MP decries ‘culture of nastiness’ in party and says he will sit as an independent

Jeremy Corbyn has been warned that the resignation of the veteran MP Frank Field from the Labour whip, over antisemitism and what Field called a culture of nastiness in the party, must be treated as a wake-up call.

In a blistering letter to Labour’s chief whip, Nick Brown, Field wrote: “It saddens me to say that we are increasingly seen as a racist party” and added that antisemitism alone would have been enough to prompt his resignation.

The MP for Birkenhead, who recently faced a vote of no confidence from his local party over his support for Brexit, highlighted what he called a “culture of nastiness, bullying and intimidation”, saying this was at best ignored and at worst tacitly tolerated.

Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, said Field’s move was a “serious loss”, which “reflects both the deep divisions in the party and the sense of drift engulfing us. It is a major wake-up call. We cannot afford to lose people of such weight and stature.”

With a number of MPs privately frustrated, and growing rumours that several could resign to sit as independents, or even form a breakaway party, the Ilford MP Wes Streeting said that if the leadership failed to get a grip on the issue, Labour could face an existential crisis.

Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) The character assassinations of Frank Field have already begun, but the two issues he raises - antisemitism and the toxic political culture of our Party - must be addressed if we are to prevent this becoming a full-blown existential crisis for the Labour Party.

Field hoped to continue to be a party member and to represent Birkenhead as an independent Labour MP. However, a party source said Field would meet Brown on Friday, when he would be told he must resign his membership or be expelled from the party within 14 days. “It is not possible to resign as a Labour MP and remain a member of the Labour party,” the source said.

Field’s letter said he was resigning the whip “with considerable sadness”, but that he could not return unless there were “great changes in the leadership’s stance on the issues outlined”.

Field’s letter to the Labour chief whip.

An official party statement thanked Field for his service. However, a Labour source said: “Frank has been looking for an excuse to resign for some time.” The source said much of Field’s letter was connected to a complaint linked to his local party, which had been investigated and resolved.

The veteran backbench MP known for his expertise on welfare and poverty issues has been criticised by some supporters of Corbyn for his views, notably his backing of Brexit.

He will become the third Labour MP to sit as an independent, after John Woodcock and Jared O’Mara separately resigned the whip over the party’s handling of misconduct claims against them.

The shadow justice secretary, Richard Burgon, suggested Field’s resignation should trigger a byelection in the safe seat, which the MP held with a majority of more than 25,000 in last year’s general election.

Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) Politicians who are elected as Labour MPs by their constituents and who then leave the Labour Party should do the right and respectful thing and call a by-election straight away. They should ask for their constituents’ consent to continue to represent them on a different basis.

In his resignation letter, Field highlighted the controversy last week when comments by Corbyn from 2013 emerged in which the Labour leader said a group of Zionists had “no sense of English irony” despite “having lived in this country for a very long time”.

This was, Field wrote to Brown, “the latest example of Labour’s leadership becoming a force for antisemitism in British politics”.

“Britain fought the second world war to banish these views from our politics, but that superhuman effort and success is now under huge and sustained internal attack,” Field said.

“The leadership is doing nothing substantive to address this erosion of core values. It saddens me to say that we are increasingly seen as a racist party. This issue alone compels me to resign the whip.”

Corbyn has been forced to issue a series of statements in recent weeks clarifying his stance – in the latest, saying he was using the term Zionist “in the accurate political sense”. Labour also launched a complaint against several newspapers over a separate story about a wreath-laying ceremony in 2014, revealed by the Daily Mail.



Profile Frank Field Show Hide The veteran MP, who has resigned the Labour whip, was among those who nominated Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership in 2015, calling the other candidates 'thin post-Blair gruel' and saying the leftwinger would change the terms of the debate. Field, 79, has been MP for Birkenhead since 1979. He served as a minister under Tony Blair but is best known for his role as chair of the work and pensions select committee, taking robust positions on food banks, benefit sanctions, the gig economy and migrant workers. Most recently, his Euroscepticism has been in the spotlight, often voting against the party whip on Brexit, including recent votes where pro-Brexit Labour rebels saved Theresa May’s government from devastating defeats. Field had been facing the possible threat of deselection, and recently narrowly lost a no-confidence vote in his local party. The MP said his constituency Labour party was trying to 'misrepresent' his pro-Brexit vote. 'It would have been a betrayal of the principles I have held for my entire political life, had I voted against the legislation,' he said. After he announced he was quitting the whip, critics were quick to point to some of Field's more rightwing views; citing his comments about the need for controls on migrant workers and his admiration for Margaret Thatcher, who he said was “certainly a hero”. Field has, however, been one of the Conservative government’s fiercest critics in recent years, particularly on universal credit, which he said was forcing people into desperate poverty. Earlier this year, he told MPs about a constituent who had considered suicide because of payment delays, a speech that brought a Tory MP to tears. He was one of the first MPs to speak out about the rising use of food banks, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on hunger, saying they were fast becoming 'an institutional part of our welfare state'. Field has also criticised the gig economy, calling it 'bogus self-employment … peddled by those who benefit so handsomely from the gig economy, to avoid the obligations they have to their workforce'. Photograph: David Rose/REX/Shutterstock/Rex Features

On Wednesdaythree leading Jewish organisations wrote to Labour, calling on Corbyn to end the “impasse” over tackling antisemitism in the party and calling the abuse of Jews on social media during the row this summer “unfathomably vast”.

The day before, the former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks said Corbyn’s comment about Zionists was the most offensive statement by a senior UK politician since Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. Labour dismissed the comparison with Powell as “absurd and offensive”.

In his letter, Field said bullying and intimidation were “sadly manifest within my own constituency Labour party (CLP) in Birkenhead”.

“This is, I fear, just one example of a phenomenon that has tightened its grip on CLPs across the country and is being driven, in part, by members who in previous years would never have been able to claim Labour party membership.”

Saying he had first highlighted specific bullying claims 18 months ago, Field added: “No decisive action has been taken.”

Having represented Birkenhead since 1979, Field spent virtually all his career as an MP on the backbenches, where he has built a reputation as an expert on social security and combating poverty. He was one of the 35 MPs who nominated Corbyn for the leadership in 2015.

He spent a sometimes frustrating year as minister for welfare reform under Tony Blair, and is currently chair of the work and pensions committee, where he has been a fierce critic of the rollout of universal credit, saying payment delays and other mishaps are forcing many users into debt and reliance on food banks.

Under Field, the committee has strongly criticised the actions of Carillion before the company, which supplied many public services, went bust.