Alastair Campbell says he won't fight to rejoin Labour as he launches furious blast at Jeremy Corbyn
4 min read
Alastair Campbell has told Jeremy Corbyn that he will not push to rejoin Labour as he launched a full-blooded attack on the party's strategy.
In a lengthy letter to Mr Corbyn published in the anti-Brexit New European newspaper, Tony Blair's former director of communications said the Labour leader was on track to lose the next election against Boris Johnson.
And he warned that Labour's days "as a political force capable of winning power" could be numbered unless the party changes course.
Mr Campbell was excluded from Labour earlier this year after revealing that he had voted for the Liberal Democrats in the European elections.
The party's rule book says members who back rival candidates face automatic exclusion, but the decision was branded "spiteful" by Labour deputy leader Tom Watson and a string of former Cabinet ministers revealed that they too had backed the Lib Dems.
Mr Campbell - who is a key player in the People's Vote campaign for a second EU referendum - said he had intended to push for "reversal" of the decision to oust him, and defended "sophisticated tactical voting" as a way to halt the new Prime Minister's Brexit plans.
But he said: "With some sadness but absolute certainty, I have reached the conclusion that I no longer wish to stay in the party, even if I should be successful in my appeal or legal challenge."
Training his fire on Mr Corbyn's leadership, Mr Campbell said Labour "no longer truly represents my values, or the hopes I have for Britain".
And he added: "As someone who has been obsessed all my life with Labour winning, because otherwise we risk the continuing, debilitating Conservative domination of our politics, I see no strategy in place or even in development that remotely meets the electoral or policy challenges ahead. On the contrary, in so far as I ascertain a strategy at all, it is one that looks more designed to lose."
'DESTROYED LABOUR'
The communications expert meanwhile warned Mr Corbyn that "without real change" he would be remembered as "the leader who destroyed Labour as a serious political force capable of winning power and making the kind of radical change made by all Labour governments".
And he took aim at the Labour leader for attacking the record of the Blair and Gordon Brown governments.
"It is now a matter of fact that Eton has produced three times more Prime Ministers than the Labour Party, underlining how hard it is for the left to win power in this country," he said.
"Trashing the few good Labour governments we have had, and the leaders and strategies that delivered them, plays a part in helping the right to keep winning, even when as awful as its current manifestation."
Mr Campbell also hit out at what he called Labour leader's "failure to provide consistent leadership" on Brexit, saying his stance on the issue had been a "huge disappointment" that had only served to boost the Tories.
"Your failure to challenge the lies, crimes and misdemeanours of the Leave campaign; your pursuit of Labour versions of unicorns, such as a 'jobs first Brexit,'; your failure to master the detail sufficient to provide confidence to the public, or indeed to Europe, that you would be able to negotiate a better deal; your refusal, despite having become leader in large part by promising to listen to members, to do so on Brexit; your failure to mount the democratic case for the public having the right to say, given all we now know, whether they wish to proceed - these have all played into the hands of our opponents," the former Blair aide said.
The intervention from Mr Campbell comes after another key figure from the Blair governments, Lord Mandelson, called for Mr Corbyn to be axed as Labour leader.
The ex-Cabinet minister said Mr Corbyn needed to be replaced by someone “who can stand up to” Boris Johnson and stop Brexit.
In an interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa, Lord Mandelson said: "Corbyn is not the leader that Labour needs at this time. He cannot deliver. Even his supporters are realising this."
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