Sir Keir Starmer has been warned that a lack of ambition in government could stoke support for the far right, as the Labour left steps up its campaign against the party leader.
Jamie Driscoll, the North of Tyne Mayor who is seen as the only “Corbynista” still in high office, has urged left-wing voters not to support Labour at the next general election.
His intervention came after prominent journalist and activist Owen Jones announced he was resigning his party membership in protest against Sir Keir.
The Leader of the Opposition took over in 2020 promising to continue many of the policies promoted by Jeremy Corbyn, including the nationalisation of several key industries.
But he has jettisoned much of Mr Corbyn’s agenda, saying that economic turmoil and higher borrowing costs have constrained the options available to a future Labour government.
Most Labour MPs have been reluctant to criticise Sir Keir publicly ahead of the election, although they are widely expected to become more vocal if he becomes prime minister, particularly if he has a large majority.
But Mr Driscoll, who left Labour last year after he was blocked from being the party’s candidate for Mayor of the North East – a new position which is replacing the one he currently holds – has broken cover to attack the leader.
In an article for i, he said: “People want a Labour government to be the light at the end of the tunnel. What have the Labour leadership offered? The magic growth bunny. It will hop along, and Britain will boom. No need to invest in public services. The magic growth bunny will fix the crisis in social care. The sick will walk. Greenhouse gases will chill out.”
He accused the leadership of “short-term thinking” with its focus on controlling the public finances ahead of increasing spending on services, warning: “A Starmer government that fails to quickly improve lives will till the soil for the far right.”
Mr Driscoll is standing as an independent candidate to be North East mayor in May, against Labour’s Kim McGuinness.
He also encouraged voters to back independent and Green candidates in the general election, insisting it would not stop Labour forming a government and concluding: “The sooner we upset the status quo, the sooner we will get a fair voting system, and start to run Britain in the interests of the people who do the work.”
The Labour Party declined to respond to Mr Driscoll’s article. Sir Keir has previously defended his emphasis on economic stability, arguing that the Conservatives have damaged the British economy and an incoming Labour government would need to rebuild trust.
Mr Jones, who writes a column for The Guardian and was a close ally of Mr Corbyn, said this week that he was leaving Labour and working to build a network of left-wing candidates to challenge the party in key seats at the general election.
In response i columnist Andrew Fisher, a former senior aide to Mr Corbyn, argued that left-wingers should stay in Labour to try and drive change from the inside.
