Brexit: Ed Miliband is called a 'tosspot' by fellow Labour MP Chris Bryant

The UK's decision to leave the European Union has worsened Labour divisions

Friday 24 June 2016 12:07

Chris Bryant blamed Ed Miliband for the 'poor state' of the Labour party

Shadow leader of the House of Commons Chris Bryant has called former Labour party leader Ed Miliband a “tosspot” ‒ in a clear demonstration of how divided the Labour party has become following the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.

The party officially backed the campaign to remain in Europe, but lost its traditional northern voter strongholds as Sunderland, Rochdale and Oldham voted comfortably for Leave.

Frontbencher Chris Bryant turned on the former Labour Party leader, whose overhaul of the party's rule book was widely seen to have paved the way for Jeremy Corbyn's election as leader.

"I might go and punch him because he's a tosspot and he left the party in the state it's in," he said.

Mr Corbyn, a long-time Eurosceptic, defended his conduct in the campaign amid criticisms that he offered no more than lukewarm support for Remain, blaming Government austerity cuts for alienating voters.

"A lot of the message that has come back from this is that many communities are fed up with cuts, they are fed up with economic dislocation and feel very angry at the way they have been betrayed and marginalised by successive governments in very poor areas of the country," Mr Corbyn told BBC News.

6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

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1/66 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

The first practical effect of a vote to Leave is that the pound will be worth less abroad, meaning foreign holidays will cost us more

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The Prime Minister will have to address other immediate concerns. He is likely to reassure nationals of other EU countries living in the UK that their status is unchanged. That is what the Leave campaign has said, so, even after the Brexit negotiations are complete, those who are already in the UK would be allowed to stay

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A lower pound means that imports would become more expensive. This is likely to mean the return of inflation – a phenomenon with which many of us are unfamiliar because prices have been stable for so long, rising at no more than about 2 per cent a year. The effect may probably not be particularly noticeable in the first few months. At first price rises would be confined to imported goods – food and clothes being the most obvious – but inflation has a tendency to spread and to gain its own momentum

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The trouble with inflation is that the Bank of England has a legal obligation to keep it as close to 2 per cent a year as possible. If a fall in the pound threatens to push prices up faster than this, the Bank will raise interest rates. This acts against inflation in three ways. First, it makes the pound more attractive, because deposits in pounds will earn higher interest. Second, it reduces demand by putting up the cost of borrowing, and especially by taking larger mortgage payments out of the economy. Third, it makes it more expensive for businesses to borrow to expand output

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Mr Carney, the Treasury and a range of international economists have warned about this. Many Leave voters appear not to have believed them, or to think that they are exaggerating small, long-term effects. But there is no doubt that the Leave vote is a negative shock to the economy. This is because it changes expectations about the economy’s future performance. Even though Britain is not actually be leaving the EU for at least two years, companies and investors will start to move money out of Britain, or to scale back plans for expansion, because they are less confident about what would happen after 2018

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All this will be happening while the Prime Minister, whoever he or she is, is negotiating the terms of our future access to the EU single market. In the meantime, our trade with the EU would be unaffected, except that companies elsewhere in the EU may be less interested in buying from us or selling to us, expecting tariff barriers to go up in two years’ time. Whoever the Chancellor is, he or she may feel the need to bring in a new Budget

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"The point I was making was there were good things that had come from Europe in working conditions and environmental protections but there were other issues that had not been addressed properly."

Following the result, there have been numerous calls for Jeremy Corbyn to resign.

“Corbyn has to go,” one Labour MP told The Telegraph. “The referendum proved he is worse than even his worse critics said he would be.

"Even people who supported him have seen he is not up to it. He can't motivate Labour voters, let alone persuade anyone else.

"He can't handle a campaign or even manage to get a message across in an interview. But it is not just that he is incompetent and not up to the job: he has no ideas beyond the vacuous slogans he repeats.

"He hasn't set out a single serious policy since he became leader and the views he does have - like on immigration and free movement - are diametrically opposed to the public's.”

Press Association contributed to this report.

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