Labour staff plead with Jeremy Corbyn for no 'purge' after leadership contest

Jeremy Corbyn leaves his north London home
AFP
Joe Murphy @JoeMurphyLondon21 September 2016
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Labour Party staff have demanded assurances from Jeremy Corbyn that there will be no “purge” of officials after his expected leadership victory this weekend.

The call made by union representatives highlighted tensions in the party as voting in the bitter contest between Mr Corbyn and challenger Owen Smith ended at midday.

Mr Corbyn issued an apparent olive branch by saying he would meet senior MPs to discuss ways to rebuild the shadow cabinet after a series of walkouts.

The appeal from party staff was sent by union reps Jim Hunter and Tim Waters, reported PoliticsHome.

They set a deadline of Friday afternoon for him to publicly rule out compulsory redundancies “in the face of continued reports of a ‘purge’ or ‘clear-out’ of party workers”.

Mr Corbyn replied: “I would ask that you please disregard any anonymous or un-sourced press briefings.” A party spokeswoman declined to comment.

A meeting of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee stretched to eight hours and 24 minutes amid deadlock over rule changes proposed by his deputy, Tom Watson, including a plan to let backbenchers elect shadow cabinet members.

Mr Watson believes the idea would encourage some of the former front benchers who walked out earlier this summer to return.

Mr Corbyn won a vote to postpone any decisions on rule-changes by a narrow 16-15, but surprised NEC members by then announcing he would meet senior MPs to discuss them anyway.

The talks are expected to include chef whip Rosie Winterton and the chair of the parliamentary party, John Cryer.

Despite the leader’s olive branch, Chancellor John McDonnell last night declared that the onus was on MPs to rally behind Mr Corbyn’s “mandate”.

Speaking to supporters in London, he said. “The message needs to go out to all party members and all those in the parliamentary Labour party now, is unity - we unite behind the leader.”

He added: “The most important thing on Saturday - accept the mandate, respect the will of our members, unite, and then start preparing for that general election.”

Mr Corbyn ended his campaign after 38 rallies by thanking volunteers manning phone banks at the Unite union HQ. He joked that he had just come from a “short meeting” of the NEC and said: “Together we are very, very strong.”

Challenger Mr Smith told supporters he was “proud” of the policies he had put forward during the bruising campaign and called for a “credible opposition to the Tories”.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in