90,000 new affiliated union members have recently joined the Labour party and whom will most likely vote Corbyn, sending shivers down the spin of Jeremy Corbyn rivals.
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“I would not attempt to sway the leadership election – it may be damaging to the Labour Party to have Jeremy Corbyn elected but it would also be very damaging to the country, and therefore is not something that should be treated as a joke”.
With just weeks to go before the most exciting race since the Mole watched a single drip of of paint slide down a wall comes to an end – registration to vote in the contest to pick Ed Miliband’s successor closes at 12 noon – it appears that Team Burnham are finally beginning to panic.
Labour Party Secretary Iain McNicol told the campaign teams that 1,200 members or supporters of other parties have been excluded from the vote, and a further 800 are under investigation.
Those banned include Conservative MP Tim Loughton, journalist Toby Young and film director Ken Loach, who is a member of further-left party Left Unity.
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Labour has been taken aback by “Corbynmania”, with large crowds, passionate social media involvement and news coverage of a trim, bearded vegetarian teetotaller who says what he has believed for the last four decades with a disarming clarity.
Former leader Blair, in office from 1997-2007, has urged Labour to reject Corbyn and elect a centrist candidate, if it wants to win back power in 2020.
But Labour has stressed that it is working to stop bogus supporters from influencing the contest, the result of which will be announced on September 12.
Declaring his support for Ms Cooper, Mr Andrews said Labour needed a leader “who looks and sounds different from the blokeish Westminster culture, who understands that the personal is political”. This process continues until one candidate gets more than half of the vote.
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Public Services Minister Leighton Andrews said Labour needed a leader to win elections, not “return to the politics of the 1970s or 1950s”. A party spokeswoman said the process was “fair and robust”.
