He said: “There was information put out there which is statements that colleagues made on the record and it’s all stuff that is out there”.
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“Instead of having a debate with us he goes out and issues a silly little list”.
He added: “The thing about last night, it just set us back”.
If I receive a written apology from the leader and if this statement, this ridiculous, petty, student politics list is retracted, that would help.
He said: “What we are looking for is really the same flexibilities that other countries have exercised, across the European Union as well”.
Owen Smith will today launch one of the strongest attacks yet on Momentum and say centrist MPs face “exactly the same tactics” as used by Militant in the 1980s.
Among those named were Jess Phillips, who is said to have told Corbyn’s ally Diane Abbott to “fuck off”, and John Woodcock, who described Corbyn as a “fucking disaster”.
Ian Austin, Ben Bradshaw, Frank Field, Anna Turley, Jamie Reed, Karl Turner, Stephen Kinnock and Tom Blenkinsop were all also identified by the campaign over claims about their behaviour.
“A “deselection list” circulated by Jeremy’s campaign, attacking Labour MPs”.
His campaign team withdrew the list, which was reportedly put out by a “junior member”, and has apologised to Mr Watson.
Labour needs to remember its Blairite traditions as well as left-wing ones, leadership challenger Owen Smith is warning.
Tom Watson, who was elected deputy by party members, had been picked out for calling the grassroots Corbyn campaign Momentum a “rabble”.
“You talk about trying to unite the party, but I find that quite hard to reconcile with something your campaign did just this evening, which was to publish a list, a deselection list if you like, of … As Jeremy has said, it is imperative that we now do all we can to unify our party”.
Smith said Labour should be a broad church, and sought to rehabilitate the reputation of Tony Blair after an audience member at the Sky leadership hustings earlier this week said she hated the former Labour prime minister.
“It is my clear view that targeting individuals like this amounts to harassment and bullying by the leader of the parliamentary party who is supposed to have a duty of care towards his fellow Labour MPs”, Mr Woodcock’s letter says. “Whatever happens in the leadership election next week, we all have to come together”.
“I won a seat back for Labour last year after 30 years, I should be out with the CWU in my constituency in Blackfriars Road, campaigning to keep a post office”, he told Sky News.
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“I am a Keynesian, not a Marxist like our current shadow chancellor, and prudent borrowing and government partnership with business to grow our economy is the answer, not a longed-for crisis in capitalism that destroys pay cheques and pensions en route to some fabled revolution”, he said. “It’s right that he deals with staffing issues privately”.
