Labour splitting is ‘inevitable’ says Alan Johnson

A Labour split is now ‘inevitable’ amid bitter infighting over Brexit and anti-Semitism, a former Cabinet minister warned last night.

Alan Johnson delivered the grim verdict on his party after tensions escalated again between Jeremy Corbyn’s hard-left allies and moderates.

Speculation has been swirling for months about the prospects for a new ‘centrist’ alliance, with some Lib Dems and Tories said to be involved in plotting. 

Brexit has been a key dividing line, with the leadership so far resisting backing a second referendum and sticking to the vow to take the country out of the EU.

But the fury at Mr Corbyn over the wave of anti-Semitism that has wracked Labour has taken the problems to a new level.

The veteran left-winger has refused to accept the international definition of anti-Semitism in full, suggesting that it would hamper criticism of the Israeli state.

But he has been condemned by MPs and Jewish groups, and hit with a slew of revelations about his links to anti-Israel extremists.  

Appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival, former home secretary Mr Johnson said the situation had now become irretrievable. 

‘A split in the Labour Party is now inevitable,’ he said.

He also hit out at Momentum, the grassroots movement which backs Jeremy Corbyn.

‘They represent malice dressed as virtue,’ he said. 

Mr Johnson was responding to an article in the left-wing New Statesman magazine on how some moderate MPs were considering leaving the party.

Mr Corbyn, pictured right on a visit to Glasgow yesterday, has been facing fury over the wave of anti-Semitism that has wracked Labour

In a loaded barb on Twitter, the shadow chancellor (pictured left)  accused some of his party’s backbenchers of conspiring for two years to split the Labour party. It comes amid reports Chuka Umunna (pictured right) and other leading moderates are thinking about breaking away and founding a new centrist party 

One MP told the magazine: ‘There’s Plan A where you say We’re not going anywhere even if it takes 30 years. There is no red line, nothing that he could say or do that would mean you ever leave.

‘Then there’s Plan B: you accept that he is not going anywhere, that the party has changed irrevocably into something else, and what do you do about that?’

John McDonnell last week furiously accused Labour moderates of using the anti-Semitism crisis as cover for their secret plot to form a new party.

In a loaded barb on Twitter, the shadow chancellor accused some of his party’s  backbenchers of conspiring for two years to split Labour.

And he warned them that any attempt to use the anti-Semitism row as justification for their plans would be seen as ‘appalling cynicism’.   

Several Labour moderates, including former leadership contender Chuka Umunna and Chris Leslie, are said to be in talks to start a new centrist party. 

But Mr McDonnell, one of the Labour leader’s closest allies, said they are exploiting the racism row for their own political gains.

Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer (left) dismissed suggestions from frontbench colleague Barry Gardiner (right) that re-running the national vote could spark civil unrest

He said: ‘For anybody to use the issue of anti-Semitism as a cover for launching a new political party they had been planning for nearly two years would rightly be seen as an act of appalling cynicism, basely exploiting a genuine concern that people of goodwill are working hard to address.’ 

Len McCluskey, the powerful leader of the Unite trade union and another close Corbyn ally, has also accused ‘Blairite’ MPs of using the row to split Labour. 

Labour descended into fresh Brexit chaos today as Keir Starmer insisted a second EU referendum should be ‘on the table’.

The shadow Brexit secretary dismissed warnings from frontbench colleague Barry Gardiner that re-running the national vote could spark civil unrest.

He suggested that the option was available if Parliament rejected any package Theresa May secures from Brussels.