While the supporters are getting ready to take the fight to its logical culmination, a large section of the labour leaders have started the ground work to split the party as according to them Starmer has deviated from the labour ideology and pursing the rightist path. They feel the whip should have been restored following the withdrawal of suspension from the party.

Hard left group Momentum, and Corbyn’s former shadow cabinet ministers Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and Richard Burgon have warned the “fight back is on” following Starmer’s decision to withhold the whip despite the National Executive Committee allowing him to return as a party member.

The situation inside the party has deteriorated to such an extent that members have been planning to remove Starmer. A number of constituency Labour Party units have come together to vote no confidence in Labour leader. The CLP passed four motions on Friday evening, including the no-confidence vote. Other motions criticised the conduct of the party’s general secretary David Evans, Labour’s arrogant treatment to Young Labour chair Jessica Barnard and condemnation of the treatment of former party leader Jeremy Corbyn, in spite of Labour’s escalating war on free speech and attempts at public intimidation by right-wing figures. Barnard achieved an amazing 71% of the YL vote, on an unambiguously socialist platform.

Young People Are Leaving the Labour Party Because of Keir Starmer. Even working-class voters are deserting Labour as 'red wall' crumbles. Two Momentum-led Labour Party groups, Hackney South and Shoreditch, have turned against the leader at the treatment meted out to Corbyn. These groups voted "no confidence". A statement released by Hackney South's Labour Party group said Starmer had "demonstrated he is unfit to lead and manage the Labour Party at this time when people desperately need a unified party to take on the conservatives with bold socialist policies”.

Five Labour councillors, including a council deputy leader, have resigned in protest at what they described as the party’s “move rightward” under Starmer. The Lancaster city councillors said they were leaving the party “with sadness and rage” over issues including the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn, who said Labour’s antisemitism problem was overstated. It is thought to be the first significant resignation of Labour councillors since Starmer became leader.

Starmer has been hit by a major rebellion after 34 Labour MPs - including seven frontbenchers - defied the party whip in an important Commons vote. The Labour leader is facing a series of resignations, with Margaret Greenwood quitting as shadow schools minister and Dan Carden stepping down from his post as a shadow Treasury minister so they could vote against the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) Bill. Parliamentary private secretaries Navendu Mishra, Kim Johnson, Mary Foy, Rachel Hopkins and Sarah Owen have also resigned.

The members allege that Labour’s general secretary has been resorting to autocratic actions by barring MPs and party members from discussing Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension, voicing solidarity with him or criticising the equalities watchdog report on antisemitism in the party. The move by David Evans, which has been criticised by Momentum as an attempt to stifle debate, means any local party that seeks to discuss Keir Starmer’s decision to remove the whip from Corbyn will be ruled out of order.

Ever since the party miserably lost the parliamentary elections, a plan was being framed to remove Corbyn from the party. Incidentally the report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) which found the party was responsible for unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination when Corbyn was in charge came to the advantage of his detractors. He was suspended from the party following his observation that the issue had been "dramatically overstated for political reasons" by his critics.

Earlier this week he was reinstated as a Labour member by the NEC following a meeting of a disciplinary panel. But Starmer continued to oppose him and blocked him from sitting as a Labour MP. What has enraged his supporters is the insistence of the leaders owing allegiance to Starmer to tender a public apology. The Labour's chief whip urged Corbyn to apologise "unequivocally, unambiguously and without reservation". For supporters of Corbyn this was part of the design to humiliate him before throwing him out of the party.

In this backdrop Corbyn plans to resort to legal action against the Labour party for suspending the whip. The party sources confide that following some talks between members of Starmer’s office and Corbyn’s representatives, it was decided to lift his suspension. But now under some external pressure he was going back from his words. Corbyn’s lawyers have already lodged a pre-action disclosure application to the high court on Thursday night. “All of this will be in the public domain soon,” said a source.

It is understood Corbyn’s legal team are attempting to put in the public domain evidence of a deal that was reached between Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan Mc Sweeney, and special advisor Simon Fletcher, with Unite’s general secretary, Len Mc Cluskey, and the former shadow cabinet minister Jon Trickett, acting on behalf of Corbyn. It is alleged that Starmer has been following the dictates of the Jewish Labour members and the Board of Deputies of British Jews who prefer nothing but an apology.

Ironically while Corbyn’s supporters have started leaving the party, the Jewish labour leaders have informed Starmer of their plan to resign if Corbyn is reinstated. Succumbing to this threat Starmer issued a strongly worded statement saying he would not welcome his predecessor back into the parliamentary party. Reacting to this statement of Starmer on Wednesday senior functionary Mc Cluskey said: “This is a vindictive and vengeful action, which despoils party democracy and due process alike, and amounts to overruling the unanimous decision of the NEC panel yesterday to readmit Jeremy to the party.” Most of the Labour leaders view it as “a blatant political attack on the left at a time when Labour should be united in taking on the Tories”.

Leftwing Labour MPs also rallied behind Corbyn, with the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell saying it would “cause more division and disunity”. One thing is absolutely clear that Corbyn’s move to encourage left wing politics has earned him a number of enemies inside the party. They nursed the view that party tilting towards hard socialism and left ideology would jeopardise their interest. A senior leader said; ‘If Starmer believed suspending Corbyn and then withholding the whip would reap electoral dividends, then he was profoundly misguided.’

This week, a meeting between Starmer and trade union general secretaries was fraught: unions want more policy engagement, but instead are being rebuffed by a political operation run by Labour’s right wing. This has created a vacuum. Unions are also discussing slashing their financial contributions to an already cash-strapped party. The party has already lost the monthly subs of 50,000 members who have left the party since Starmer took the helm. (IPA Service)