David Blunkett calls on trade unions and MPs to lead revolt to force Corbyn out as Labour leader

As succession battle begins, defeated Labour MPs point finger of blame at the party's leader

Labour big beast David Blunkett has issued a call for trade unions and MPs to lead a revolt to force Jeremy Corbyn out and install an interim leader who will begin the process of steering the party away from his left-wing programme.

The former home secretary’s call came as former MPs queued up to blame Corbyn for losing them their seats on Thursday, with one former shadow minister warning of “the end of the Labour movement” in the UK if the party fails to respond correctly to its defeat.

But Wigan MP Lisa Nandy – viewed as a potential future leader – warned that the party must listen to voters to find out what went wrong, rather than simply piling all the blame for the crushing defeat on Corbyn’s supposed shortcomings.

“It would be easy to lay the blame for this disastrous loss at the feet of a single man or a single issue,” Ms Nandy told the Daily Mirror.

“But this was our fourth loss in a decade. We have to listen to what people are telling us. Labour wins when we are rooted in our communities and work to deliver on their priorities. We have to become this again and bring Labour home to the people who need us.”

As potential successors shape up for the battle to take over the reins of the party, Mr Corbyn has indicated he intends to stay on until early next year to oversee a period of “reflection” which opponents fear is designed to ensure he is replaced by an ideological ally.

Writing in the Daily Mail, Lord Blunkett said Mr Corbyn should not delay his departure, quoting Oliver Cromwell to say: “‘In the name of God, go!’ – and go now.”

Blunkett rejected the Labour leadership’s argument that Brexit was to blame for the party’s worst election result since 1935.

He blamed a “childish cult" of "armchair socialists” around Corbyn for offering “the wrong policies with the wrong tactics, and a total failure to understand the very people on whose votes victory counted”.

And he called on the unions to use their clout on the party’s ruling National Executive Committee to deliver the prompt removal of the leader and ensure that his replacement is not “another Corbyn”.

Who will replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader? (AFP/Getty)

“It is now essential that the trade unions take their historic role seriously,” said Blunkett. “They have to step forward to get a grip on Labour’s National Executive Committee. It’s their job to force Jeremy Corbyn and those around him to step down.

“It is possible for Labour’s ruling body to nominate an interim leader – a leader from the parliamentary ranks who will command not only the respect of fellow Labour MPs but also of the country as a whole.

“Only by doing this can we demonstrate we are once again a serious opposition, able to lead the democratic process of holding Boris Johnson and his colleagues to account.”

An interim leader could undertake urgent tasks such as rooting out antisemitism and inviting back “experienced and competent” people to run the party, he said.

If Corbyn refuses to go, the party’s MPs and peers should “declare themselves to be ‘the Labour Party’, take on any legal challenge and present an alternative social democratic programme to the British people, removing top-down command and control and replacing it with real engagement with the people who abandoned us on Thursday”, said Lord Blunkett.

They should make clear to the leader’s remaining supporters in parliament that “putting up another Corbyn, either male or female, is not acceptable”.

In a blunt message to Corbyn’s supporters, he said: “You have had your chance and you have fluffed it. You have made the offer to the British people and they have rejected it. There aren’t any other people to blame this time – not the media, disaffected former MPs nor anyone else. The blame for this appalling and avoidable failure is yours.”

Some former Labour MPs who lost their seats in Thursday’s election blamed Corbyn’s leadership and the party’s alienation of its northern voters for the loss.

Former Bishop Auckland MP Helen Goodman told BBC Radio 4’s Today that “the biggest factor was obviously the unpopularity of Jeremy Corbyn as the leader”.

Ex-shadow Brexit minister Jenny Chapman, who lost her seat in Darlington, said: “You can’t run a political party that wants to be a party of government but only really appeals to about a third of the electorate and those people that live in cities who are fairly well-off people.

“The real question we have to ask ourselves now is do we want the Tories, do we want to give them another five years or another 15 years, because if we get this wrong now as a party, this could very well be the end of the Labour movement.”

Former Labour MP Anna Turley, who went down to defeat in Redcar, said that Mr Corbyn’s leadership was “absolutely” a bigger factor than Brexit for her constituents deserting the party.

She told Today: “For me, when you’re getting four doors in a row of lifelong Labour voters saying ‘I’m sorry Anna, I’m a lifelong Labour voter, I like what you’ve done, but I just can’t vote for that man to be prime minister’, I’m afraid that’s a fundamental barrier that we just couldn’t get across.”

However, Labour’s MP for York Central Rachel Maskell – who retained her seat – said it is not just Mr Corbyn who should take responsibility for Labour’s defeat.

She said: “We’ve all got to take responsibility but I don’t think apportioning blame to a complex situation in a simplistic way is really the way to approach this, we’ve got to understand what is really happening across our political system.”

And John Mann, whose former Bassetlaw seat was lost to Tories, had a succinct explanation for the defeat: “The Labour Party was created to empower the working class. The workers were empowered with a referendum . They used their power. Labour ignored them. That’s it.”

Ex-shadow cabinet member Gloria de Piero, whose former seat of Ashfield fell to the Conservatives, urged Ms Nandy to consider a run for the leadership.

“She represents and is rooted in the communities which suffered terrible defeats,” said Ms de Piero. “Our party needs to rediscover our heart and our soul. Lisa can do that.”