Jeremy Corbyn feud deepens as allies threaten to cut off Labor election cash

The Labor dispute over the reinstatement of Jeremy Corbyn as MP now threatens the party’s war chest for the next municipal elections in 2021, the Mirror understands.

Senior figures from three left-wing unions, Unite, FBU and CWU, told the Mirror that they would push to cut the amount of funds given to the party to fight in next May’s elections, unless Corbyn gets the whip back.

Next year’s mass elections will see seats in 151 councils, along with 13 directly elected mayors, 40 police officers and crime commissioners in England and Wales.

It will also see voters go to the polls for the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd, the London Assembly and the London Mayor’s Office.

They are seen as Starmer’s first major test in rebuilding the electoral fortunes of the Labor Party.

Labor leader Keir Starmer said Wednesday morning that he would not return the whip after members of the ruling Labor NEC reinstated Corbyn’s membership.

The former Labor leader was suspended for comments he made following an EHRC report on anti-Semitism in the party.

He said: “The magnitude of the problem was also dramatically exaggerated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as much of the media.”

In a second statement this week, he said that concerns about anti-Semitism at work were not “exaggerated.”

He said: “I am sorry for the pain this problem has caused to the Jewish community and I would not want to do anything that could exacerbate or prolong it.

“To be clear, concerns about anti-Semitism are not ‘overstated’ or ‘overstated’.”

On Thursday, shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodd criticized the system that reversed its suspension as “politicized.”

Ms. Dodds said the decision to reinstate Corbyn under the old system “indicates that that process is not the right one, it is not the one we need.

“We have six weeks to respond to that report and a large part of the response will focus on creating a new process, which is completely independent, in which everyone can have confidence, including the Jewish community.”

Former Labor MP Thelma Walker, who was an assistant to former shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, said Wednesday that she had resigned from the party because of Starmer’s treatment of Corbyn.

But the party greats backed the Labor leader, and Gordon Brown demanded that Corbyn make a “full apology” to be reinstated as a Labor MP.

Brown said: “You have to fully apologize and it has to be clear that there are no buts, buts or qualifications on your opposition to anti-Semitism.”

“I think Keir Starmer will insist on that and that’s the right thing to do.

“I am sure that mistakes have been made along the way, I am sure that it has not intended these consequences, Jeremy Corbyn himself.

“But you cannot afford the impression that even a case of anti-Semitism in the Labor Party is acceptable.

“None is acceptable, no form of racism, no form of discrimination, we have to eradicate it once and for all.”

But no apology was seen yesterday as the dispute continued to spread, and those on the party’s left responded to the suspension by launching a series of offers to pressure Starmer to reinstate Corbyn.

Momentum, the campaign group that grew out of Corbyn’s two leadership campaigns, launched a campaign to fill Starmer’s inbox with lawsuits.

While many Labor MPs have supported Starmer’s decision, 28 MPs and four colleagues have signed a statement calling for a “speedy reversal”.

And former high-profile allies, including Diane Abbott, have shared a petition calling for Corbyn to reinstate the Labor whip.

At the time of writing this report, it had just over 39,000 signatures.

And high-level figures in several key unions have indicated that they will push to cut Starmer’s party funding if he does not reinstate Corbyn.

Len McCluskey, secretary general of Unite, Labor’s largest donor, said the refusal to return the whip to Corbyn was “a witch hunt.

He urged Starmer to “retreat from the abyss” on Wednesday.

Unite cut its cash for the party by 10% in October citing concerns about the party’s leadership under Starmer’s leadership.

A senior figure within Unite told the Mirror: “We have been very clear, we want a Labor government in Westminster and a Labor government in power in city councils across the country, but not at any price.

“This dispute shows that too many people around Keir Starmer are simply not listening, they are conducting harmful factional fighting at the cost of winning the election.”

“Members will ask why we spend so much money on this.”

A number of party insiders told the Mirror that the party’s electoral war chest was severely depleted after the cost of the 2019 elections and the high cost of resolving defamation cases brought against it by seven former employees. following a Panorama investigation into his handling of anti-Semitism. .