Seven Labour lawmakers had quit Britain’s main opposition party on Monday over the head Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to anti-Semitism and Brexit, saying that Labour had been “hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left”.
According to Reuters news reports, the departure of seven Labour lawmakers underlined the mounting tensions with Corbyn’s reluctant to change the Brexit strategy and further start campaigning for the second referendum over Britain’s membership of the EU (European Union).
With only 39 days left for Britain to leave the bloc in its biggest foreign and trade policy shift in over 40 years, breaking down traditional party lines, divisions on Brexit have fragmented British policy and creating new alliances across the country’s right/left divide.
Lawmaker Chris Leslie told a news conference: “The Labour party that we joined that we campaigned for and believed in is no longer today’s Labour Party. We did everything we could to save it, but it has now been hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left.”
He further added: “Evidence of Labour’s betrayal on Europe is now visible for all to see. Offering to actually enable this government’s Brexit, constantly holding back from allowing the public a final say.”
The seven Labour lawmakers who had quit the opposition party are Luciana Berger, Leslie, Angela Smith, Gavin Shuker, Chuka Umunna, Mike Gapes and Ann Coffey. They will continue to sit as lawmakers in parliament under the banner ‘The Independent Group’. Labour had won about 262 seats at the election in 2017.
A Labour source said that the Monday’s departure could have triggered the second wave of the resignations, further underlining the frustration over Corbyn’s approach to UK’s biggest shift in foreign and trade policy in over 40 years.
In a statement, Corbyn said: “I am disappointed that these MPs (Members of Parliament) have felt unable to continue to work together for the Labour policies that inspired millions at the last election.”
He has, so far, stuck to policy in order to keep the option of a second referendum “on the table” if British Prime Minister Theresa May’s government, in case, fails to secure any deal with Brussels that can pass through the UK parliament.
However, Corbyn had refused to allow anti-Semitism to grow in the Labour Party and has also pledged to stamp it out.