John McDonnell is blasted for treating Jeremy Corbyn ‘like a puppet’ amid claims he failed to warn Labour leader the party would not block a second Scottish independence referendum
- Mr McDonnell is accused of going ‘rogue’ and that he ‘blindsided’ Mr Corbyn
- Civil war is said to have broken out within the Labour Party over the comment
- ‘Corbyn didn’t know what McDonnell was going to say,’ according to an MP
By Brendan Carlin for The Mail on Sunday
Published: 20:00 EDT, 10 August 2019 | Updated: 21:14 EDT, 10 August 2019
John McDonnell has been accused of treating Jeremy Corbyn ‘like a puppet’ amid claims he failed to warn the Labour leader the party would not block a second Scottish independence referendum.
Party sources say the Shadow Chancellor went ‘rogue’ and ‘blindsided’ Mr Corbyn by declaring a Labour government would not stop Scottish nationalists from holding another breakaway poll.
The bombshell announcement has sparked a civil war within the party, with Labour MP Graham Jones telling The Mail on Sunday that he would vote against any ‘dirty deals’ with the SNP to damage the Union – even if that ‘kept Labour out of power’.
Sights set on second referendum: John McDonnell has been criticised for failing to warn Jeremy Corbyn Labour would not block a second Scottish vote at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Ex-Labour Cabinet Minister John Denham, writing in The Mail on Sunday, said the party would have to appeal to English voters by offering an ‘English’ General Election manifesto to defuse Tory claims that a minority Labour government would be at the beck and call of the SNP.
But last night, the row deepened with sources claiming Mr McDonnell had given Mr Corbyn no warning of the referendum policy shift – despite his insisting the Labour leader held the same position.
A senior Labour MP said: ‘Corbyn didn’t know what McDonnell was going to say and nor did his office.
‘They were completely blindsided by John going rogue and making the headlines.’ The MP, an ally of Mr Corbyn, also took offence at Mr McDonnell’s claim last week that if Boris Johnson refused to quit after losing a no-confidence vote, ‘I would be sending Jeremy Corbyn in a cab to Buckingham Palace to say we’re taking over’.
The MP added: ‘He may be one of Corbyn’s oldest allies but he can’t treat the party leader like a puppet. McDonnell isn’t running the show yet.’
Electoral Commission is accused of anti-Brexit bias for ‘raiding’ Nigel Farage’s party HQ within hours of Gordon Brown demanding an investigation
The electoral watchdog has been accused of anti-Brexit bias for ‘raiding’ Nigel Farage’s party HQ within hours of Gordon Brown demanding an investigation.
Mr Farage’s Brexit Party yesterday unearthed a May 20 letter from the ex-Prime Minister to the Electoral Commission asking it to probe the party’s sources of funding.
An investigation was ‘now urgent and essential’, Mr Brown told the watchdog which visited the party’s offices the very next day.
The ex-PM had called for the watchdog to intervene in a speech, also on May 20.
The Brexit Party says the fact the Commission acted so soon after the letter proved its bias. Chairman Richard Tice said it had ‘forfeited any reputation for honour or fairness’.
The Commission insisted it was ‘an independent and impartial organisation’ and has said the visit was ‘not related to comments made by the former PM’.
The row broke amid complaints from Shadow Cabinet members that Mr Corbyn’s office had failed to organise an August offensive against the Tories, with Mr Corbyn now on holiday in Romania. Allies of Mr McDonnell have sprung to his defence, saying he at least was putting in a ‘summer shift’.
They also insisted he was trying to ‘neutralise’ SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon’s trump card of another independence referendum.
However, his remarks, made at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, infuriated Labour’s Scottish Party.
Ex-Gordon Brown spin doctor Charlie Whelan tweeted: ‘What on earth is McDonnell doing? As if Scottish Labour hasn’t got enough problems. Might as well give up on next Election now.’ But English Labour MPs said it was also a disaster for the party south of the border as it would allow the Tories to repeat their 2015 Election warnings that a weak Labour government would be propped up by SNP votes.
Right on cue, the Tories mocked up an image of Mr Corbyn nestling in Ms Sturgeon’s top pocket.
Mr McDonnell could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Sources close to Mr Corbyn’s office said they understood that the Shadow Chancellor’s comments were ‘off the cuff – not a planned intervention’.
Tory mock-up: The picture illustrates First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with Jeremy Corbyn in his pocket
If John McDonnell’s shock endorsement of a second independence referendum is bad for Scottish Labour, it could be a veritable hammer blow for the party in England, writes Former Labour Cabinet Minister John Denham.
Whatever his intention, the Shadow Chancellor has conjured up the disastrous image that an incoming Labour government would be dependent on Scottish Nationalists to get anything done.
Jeremy Corbyn may be in No 10 but Nicola Sturgeon in Edinburgh would be calling the shots.
Labour needs a much better answer to worried English voters – one that can reassure them that the SNP will have no say over English public services and cannot inflict the damage the SNP government in Scotland has done to education and health south of the border.
That answer is clear: for the next Election, Labour must publish a strong England-only manifesto alongside the wider UK-wide one.
This English manifesto should set out cast-iron promises on what Labour will do on the many issues that are now ‘English only’ – such as how our health service is funded or how university education is paid for.
It’s often forgotten that, as a result of devolution, many big political questions already have different answers in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Labour often trips itself up over this. Last year it announced the water industry would be brought back into public ownership, promising to ‘cut Britain’s water bills’.
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