One of the MPs identified has now written to chief whip Rosie Winterton and Iain McNicol, the party’s general secretary, saying the action amounted to “harassment and bullying by the leader of the parliamentary party”.
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Asked whether he meant to sue Corbyn, he replied: “Yes, and it would be the leader, not the party, because this has been issued apparently by someone in his campaign team”.
They would hold 349 seats in the House of Commons while Jeremy Corbyn’s party would have just 176. Just hours before this explosive list was published, Corbyn had the Labour benches cheering and rallying behind him as he impressively unpicked Theresa May’s plans for new grammar schools. I was furious about it, to be frank, furious. “But I don’t think it’s helpful to have parties within parties”. “I hope it hasn’t set us back and I will certainly be having conversations with all those named”.
And on Sunday, July 31 he tweeted: “Corbyn is not and has never been a leader”.
He stressed his desire to reconcile with unhappy Labour MPs.
He said he was “providing olive branches” and had received similar conciliatory overtures.
While Labour would push for the United Kingdom to retain “full access to the European single market” in Brexit talks, he said other EU obligations, such as state aid rules should not be part of the UK’s “post Brexit relationship” with the EU.
The leadership challenger is accusing Momentum of behaving like a party within a party.
“Don’t write me off before the final whistle is all I’ll ask”, he said.
Thirteen MPs were named on a briefing prepared by Corbyn’s team and denouncing them for their “abuse” of the leader and his supporters. Corbyn simply called him out on it, highlighting double standards in treatment of abuse within the party.
Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP Tom Blenkinsop and Redcar’s Anna Turley were among figures name-checked over their alleged behaviour since Mr Corbyn took the party’s top job.
JEREMY Corbyn will on Thursday pledge to help those in “left-behind Britain” by transforming the United Kingdom economy so that it works for everyone in all parts of the country while the following day his rival Owen Smith will warn there are just five days to save Labour.
John McDonnell has attempted to play down a 13-strong list of “hostile” Labour MPs released by the Jeremy for Labour campaign to the media.
The campaign team has apologised to the party’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, but it is not clear if that has been extended to the other MPs listed.
“That isn’t unifying”, he said.
Smith said Labour should be a broad church, and sought to rehabilitate the reputation of Tony Blair after an audience member at the Sky leadership hustings earlier this week said she hated the former Labour prime minister.
In a debate on Wednesday night, Corbyn appeared to defend the list, which he described as recording “statements made by colleagues on the record”. He went on to say he would rather Watson had not referred to activists from the Momentum group as a “rabble”.
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“The deselection of MPs is presented as a threat”, he said on Thursday evening. There’s no dispute at all with regard to the direction of economic policy.
