Labour moderates call for truce as Corbyn mulls reshuffle

Former shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt had called on Mr Corbyn not to attend the Stop the War Coalition fundraiser.

Media were not informed of the event, but the Labour leader joined party colleagues of his at the shopping centre with the aim of raising money for Oxfam’s refugee appeal. “But he will not accept attempts to portray campaigning, lobbying and protest as somehow beyond the pale”.

The disclosure comes after Bermondsey and Old Southwark MP Neil Coyle revealed he had been given police protection after receiving a death threat on Twitter when he voted for military action. Referring to the Walthamstow demonstration, she said a “march to an MP’s office to protest over an issue is not bullying or intimidation, it is a democratic right”.

Despite being forced to grant a free vote in the Commons debate on Syria in the face of a threatened shadow cabinet revolt, he still saw the majority of his top team and the majority of Labour MPs vote with him in opposing military action.

She met residents on Sunday to explain her stance, and later tweeted: “Thank you Walthamstow for making time for today’s discussion on Syria – really appreciate you all taking time to meet in person!”

The campaign group criticised Mr Corbyn’s decision to give MPs a free vote on Syria and said his decision had “cleared the way” for the Prime Minister to call a Commons vote on airstrikes.

The graffiti translates roughly as “I think Jeremy Corbyn would make a great world leader” and goes against the general consensus in the UK.

Mr Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, said: “What’s so significant is we lost millions of votes to Ukip and the SNP; people who had always voted Labour”.

Among the key targets would be Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, whose rousing 15-minute speech in the House of Commons in favour of airstrikes was seen as having stiffened the resolve of MPs opposed to Corbyn’s resistance to bombing.

Tristram Hunt said the anti-war group, which Mr Corbyn once chaired, had been “irresponsible” in recent weeks.

“What this will show is all those fears, that a lot of Labour MPs genuinely had, that in Jeremy we had a leader who could not win, that’s now gone…The fact we have done so well in this one is a very strong indicator if you can do that here, we can do that everywhere else”.

Mr Corbyn, who is the MP for Islington North, was seen singing away in the Nag’s Head shopping Centre on Holloway Road, Islington.

But a spokesman for Mr Corbyn responded: “The anti-war movement has been a vital democratic campaign which organised the biggest demonstrations in British history and has repeatedly called it right over 14 years of disastrous wars in the wider Middle East”.

“So clearly there is a call – and the huge vote for Jeremy Corbyn reflected that mood – and it is entirely understandable that people therefore want to discuss – and there may be different views about how that might happen – but discuss how those policies are put into practice”.

“One of the things that Jeremy has done is to bring together every section of the party through shadow cabinet”, she told Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics.

Shadow energy secretary Lisa Nandy – who voted with Mr Corbyn on Syria – wanted against a shadow cabinet purge.