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.
Advertisement
The NEC, on which Corbyn himself sits, was meeting from 2pm to set the rules, including whether his name must automatically appear on the ballot paper without him having to gather the requisite 51 signatures from MPs, which he would be unlikely to achieve.
Speaking today, former shadow education secretary Ms Powell – who quit her role alongside more than 60 others in protest at Mr Corbyn’s leadership – said he could be beaten regardless. I am now putting the whole of the party on a General Election footing.
She added the issue of whether Mr Corbyn needed to be nominated by 51 MPs and MEPs to be able to stand as a candidate is a matter for the party’s national executive committee.
A number of Labour MPs have faced death threats in the last fortnight after they turned their backs on Mr Corbyn.
Ms Eagle said she had no choice but to stand against Mr Corbyn because Britain was in danger of becoming a “one-party Tory state” under his leadership. And excluding the leader who was the decisive choice of party members less than a year ago would be certain to provoke widespread outrage.
Mr Corbyn had been due to give a speech at the Unite conference in Brighton on Tuesday afternoon, but it was postponed until later in the week.
Corbyn said he was “disappointed” that Eagle was launching a challenge for his post and urged her to “think for a moment” about her actions.
“This is the responsibility of people who had never accepted Jeremy Corbyn’s victory previous year – they never accepted his overwhelming democratic mandate”.
Jeremy Corbyn sparked an internal party rift last month when he sacked Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn amid a rumoured leadership challenge in the wake of the European Union referendum.
At today’s Shadow Cabinet meeting, I understand there was an attempt to change the playing field ahead of this afternoon’s meeting.
He said: “If at the end of the day an election, somewhere, results in a different leader, so be it”. “We’ve seen Jeremy not do that job”.
Lucy Powell said backing from the membership base that installed the leader last September was “falling – and falling very quickly indeed”.
‘In such turbulent times, we need a leader who can unite rather than divide the Labour Party’.
“I am a person who brings people together, I don’t drive them apart. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think I would be a good prime minister for Britain”, Ms Eagle said.
Advertisement
Staff in The Office frown and Tim winces as the Labour leadership candidate asks for questions from journalists – only to find they’ve left the room.
