Lord Warner has resigned the Labour whip in protest at the direction in which Jeremy Corbyn is taking the party, Patrick Wintour has revealed tonight. Warner was a minister of state at the Department of Health under Tony Blair.
Now, Corbyn supporters will be quick to point out that Lord Warner is hardly a household name and that he was at the far Blairite end of the party. Both of these statements are true. But Warner’s departure should still worry Labour. All parties are coalitions and no leader should want to be losing former ministers from the party at any point in their leadership, let alone this early.
One footnote to Warner’s defection is that it will deny Ukip of one of their favourite attack lines againt Labour. Ukip loved to claim that a report Lord Warner wrote for Reform showed that Labour was the party that wanted to charge people for using the NHS.
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