Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury has said she would not be surprised if the security services were working to unseat Jeremy Corbyn.
Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey has said MI5 were using “dark practices” against the Labour leader.
Rebecca Long-Bailey was asked yesterday by Sky News’ Dermot Murnaghan what she made of the “extraordinary claim” that spies “might be trying to destabilise Jeremy Corbyn”
She said:
“Well I can’t comment on that myself, I haven’t had any briefings on that but there are a lot of crazy things happening in politics at the moment and given the last few months nothing would surprise me.”
Other Labour MPs have dismissed the suggestion the security services are working against Corbyn.
Former shadow chancellor Chris Leslie said it was “ludicrously embarrassing for supposedly senior people to be getting in the realms of crazy theories like this.”
And former Labour home secretary Jacqui Smith said the claim was an “insult” to people who worked for MI5.
Yesterday John McDonnell made an unusual straight-to-camera appeal to Labour members and MPs to warn them not to “destroy” the party - as a bruising leadership campaign gets underway.
Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme this morning, the shadow chancellor also said he and Jeremy Corbyn would quit if Labour lost the general election.
Corbyn will spend the summer attempting to fight off a leadership challenge from former shadow work and pensions secretary Owen Smith.