FORMER Labour Parliamentary candidate for Warrington South Nick Bent has joined nearly 60 other candidates from last year’s General Election in calling for Jeremy Corbyn to resign as leader of the Labour Party.
In an open letter, sent to John Cryer, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, he says the party needs a leader who would be seen as a “credible Prime Minister.”
It reads: “We admire the service that Jeremy Corbyn has offered to our Party as leader in the past year and his long service as an MP and within the Union movement.
“However, we believe we must accept that we cannot achieve our shared ambitions for the future of the United Kingdom without a leader able to command the confidence of the country. That is why we believe that the Labour Party must seek a change of leadership.”
The letter comes after Corbyn lost 23 members of his shadow Cabinet with 20 choosing to resign, two peers effectively quitting and Hilary Benn being sacked over the weekend.
Activists and would-be candidates have grown increasingly concerned about the prospect of a newly installed Tory leader – such as Boris Johnson or Theresa May – calling a snap election in the aftermath of the vote for Brexit.
Mr Bent (pictured above) said: “The main job of the Labour Leader is to become Prime Minister and keep the Tories out of Number Ten. Only in power can Labour make Britain a fairer and more equal nation.
“It has become obvious that Jeremy Corbyn cannot win a General Election, so Labour members must have a chance to elect a woman or man who can. Then we can unite around winning back Warrington South for Labour, plus scores of other similar Tory seats.”
Bent joins call for Corbyn to resign
66 Comments
6 Comments
Nick Bent has ‘come out’ and revealed himself as one of the ‘Back Stabbers’
Jeremy Corbyn was democratically elected with an overwhelming majority by the members of the Labour party – people who Labour MP’s are supposed to represent. Any Labour MP’s who don’t want to stand by the party member’s elected leader shouldn’t be Labour MP’s. Those who are now trying to remove the Labour member’s chosen leader are revealing themselves to be people who cannot be trusted to serve the public who elect them and that they are nothing but self-serving political careerists. The Labour party will be better off without them!
The fact that Corbyn was elected by Labour members rather than one of the ‘slick & spin’ Blairite types is because people are just sick and tired of the low uncivilised level that British politics has sunk to – an all-time low level clearly apparent by the disgraceful behaviour of politicians of all parties in the recent European Referendum.
People don’t want a ‘slick & spin’ leader who just ‘looks like’ he can be a Prime Minister – they want one who can actually do the job! They want a fair, decent and honest person who genuinely cares about his people and his country.
This attack on Corbyn together with his recent, petty personal attacks on Warrington’s present MP’s hardly make Nick Bent appear a ‘credible candidate’ for a parliamentary position in the next election.
Whatever potential you may have previously appeared to have had Mr Bent, confidence in you will now be lost.
The weakness of their argument is that they fail to put forward an alternative Leader. Calling for Mr Corbyn to resign is gutless, as they know that if he does that, Tom Watson becomes the interim Leader, they would then have an election for the new Leader and that Mr Corbyn would not be able to stand. As it is at the moment, if Mr Corbyn stands firm and does not go, then a challenger will have to come forward and take Mr Corbyn on in a election, an election it seems that Mr Corbyn would win….and so it goes on.
We seem to have a political elite, at all levels and across all the parties, which rather like our football team and its woeful manager, talks the talk but fails to deliver when called upon to serve the country
Nice one, Paul. Let’s face it, Labour’s problems in finding an electable prime minister are nowt compared to the mess your PM has got us in.
I think that is an entirely fair and reasonable comment. It is a matter of public record that I never wanted a Referendum, and felt that having it was a mistake by Mr Cameron, and indeed the outcome of the 2015 General Election was not determined by the Conservative commitment to hold a Referendum, but rather an economic argument and in the latter stages concerns over a Labour / SNP coalition Government. On the doorsteps when I was out canvassing, the EU itself was not a major topic of discussion.
Paul, you say; “The weakness of their argument is that they fail to put forward an alternative Leader”. I would say that the weakness of their argument is that they don’t have any solid reasons to replace Jeremy Corbyn. Why do they suggest he is not an electable prime minister? He’s already proved that he’s electable – with a large mandate – by the Labour party members who elected him to represent them. and in whose interests they themselves should be working).
They accuse him of not being forceful enough in swaying the vote to Remain in the EU referendum. That he is not committed enough to the Remain side – as it’s now been proved that neither are the majority of the countries voters I can’t see that his lack of enthusiasm to the EU would make him unpopular with the electorate – probably the opposite.
These back-stabbing MP’s are living on a Labour meal ticket yet they are not really Labour are they? Just Blairite tories in drag.
I think Corbyn should have cleared the decks of these fakes ages ago. Once he has got rid of them and put replacements in I think things will improve for him. It would be hard for anyone to operate whilst surrounded by assassins. Surrounded by true supporters he may blossom.
The Blairites seem to think they will pick up points from the ‘middle’ electorate if they have a Blairite leader. Are they thick? Blair was trounced out -and not before time!
Corbyn’s fairness might well be embraced by the ‘middle’ who contrary to the beliefs of the political wannabe’s are not all self interested, self serving money grabbers with no social conscience.
Nick Bent’s recent attack on Helen Jones who is extremely popular in her area, appears to be a way of distancing himself from the working class and thus hoping by doing so to align himself with the ‘middle’ voters of South Warrington. What he’s failed to consider is that North or South an awful lot of people are sick of the way society is going and all this bitching and backbiting is just what people don’t want anymore. And this is why Corbyn’s civil and fair approach might well prove an attractive choice across the board.