The mayor of Hartlepool has dramatically quit Labour, accusing it of becoming a “nasty party… of antisemites, racists and homophobes”.
Allan Barclay, 65, said the party had become “unrecognisable” from the one he joined in the early 1990s, accusing it of “marching towards fascism at a steady pace”.
A councillor, Mr Barclay currently serves as the local authority's ceremonial mayor.
On Tuesday he sent his resignation letter to Tom Watson, the deputy leader, and party general secretary Jennie Formby, Sky News reports.
In it, he accused the party of having “no political will… to address such issues”, and that it “seems not to care about challenging a society that holds these views”.
He wrote: “The Labour Party has been infiltrated by people who do not hold Labour values. If these people are ‘Corbynites’ then Jeremy Corbyn is the local party's biggest problem.
“Support is haemorrhaging due to the ‘Corbynites’ actions and true Labour voters no longer have a reason to support Labour at the ballot box.
“[Labour] fails to root out members who not only share these views but feel safe enough within the Labour Party to actively express them.
“I feel that Jeremy Corbyn must resign and the Corbynites must be removed from the Labour Party. This is the only way that the party can become respectable again.”
Mr Barclay, who served in the Royal Engineers for more than two decades, also condemned the Labour leadership’s stance on the armed forces, saying Jeremy Corbyn “has shown total contempt” for the military.
Labour said it rejected Mr Barclay’s “dangerous rhetoric and baseless claims”, saying that it “takes all complaints extremely seriously, which are investigated in line with our robust rules and procedures”.
A Labour source briefed media outlets that Mr Barclay had been recently deselected as a candidate, accusing him of being “clearly bitter”.
The source added: “The letter is full of inaccuracies and inventions and no evidence is provided for his absurd and deeply offensive allegations.”
