The senior Labour MP also unleashed a lacerating attack on Corbyn, accusing him of “woeful performances in the Commons”, not appearing to be able to move beyond “meaningless platitudes” and lacking the “desire” to take the party into government.
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Mr Corbyn suffered the indignity of further shadow cabinet resignations, with shadow education secretary Pat Glass quitting just two days after being appointed to the post saying the situation was “untenable”.
A defiant Jeremy Corbyn is expected to face a leadership challenge after vowing to fight on despite the overwhelming vote of no confidence by his own MPs.
When he was heckled by an onlooker about his EU campaign, he said: “Last week there was a vote to leave the European Union, it wasn’t my wish, it wasn’t the wish I suspect of a large number of people here, and we now have a hard economic situation to deal with”.
“He has obviously been told to stay by his close ally John McDonnell. So it looks like the Labour party is heading for some kind of contested election”.
“He is buoyant, he is campaigning, he is doing his work here”.
The previous day, the party’s leadership abandoned Corbyn in a mass walkout over his perceived failure to lobby effectively against the Brexit, which a majority of British voters supported in a June 23 referendum.
“I think the best thing on all of those criteria is that he stands down, painful though that might be for him and many of his supporters”.
He added: “For heaven’s sake man, go”.
“We can continue to let the MPs play their games in Parliament, it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere – Jeremy’s definitely not – we know he has the support of thousands of party members, we know that the unions support Jeremy. My judgment is those causes are more likely to be served if he goes”, he told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One.
And with millions calling for his head, now 540 Labour councillors from up and down the country have signed a letter calling on Comrade Corbyn to step down and “make way for a new leadership”.
Ruth Smeeth this morning left a Labour anti-Semitism event after being accused by a Momentum activist of working “hand-in-hand” with the media to damage Corbyn.
But the Labour leadership is decided by the paying members of the Labour party, who have to fork over just £3 to have a vote.
Meanwhile, Wigan’s MP Lisa Nandy issued a stark warning about the future of the party if it failed to “turn outwards and lead” instead of “inwards to certain destruction”.
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The U.K.’s main opposition party leader said Thursday that “Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the (Benjamin) Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organizations”.
