London Mayor Sadiq Khan joined the bitter battle over the leadership of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party Sunday by saying Jeremy Corbyn should be toppled. Noting that “this has been a hard time for women in the Party, with women bearing the brunt of abuse and harassment”, the Labour Women’s Network (LWN), which has been campaigning for better female representation within the party since 1988, asked both candidates to endorse what they call a “comprehensive agenda for women’s equality in Labour”.
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A key trade union ally of the Labour leader described Mr Khan’s intervention as “disappointing” and warned that the Labour members in the capital would feel “let down” by his actions.
Mr Khan has urged Labour Party members to ditch their leader and back his rival Owen Smith instead.
Addressing an estimated 3,000 Labour supporters at Ruach City Church in Kilburn, London, the party leader said he wanted to see “decision-making for the millions, not the millionaires”.
Mr Khan told BBC News Mr Corbyn had “failed to win the trust and respect of the British people” and criticised his leadership during the European Union referendum.
“Sadiq comes from that part of the Labour party that was in government under Blair and Brown”, Wrack told BBC News. Jeremy Corbyn gave full support for Sadiq in his campaign for mayor, as did a number of unions including my own.
Mr Corbyn also pledged to make the Labour a “truly democratic and pluralist organisation” in which members and affiliated organisations had “real control” while widening the representation on the ruling to reflect “the huge increase in party membership”. “I think a lot of people will be quite let down by that”.
A spokesman for Smith said he would ask the party’s national executive committee to bring forward changes within a year of his leadership and before any future leadership or deputy leadership contest.
“He has lost the confidence of more than 80 percent of Labour’s MPs in parliament – and I am afraid we simply can not afford to go on like this”, he added.
The Labour leader’s two day visit to Scotland starts in Livingston on Thursday, followed by a rally for members in a Glasgow hotel before a leadership hustings with Mr Smith, who quit as shadow work and pensions secretary in protest at Corbyn’s leadership.
JEREMY Corbyn will use a visit to Scotland this week to categorically rule out the prospect of a so called “progressive alliance” between Labour and the SNP ahead of the 2020 General Election, the Herald can reveal.
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Mr Corbyn won the backing of most of the local parties in Scotland which backed a candidate.
