LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn warned his successor not to drag the party into a national government with the Tories.

In his first-ever interview with the Telegraph, he said that the next Labour leader should steer clear of a crisis coalition with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government.

Mr Corbyn described a Labour-Tory coalition government as undemocratic.

He said: “It’s the duty of opposition parties to hold it [the government] to account, and that is exactly what we’re doing.

“I think we should be challenging the government and challenging them on the economic response, challenging them on job security, and that is the way to get better government and better decisions.

“If everybody got together and said: ‘We’re all absolutely in this together, we won’t criticise each other,’ that is a negation of what our democratic society is about.”

Labour’s first-ever Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald agreed to go into government with Conservatives and Liberals amid the Great Depression in 1931. 

The majority of the Labour Party refused to support the coalition and Mr MacDonald ended heading up a government dominated by Tories that launched savage attacks on working people.

Mr Corbyn said it was up to the new leader whether he was given a front-bench role, but hinted he could return to being a rebel backbencher.

The coronavirus crisis has vindicated his socialist vision, Mr Corbyn added, but warned that Britain should be prepared for increased national debt and taxes to cover costs of the emergency measures.