Skip to main content
Smith retreats to ‘avoid another Labour split’
Coup plot resigner wants to return focus to ‘our true enemy – the Tories’

THE COUP against Jeremy Corbyn stalled yesterday as Owen Smith stepped back from a leadership challenge.

The former shadow work and pensions secretary has amassed the necessary support among MPs to call a leadership poll — just nine months after Mr Corbyn was elected with 60 per cent support.

But Mr Smith has called on mutinous colleagues to give union-led peace talks “every chance to succeed” amid fears Labour is heading towards a repeat of the 1981 split over Europe that led to the creation of the SDP.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Andy Burnham
Britain / 26 May 2026
26 May 2026
Sharon Graham speaks at the Durham Miners' Gala, July 13, 2025
Durham Miners’ Gala 2025 / 13 July 2025
13 July 2025
Former Labour Party leader and now Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn joins a march in central London organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, July 6, 2024
Opinion / 10 July 2025
10 July 2025

VINCE MILLS cautions over the perils and pitfalls of ‘a new left party’