Share

Indian-origin MP files complaint against Labour leader’s aide

Former shadow cabinet minister Ms Eagle, who launched a leadership challenge against Mr Corbyn before standing aside to give Mr Smith a clear run, suggested the leader had contributed to abuse directed at her and her staff.

Advertisement

Sarah Champion, one of the Labour MPs who resigned from the Labour shadow frontbench last month, has “unresigned” and resumed her role.

She said: ‘I can assure you I’ve not joined any coup, I just think Jeremy’s position is no longer tenable if we’re to be effective’.

JEREMY cORBYN’S inner circle are said to be delighted an MP who quit as part of a mass walk-out of front-benchers has re-joined their team.

And a spokesman for Mr Corbyn played down the incident and said claims of intimidation are “untrue”.

Breaking with the traditional question and answer format of the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, the shadow chancellor turned to the camera and said: “Let me say this: we’ve got to stop this now”.

The Rotherham MP was among scores of frontbenchers to resign during a revolt against Mr Corbyn, but has been reinstated after asking for her old job back.

The MP for Hayes & Harlington said there was a “small group” within the party responsible for the current turmoil which had seen it beset by allegations of bullying, intimidation and abuse.

It comes after more than 40 female Labour MPs wrote to Corbyn earlier this week saying he had failed to do enough to prevent “disgusting” threats against members.

As a result, Malhotra has written to the Speaker and accused staff working for Corbyn and McDonnell of “illegal” and “unauthorised entry” to her parliamentary office in Westminster.

“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.

“What we should do is do some mediated negotiations between the Parliamentary Labour Party, the NEC (national executive committee) and others so we use the leadership contest to discuss the issues but also we use it to help heal some of the wounds and bring it together”, he said.

Meanwhile, leadership rival Mr Smith said his wife, Liz, had been a victim of online abuse and claimed there was now a level of abuse, anti-Semitism and misogyny in Labour that was not there before Mr Corbyn became leader.

More than 80 per cent of Labour MPs oppose Mr Corbyn.

Advertisement

The Labour History Research Unit at Anglia Ruskin University polled 350 Labour Party councillors across the 250 most marginal parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom (the 125 seats Labour won and the 125 Labour lost by the lowest margins in the 2015 election).

Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn Holds Leadership Rally