A former Labour minister became the first parliamentarian to resign the party whip last night out of frustration over Jeremy Corbyn’s “calamitous” leadership.
Lord Warner, who was health minister under Tony Blair, said Labour was no longer a “credible party of government-in-waiting”. It is a blow for the party that last week reversed its position in opposing George Osborne’s deficit reduction charter. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, had vowed two weeks earlier to vote through the measures.
Lord Warner also raised concerns about the hard-left supporters who helped to install Mr Corbyn as leader. “I fear for Labour’s future if your supporting activists gain ever greater control of the party’s apparatus,” he wrote to Mr Corbyn.
“Labour will only win another election with a policy approach that wins back people who have moved to voting Conservative and Ukip, as well as to Greens and SNP,” he said.
“I have watched for some time the declining quality of the Labour party’s leadership, but had not expected the calamitous decline achieved in 2015.
Advertisement
“The Labour party is no longer a credible party of government-in-waiting.”
That Lord Warner has become the first to quit the party whip in the Corbyn era will not surprise many in Labour who regard him as a confirmed Blairite, but his move may embolden others to follow.