- Labour's remaining MPs all confronted the outgoing opposition leader last night
- They dismissed claim the election defeat was down to Brexit and media hostility
- Mr Corbyn faced intense criticism, only a handful of ultra loyalists defending him
- Rachel Reeves told him problem 'was you' and 'economically illiterate' manifesto
Labour MPs vented their fury at Jeremy Corbyn last night in a volcanic Commons meeting, placing blame for their election humiliation on him and his 'economically illiterate' manifesto.
Mary Creagh, the former Labour MP for Wakefield, also collared Mr Corbyn outside Parliament, blasting him for his election performance and telling him to stand down immediately, while adding that every day he stays as leader is damaging to the party.
Last night was the first time Mr Corbyn had faced his 202 remaining MPs since their crushing defeat by Boris Johnson's Tories and they tore him to shreds in a fiery meeting.
Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves told Mr Corbyn that he was to blame for the election humiliation, describing his manifesto as 'economically illiterate' and saying the party needed radical change and a leader that 'actually wants to win'.
Rebellious MPs also dismissed Mr Corbyn's claims that the defeat - the party's worst since 1935 - was down to Brexit and media hostility.
Mr Corbyn apologised to the fractious meeting, but failed to win them over, with veteran critic Dame Margaret Hodge describing the meeting as 'on the whole it was fury, despair, miserable'.
Tony Blair also spoke of the election result this morning, saying: 'Labour needs not just a different driver, but a different bus.
'This election was no ordinary defeat for Labour. It marks a moment in history. The choice for Labour is to renew itself as the serious, progressive, non-Conservative competitor for power in British politics – or retreat from such an ambition, in which case over time it will be replaced.'
In a two-hour meeting, MPs also said the leadership contest should focus on who could win over the country, rather than party members.
Mr Corbyn swore in as an MP again this afternoon - but 59 former Labour MPs who were beaten last week did not
Mr Corbyn came under heavy fire from his MPs, as he apologised to them for the party's election mauling
Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves tore into him at the meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) saying the problem 'was you' and the 'economically illiterate' manifesto
Jess Phillips - who some believe could now run to replace Mr Corbyn, told reporters she had read out a text to him from Melanie Onn, who lost Great Grimsby, which was 'about how she had been let down by the leadership'
Ex-Wakefield MP Mary Creagh (pictured on election night) said she confronted the outgoing Labour leader and told to 'apologise for what he'd done', after spotting him in parliament
Only a handful of ultra loyalists attempted to defend the party leader, who has already announced he will quit in the new year.
Speaking to reporters later outside Ms Reeves added: 'I said to Jeremy you can make all the excuses in the world... but the big drag on support in the election was him and his leadership.'
It came after Jeremy Corbyn was cornered by one of his former MPs today who tore into him after seeing him casually posing for selfies in Parliament despite overseeing Labour's catastrophic election humiliation.
Ex-Wakefield MP Mary Creagh said she confronted the outgoing Labour leader and told to 'apologise for what he'd done', after spotting him in parliament while in the building to clear out her office.
She described giving him the 'hairdryer' after spotting him in Portcullis House posing for selfies with young people, she told the Times, telling him 'he shouldn't be having his photo taken with young people because he had betrayed their future'.
Speaking to Channel 4, she added: 'We have in Jeremy a man without honour and without shame - and a type of preening narcissism that means he thinks he's still got something left to offer the Labour movement.'
The former MP, who saw her 2,000 majority overturned to lose Wakefield by more than 3,000 votes, said she told Mr Corbyn he had run a disastrous and chaotic election campaign, overseen a 'joke' manifesto and alienated Labour's natural supporters.
She demanded that he step down immediately, saying it was wrong for him to stay in his job while she had been forced to make her Commons staff redundant.
'I told him it was his sole decision to call the election without even consulting the Shadow Cabinet and as a result of that decision he has delivered the hardest possible Brexit,' she said.
'I told him to come to Wakefield to apologise for five more years of Tory austerity and five years of a Tory MP. It was a hairdryer moment.'
Miss Creagh – who served in Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet – said Labour's election campaign had been run by 'ideologues' and revealed that she had been facing attempts to remove her as a candidate on the day the election was called.
She said the party had concentrated on fighting for seats held by Tories while leaving sitting Labour MPs without support.
'His Momentum activists were being sent to places like Stevenage and Scarborough where the Tories had big majorities while good Labour MPs were struggling to get activists,' she said.
Ms Creagh added: 'We have in Jeremy a man without honour and without shame - and a type of preening narcissism that means he thinks he's still got something left to offer the Labour movement'
Siobhain McDonagh MP and Former Labour MP Mary Creagh criticises Jeremy Corbyn after she lost her seat in the election
Ms Creagh said she had seen Mr Corbyn taking selfies with young people (pictured is the Labour leader posing with activists and Labour candidate Hannah O'Neill on October 31)
Jess Phillips - who some believe could run to replace Mr Corbyn - told reporters she had read out a text to him from Melanie Onn, who lost Great Grimsby.
'It was about how she had been let down by the leadership... and nobody had bothered with Grimsby,' Ms Phillips said.
'There were lots of complaints about how nobody had called the people who lost.'
Long-term Corbyn critic Dame Margaret Hodge said there was 'corporate amnesia'.
She told reporters: 'on the whole it was fury despair miserable... and I just felt that the top table were in total denial.'
Dame Margaret Beckett, a former foreign secretary, said that the party now had to ask itself the same question it asked after a third successive defeat in 1992: what do the public want?
David Lammy, another potential leadership contender, said: 'I have faith, I go to church on a Sunday, but can I make a plea that we keep the faith there and end this faith-based cult once and for all.'
Edinburgh South's Ian Murray, one of Labour's few remaining Scottish MPs, said it was 'great, fantastic'.
'I'm going back to Scotland to prepare for government,' he joked to reporters outside.
And Huddersfield's Barry Sheerman told the meeting Labour could not afford to 'go back out there and do the same thing again' and expect a different result.
Clive Efford, the MP for Eltham, who leads the Tribune group of mainly 'soft-left' Labour MPs, was another who slammed Mr Corbyn.
He said that when the ballot boxes from polling stations for council estates were opened at his count they were '50-50' between him and the Conservative candidate.
Newcastle North MP Catherine McKinnell, meanwhile, read out the list of seats lost in the north east and said they had not been given enough support.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle said Labour MPs' criticism of Mr Corbyn centred on his leadership, his Brexit position and his manifesto for lacking an 'overarching narrative'.
'Not one person said go right now. They all recognise that he has apologised and that he wants to go as soon as possible, and that the duty was to save the party and do it in an orderly way,' the Brighton Kemptown MP told PA.
'People were emotional - very emotional.
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Mr Corbyn told MPs: 'I am very sorry for the result for which I take responsibility.
'I will continue to lead the party until a new leader is elected. I want us to have the smoothest possible transition for the sake of the party as a whole and for those Labour mayors and councillors who are up for re-election in May.'
Mr Corbyn maintained his defence that Brexit was a major reason voters lost their trust in Labour and repeated his criticism of the media.
'The Tory campaign amplified by most of the media managed to persuade many that only Boris Johnson could 'get Brexit done'. That will soon be exposed for the falsehood it is,' he said.
'We need to go to places where we lost and genuinely listen to what people want and what they believe is possible.'
Mr Corbyn also told his MPs to vote against Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, because it imposes an 'impossible timetable' to get a 'good' trade deal with the EU by the end of the transition period.
And his supporter Claudia Webbe, the new Leicester East MP, was mocked with a sarcastic cheer after ranting about being the the only party not offering 'poverty' and then adding 'but we lost the election.'
She also claimed there was 'lots to celebrate'.
Webbe and Kate Osborne, the new MP for Jarrow, were the only ones to support Mr Corbyn.
Speaking to reporters on the way in, Manchester Central MP Lucy Powell asked reporters: 'We're irrelevant. Why do you give a f***?'
Speaking to reporters on the way in to the PLP meeting, Manchester Central MP Lucy Powell asked reporters: 'We're irrelevant. Why do you give a f***?'
Mr Corbyn is understood to have told his MPs to vote against Boris Johnson's Brexit Bill because the Prime Minister has imposed an 'impossible' timetable to get a trade deal with the EU.
'On Friday, we have the debate on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB),' he is understood to have told the PLP.
'We will vote against it because by putting an impossible timetable for a good deal with the EU, Boris Johnson has already shown that his priority is a toxic deal with Donald Trump that will sell out our NHS and risk the safety of our food.
'And the WAB significantly risks undermining the Good Friday Agreement.'
MPs returned to Westminster with the party in turmoil following its worst election performance since 1935.
Some furious MPs and defeated candidates have angrily pointed the finger of blame at Mr Corbyn, saying his past record and left-wing policies were poison on the doorstep.
But allies of the Labour leader have said divisions within the party over Brexit proved impossible to bridge while he was 'demonised' by the media.
Mr Corbyn has said he will stand down following a 'process of reflection' - with a new leader expected to be in place by the end of March.
Ms Creagh, who became Wakefield MP in 2005, lost the Yorkshire seat to Conservative Imran Ahmad-Khan by more than 3,000 votes in Labour's northern collapse on Thursday.
It is the first time the seat has been in Tory hands since the 1930s.
She added: 'I told him it was his sole decision to call the election without even consulting the shadow cabinet and as a result of that decision he has delivered the hardest possible Brexit,' she said.
'I told him to come to Wakefield to apologise for five more years of Tory austerity and five years of a Tory MP. It was a hairdryer moment.'
Labour lost a swathe of northern and Midlands seats last Thursday, leaving it with just 202 MPs and handing a landslide win to Mr Johnson.
The stage is set for a battle royale within the party between those who want to carry Mr Corbyn's legacy and others who want a clean break and a more centrist message.
It came as it emerged today that shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry warned privately three months ago that her party would suffer in the General Election by taking a neutral stance on Brexit.
She told the Labour conference in Brighton in September that leader Jeremy Corbyn saying he 'did not have a view' on leaving the European Union could be disastrous.
The 59-year-old Shadow Foreign Secretary was said to have been 'really pushing' for Labour to openly back Remain, according to a BBC documentary on tonight.
The programme, The Brexit Storm Continues: Laura Kuenssberg's Inside Story, on BBC Two at 9pm tonight, includes a recording of her speaking at the conference.
She said: 'I think Jeremy is trying to find a compromise but if he goes into an election saying 'I don't have a view' on the single biggest decision that we have to make.
'I think - what worries me is that every single interview he does will all be about Brexit.'
Asked if this would affect Labour's election chances, she said: 'Well, I think it makes it more difficult and that's why I'm really pushing this because I want Jeremy in No 10.'
One is the hard-Left daughter of a Salford docker, groomed to take the helm of the Corbynite project by self-declared Marxist John McDonnell.
And the other is a flame-haired 39-year-old grandmother whose own socialist credentials were forged by a tough upbringing as a carer to her bipolar mother aged just 10, before becoming pregnant at 16.
Rebecca Long-Bailey and her best friend Angela Rayner - who share a flat in Westminster - have both been tipped to replace the embattled leader.
But they have come to an accommodation amid fears that they will split the Left's support, and put the party back in the hands of centrists hoping to make it electable.
Ms Long-Bailey, 40, is set to run for the top job when Mr Corbyn finally stands down, while there are increasingly strong indications that Ms Rayner will pitch to be her deputy.
The 'dream ticket' for the party's two most powerful elected posts would be a formidable challenge for any moderates.
Ms Rayner, who has been MP for Ashton-under-Lyne since 2015, has drawn heavily on her time as a one-time struggling teenage mother - and proudly welcomed her own granddaughter at the age of just 37 with a tweet jokingly referring to herself as 'Grangela'.
The married mother-of-three was just 16 when she had her first son, Ryan, and has told how becoming pregnant so young 'saved' her.
Her teenage relationship with Ryan's father ended quickly and she has since married Unison official Mark Rayner.
But speaking at a Labour Party fringe event in September, she said it was her ambition to be a good mother which has driven her.
She said: 'Because I had a little person that I had to look after and I wanted to prove to everybody I wasn't the scumbag they thought I was going to be, and I could be a good mum, and that somebody was finally going to love me as much as I deserved to be loved.
'And that's what pregnancy was for me, it saved me.'
Her children are 'in a much better position than I ever had, and my mum could only have dreamed of having a daughter that got to where I am today', she said.
And she added: 'That's social mobility.'
Two of Jeremy Corbyn's chief lieutenants Rebecca Long-Bailey (left) and Angela Rayner (right) are tipped to be a shoe-in to replace the embattled leader
In the wake of Labour's worst electoral defeat since the 1930s, Rebecca Long-Bailey (left) and Angela Rayner (right) are tipped to take the reins of the bruised and battered party after the flatmates formed the 'dream' ticket
Ms Rayner dropped out of school aged 16 pregnant with son Ryan (left). He now has his own little girl, who is two -years old, making Ms Rayner a grandmother when she was just 37. Her youngest son Charlie (right) was premature, and Rayner credits NHS staff with saving him
Ms Rayner's husband Mark is a trade union officer and the couple have two children - Jimmy, 11, and Charlie, 10
Ms Rayner proudly welcomed her own granddaughter at the age of just 37, and tweeted jokingly referring to herself as 'Grangela'
Meanwhile Ms Long-Bailey, 40, grew up in Old Trafford, Manchester, where she was exposed to left-wing politics from a young age.
Her father Jimmy worked as a docker at Salford Quays and trade union representative at Shell at a time when workers' collectives wielded enormous power and threats of staff walkouts struck fear into ministers.
On graduating from a Catholic high school, she worked in a pawn shop - an eye-opening experience which she says taught her 'more about the struggles of life than any degree or qualification ever could'.
After holding down other jobs such as a call-centre operator, a furniture factory worker and a postwoman, she eventually studied to become a solicitor, which she
Six months after Ms Long-Bailey was born - only eight miles away in Stockport - Ms Rayner was also born.
Her politics was also shaped by her early life, being forced to drop out of school aged 16 with no qualifications after becoming pregnant, which she said was the best thing which could have happened to her.
'I was in the Manchester nightclub scene at 13 and thought affection from men - the wrong type of affection - was the right thing,' she told the Spectator.
'I lost about six friends before I was 18. They died through a drug overdose, or killed in a car, joy-riding.
'But once I got pregnant it wasn't just my life I was messing around with. I had somebody to look after.'
Ms Long-Bailey, 40, grew up in Old Trafford, Manchester, near the football stadium, where her father Jimmy worked as a docker at Salford Quays
Her family (Mark left, Ryan right) lives in her Manchester constituency, which Ms Rayner has represented since 2015
Living on a Stockport council estate with her baby son Ryan, she continued to tie down a job in a care home to keep her independence.
This steeliness was developed earlier in her life when she was forced to look after her bipolar mother, whose mental state left the family struggling to make ends meet.
A lack of breakfast meant she would go to school hungry and zero books in the house meant she was not able to further her education at home.
Eternally grateful for New Labour's welfare state allowing her to go back to college to sit her exams, while raging that the Tories' social care system failed her mother, Ms Rayner's upbringing has made her fiercely in favour of state interventionism.
While her future best friend Ms Long-Bailey embarked on a legal career, Ms Rayner became a trade union representative, fast rising to be the most senior Unison official in the North West.
Her husband Mark is also a trade union officer and the couple have two children - Jimmy, 11, and Charlie, 10.
The duo quickly established themselves as ones to watch in the new Labour era of Corbynism, with Ms Long-Bailey catching the eye of another docker's child - the shadow chancellor Mr McDonnell
In 2016 Ms Rayner - who had at this point moved in with Ms Long Bailey - also joined Labour's top team as shadow education secretary (pictured last month during the election campaign)
Her family lives in her Manchester constituency, like Ms Long-Bailey's who has one child with her husband Steve.
Both women were elected to represent Manchester constituencies in Parliament on May 7 2015 on the back of all-women selection processes.
The two young mothers became fast friends, and two years ago Ms Rayner even became a grandmother, nicknaming herself 'Grangela'.
The duo quickly established themselves as ones to watch in the new Labour era of Corbynism, with Ms Long-Bailey catching the eye of another docker's child - the shadow chancellor Mr McDonnell.
This alliance would prove useful to Ms Long-Bailey, who was first to get a foot on the career ladder after being promoted to shadow treasury minister that September, before taking up the shadow business secretary post soon after.
In 2016 Ms Rayner - who had at this point moved in with Ms Long Bailey - also joined Labour's top team as shadow education secretary.
The duo were front and centre of Labour's disastrous campaign, with both taking part in televised debates in strong performances seen as an audition for the leadership.
In the wake of Labour's worst electoral defeat since the 1930s, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner are tipped to take the reins of the bruised and battered party after the flatmates formed a 'dream' ticket.
The post-election fallout which saw Jeremy Corbyn quit and trigger a leadership ballot had seen both shadow business secretary Ms Long-Bailey and shadow education secretary Ms Rayner touted as possible successors.
But adamant for their friendship not to be ripped apart by the inevitable mudslinging of a leadership contest, Ms Rayner has stepped aside to give her best friend a clear shot at the title, instead offering to serve as her loyal deputy.
Precedent, however, is not on their side and nagging in the back of their minds will be the infamous deal struck by parliamentary roommates Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, whose relationship quickly soured into conniving against one another.
Yet in a TV interview last year, Ms Long-Bailey flatly dismissed any rumours of a deal between the pair.
She said: 'No, no, Angela is one of my best friends, we actually live together in London and the main conversation comes down to what we're going to have for tea rather than what we're going to do in the future.'
In the coming months, the pair could be on the road once more fighting what will be a bitter leadership campaign against the party's moderates who are vying to wrestle back control from the hard-left - who want to rediscover the electoral successes of Blair and Brown.
