Emily Thornberry warned Corbyn over 'Brexit election' as she reveals she's standing for Labour leader

  • EXCLUSIVE
  • Shadow foreign secretary warned of "political folly” of handing Johnson "Brexit election"
  • Came as she announced she would stand for Labour leader 
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Emily Thornberry warned Jeremy Corbyn it would be an “act of catastrophic political folly” to give Boris Johnson a “Brexit election”, the Standard reveals today.

In a confidential memo to the Labour leader, the shadow foreign secretary correctly forecast that it risked gifting the Tory leader “a parliamentary majority for five years, and a mandate to do whatever else is on his anti-public services agenda”.

Arguing that Labour should keep blocking Brexit until Mr Johnson caved in to demands for a referendum, she predicted that he would succeed in making the election about “a simple choice on Brexit”

The disclosure comes on a day that Labour’s civil war heated up as:

Emily Thornberry warned Jeremy Corbyn about handing Boris Johnson a 'Brexit election'
Getty Images
  • Triple election winner Tony Blair took off the gloves for his most scathing attack yet on Mr Corbyn , branding the election disaster “unforgivable” and accusing his successor of a “strategy for defeat”. Making a speech in London, he said: “The result has brought shame on us. We let our country down.”
  • Ms Thornberry announced that she intends to stand for Labour leader. Writing for the Guardian online, she boasted of having “pummelled” Mr Johnson every week when he was foreign secretary: “Each time, the mask slipped, and we saw the real man — a mendacious, lazy, dangerous charlatan … He hated it, especially coming from a woman.”
  • Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary who is expected to stand , said the next leader should “build on” Mr Corbyn’s “radicalism that matters and the rejection of anti-austerity”. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today he argued: “We need to build on that, rather than simply say, ‘Well, let’s now oversteer and go back to some bygone age’.”
  • Left-wing favourite Rebecca Long-Bailey was endorsed by fellow Corbynista Richard Burgon. 
  • Tensions were high after Mr Corbyn was berated at his first meeting with Labour MPs since the election at Westminster last night .

In her memo to Mr Corbyn, Ms Thornberry wrote: “We need to ask the question, ‘What would we prefer? Boris Johnson in power for a few more months until a referendum, or Boris Johnson with a parliamentary majority for five years, and a mandate to do whatever else is on his anti-public services agenda?”

Her detailed memo said Mr Johnson had aimed from the start to force a “Brexit election” and unlike Theresa May in 2017 would succeed.

“Much as we might wish it, we must all realise that pattern will not be repeated this time around,” she wrote. “If we are honest, we know they will likely succeed in turning the general election into a simple choice on Brexit where Theresa May failed, not least because of the imminence of the decision, and the fact that it can genuinely be presented as a ‘crisis election’.”

The Evening Standard has learned that Ms Long-Bailey was among shadow cabinet members who argued against her, along with party chairman Ian Lavery.

In his speech, Mr Blair said: “The takeover of the Labour Party by the far-Left turned [Labour] into a glorified protest movement, with cult trimmings, utterly incapable of being a credible government.”

The failure to tackle the “stain” of anti-Semitism was “a matter of disgust” and the election manifesto was a “wish list” of freebies.

He said: “Any fool can promise everything for free. But the people weren’t fooled. They know life isn’t like that.”

He accepted Mr Corbyn’s wish for a “period of reflection” but warned: “Any attempt to whitewash this defeat … will cause irreparable damage to our relationship with the electorate.”

Sir Keir’s remarks about a “bygone age” appeared to be a bid to distance himself from the Blair era. Asked if he was trying to appeal to Corbyn supporters, he said: “I don’t need someone else’s name tattooed on my head to make a decision.”

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