Grassroot support for Jeremy Corbyn appeared to be on the wane today as Labour MPs voted on a motion of no confidence in their leader.
Labour Left-winger Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith, resigned as shadow justice minister after consulting local Labour Party members.
Sixty local councillors, party officers and executive members sided by roughly 10 to one with the no confidence moves against Mr Corbyn.
Mr Slaughter also received 250 emails, with about 60 per cent of them voicing the view that the Labour leader needed to be replaced.
In his resignation letter to Mr Corbyn, he stressed that the Labour Party needed to be “100 per cent match fit” in case there is an autumn General Election. He added: “I don’t think you are the best person to maximise our support in the country or combat the very Right-wing forces that have taken over the Tory party.
“I mean no disrespect in saying this, there are very few people who can do the job of leading a major political party in the current climate.”
The London Young Labour group also expressed no confidence in Mr Corbyn, stressing that the Brexit vote would mean “huge losses” for young people including jobs, study and other opportunities, as well as a blow to London as a global city.
“It is evident that during the referendum, Jeremy Corbyn did not deliver a clear or passionate Labour message for why to vote Remain,” added LYL.
Dame Margaret Hodge, the Blairite MP for Barking, also stressed that she had received hundreds of emails about Mr Corbyn’s leadership.
MPs were today voting on a motion of no confidence which she tabled, with Ann Coffey MP, following more than 40 people resigning from the Labour frontbench and after a brutal showdown between Mr Corbyn and his backbenchers at a meeting of the parliamentary party yesterday.
The Labour-supporting Daily Mirror joined the calls for him to quit for the sake of his party and country.
With more resignations expected today, eyes at Westminster were on Labour chief whip Rosie Winterton and whether she would tell the Labour leader he should go.
A defiant Mr Corbyn refused to bow to “a corridor coup” and rallied supporters at a meeting in Parliament Square last night, telling them: “Don’t let the people who wish us ill divide us.”
Close Corbyn ally Diane Abbott, the newly appointed shadow health secretary, hit out at the rebels.
“MPs don’t choose the leader of the Labour Party, the party does,” she said. “I think it is really sad that colleagues have chosen to stage this three-ring circus. The way to resolve this is to have a leadership election.”
MPs were expected to vote in the secret ballot to back the motion of no confidence and a leadership election will take place if 50 of them demand one.
But there is a dispute over whether Mr Corbyn will automatically go on the ballot paper for a leadership race or have to win support from 50 parliamentary colleagues to get on it, as other contenders will have to do.
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