The first thing to note is that it’s not about policy. The not-so secret seven MPs who left the Labour party this morning have not changed their policy preferences. They have not become Tories. Nor have they even become liberals. They could, with little difficulty, endorse much of the Labour party’s 2017 manifesto without compromising themselves in the slightest.
Because this break, this rebellion, this journey into exile, is not about policy. It is about character and values and so many of the other things the Labour party believes it holds dear to the extent it often behaves as though it thinks it owns a monopoly on these things. And the chief message from this more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger departure is that these seven – who are really eight, if the Barrow MP John Woodcock is included – do not believe Jeremy Corbyn is a fit and proper person to be prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
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