Jeremy Corbyn savaged for Labour’s ‘disastrous’ showing in local elections by own MPs
MP son of former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was among dissenters admitting that Jeremy Corbyn is a voter turn-off
JEREMY CORBYN was savaged for Labour’s “disastrous” showing by Neil Kinnock’s MP son yesterday - as the party’s meltdown triggered calls for a new leadership challenge.
Stephen Kinnock, elected MP for Aberavon in 2015, said it was “simply not good enough” for the main opposition to be going backwards.
And he stormed: “I think we can’t just put a spin on this - the fact of the matter is that Jeremy’s leadership does come up on the doorstep.”
“We are seeing from people on the doorstep that they are worried about the polarisation of our politics, they do feel there is a shift to the hard left and a shift to the hard right.
“And my vision of the Labour party is not one where we are anywhere near the hard left.
Separately Clive Lewis took to Twitter to slam the party’s approach to Brexit - and demanded the party’s high command change its approach.
The leftie - who could lose his Norwich South seat at the General Election - said: “Given today’s results I hope someone, somewhere reappraises the strategy of triangulating our own Brexit position based on May’s Kamikaze Brexit.”
Labour lost almost 300 seats – more than double the worst fears of pollsters in the run-up to the vote – with huge losses across the country.
It marked the third successive year Labour has suffered losses in the council elections.
Labour lost 225 in 1982 at the height of Maggie Thatcher’s Falklands War.
In opposition Michael Foot’s Labour won 988 seats and Neil Kinnock picked up 584 in 1991. Ed Miliband won more than 800 in both 2011 and 2012.
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Beaten candidates across the country turned on the leader as key allies Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott took to the airwaves to pledge their support.
Sion Simon who lost the race to be Mayor of West Midlands said voters were losing faith in the party.
He said: “We ended up talking about defence, immigration and Brexit.
"Labour voters in Labour areas don’t feel confident we are strong enough in our traditional labour values.
Labour parliamentary candidate Philip Johnson said Jeremy Corbyn was “putting off” voters.
The candidate for Nuneaton said: “People have been saying to us that Jeremy Corbyn’s style has been putting them off voting Labour. It’s not the policies.
“I think when the policies are explained they do receive a degree of support.
But Jeremy Corbyn isn’t coming across well with the public and I think that’s fairly well known.”
The disaster came just hours after Eighties veteran Roy Hattersley urged MPs to mount a “guerrilla campaign” to boot Jeremy Corbyn out.
Senior sources claim leading figures such as Yvette Cooper were already considering a fresh leadership challenge against Mr Corbyn.
One claimed Ms Cooper began canvassing the day Theresa May called a snap election last month. Others called Deputy Leader Tom Watson to “save” the party.
One senior Labour veteran told the Sun: “If in a football team is beaten 10-1 it’s not a mixed result just because both teams scored.
"Everybody’s conversation is on surviving. I think people will look to Tom Watson and Yvette Cooper about what the next steps are. It’s grim.”