Jeremy Corbyn received a standing ovation from his own MPs yesterday but warned the party’s new-found sense of unity had to last if they were
to govern.
Mr Corbyn, who led the party to 262 seats and a 40 per cent share of the vote – compared to the Tories 318 and 42.4 per cent – was applauded as he walked into the Commons chamber for the first time since Thursday’s election.
They later cheered him again as he addressed them at their weekly meeting.
But he issued a hard-hitting warning that the party was “now a government in waiting and we must think and act at all times with that in mind”.
Labour would stay on an election footing, he added.
Mr Corbyn added: “We achieved what we did last Thursday because we were a united party during the campaign and we need to maintain that unity and collective discipline in the weeks and months ahead.
“We will continue to take the fight to the Tories and I will be out campaigning around the country in Conservative marginals in those extra seats we need to gain to deliver the government for the many that almost 13 million people voted for last week.”
Mr Corbyn earlier also predicted that Labour would win more seats in Scotland if there was another General Election soon.
He is expected to announce new members of his frontbench team later this week.
He currently has no shadow Scottish or shadow Northern Irish Secretaries.
Former deputy leader Harriet Harman said she would expect Labour MPs to be “prepared to serve” him after bitter recriminations led to many quitting the frontbench after the Brexit vote.
Ms Harman said that the Labour leader had confounded expectations, adding: “We’ve gained seats under his leadership and he can take the credit from that.
“What a long time in politics a week is. The atmosphere [around Labour MPs] was morbid before the election; we were expecting the Tories to lay waste to us, and instead it turned around and we come back coherent, united. The atmosphere is verging from on [the] one hand relief to jubilant and the Tories are in disarray.”
Earlier, Mr Corbyn had praised his new crop of MPs, including six new additions in Scotland, adding that they could “soon be joined by
a lot more”.
Former postman Hugh Gaffney, who represents Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill said his victory meant that the “working man has arrived in Parliament”.
He added that his result has been “for the people of this country - let’s make it better.”
Glasgow North East’s Paul Sweeney said he was “Labour’s first man back in Glasgow” and suggested that he would soon be joined by many more.
Rutherglen and Hamilton West’s Gerard Killen said Mr Corbyn’s “policies and manifesto won the day” in Scotland.
Mr Murray, the Edinburgh South MP, who has spent the last two years as the lone Labour MP north of the Border, joked that with six new Scottish Labour colleagues he was “no longer lonely Murray”.
Mr Corbyn added that Mr Murray was “no longer carrying the [Labour] flag alone.”
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