‘Fury and Despair’ as Labour MPs Slam Jeremy Corbyn for Historic Defeat

SHEFFIELD, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 11: Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks during a stump speech
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

Jeremy Corbyn faced “fury and despair” from Labour Party MPs, with many blaming the hard-left leader for the party’s disastrous loss in last week’s general election.

In a Labour Party meeting on Tuesday night, 70-year-old socialist Jeremy Corbyn was told that he was the “the biggest drag” on the party in the election and that his socialist spending promises made Labour look “economically illiterate” to the public.

The meeting was full of “fury and despair” as MPs were “overwhelmingly critical” of Corbyn, who they claim has failed to learn from the mistakes of the election, a top Labour peer told The Telegraph.

Jess Phillips, one of the contenders to replace Corbyn as the leader of the Labour Party, and Catherine McKinnell, the MP for Newcastle upon Tyne North, blasted Corbyn for his failure to devote effort and resources to northern regions that voted for the Conservatives.

Only hours before the meeting, the far-left leader was challenged by former MP for Wakefield, Mary Creagh, who lost her seat to the Conservatives, after she saw Corbyn smiling and taking selfies with young people.

“I saw Jeremy taking selfies with these young people, and I thought rather than grinning and smiling with them, he should be apologising to them,” she told the BBC.

Creagh recounted telling Corbyn “that he needed to stand down as leader and that every day he remained was another day that put the Labour Party back from rebuilding and renewing”.

In a speech given this morning, former Labour Party Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the Labour Party is stuck on a “Fantasy Island” of far-left ideology epitomised by Jeremy Corbyn.

“The takeover of the Labour Party by the far left turned it into a glorified protest movement, with cult trimmings, utterly incapable of being a credible government,” said Blair.

“He personified an idea, a brand of quasi revolutionary socialism, mixing far-left economic policy with deep hostility to Western foreign policy, which never has appealed to traditional Labour voters, never will appeal and represented for them a combination of misguided ideology and terminal ineptitude that they found insulting,” he added.

In the aftermath of the Labour Party’s historic defeat, Jeremy Corbyn deflected blame and declared that his socialist agenda “won the argument“, but the party had failed to convert it into an electoral victory.

“Make no mistake: Labour is the greatest force for progressive change this country has ever known, and although this wasn’t our moment, our time will come again,” wrote Corbyn.

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