Corbyn defiant as party cracks, joining Tories in UK disarray

Bloomberg

Jeremy Corbyn said he’ll confront a challenge to his U.K. Labour Party leadership head on as the fallout from the referendum to leave the European Union sparks a splintering of his opposition group.
Corbyn, 67, has been battered since the June 23 vote. Dozens of his front-bench team have quit, he lost a no-confidence vote by a 172-40 margin and a party elders have called for him to go. He faces a formal challenge on Monday when his former business spokeswoman, Angela Eagle, says she’ll announce a leadership bid.
“You would be surprised how much support there is out there from people who feel that I was elected a year ago with a very large majority and a very large mandate,” Corbyn said in an interview on the BBC’s “Andrew Marr Show” on Sunday morning. “We’re a party that’s going places and doing very well actually.”
Support for Corbyn isn’t the only thing in doubt. There are also questions about whether the party’s rule book would even allow him to stand without enough backing from his members of parliament.
“There’s no wobbles, there’s no stress and there’s no depression,” Corbyn said when asked about reports that he was struggling to cope.
Long at the left fringes of the party, Corbyn began last year’s leadership election as a 200-to-1 outsider before surging to a surprise win with 60 percent of the vote in the wider party.
A long-standing Euroskeptic who followed the pro-EU party line during the campaign, he waited two months before making his first big speech against leaving, and took a vacation in the campaign’s closing weeks.