Tom Watson denies disunity among MPs caused Copeland defeat

The Labour deputy leader, Tom Watson, has hit out at allegations that disunity among MPs was to blame for the loss of the Copeland byelection.

His comments have sparked a war of words with the trade union boss Len McCluskey, a key ally of Jeremy Corbyn, whom Watson has accused of silence over the loss.

Corbyn said on Sunday that he was prepared to shoulder some of the responsibility for the loss of the Cumbrian seat, but his shadow attorney general, Shami Chakrabarti, defended the leader and said internal dissent and a historic decline in the Labour vote in Cumbria was the main cause of defeat.

Watson challenged McCluskey, the Unite boss, to demonstrate his backing for Corbyn after criticism from the Unison general secretary, Dave Prentis.

Watson said he and others had been the ones defending Corbyn since his re-election last summer, but the Labour leader’s trade union champions had been either critical or silent. “If I’ve got some frustrations, it’s that those people who are Jeremy’s cheerleaders, who made sure that he was elected a second time last September, they should be sticking with their leader in the bad times, not just the good,” he told ITV1’s Peston on Sunday. “Dave Prentis has spoken out, but I’d say to you this morning: where’s Len McCluskey defending his leader in this difficult time? It shouldn’t be just down to me.”

Responding to the comments, a Unite spokesman gave no explicit backing to Corbyn. “Tom Watson is deputy leader of the Labour party,” he said. “It is his job to address the issues facing the party in the wake of the byelections. Len McCluskey will take no lessons in loyalty from Tom Watson.

“Len McCluskey’s job is to address the issues uppermost for Unite’s members. He has been working flat out to defend Unite members’ pensions in the nuclear sector and at BMW and to save Vauxhall jobs and plants. He will leave the political posturing to others.”

Corbyn, who on Friday denied he had considered his leadership was partly to blame for the Conservative victory in the Cumbrian seat, said the loss was part of a pattern in the area where Labour support had been falling. The Conservative Trudy Harrison defeated Labour’s Gillian Troughton by more than 2,000 votes in the seat.

Writing in the Sunday Mirror, Corbyn said: “The result in Copeland was deeply disappointing. Labour’s share of the vote in Copeland has been falling for 20 years and of course I take my share of responsibility.

“Both these areas, like many others in Britain, have been left behind by globalisation and lost out from a rigged economy. So it’s no surprise that they rejected the status quo by voting to leave in the EU referendum. That’s why it was important for Labour to respect the result and vote for article 50.”

Corbyn said his party had not yet done enough to “rebuild trust with people who have been ripped off and sold out for decades and don’t feel Labour represents them”. He said he was confident the key to success was in party unity. “If we stand together, I am confident we can do that and turn back the Tory tide,” he wrote, saying he was determined to “finish that job” as party leader.

Chakrabarti was more forthright in pinning the blame for the defeat on the MPs who had challenged Corbyn over the summer. Labour had long been the political establishment in Copeland, she told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show.

“You cannot weigh people’s votes, you have to cherish them,” she said. “Yes, we lost, but I believe when people see what Mrs May’s hard Brexit looks like, and they see a vision from a more united Labour party as I believe we can be, they will change their minds. In Copeland, Labour has looked like the establishment for a long time.

“We have suffered from disunity and if we’re always talking about the leadership that won’t help us cut through.”

The former Copeland Labour MP Jamie Reed, a critic of Corbyn who left Westminster for a role at the Sellafield nuclear plant, said Chakrabarti was “the epitome of what Labour voters just rejected” in a series of angry tweets.

Reed and Labour MPs Michael Dugher and Wes Streeting also ridiculed the suggestion that low turnout in Copeland was to blame for the loss. Chakrabarti also blamed the effects of Storm Doris, saying: “Traditionally it’s Labour voters who don’t have cars and find it harder in bad weather.”

Over the weekend, senior Labour figures said Corbyn should launch a full party inquiry into the loss of the seat. Watson and the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, both suggested the Labour leader should do some soul searching.

Starmer, in a speech in London, said the “worst thing” Labour could do would be to “normalise defeat” and “walk past” results that were disastrous for the party and merited an honest admission that all was far from well.

Prentis, whose union had backed Corbyn for the leadership, said the Labour leader “must take responsibility for what happens next” and “show he understands how to turn things around and deliver just that”.

Chakrabarti said the public criticism of Corbyn would only damage the party further. “What I would say to Dave Prentis and other great men of the left is that it’s time to unite,” she said. “Constant attacks on the leadership, constant leadership elections don’t allow us to focus on the issues that would allow us to present an alternative vision.”

Corbyn’s speech at the Scottish Labour conference in Perth on Sunday stressed not only the importance of party unity but unity across Brexit and national divides. “The policies and ideas we are setting out are policies whose time has come,” he said.

“But to win that fight we need to remain united. United in our belief in our movement, united in our commitment to once again make our society fairer, better and more just. That’s why Labour believes that together we’re stronger. Unity is still our strength.”

He also challenged the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, to end talk of a second independence referendum, urging her to “listen to the people and respect democracy”.