Top Labour donor John Mills' advice for Jeremy Corbyn: The party is going through a difficult period, don’t allow the hard left to split the party

Jeremy Corbyn has diminished the Labour Party into a “fringe protest movement”, former Prime Minister Tony Blair has said.

Writing in the Spectator, Blair described Corbyn’s election and the current state of the party as “a tragedy”.

Millionaire Labour Party John Mills echoed Blair’s thoughts and said the Labour Party is going through “difficult period”.

Speaking to London Loves Business, Mills said: “Clearly, the Labour Party is going through a difficult period at the moment. I hope the party will coalesce policies which share the idealism of Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters and the experience and pragmatism of the moderate left.”

Mills said that Corbyn being elected as Labour party leader was “a positive”.

He said: “I did not vote for Jeremy Corbyn but I think him being elected as Leader has got the Labour Party thinking about policy for the future in a much more fundamental way than might have been the case if one of the other contenders had been elected, and I think this is a positive.”

On being asked what his one key piece of advice would be for Corbyn, Mills said: “Don’t allow the hard left to split the Party”.

Mills, who has donated over £1.7m to the party since 2005, didn’t comment on whether he’d consider donating more shares to the Labour Party.

He said:”The Labour Party will continue to receive any dividends paid on the shares which I have donated to the Party. The amount the Party receives will depend on how big these dividends are which, in turn, will depend on JML’s trading results, which are looking reasonably positive at the moment.”