Corbyn must go!

The last two years have seen the Tories, riven by in-fighting – rip themselves apart while the internecine civil war over Europe intensifies.  They have shown themselves to be self-serving, self-interested and unfit for office. Undoubtedly the worst administration in a century, trapped in a moribund Groundhog Day of incompetence and division.

In any other circumstances this would have been an open goal for an opposition party. But despite the opportunities, daily presenting – Jeremy Corbyn has failed to take the fight to the enemy, twiddling his thumbs while the Tories set about the wholesale defenestration of the country.

The root of that is obvious. Corbyn hates the EU and wants Brexit as much as any Rees-Mogg or David Davis. His record speaks for itself. He has been deeply and implacably opposed to the European Union ever since he first sat in parliament. He voted to leave the EEC in 1975, he voted against the Maastricht treaty, the Lisbon treaty and he voted in favour of the EU referendum. His lacklustre, sluggish approach to campaigning in 2016 was a complete betrayal of the tens of thousands of Labour Remain activists who worked hard to avert the disaster.  At the height of the EU campaign he even went on holiday.

Come in Jeremy – your time is up

Since then he has done nothing to steer the course set out by the very hardest of the ERG wreckers. He put a commitment to Brexit in the Labour manifesto of 2017. He has prevaricated and vacillated – but he has not led.

Corbyn’s dithering and inability to knock points off Theresa May’s lead has been matched only by his wholesale inability to stamp out racism in his party. For months he refused to adopt in full the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism causing Deputy Leader Tom Watson to warn that the party risked disappearing into a ‘vortex of eternal shame.’

At the same time he has rendered millions politically homeless. In doing so, he has set the progressive cause back a decade, while letting down the working people of Britain – whose lives his party was created to serve.

Meanwhile his increasingly bilious die-hard fans – blinded by a dangerous and at times fanatical sense of loyalty seem incapable of accepting what is patently obvious to everyone else.

Jeremy Corbyn, for all his idealism and core old school Labour values – is never going to be elected Prime Minister – and the longer he stays – the more damage will be done to the party, the movement and the country at large. At our most desperate hour of need – there is no opposition – and worse the Labour party looks set to fall apart.

With seven MPs quitting Labour is now facing a threat to its very survival. With rumours circulating that more MPs might follow – the hapless Theresa May must be doing one of her famous dances of joy and thanking her lucky stars.

It’s not too late to stem the leak before it turns into a flood. Corbyn has an opportunity to stop the destruction of Labour, the fragmentation of his great party and the devastation of Brexit.

Corbyn needs to do a disappearing act – before the party does it for him.