“And we have got to carry the fight to the Tories much more rigorously than we have done in recent months”.
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“I’m very confident that not only is this leadership campaign going to end in a positive result, but our party is going to be stronger, and probably more united at the end of it”. We can’t have this sort of ugly dialogue in the Labour Party.
The release of the plan – which also acts as Corbyn’s manifesto for re-election to the head of the Labour party – follows a major speech from Smith earlier this week in which the MP for Pontypridd said Labour under his leadership would be a leader in green jobs.
He said: ‘I tried to talk to Jeremy in March and he was very rude to me, I wanted to talk to him about his role in blocking shared parenting of 50/50 contact back in 2011. “These are people who want to se the party back in power. Today we have seen how powerful an idea that is, with our policies on ending the gender pay gap, investing in affordable childcare and tackling violence against women and girls being adopted by Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn”.
“Yes, in order to take part in this election, yes, in order to strengthen our party, but also to reach out to those who have become disillusioned with politics because they don’t see a political solution to their problems”, Mr Corbyn said. “When we work together we do defeat the Tories”, he said. “The Tories have a 14-point lead”.
Council leader Cllr Terry O’Neill (LAB – Burtonwood and Winwick) said he has been pleased with challenger Mr Smith but admits the national issues have been “damaging” to the party.
But a source from the branch said “there is considerable support” for Mr Smith.
But Mr Corbyn refused to step down, insisting that he had a mandate from the hundreds of thousands of supporters who voted him in.
But they clashed over Britain’s nuclear deterrent, which Corbyn opposes, and whether Labour did enough to try to avert what Smith called the “unmitigated disaster” of Brexit.
“A commitment to gender equality should underpin the work of the Labour Party, and if Corbyn is serious about making it a priority he must now show exactly how he will take his plans forward”. He told the audience in Cardiff to look to 1945 for answers, which he said provided the inspiration for the “most radical, practical, socialist program for Government” that we’ve seen since then. The audience applauded the current leader as he added: “I have a democratic mandate in this country”.
Mr Corbyn, who ahead of the showdown unveiled his 10 pledges to rebuild Britain, said: “We will rebuild, transform, no-one nowhere will be left behind”.
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Stephen Cragg QC, appearing for the five, asked Mr Justice Hickinbottom, sitting in London, to declare that party rules had been misapplied and the five are entitled to vote in the September 24 poll.
