Leadership hopeful’s letter reveals reason for resignation
Leadership hopeful Keir Starmer resigned from Labour’s front bench during the infamous ‘chicken coup’ after the 2016 referendum, in which the Labour right tried to topple Jeremy Corbyn less than a year after he had been overwhelmingly elected as party leader.
The resignations led ultimately to Owen Smith’s leadership challenge – which saw Corbyn returned to his post with an even bigger majority.
Starmer’s resignation letter reveals his motivation in leaving:
I have maintained my support for you… However. the resignations… materially change this. It is simply untenable now to suggest that we can offer an effective opposition without a change of leader.
This has not gone down well with Labour supporters such as Chelley Ryan:
Corby formed a new Shadow Cabinet and went on to win that September’s leadership contest by a huge majority.
Less than a year after the chicken coup resignations that Starmer thought made it ‘simply untenable to suggest that we can offer an effective opposition without a change of leader‘, Corbyn destroyed Theresa May’s parliamentary majority in the 2017 general election – on a manifesto that respected the referendum result.
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