Corbyn has resisted pressure to quit over what critics say was his
lacklustre effort to keep Britain inside the European Union, saying on
Sunday that he would stand again in any leadership election triggered by
the party revolt.
Fresh resignations heap pressure on UK opposition leader Corbyn
A wave of lawmakers from the opposition Labour Party resigned in protest from leader Jeremy Corbyn's
team on Monday, including his most senior business policy chief who
said Corbyn was partly to blame for last week's vote to leave the EU.
Corbyn has resisted pressure to quit over what critics say was his lacklustre effort to keep Britain inside the European Union, saying on Sunday that he would stand again in any leadership election triggered by the party revolt.
"Too
many of our supporters were taken in by right-wing arguments and I
believe this happened, in part, because under your leadership the case
to remain in the EU was made with half-hearted ambivalence rather than
full throated clarity," wrote Angela Eagle, Corbyn's top business spokeswoman, in a resignation letter she later posted on Twitter.
Eagle
was one of at least 16 members of his shadow ministerial team to have
resigned in the last two days. All of those resigning will remain
elected members of parliament.
Corbyn was elected
party leader last year on a surprise wave of grassroots enthusiasm for
his left-wing agenda and promise of a new approach to politics. But his
relationship with elected lawmakers has always been fragile, with many
questioning whether the party could win a national election on such a
ticket.
Amid the flurry of resignations, Corbyn
announced a number of appointments to replace those who quit on Sunday,
promoting several members of his inner core of left-wing supporters to
senior defence and foreign policy roles.
Sky News reported that Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson
met Corbyn earlier on Monday to warn that he had lost the support of
the party, and would face a brutal contest to replace him.