Jeremy Corbyn blasted with ‘hairdryer treatment’ from ex-Labour MP demanding he quits now after betraying working class
JEREMY Corbyn was given the "hairdryer" treatment by a defeated Labour MP after the two met while she was clearing out her Westminster office.
Mary Creagh, formerly the MP for Wakefield, said she launched a 20-minute tirade demanding her party leader steps down now and accusing him of betraying Labour's traditional voters.
Creagh, who briefly ran for the Labour leadership in 2015, had held her West Yorkshire seat since 2005, and went into last week's election with a majority of 2,176.
The seat was among those being targeted by the Conservative Party, and is now represented by former advertising consultant Imran Ahmad-Khan.
Creagh said she saw Corbyn, who is set to stand down in the new year, posing for photographs with young supporters before she launched the tirade.
“I told him he shouldn’t be having his photo taken with young people because he had betrayed their future,” she told .
“I asked him to apologise for what he’d done.”
Corbyn will tonight attend a meeting of all Labour MPs, who number just 202 after the election.
Creagh said she laid blame for the defeat with Corbyn, and that she had told him the manifesto had been a "joke".
“I told him it was his sole decision to call the election without even consulting the shadow cabinet and as a result of that decision he has delivered the hardest possible Brexit,” she said.
“I told him to come to Wakefield to apologise for five more years of Tory austerity and five years of a Tory MP. It was a hairdryer moment.”
She also criticised Corbyn's support network for running campaign days in safe Tory seats instead of focusing on seats Labour already held but was at risking of losing.
“He needs to know what he has done. He needs to own his failure," she said.
"He must apologise for what he has done.
"I told him ‘why are you still sat in your office when all my staff have just lost their jobs?’”
“I told him that he shouldn’t stay as leader another day. He must go now.”
'WE'LL STRIKE IF AIDES AREN'T SACKED'
The spat comes as a civil war threatens to break out within Labour, with staff threatening to strike if Corbyn's top aides are not sacked following the election.
Despite the defeat, comms director Seumas Milne and one of the party's election chiefs, Karie Murphy, remain in their posts.
Meanwhile, other staff will be made redundant because the party's lost seats will mean it is entitled to less of the cash available to opposition parties.
Party staff say they are discussing strike action soon if they don't resign and are not fired, BuzzFeed News reported.
Describing the way the election campaign was conducted, one official said: "We didn’t have enough information about what was going on.
"We didn’t have a functioning grid system.
"It’s not clear whether the grid existed or it was being controlled by people who were trying to fight their own battles.
MOST READ IN NEWS
"It was difficult for people to do their jobs."
Writing in the i paper, Labour mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: “If we are truly honest with ourselves, Labour simply did not put forward a credible candidate for prime minister or a believable set of priorities for governing."
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368 . We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours