap election and it doesn’t make pretty reading for the Conservatives. Not only did they manage to lose their majority in that disastrous election, they also managed to spend the most money of any party in the process. The Tories spent a record £18.5million on their campaign, while Labour spent just over £11million and the Lib Dems around £6.8million. It’s already well documented that the Conservatives misallocated their resources and spent money in seats they wanted to win (and didn’t) when they should have been focussing on a defensive campaign in seats like Kensington, which they lost by

Will Russia disrupt the local elections? That’s the question being asked in Westminster. But rather than worries over Russian meddling and subterfuge, the issue at hand is whether Jeremy Corbyn’s questionable response to the attempted murder of a former Russian double agent on British soil will help boost the Conservative vote come May. Those local elections are expected to be a blood bath for the Tories, with Labour predicted to win big – particularly in the capital. The Conservatives are so worried about the vote that the managing expectations operations includes suggesting that it would be a disappointing night for Labour if the party didn’t win every London council. But in

Jeremy Corbyn’s reaction this week to the poisoning of a former Russian double agent on British soil has re-opened old wounds within the Labour party. The Labour leader’s apparent refusal to condemn Moscow involvement was made worse when his spokesman Seumas Milne appeared to cast doubt on the analysis by British intelligence agencies – suggesting that ‘there’s a history in relation to WMD and intelligence which is problematic to put it mildly’. Since then, key Corbyn ally Chris Williamson has branded Labour MPs who back Theresa May’s stance on Russia – rather than Corbyn’s – as ‘political enemies’. So who’s saying what and which MPs are considering a break with Corbyn? Some

Just in case you had grown confused, the big international story at the moment is actually about Theresa May’s response to Russia’s involvement in the Salisbury attack, not the internal war in the Labour Party. It’s not actually all about Labour, though Jeremy Corbyn and his allies are doing their damnedest to make sure that they get a disproportionate share of the attention. This evening, Corbyn has backed his spokesman’s line on Russia, writing a piece in the Guardian which repeats the post-PMQs claim that British intelligence on chemical weapons has been ‘problematic’. The Labour leader writes: ‘There can and should be the basis for a common political response to

Jeremy Corbyn has been criticised once again for failing to condemn Russia over the Salisbury spy attack. But while some Labour MPs have turned on their leader, Corbyn can still count on the support of one old friend. Ken Livingstone has just popped up on Russia Today – where else? – taking Corbyn’s line that more evidence is needed before Britain points the finger at Russia. Here’s what he said: ‘I would find it very odd to think the president of Russia is sitting in his office deciding who to kill. I would have guessed that Mr Putin has more important things to do than that’ At least Ken isn’t

Labour’s Executive Director for Governance, Membership and Party Services Emilie Oldknow has announced she is leaving, just weeks after Iain McNicol was ousted as General Secretary. At the time, Corbynite insiders had told me that Oldknow was the ‘power behind the throne’ and had been responsible for the real running of HQ as McNicol was increasingly sidelined by the party leadership. Now, that power behind the throne has left too. In a letter to party staff, she says ‘I will be leaving in the summer to pursue some new and exciting opportunities’. Oldknow was a moderate, and had also been sidelined: I understand that she only found out about McNicol’s

The moment that has defined my approach to politics came when my mother told me the proudest moment of her life: buying her council house.  Growing up in Consett, a former steel town in the north east, that house seemed to be like any of the other identikit terraced properties in the area. But to my mother, it was an asset she now owned and was able to pass on to me and my siblings. Later in life, I realised that Right to Buy had opened up new avenues for my mother, beyond having a roof over her head: it gave her choice, security, and a sense of achievement and

How did it come to this? Here we are, in 2018, in modern, democratic, fair-minded Britain, and what happens when it turns out the leader of the Labour Party was a member of a secret Facebook group awash with anti-Semitic comments? Not a lot really. As the political editor of the Jewish Chronicle, I have been writing about Jeremy Corbyn’s associations with anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers and radical clerics since long before he became leader of the opposition. I have also lost count of the number of stories I have written on Labour MPs, councillors, activists and supporters linked to Jew-hate since the summer of 2015. When I saw the work

John McDonnell’s business credentials took another hit on Friday when the shadow chancellor struggled to name a single one of his ‘business heroes’ in an interview with the Financial Times. The pause was so long that McDonnell’s press adviser eventually came up with a suggestion for him – ‘Vince Dale’, the renewable energy entrepreneur: Only there’s a problem. There’s no renewable energy entrepreneur by the name of Vince Dale. Instead, the person in question goes by the name of… Dale Vince. Mr S suggests the pair learn the entrepreneur’s name before going in for a business endorsement…

Jeremy Corbyn wants Britain to ‘stay in a customs union’, according to the BBC. The phrase does not make sense. We could possibly stay in the customs union, if the EU decided to let us, but that is not the policy of his party or of the government. We cannot ‘stay’ in ‘a’ customs union, because that would require us to join something which does not at present exist. But the use of the reassuring word ‘stay’, in reference to an as yet unformed, unnegotiated customs union, is exactly the rhetorical sleight of hand which Mr Corbyn seeks. It is designed to persuade Remainer Conservative rebels that they must side

The Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport recently investigated claims of Russian interference in the UK electoral process. The committee might soon be forced to go one further and investigate EU interference in our political system.  How remarkable that today’s ‘legally-binding’ document from Michel Barnier, which tries to keep Northern Ireland in a customs union with the EU comes just 48 hours after Jeremy Corbyn made a speech changing Labour’s policy in order to commit the UK as a whole to remain within the customs union. I am not party to any conversations Jeremy Corbyn might have had with Michel Barnier or his team, but the Labour leader