Jeremy Corbyn has won a decisive victory as leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party after the left-winger saw off a challenge from fellow Labour MP Owen Smith in a nationwide membership vote.
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Re-elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has urged his party to “wipe the slate clean” after a bitter campaign marred by claims of abuse, harassment and even death threats.
The Islington North MP, who won 61.8 per cent of the vote against his rival Owen Smith, used his victory speech today to announce the campaign, which his team hopes will act as a call to arms for members across the country.
Corbyn, a long-time back-bench lawmaker, was elected previous year to lead Labour, which governed between 1997 and 2010 but has lost two successive general elections to the Conservatives.
“Elections are passionate and often partisan affairs and things are sometimes said in the heat of the debate, on all sides, which we sometimes later come to regret….”
“After nine months of sabotage by some – but not all – of his MPs, Corbyn’s support in the party has increased”, Skinner said, adding he expected the Labour leader to reverse the decline in polls.
The mass resignation of Labour frontbenchers in June left Mr Corbyn unable to fill all his shadow ministerial posts.
He has since suffered negative media coverage and an increasingly unruly parliamentary party, while enjoying broad-based support from the party’s membership.
“It is an understatement to say that this is not the result that many of us wanted but all of us have now got to make an individual decision about how best to serve the Labour Party and how best to make the opposition effective”, Labour member of parliament John Woodcock said.
Many of Corbyn’s supporters also called on those Labour MPs who had tried to force him out to come back behind him.
“Together arguing for the real change this country needs I have no doubt that this party can win the next general election”, he added. In order to do so, he wants everyone to work together.
Smith said he was committed to the party but would be taking a break from frontline politics: “I have no time for talk of a split in the Labour movement – it’s Labour or nothing for me”.
Mr Lewis said there were some people who had joined the shadow cabinet past year who did not have any intention of giving Jeremy Corbyn a chance, something he claimed had hurt the Labour leader.
But despite these reports, Corbyn has insisted that the party has a “duty to unite” following the leadership struggle, and has promised to offer an olive branch to his critics.
However, analysts say most will do everything to avoid this, noting the ill-fated creation of the Social Democratic Party in similar circumstances in the 1980s.
Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to draw a line under the unrest amongst Labour MPs.
But he was propelled to victory by thousands of new members who joined Labour to back him.
In his video message, Mr Corbyn said: “This isn’t and never has been about me”.
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All eyes are now on which MPs may rejoin the Shadow Cabinet.
