Rebel Labour MP Angela Eagle has cancelled her public advice surgeries on police advice after a string of violent threats and incidents – but party leader Jeremy Corbyn has insisted he has not “stirring” abuse against her.
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Leadership challenger Owen Smith launched a scathing attack on Mr Corbyn, blasting him over the “awful treatment” of women in the Labour party.
McGinn added that he had also been targeted with a “torrent of abuse and threats” since he criticised Corbyn, with people sneaking into his office and threatening him at events.
Mr McGinn said he had made a decision to go public after watching a TV interview with Mr Corbyn.
‘Jeremy does not know my father so I can only presume that because of the much-publicised fact that my father was a Sinn Féin councillor, Jeremy felt that they would share a political affinity and was proposing to use that to ask my father to apply pressure on me.
Leicester East MP Keith Vaz – also on the NEC – is reported to have said he will give Mr Corbyn his support if he asks for it.
Councillor Claudia Webbe, a long-standing Corbyn ally, said: “Jeremy has the support of the membership and he has put Labour on the right agenda about anti-austerity, jobs, education, investment and tackling inequality”.
‘I wish some of my colleagues would concentrate on political issues, ‘ he told Sky News.
“You can make any number of ritual condemnations as you like but you have got to be judged by your actions, not just words”. It’s them that have been up there not me.
A brick was thrown through a window of the party’s office last week after she announced that she meant to run – although she has since dropped out and said she will be backing Owen Smith.
He accepted he had “never been bullied by Jeremy” personally but ” under his leadership, there has been a culture of bullying, I fear”.
Merseyside Police said its advice was given at the MP’s request.
In a letter accepting the nomination to stand in the leadership contest, Mr Smith said Labour is “letting the public down and undermining the democratic process” because of the inability to function effectively in Parliament.
The MP for Wallasey was a key shadow cabinet ally of Jeremy Corbyn until last month, when she launched a leadership challenge against him – though she has since bowed out in favour of another challenger, Owen Smith.
“I would want to see a movement of labour which recognises the need to have similarity of conditions across Europe”, said Corbyn.
“Jeremy is a voice for change both inside the Labour Party and in the country as a whole, and it’s wonderful to see how people have responded to him. So something has gone badly wrong under his watch”.
Labour’s First Minister in Wales, Carwyn Jones, told BBC Radio 4’s World At One: “I’m not going to pretend to you that things are rosy in my party”.
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“It’s not possible for me to say things are going well at the moment, because they are not”.
