The Un-magnificent Seven, Chuka Umunna and six Labour MPs split party in Corbyn leadership protest over various issues, Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the TSSA transport union said, "Our voters need our MPs to be made of sterner stuff", luckily ‘Traitors Corner’ in the House of Commons has vacancies for sitting

Dear All

Breakaway groups are nothing new in the Labour Party, if you remember the ‘Gang of Four’, now in 2019; a group of Labour MPs have announced their split from the party in protest over Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. The only surprise about this new group is that they took rather a long time to jump.

Leading the charge out the door are former shadow cabinet ministers Chuka Umunna and Chris Leslie. They have will being resigning the whip, alongside Ann Coffey, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Luciana Berger and Gavin Shuker. 

Laughingly this breakaway group will be known as The Independence Group, presumably were they sit in the House of Commons will be hence known as ‘Traitor’s Corner’. Although we will get their version why they are leaving, the fact remains that that Momentum, the Corbyn support group wanted some of these people out the door. A recent victory in the CLP of Chuka Umunna put his position and continued selection as an MP at risk. Chuka saw the writing on the wall, and I am sure some others have also got the message.

Labour MP Luciana Berger has gone as well and told how she had become “ashamed and sickened” by the Labour Party she served. Her reason for going is that she reached the “sickening conclusion” that Labour is “institutionally anti-Semitic.   

Labour MP Chris Leslie, he is a smug prat added:

“In all good conscience we can no longer knock on doors supporting a government led by Jeremy Corbyn and the team around him.”

Labour MP Gavin Shuker said the Labour party had "turned its back on the British public, their hopes and ambitions."

This begs the question, which part of the British public he is referring too?

Shuker says the new Independent Group will "back well-regulated business but in return we expect them to provide decent, secure and well-paid jobs".

He added:

“These are values that once would have been considered main-stream in our parties of government,” he says. Shuker says political parties in the UK are broken and that there is complete absence of leadership at the moment the country needs it most”.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had three choices.

1/ Support the decision of the EU referendum to leave.

2/ Not Support the decision of the EU referendum to leave.

3/ Sit on the fence, do nothing and hope the Conservatives are damaged by their actions so when there is a General election, they pick up seats. In order to make themselves interesting, we had flare ups with people like Keir Stramer running his mouth.

It seems that Corbyn in the main has elected to go with option 3, sit on the fence, and try not offending the people who voted for or against Brexit.

The right wing of the Labour Party has been angry for some time, they want Jeremy Corbyn gone so they can continue the middle class project known to some as ‘Blair-ism’. They are also angry due to Corbyn's refusal to throw the party's weight behind calls for a so-called People's Vote on Brexit.

The people’s vote is a middle class construct to deny democracy in the UK, much like happened in Ireland. The sham of the people’s vote is a sick joke, revolving around middle class self interest and not national interest of the UK.

As you would expect Jeremy Corbyn refused to comment as he left his north London home presumably, he will be meeting with party officials and assess how much damage the independence group has done by leaving. Labour MP Stephen Kinnock told BBC Radio 4's The Westminster Hour on Sunday:

"The talk has been going on so long that I say with great regret that, yes, there probably will be some kind of splintering. It just seems to have been in the rumour mill so long that it's unlikely that wouldn't be the outcome."

Interestingly, shadow chancellor John McDonnell said he did not see "any need for anybody to split from the party", presumably he has missed the bit about momentum and the de-selection strategy for people like Chuka. McDonnell did say that Labour would "look at" a proposal put forward by backbenchers Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson to back a second Brexit referendum in the next round of votes on February 27.

This is the wrong way to go, the people won’t accept a second Brexit referendum, no matter how it is dressed up by the Labour Party. This move can do more harm than good to the party, because how do you explain on a doorstep why you are cheating people out of their democratic vote?

As a Labour member, I will not campaign for a second Brexit referendum, and it is highly likely that will not happen.

As well as MPs, former Labour vice chairman Michael Dugher said at the weekend that he is intending to leave the party, saying he regards it as "institutionally anti-Semitic". In a brutal condemnation, Mr Dugher claimed the party he joined nearly three decades ago "no longer exists".

The bottom line is that although some of the right wing MPs of the Labour Party have gone, the numbers are low so far, and given a general election is a few years away, new candidates can be found.

That said Jeremy Corbyn is under pressure, Brexit will come and go, the ripples of that will fade, however he needs to deal with the perceived anti-Semitic problem, because this is an open sore.

Who are the Labour MPs who quit?

Chuka Umunna MP for Streatham

Chris Leslie MP for Nottingham East

Ann Coffey MP for Stockport

Angela Smith MP for Stocksbridge

Mike Gapes MP for Ilford South

Luciana Berger MP for Liverpool Wavertree

Gavin Shuker MP for Luton South

Finally, having watched Chuka Umunna and Chris Leslie on TV and read about them in print, I am so happy they have left the Labour Party. This is probably the best thing they have ever done for the party by default. This may also give Chuka Umunna more time to find a 'decent club' to go to where he doesn't have to associate with the working class, in the meantime, keep an eye out for him sitting in Traitor's Corner at the Commons!

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University