John McDonnell has warned Labour MPs, members and supporters the party is in danger of destroying itself – even as he apologised over a member of his staff entering the office of a former shadow cabinet member without her permission.
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Parliament is now in recess but Ms Champion will resume her shadow home office role campaigning against abuse when the House of Commons returns in the autumn.
British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters as he arrives for a press conference to launch his bid to retain the leadership of the party at the University College London Institute of Education in London, Thursday, July 21, 2016.
The spokesman said: ‘There’s always work to be done.
Jeremy Corbyn is facing a challenge to his position from former shadow cabinet minister Owen Smith.
On her support for Mr Smith she said: “What I want in a leader is somebody who is a socialist and has a plan about where this country is going”.
John McDonnell has used a TV appearance to make a direct appeal for an end to the bitter infighting that threatens to split the Labour Party.
Ms Malhotra said the unauthorised entry by staff into her office constituted a serious breach of parliamentary privilege.
Speaking on Saturday, Mr Corbyn condemned abuse among members, saying “it has no place in our party”.
Labour signed up more than 183,000 new registered supporters in 48 hours last week, all of whom will now be eligible to vote, after paying the £25 fee imposed by the party’s national executive.
“She saw boxes outside of [Malhotra’s] office, knocked on the door, went in and saw no-one there”, McDonnell said, adding that she went in the next day, again believing no one to be there, but found the office to be occupied by Malhotra’s staff. McDonnell said that his office manager apologised at the time. They shouldn’t be shouted down, they shouldn’t be intimidated and they shouldn’t be abused, either in meetings or online.
In an interview, Mr McCluskey claimed that accusations on social media against rebellious MPs were the product of a security services plot.
They represented a major breach of security and parliamentary privilege, she told the Observer newspaper.
Mr Smith told Sky News he had received death threats and the problem of abuse had not been there before Mr Corbyn’s leadership win. McGinn said: “I am afraid I could no longer tolerate the hypocrisy of him talking about a kinder, gentler politics when I knew for a fact that he had proposed using my family against me in an attempt to bully me into submission because he didn’t like something I said”.
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Thirty-eight per cent thought the majority of their local members will vote for Mr Corbyn, compared to 28 per cent voting for Mr Smith, and 53 per cent thinking the majority of their local registered supporters are likely to back Corbyn.
