Assembly Member Mick Antoniw believes Pontypridd colleague Owen Smith does not have to win Labour’s leadership for the party to succeed.
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Mr Smith, who is expected to be comprehensively defeated by Mr Corbyn when the leadership election result is announced, has claimed there is a culture of bullying and intimidation under Mr Corbyn. “I first read it as my companion on a complicated series of trains travelling from London to Marrakech”, he said.
The MP for Pontypridd said: “I think John is someone who is increasingly a divisive force in the Labour Party”.
She added: “But I would like to see us talk not just among ourselves, but talk with the public as unless we do that, we won’t be able to win elections”.
The committee will also consider plans – backed by Mr Watson – to reinstate elections to the shadow cabinet scrapped in 2011 – in favour of the leader picking his top team.
Mr Watson said changes made under Ed Miliband to the way in which the Labour leader is elected were “very rushed” as he advocated moving away from the system of one member one vote. “I think it’s going to be tough … to meet the levels that we got previous year and I say that because they have thrown everything against us”, he added.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
In a meeting that lasted more than eight hours, the Labour leader also refused to sign up to plans put forward by his deputy, Tom Watson, under which Labour politicians would be allowed to vote for the shadow cabinet.
He told Sky News’s Murnaghan programme: “It’s an attempt to further cement his position and use the membership as a means of driving a wedge between MPs and his leadership”.
“I want a united, competent Labour Party that can earn the trust of people in the Black Country and win an election”.
He told Panorama: “I think anybody who behaves in a way that is totally disrespectful and outwith the culture of the Labour Party is basically asking to be held to account”.
Registered supporters were given a say in the choice of leader as a result of changes brought in by Ed Miliband, and approved by the party in 2013, created to open up the process to a wider audience. “But the general direction of opposition to austerity, opposing the Tories on grammar schools – those are the kinds of things that actually unite the party these days”.
But Mr Corbyn said he had always rebelled on political rather than personal grounds.
“My concerns were when a Labour government led by Tony Blair took us into war in Iraq, I opposed that”. A clear example has been his enthusiasm for abolishing Trident – seen by most people as an essential part of British defence, which until global disarming (an increasingly unlikely event) a large majority of voters think should remain at the forefront of the defence budget as a deterrent and as a determined political statement of strength, if nothing else.
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He replied: “I hope Neil can be a bit more optimistic”.
