Prospect of a new UK party grows as Brexit shifts ground at Westminster
Political cracks are widening in both main parties but Brexit deadline means timing counts
Heather Stewart Political editor
Mon 20 Aug 2018 06.00 BST

The Greens’ Caroline Lucas, the Lib Dems’ Layla Moran, Labour’s Chuka Umunna and the Tory Anna Soubry at a People’s Vote event. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images
Britain’s political landscape has already been reshaped irrevocably by the Brexit vote. But there is a growing feeling at Westminster that the deep divisions over whether, and how, Britain should break from the EU, cannot be contained within the existing party system.
Within Labour in particular, turmoil from the party’s handling of antisemitism has also tested the loyalty of MPs, some of whom were already sceptical of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, and want to see him take a more strident anti-Brexit position.
When Len McCluskey, the general secretary of Labour’s biggest union backer, Unite, unleashed a strongly worded attack against Chuka Umunna last week, he was reflecting concern that Corbyn’s leadership could be destabilised by even a relatively small number of high-profile defections.
One senior party figure suggested Corbyn’s core team, hardened by the “chicken coup” that followed the EU referendum in 2016, were eliding several separate but related threats. The fear that the leadership was under attack again was leading to conflation, the source said.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/20/prospect-new-uk-party-grows-westminster-political-cracks-brexit