It is clear that Mr Smith, who is relatively unknown outside the Parliamentary Labour Party, has the most to gain from the televised debates.
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His voice rising, he added: “That means winning, it doesn’t mean trading our principles it mean winning to put them into practice – that’s what we have got to do, we are a Labour government in waiting, not a protest movement”.
Smith was “met with groans from Mr Corbyn’s supporters when he denied being part of a “coup” attempt against the leader”, the BBC says.
I see very clearly that we’ve not been what we need to be in recent months, which is a powerful, credible opposition to the Tory Party…
Polling by YouGov suggested Labour’s support would fall to approximately 20 per cent if either the left or the right of the party split off.
Leader of the British Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn announced a 10-point plan on Thursday created to “rebuild and transform” the United Kingdom while undoing the damage wrought by privatization schemes and concerted attacks on the public good.
Smith: “Two million Labour voters would vote for Theresa May over Jeremy. When we work together we do defeat the Tories”, he said.
– Read our other articles on the Labour leadership election.
He said the next leader will have to heal the party as splits do not lead to victory at General Elections any sooner.
“But, despite that, the people gathered here today have been very keen to get their opinions across”.
And this divisive PLP behaviour is seen by many to be the main reason for Labour’s now dismal polling results.
“They say he’s unelectable, and no one has faith in him any more but his rallies feel very different”, said Ciera Holmes, a 24-year-old who works in private healthcare.
“But there is enormous potential in the skills and talents of our people and huge opportunities ahead of us in science, technology and culture”.
“We could all be living richer lives in a sustainable, more prosperous and more caring society”. As soon as we had the franchise, it was our job to go around the railings and seize power from within. The party could be split. “Let us have faith in ourselves, our party and our country to deliver real social justice all across this country”.
Branding the leadership hopeful the “disunity candidate”, Mr McDonnell called for a return to an “amicable” and “comradely” contest.
He later told Sky News: “We shouldn’t be going into a leadership election saying “vote for me or some of my supporters will split the party”. People don’t want to be blackmailed in that way.
Lousie Haigh, who remains a minister in Mr Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet but is backing Mr Smith for the leadership, told The Independent shortly after the debate finished that she thought Mr Smith was “fab”. “I understand political differences and I understand dissent, because I have practised political differences and dissent myself”.
Turning to Corbyn he added: “I know you’re radical, I’m radical, but I want us to be radical in government”.
The Pontypridd MP said: ‘Jeremy, I’m not having that because you know, you know Jeremy, that I wasn’t part of any coup in the Labour Party’. “I don’t recall that”. It is assumed he means the party has to unite behind him rather than Corbyn to avoid a split, which could be catastrophic for the party.
The decision to bar Labour members who joined after January 12 from voting in the leadership election is being challenged in the High Court, in a crowd-funded case brought by some of the estimated 130,000 people who have been excluded.
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“The whole point behind our economic plan is one of investment – investment in order to improve the infrastructure”.
