Labour members blame the party's anti-Corbyn MPs for divisions, poll finds

Members are not impressed with MPs' criticisms

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (PA)

Labour members overwhelmingly blame MPs critical of Jeremy Corbyn for dividing their party, a new survey suggests.

Asked who was to blame for Labour being divided, 62 per cent of members blamed the hostile MPs compared to 15 per cent who said Mr Corbyn and his allies were to blame.

21 per cent of members who believed the party was divided said they blamed both sides equally, the YouGov survey for The Times newspaper found.

Notably, criticism of hostile MPs’ recent conduct was not only confined to those who are loyal to Mr Corbyn.

They were blamed as the single biggest factor behind the acrimony in the party by 26 per cent of members who voted for Yvette Cooper in the leadership contest – not far from the proportion who blamed Mr Corbyn (31 per cent).

A slightly lower proportion of Andy Burnham’s former supporters blamed the MPs, however, and very few of Liz Kendall’s.

In total, 71 per cent believed the party was divided, 18 per cent believe it was not, and 11 said they didn't know.

The same survey found that Labour members would overwhelmingly return Mr Corbyn to office with increased support were another leadership election be held today.

A number of Labour MPs, mostly from the right of the party, refused to serve in Mr Corbyn’s cabinet in the days following his election.

The increased support for Mr Corbyn suggests the MPs' interventions may have been counterproductive.

Since then some have made public interventions against his leadership, which they say will lead Labour to defeat at the 2020 general election.

John Woodcock branded Mr Corbyn’s performed at PMQs in March as “a f***ing disaster” and later warned the party “cannot go on like this”.

Mr Corbyn sacked MP Michael Dugher for alleged disloyalty after he warned against a “revenge” reshuffle of internal critics out of the shadow cabinet.

The leader was also attacked after the party barred McDonalds from setting up a lobbying staff at its party conference on account of its record on workers' rights and trade unions.

There were rumblings of a coup against Mr Corbyn after May’s local election result, but none materialised after it transpired that Labour had done better than expected.

A week after the local election results came in Mr Corbyn addressed his critics at the annual conference of New Labour pressure group Progress.

He said the party needed to do more to win in 2020 and that it could not change the country out of government.