Jeremy Corbyn will claim the power of Labour’s 500,000-strong membership can win the party a general election a day after thousands of supporters were excluded from voting in its leadership contest.
Advertisement
But 2015 general election Labour voters backed Mr Corbyn (35%) over Mr Smith (32%).
Corbyn told The Observer on Sunday that he had read Watson’s letter in the media “and it appeared to be a rehash of a book Michael Crick wrote 20 years ago about alleged entryism into the Labour party at that stage”.
“Do they imagine when they talk about deselecting a whole lot of MPs that they are going to get a couple of hundred members in Labour of potential Labour [politicians] in parliament who are different to the ones now and that they prefer?”
She said: “In principle everyone should be happy that more people are wanting to join the party, as long as it is the Labour Party they’re wanting to join”.
A Jeremy for Labour spokesman said: “The strength of solidarity shown to the five claimants campaigning for the democratic rights of their fellow Labour party members has been truly remarkable”.
“I want people to join for good motives”, he said.
Watson hit back on Saturday night, claiming the evidence was “incontrovertible”.
A civil war that for months has embroiled a party established in 1900 to represent working class people, will move to a new battlefield, the vote for the leadership of what is Britain’s official opposition party.
He claims a small group of AWL activists are attempting to infiltrate the party to indoctrinate “more people of revolutionary socialist ideas”.
This is not the first time Mr. Corbyn’s actions have drawn criticism from Jewish supporters of the Labour Party. That is beyond dispute.
This led to Smith mentioning to the BBC in July: “We have had a massive problem recently with misogyny and intolerance in the party, anti-Semitism, racism and the very bad way in which women in the Labour movement have been treated”.
Five members of the Labour Party have decided not to take their legal challenge to the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeal said the party was allowed to bar some new members from voting in the upcoming leadership election.
Mr Corbyn waded into the row with Tom Watson after his campaign team criticised the deputy leader last week, accusing him of “peddling baseless conspiracy theories”.
But Labour Party leaders appealed that decision and got the restriction reinstated by three court of appeals judges who declared that the NEC had every right to “set the criteria for members to be eligible to vote”.
Advertisement
But days later, the Court of Appeal overturned that judgment – backing the National Executive Committee’s decision to only afford a ballot paper to members who paid a £25 fee over a special 48-hour period.
