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Sir Patrick Stewart quits Labour Party and reveals 'awkward' encounter with Jeremy Corbyn

Sir Patrick recalled a frosty first encounter with the Labour leader a few weeks ago - Copyright (c) 2017 Rex Features. No use without permission.
Sir Patrick recalled a frosty first encounter with the Labour leader a few weeks ago - Copyright (c) 2017 Rex Features. No use without permission.

Sir Patrick Stewart, one of Labour’s most high-profile members, has abandoned the party he has supported for 73 years after saying he no longer knows “what it stands for”.

The Star Trek actor, who attended his first Labour event when he was five, said: “It doesn’t feel like my party any more” as he attacked Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Sir Patrick recalled a frosty first encounter with the Labour leader a few weeks ago, saying: “He was talking to a group of my friends after a theatre performance and I wandered up to join them.

“Jeremy’s eye caught mine and he said ‘oh you’re looking very well’, and I made some light-hearted riposte along the lines of ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover’.

“For some inexplicable reason, this annoyed him, and he shot back ‘you know, Patrick, you could just have said thank you instead of making a joke out of it'.

Sir Patrick said he "couldn't understand" why Mr Corbyn would have been offended by his joke - Credit: Anadolu Agency
Sir Patrick said he "couldn't understand" why Mr Corbyn would have been offended by his joke Credit: Anadolu Agency

“I couldn’t understand how he could take offence at such an utterly innocuous remark, and no one else could, and it made for rather an awkward silence. I just thought ‘oh well, I tried’, and, after a suitable interval, I discreetly headed off home.”

In an interview with The New European, Sir Patrick said: “To be perfectly honest, I find it difficult to understand what Labour really stands for or what it represents right now. It doesn’t feel like my party any more.”

He said he would be switching his allegiance to the Green Party at the next election as it was more in tune with his views on Brexit, as he accused Mr Corbyn of wanting a “disastrous Brexit” because it would “benefit him politically”.

He said: “It seems to me to be just plain wrong to play with the country’s future in this way.”

Sir Patrick, 78, stood with a placard urging support for the Labour candidate for Mirfield in West Yorkshire in 1945 had, until now, been an unswerving supporter of the Party.