'A weak, self-regarding, pious man': Former Labour minister's extraordinary attack on Jeremy Corbyn
A former Labour minister has launched an extraordinary attack on Jeremy Corbyn following the party’s worst General Election performance since 1935.
The party lost 60 seats in last week’s election as Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party won an 80-seat majority in the Commons.
Following the “disastrous” result, home secretary Alan Johnson MP launched into a scathing critique of Mr Corbyn’s leadership – saying he should resign “immediately”.
Mr Corbyn has said he will leave his role as Labour leader “in the early part of next year”.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Mr Johnson said: “Labour tried to fool the public into thinking that money was no object.
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“But the main problem at this election wasn’t the manifesto; the main problem was Corbyn. A weak, self-regarding, pious man incapable of leadership.”
Mr Johnson claimed Mr Corbyn had failed to appeal to working-class communities that had consistently put trust in Labour.
He wrote: “The working classes looked at Corbyn and saw somebody who was unpatriotic to the extent that the country’s enemies were his friends. They hated his pacifism, his simplistic division of the world between evil oppressors and their victims, his disdain of aspiration.
“Most of all, they didn’t recognise themselves in Corbyn’s depiction of working-class people as having no individual identity, only a collective role as part of the downtrodden masses. They decided well before this election and irrespective of Brexit that they would never let him cross the threshold of 10 Downing Street.”
Many traditional Labour-voting areas in the North of England voted Tory – including Tony Blair’s former constituency, Sedgefield.
Mr Johnson gave a speech from Mr Blair’s former constituency after his victory, saying: "We are the servants now and our job is to serve the people of this country and to deliver on our priorities.”
“If anyone’s to blame, it is me”
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell apologises on #Marr for Labour’s election campaign “disaster”https://t.co/l3uOT6jUeT pic.twitter.com/IYkBh1Ycq0— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) December 15, 2019
A new poll has found that one in four Labour Leavers defected to Tories in election. Labour’s position on Brexit saw it lose 25% of Leavers who had backed the party in 2017 to the Tories, according to a survey by Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft.
Meanwhile, shadow chancellor John McDonnell has shouldered the blame for the party’s drubbing in the December election, telling Andrew Marr he was partly “to blame”.
