The SNP and Tories united in mockery of Labour’s ongoing turmoil yesterday with a Cabinet minister questioning the party’s ability to run the country when it could not even organise its own coup.
Commons Leader Chris Grayling found himself in a rare moment of agreement with Scottish Affairs Committee Chairman Pete Wishart over the official opposition’s “predicament”.
The latter highlighted the “physical boundary” between the Labour frontbench and the backbenches in the chamber, scorning the absence of a challenger to Jeremy Corbyn.
The Perth and North Perthshire MP said a coup was defined as the “sudden appropriation of leadership or power and its replacement by other elites within the state apparatus”.
He added: “The chicken coupers must be the most inept coupers ever: no strategy, no challenger, just spineless inertia, with the vain hope that their front-bench team will somehow just go.”
Mr Grayling used his reply to gloat at the “completely empty row” on the Labour benches, which he said was a “bit surreal”.
He added: “It is as if the whole thing has turned upside down. It is like ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’.
“The frontbenchers have moved to the back bench and the backbenchers have moved to the front bench.
“Who would ever have imagined the frontbench team that we see there now?
“Never in our wildest imagination did we imagine that the Labour Opposition could find themselves in such a predicament.
“You are right – they cannot even organise their own coup or their own leadership contest. If they cannot do that, they are utterly unfit ever to run the country.”
Labour MPs were quick to loudly point out that the row directly behind the minister was also empty, prompting Tory David Davis to dash to occupy it.
The leadership contest that was expected after the overwhelming vote of no confidence in a defiant Mr Corbyn amid scores of shadow cabinet resignations has thus far failed to materialise.
Owen Smith, among those to step down, was tipped as a challenger, but he has backed away from confrontation with the party leader, issuing an appeal to colleagues to heal the rifts which have opened up.
In a statement, he called on the party to give peace talks currently taking place between the leader’s office, deputy leader Tom Watson and the unions “every chance to succeed”.
A source close to former shadow business secretary Angela Eagle, also previously thought to be on the verge of launching a bid, said she would challenge the veteran left-winger “when the time is right”.
