A DEFIANT Jeremy Corbyn will launch a campaign to keep his position as Labour leader and pledge to confront “five ills head on”.
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UK Labour MP Angela Eagle said she was withdrawing from the race to oust party leader Jeremy Corbyn, saying she would give her support to rival Owen Smith instead in order to boost the chances of a change of leadership.
Branch secretary Terry Brough said: “The branch condemns the coup against the proud trade unionist and socialist, Jeremy Corbyn – the democratically elected Leader of the Labour Party; and we find the evidence to support the accusation that Jeremy is an electoral liability to be flimsy at best!”
In an interview with The House magazine, Mr McGinn had suggested Mr Corbyn faced a “challenge” in relating to other parts of Britain having been MP for Islington North in London for more than 30 years.
Labour leadership challenger Owen Smith today warned the party risked being “consigned to history” unless it stops lurching towards a “disastrous split”.
McGinn said he had experienced abuse and threats, including an incident in which some opponents got access to his shared office building and filmed themselves protesting outside his office door, also threatening to disrupt his surgeries.
He did, however, acknowledge that he had “never been bullied by Jeremy”.
Owen Smith, one of the so-called “unity” contenders trying to depose Corbyn, has declared that he wants to “re-write” Clause Four of the Labour Party Constitution. “A few people say things they shouldn’t and then it’s blown up out of all proportion, to suit the imagery that the Labour party has somehow become a cesspit, and suddenly it’s a crisis”.
“I hold out the hand of friendship”, he said, addressing “those who may not agree with me politically, may not even like me personally”.
“And I’m very surprised and actually very disappointed that they should say that because politics has to be about bringing people in and I think we have done that spectacularly well. It could be the most important political decision you ever make”, Miliband said. “Isn’t that good for democracy?”
“The leader of the Labour Party was proposing to address an issue with one of his own MPs by ringing his dad”.
In the interview, Mr McGinn said, the party leader had spoken about the need for a “kinder, gentler politics.”
Mr McGinn said he had chose to go public after watching an interview with Mr Corbyn in which he repeated his mantra of supporting a “kinder, gentler politics”.
Labour received more than 180,000 applications to sign up as registered supporters, each paying £25 to get their vote – a total of more than £4.5 million for the party coffers.
The numbers easily exceed the 112,000 who joined last summer – when subscription was just £3 – and they will clearly have a huge impact on the outcome of the election.
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But Mr Corbyn announced a major shift in the party leadership’s position – in what will be seen as a warning to his rebel MPs to either toe the line or face the sack.
