Smith will now go forward alone to fight socialist stalwart Corbyn in a ballot of party members, trade unionists and registered supporters which ends on September 24.
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While the speech itself reflected Corbyn’s confidence that he will win the contest and remain as Labour leader, he struggled to respond to questions on how he would fix relations with his MPs, and whether he supported mandatory reselection.
In its latest party member polls released yesterday, YouGov reported that at present Corbyn had more than 54% of Labour public support (more than Owen and Eagles combined).
At the launch of his re-election campaign, Mr Corbyn said: “At the moment, selection takes place when there is a trigger ballot system, where a constituency party decides whether or not it wishes to have a full selection process”.
Eagle has previously said Corbyn, who has strong support among party grassroots members, “needs to get control of the people who are supporting him”.
He will say a Labour administration would require firms to publish the new equality pay audits “detailing pay, grade and hours of every job … alongside data on recognised equality characteristics”.
“The branch believes that the reason for the attacks on Jeremy is not his supposed unelectability – but the fear of his Labour Party being elected – ditching neo-liberalism (not before time) and starting on the long road to socialism, which is an apocalyptic vision for the Blairites in the Labour Party”.
“So I am announcing tonight that I will be supporting Owen in that endeavour with all my enthusiasm and might”.
If the same numbers turn out this year, it means that the selection of Labour’s new leader could be decided by more than 643,000 voters.
This was followed by challenges from Smith and Angela Eagle, the latter of whom has now dropped out.
“For us to nearly lose Blaenau Gwent, for us to lose the Rhondda, these were hammer blows to the Labour Party and that’s something Jeremy Corbyn needed to respond to, but he’s been poor at taking Labour’s case to the Tories in Westminster and he’s not been successful in going beyond slogans”.
Under the plans, the number of seats in the Commons will be cut by 50 to 600 by the next general election.
But he said that Mr Smith would be “very welcome” after the leadership election to rejoin the shadow cabinet, which he quit along with many other frontbenchers in the wake of the European Union referendum in June. I know they will have got involved for the same reasons I did, because they want to tackle inequality and be part of building a fairer Britain and world.
She said she would not “write off” people who had refused to form part of the front bench team, suggesting they may return after the leadership campaign.
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“There is nothing wrong with working in the private sector”, she said.
