LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents within the Labour Party have stepped up their hysterical witch hunt against him, accusing him of ‘stirring up’ his supporters and alleging that he is responsible for ‘abuse and intolerance, misogamy and anti-semitism in the Labour Party’.
Angela Eagle who has abandoned her leadership bid now accuses him of allowing a ‘permissive environment’ where abuse is allowed to flourish. In fact the bulk of the Parliamentary Labour Party have been abusing his leadership for months.
Eagle dropped out of the leadership contest after she failed to get the majority of MPs to endorse her. Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said yesterday: ‘It looks as though Angela Eagle was forced off the ballot paper by pressure from Owen Smith’s campaign.’ He added: ‘Owen Smith compared Jeremy to the owner of Sports Direct! ‘We want a political discussion, not a personal discussion like this.’
Corbyn answered the allegations yesterday, stating: ‘I deeply regret the language that Angela is using there. As soon as I heard about the brick that was thrown through part of the building where her office is I called her and her office immediately, expressed my regret for what happened and absolutely condemned it.
‘I have made it clear that harassment and abusive language have absolutely no place in our political discourse. I receive plenty of abusive language and I don’t want to demean myself or promote the person who is using that kind of abusive language. I think we should lower the temperature and increase the quality of our debate.’
Piling on the anti-Corbyn attack, Owen Smith squarely blamed the Labour leader for what he sees as his supporters abusing MPs, alleging: ‘After all we didn”t have this sort of abuse and intolerance, misogamy, anti-semitism in the Labour Party before Jeremy Corbyn became the leader. . . Angela is right, it has effectively been licensed in the last nine months.’
Meanwhile Smith made the extraordinary statement that if he got elected as the next Labour leader he would have a second referendum on whether Britain should be in or out of the European Union, effectively pitting parliament against the British people.