There’s a meme going around that Jeremy Corbyn is somehow being obstructive by staying on as Labour Party leader while we get on with electing a new leader and deputy. So we get uninformed people like this pop up on Twitter.
Lloyd’s entitled to his opinion, but not his own facts. I’m older than him and remember the 1992 election painfully well. The election was Thursday 9th April; Kinnock didn’t even announce his resignation until Tuesday 13th April so Jeremy’s already quicker off the marks. Kinnock then remained leader until John Smith won on Saturday 18th July, exactly 100 days later.
It made sense for Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband to step down immediately because they both had a deputy who was willing and able to hold the fort during the leadership election. Now, the deputy post is vacant so if Jeremy did want to walk away now the NEC would have to meet to put one of the Shadow Cabinet in as acting leader. That could not be one of the leadership contenders as that would be unfair and who else would want that thankless job?
Facing a triumphal Boris Johnson at the dispatch box for Queen’s Speech and weekly PMQs will be awful for Corbyn to deal with, we should be thankful to him for performing this last service to the Labour Party.