Ex-Labour MP says party must return to Corbyn’s ‘magnificent’ manifesto

The former Labour MP for North West Durham suggested the Labour party defeat today was in part due to its shift from more left wing policy and rhetoric

The civil war between the left and the right of the Labour party has been reignited after Labour's shocking defeat at their former stronghold of Hartlepool. Former Labour MP Laura Pidcock took to LBC today to express her dissatisfaction with the leadership of Labour. "I think the Labour Party have got it wrong...the leadership of the Labour Party have spent a lot of time attacking the left of the party, an internal dispute that needs to end, instead of looking outwards to those working class communities that we need to so deeply represent. "We've just come through a crisis and people are desperate for that representation." Pidcock's comments join the din of discontent among those on the Labour left with Sir Keir Starmer's leadership of the Labour party, including Labour MP and former shadow chancellor under Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell. "I think there was a feeling that Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, that they were not ferocious enough in taking on this hard-right relentless Tory Government," she told Nick Ferrari. "If we look at the results in Hartlepool under Jeremy Corbyn, we were successful in maintaining those seats." She urged Labour leadership to reflect on the defeat and return to a manifesto more like that under Corbyn. "Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, need to return to that magnificent manifesto of 2017, 2019, without the shroud of Brexit hanging over us," she said. Later adding: "We had a plan to eradicate in work poverty, we had a plan to eradicate homelessness, we had a plan to bring us to a more peaceful nation." Despite this, Pidcock did lose her seat running on the very manifesto she advocated for in this interview in 2019, knocking a brick out of the wall of traditional Labour voter areas.