172 Labour MPs have no confidence in Corbyn

British Labour party MPs voted massively against their leader on Tuesday amid political turmoil in Britain after a vote to leave the European Union as candidates to succeed Prime Minister David Cameron vied for power behind the scenes.

Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn lost a non-binding confidence motion, with 172 Labour MPs voting against him and only 40 in favour out of a total of 229 Labour lawmakers in the House of Commons.

But the veteran socialist insisted he would not stand down. “I was democratically elected leader of our party for a new kind of politics by 60 per cent of Labour members and supporters, and I will not betray them by resigning. Today’s vote by MPs has no constitutional legitimacy,” he said in a statement.

But the Guardian reported that the result is likely to lead to a direct challenge to Mr Corbyn. Supporters of a leadership election would need to collect the signatures of 51 Labour MPs and MEPs (Members in the European Parliament) to trigger a vote.

Five days after the shock referendum vote, the two parties that have dominated Westminster for nearly a century were in almost complete disarray.

Pro-EU finance minister George Osborne, long tipped to succeed Cameron, ruled himself out on Tuesday while British media reported that Work and pensions minister Stephen Crabb, a virtual unknown to the British public, would put his name forward.