Corbyn urged to consider position as leader as Labour slumps to party’s worst ever poll ratings

Pressure mounts on party leadership to throw full weight behind Final Say vote on Brexit

Jeremy Corbyn has been urged to consider whether he is the best person to lead Labour after the party slumped to its worst ever rating in the polls.

The call from Ilford North MP Wes Streeting came as a Corbyn loyalist, shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth, broke ranks to say it was time for the leader to try to salvage Labour’s position by making clear the party will campaign for Remain in any Final Say vote.

With pressure mounting on Corbyn to throw the party’s full weight behind the call for a second referendum, senior Labour sources have said that the results of an internal consultation on Brexit policy can be expected before parliament breaks for the summer on 25 July following further consultation with trade unions.

Hopes of a shift in policy at a shadow cabinet meeting last month are understood to have been stymied by resistance from the leader’s office and some union bosses. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell told Mr Corbyn at the meeting that Labour’s Brexit position was “like a slow-moving car crash”.

Mr Streeting said that the party leadership had not delivered “anything like the kind of response we would expect” following May’s European elections when its 13 per cent share of the vote was its worst result in a century in a national poll.

The party was ranked fourth in a YouGov poll for The Times on just 18 per cent – its joint lowest level, matched only by Gordon Brown in the depths of the 2009 financial crisis. Labour trailed behind the Tories on 24 per cent, Brexit Party on 23 and Liberal Democrats on 20.

Mr Streeting said: “I just hope that Jeremy Corbyn is looking at these numbers and soberly reflecting on how he is going to lead our party out of this mess, or whether someone else would be better placed to do that.”

Mr Ashworth urged the leader to stem the flow of votes to Lib Dems by making clear that Labour “would campaign for Remain if there was a public vote”.

(Statista (Statista)

“I suspect a lot of the people who voted for us in 2017 – young people, renters and so on – I think a lot of the people who voted for us in 2017 and gave us that tremendous result are probably showing up in that opinion poll as supporting the Liberal Democrats,” he said.

And shadow Treasury minister Clive Lewis said increasing numbers of the party’s MPs were coming round to the need for it to campaign for a Final Say referendum and a Remain vote.

“For me, it is a no-brainer,” Mr Lewis told The Independent. “Labour needs to lead – lead on Brexit, lead in Europe, lead for the people.”

Only 25 per cent of Remain voters backed Labour – down from 48 per cent at the start of the year – amid rising criticism of its leader for failing to set out a clear strategy on a fresh Brexit referendum.

However, Mr Corbyn is also being abandoned by Leavers, with just 8 per cent now giving Labour their support, down from 21 per cent in January.

Labour MPs demanding a Final Say referendum on Brexit are desperate for Mr Corbyn to start campaigning for it – and to guarantee the party would back Remain if it took place.

They were alarmed when the leader said any referendum ballot paper should contain “real choices for both Leave and Remain voters”, leaving open the question of which he would back.

Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson, a supporter of the People’s Vote campaign, said the party could not afford further delay in clarifying its position on Brexit.

“Day after day, poll after poll shows the dismay among voters over Labour’s failure to offer a clear and principled position backing a Final Say referendum,” he said.

“So long as the doubt and confusion continues over whether it will support a Final Say on any Brexit outcome – and on whether it will campaign to stay in the EU – Labour will continue to shed votes to parties like the Liberal Democrats.

“The foot-dragging, can-kicking consultation with this committee or that union chief only underlines that on this crucial issue our party is not showing the leadership members and voters expect – and the country needs.

“In the face of two contenders for the Conservative Party leadership who appear determined to exclude the public from deciding our Brexit future, more and more voters will pick parties who trust the people to decide. If Labour continues to equivocate it can only lose.”

Wes Streeting said Mr Corbyn should consider whether someone else was ‘better placed’ to retrieve the party’s position (Evening Standard)

Mr Streeting said that Labour’s slump came as disarray among the Tories meant the party should be “tearing strips off” the government.

“We are being punished for being neither one thing nor the other on Brexit,” he said. “Labour voters who voted twice for Jeremy Corbyn want to see a principled, pro-European leadership and they feel let down by Jeremy on this issue.

“He has got to turn this around fast, because we and the country are running out of time.”

As well as uncertainty over its Brexit position, Labour is likely to have been damaged by the ongoing controversy about antisemitism in the party’s ranks, which reared its head again with the row over the readmission of the left-wing MP Chris Williamson.

A senior Labour spokesperson said that the party did not comment on opinion polls.

Labour is braced for more criticism over antisemitism next week, with the broadcast of a BBC Panorama episode entitled “Is Labour antisemitic?”

The BBC has said the documentary has secured “access to confidential communications and documents” which “reveal evasions and contradictions”.

In May, the party was placed under formal investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to examine whether it has unlawfully discriminated against Jews.