Labour crisis: More shadow cabinet resignations, Corbyn remains defiant

The crisis within the Labour Party deepened on Monday as more members of the shadow cabinet resigned.

Angela Eagle resigned as shadow business secretary and her sister Maria from shadow defence secretary. Luciana Burger also resigned as a shadow health minister as the list of resignations grew. 

Lisa Nandy, shadow secretary for Energy and Climate Change, and Owen Smith, shadow secretary for Work and Pensions, added to the list of the latest MPs to resign, calling on deputy leader Tom Watson to take over as interim leader.

Diana Johnson, shadow foreign minister, Anna Turley, shadow minister for civil society and Toby Perkins, shadow armed forces minister, all cited Jeremy Corbyn's leadership as the reason for their resignation earlier this morning.

Corbyn said yesterday he would not resign despite more than a third of his senior team withdrawing their support for him over the weekend."I regret there have been resignations ... from my shadow cabinet. But I am not going to betray the trust of those who voted for me, or the millions of supporters across the country who need Labour to represent them," he said in a statement. "Those who want to change Labour's leadership will have to stand in a democratic election, in which I will be a candidate."

After a stinging election defeat for Labour last year, Corbyn won the leadership thanks to grassroots support. However but he has struggled to win the backing of Labour MPs. Britain is not due to hold a general election until 2020, but after David Cameron's announcement that he would resign after losing the referendum, many expect that one could now be called earlier by his successor - putting pressure on Labour to present itself as a credible alternative.

"I urge you, because you are a decent man, to do the decent thing and take the only action that can avert potential disaster by stepping aside," Chris Bryant MP said in a letter to Corbyn, which he posted on Twitter yesterday. "If you do so I believe future generations will praise your selflessness. If you refuse to step aside I fear you will go down in history as the man who broke the Labour Party."

Bryant, like many other MPs, said Corbyn's "ambivalent attitude" to the EU campaign had betrayed the Labour party and wider movement.

Since the referendum, two Labour MPs have submitted a motion of no-confidence in Corbyn, calling for his leadership to be debated at a meeting today, followed by a secret ballot.

The  wave of resignations was triggered by Corbyn's sacking of shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn, after Benn said he had lost confidence in Corbyn's ability to lead.

Throughout yesterday 11 others - Bryant, Gloria de Piero, Heidi Alexander, Lucy Powell, Ian Murray, Kerry McCarthy, Vernon Coaker, Charles Falconer, Lilian Greenwood, Karl Turner and Seema Malhotra - said they were stepping down.

Malhotra, former shadow chief secretary to the treasury who had introduced Corbyn at a speech on Saturday, said Labour needed to strengthen its influence at a time of such political and economic upheaval.

"We need to recognise that we do not currently look like a government in waiting," she said in a letter to Corbyn, which she also published on Twitter.

Additional reporting by Reuters.