Jeremy Corbyn has called on “all Labour Party members and supporters to act with calm and treat each other with respect” after leadership challenger Angela Eagle’s constituency office was vandalised.
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The Jewish Labour Movement is to ballot its members before deciding whether to back Angela Eagle’s leadership challenge against Jeremy Corbyn.
This meant that 81% of MPs voted against their leader.
“I don’t go in for suicide missions”, Ms Eagle said when asked if her chances were doomed if Mr Corbyn is allowed on the ballot paper.
The socialist head of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, will discover on Tuesday whether he has the automatic right to defend himself from a leadership challenge – a key moment in the running battle for control of the party.
Corbyn told the BBC: “I’m expecting to be on the ballot paper because the rules of the party indicate that the existing leader, if challenged, should be on the ballot paper anyway”.
Labour Councillor Robin Lunn, who stood for the party in Mid-Worcestershire at last year’s general election, said: “There will clearly now be a leadership election, there will have to be one”.
That’s an understatement. And matters are not helped by the fact that the body has been given conflicting advice over Mr Corbyn’s position. “I’m not here for a Labour party that just takes part”.
Today’s meeting of Labour’s National Executive Council to decide the rules of the Party’s leadership contest will be one of their oddest.
“Today I am announcing my decision to stand for the leadership of the Labour Party”, Eagle, 55, said in a speech to kick off her campaign.
Promising to save the Labour Party, Ms Eagle will say: “I stand for hope not grievance”.
It is thought Mr Corbyn would struggle to amass 51 signatures because his support is concentrated in the party’s wider membership.
It was very unlikely that Corbyn would have been able to persuade at least 51 parliamentarians to support him.
But his own MPs have serious doubts about his ability to win a General Election – and some believe hard-left cranks and Tory party infiltrators joined up to Labour to vote him in. The Shadow Cabinet rebelled and kept him on.
Solicitor Martin Howe said: “Our clients are very concerned that the objective of the special meeting is to manufacture a situation whereby Jeremy Corbyn’s name will be omitted from the leadership ballot”.
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“The Labour Party, the party of equality who pioneered anti-discrimination, it’s about time they had their first elected woman leader”.
