Labour leadership: Members resign from party after Jeremy Corbyn win

Former Labour supporters posting pictures of their destroyed membership cards on Twitter

Jeremy Corbyn won almost 62 per cent of the vote in the leadership contest (PA)

Labour members are annnouncing they will leave the Party after the decisive re-election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader.

Pictures have been posted on Twitter of red Labour membership cards cut into pieces alongside the hastag #GoodbyeLabour.

In a speech after his win, Mr Corbyn vowed to unite the party and claimed he and Owen Smith were part of the "same Labour family". He secured 61.8 per cent of the vote, compared to Mr Smith's 38.2 per cent.

Richard Wilson, who stood to be Labour's Parliamentary candidate for Guildford in 2015 posted a photo of his destroyed card and said: "The [Labour] Party has been captured by [the] hard left and fatally damaged."

Alongside a photo of a membership card cut into pieces, one former Labour member cited concerns of Mr Corbyn's supporters engaging in anti-semitism, a scandal which has rocked the party.

Supporters from other parties capitalised on the hashtag – calling for disenchanted Labour voters to join their ranks.

The evening before the leadership election result was announced, "How to leave the Labour party" became the most searched for question about the party on Google.

Mr Corbyn now faces a battle to unify a party that has become fiercely split. He must decide whether to use his mandate to enforce direction or to strike a more concilatory tone.