Labour party

Tom Watson this evening told the weekly meeting of the parliamentary Labour party that he is taking a ‘last throw of the dice’ before there is a move against Jeremy Corbyn. The party’s deputy leader held a 20-minute meeting with Corbyn this morning in which he warned him that he had to have the authority of the parliamentary Labour party, and that it wasn’t good enough just to have the support of the members. In response, Corbyn told Watson that he wanted to continue as Labour leader, but Watson’s spokesman said it was clear that there wasn’t a solution that involved Corbyn staying on as leader. Neil Kinnock also gave a rousing, booming speech to the meeting which received plenty of cheers from MPs.

To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. A week after Britain backed Brexit, politics shows no sign of slowing down. David Cameron has resigned, Michael Gove has pulled out of Boris Johnson's leadership campaign before launching his own. And Boris has decided not to run in the contest. We now have a final slate of five candidates vying for the top job. In his Spectator cover piece this week, James Forsyth says the Tory party is in a 'deeply emotional state'. But he also points out that the leadership candidates who have emerged 'seem strangely united in their vision for post-Brexit Britain'.

Labour has gone oddly quiet today, and that’s not just because the party is enjoying the mayhem in the Conservative leadership contest. After a very well-organised week of resignations, the rebels have now decided to sit back and wait for Jeremy Corbyn to come to terms with what the party he leads now looks like. The leader today appointed Angela Rayner as Shadow Education Secretary, which was a matter of necessity as it is Education Questions in the Commons on Monday, and the party didn’t have anyone to face Nicky Morgan. But the Labour frontbench generally looks like a Swiss cheese after the mice have been at it. There are gaps in every team.

Rare to see a plank-walker at the helm of the ship. Today there were two. Cameron has accepted the inevitable and his demeanour at the despatch box was relaxed, amused, peaceable. Buoyant at times. Even foes like Bernard Jenkin exchanged warm words with him. And he handled Corbyn with extreme mildness until a rush of blood seized him at the end. ‘For heaven’s sake, man, go!’ he lashed out. But go where? Jezza’s impersonation of Rasputin is his best performance yet. He’s indestructible. Last weekend he was hacked to pieces by a flash-mob of tooled-up colleagues. He then suffered a thundering defeat in a no-confidence vote which merely boosted his confidence in his powers of survival. Today he stood up and was greeted by three waves of sound.

Labour MPs have passed a motion of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn 172 votes to 40. There were 216 votes cast (out of 229 Labour MPs). This means that the Labour leader will continue to serve without the support of a majority of his MPs. Unless he decides to resign, he will lead Prime Minister’s Questions for the Opposition tomorrow as normal. I have spoken to the key plotters against the Labour leader, and though they considered not turning up to tomorrow’s session, they have decided that the most important thing for backbenchers to be doing is to be holding the government to account, even if their frontbench is incapable of doing so. The more important question is who will Corbyn’s opponents stand as a candidate against him.

The demonstration in support of Jeremy Corbyn is starting to dissipate, but Labour MPs have this evening been contacted by their whips to advise them on their personal safety as they leave Parliament after the late votes. They have been advised on what entrances are being kept open for their safety, and told that anyone who is worried should contact the Serjeant at Arms. Labourites are particularly annoyed that their party's whips have had to send this message to them given they confronted Jeremy Corbyn at the parliamentary Labour party meeting this evening over the behaviour of the grassroots group Momentum. Ian Murray received a big cheer for telling him to 'call off the dogs', and Jess Phillips also accused Momentum of stirring up anti-Zionist sentiment.