The former Downing Street director of communications claimed the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is “asleep on the job” as he announced he will no longer want to be part of the party. The staunch anti-Brexit campaigner wrote an open letter to the Labour leader in which he accused Mr Corbyn of failing to understand the gravity of the UK’s situation. But, BBC Radio 4 host Mishal Husain blasted the former spin doctor over his “spiteful” and “scathing” attack against the Labour chief. 

She asked: “What would you say to those who will see this as spiteful?

“You are angry at the Labour Party for being expelled in the way you were, you are challenging that.

“And in the midst of that process being underway, you come out with what is a very personal and very scathing in many parts broadside against Jeremy Corbyn.

“In parts of it, you accuse him of essentially being asleep on the job.”

You are angry at the Labour Party for being expelled in the way you were, you are challenging that

Mishal Husain

In an attempt to defend himself, Mr Campbell responded: “I don’t think it’s personal, I think I’m saying what I think, it’s based on a lot of experience of campaigns and of politics, and reading it as I read it now, Labour is facing its own existential crisis.

“I think there is a danger that we’re going to be destroyed as a serious credible political force unless we face up to the reality of what’s going on.”

He added: “I think that with Jeremy Corbyn he has got to look deep into himself and say is he up to the job, is he up to the challenge that (he) now faces because if not, we are heading to a very dark, dangerous place with an unbelievably right-wing, populist Government and the answer to which is not a populism of the left.”

But the BBC host hit back: “It’s addressed to Jeremy Corbyn directly, it says ‘your failure to provide consistent leadership’, ‘your failure to challenge the lies, crimes and misdemeanors of the Leave campaign’. It is personal.”

Mr Campbell was expelled from the party in May after admitting voting for the Liberal Democrats in the European elections as a protest and had planned to appeal against the decision.

But in an open letter to Mr Corbyn, part-published in the Guardian, the former Labour spin doctor has now said, “with some sadness but absolute certainty, I have reached the conclusion that I no longer wish to stay in the party, even if I should be successful in my appeal or legal challenge”.

“The culture you have helped to create has made the party one that I feel no longer truly represents my values or the hopes I have for Britain,” he told Mr Corbyn in the letter, which is also published in full in the New European.

Mr Campbell said he does not blame Mr Corbyn for Brexit, something he ascribed to successive recent Conservative prime ministers and senior Tories, but he said the Labour leader does not understand the gravity of the UK’s situation and was likely to lose a potential general election.

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“I see no sign that you and your office have grasped the seriousness of what is happening, let alone devised or begun to execute a strategy to respond and defeat it,” Mr Campbell wrote.

Asked if he would be joining the Lib Dems, Mr Campbell said: “No, I don’t feel I’m close to other parties, but I do think if we do get to a general election and the choice facing the country is Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn all sorts of things are going to happen because that is not a choice that this country finds remotely palatable.”

Last week, Mr Corbyn said Labour will “campaign to Remain” if Prime Minister Boris Johnson puts an unsatisfactory Brexit deal back to the public in a second referendum.

“Labour will oppose any deal that fails to protect jobs, workers’ rights or environmental protections. If you have the confidence to put that decision back to the people, we would, in those circumstances, campaign to Remain,” he said.

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