Her comments come ahead of a court of appeal ruling on whether tens of thousands of new members of the Labour party will have the right to vote in the forthcoming leadership election between Corbyn and Owen Smith.
Advertisement
Mr Smith told him “I would absolutely want you to be in the shadow cabinet if I was leader”.
But a “fact” that Mr Corbyn had taken Labour to being “neck and neck in the polls” was hotly disputed today amid analysis of consistent Conservative leads.
“What’s been disappointing since is that, having not made the effort we should have made, Jeremy’s been 10 out of 10 when it comes to leaving Europe”.
While Jeremy Corbyn shares the prime minister’s view that “Brexit means Brexit” and called for cooperation with socialist partners across Europe to ensure the protection of workers’ rights and environmental protections, and to maintain access to European markets for British goods.
“We need a Labour government once more”, said Mr Smith.
Mr Corbyn said that was “genuinely disappointing to me” as he had been pleased when Mr Smith became shadow work and pensions secretary previous year: “I would’ve thought you would want to continue that kind of work”. “I’ll do what I always did, vote Labour”.
The Unite verdict this week prompted disappointment from members including Labour MP Jess Phillips and Smith campaign operations chief John Lehal. But I would serve this party on the backbenches loyally.
“For these reasons I can not vote for Jeremy”.
Mr Corbyn responded saying he was “saddened” by the vote and he did not want the United Kingdom to be a “bargain basement’ island with low taxes and low workers rights”.
The Gateshead audience was strongly pro-Corbyn, at times booing Mr Smith and cheering Mr Corbyn loudly, particularly when he said: “Owen, we’ve recruited 300,000 people to the party”. “I don’t want to be engaged in a protest movement talking to itself”.
Corbyn’s refusal to step down prompted the leadership contest, which he on Thursday suggested was to blame for Labour’s dire performance in polls by YouGov. “And that has had an effect, we’ve had victories in Parliament, we’ve had election victories in by-elections, council elections and mayoral elections and our party has to adapt to a new way of working, we are now such a large organisation we’ve got to be and should be and must be involved in every single community in this country”.
They said the European Union referendum was a “completely different type of campaign”, adding: “Jeremy did the bulk of the events, but the Labour In campaign had to balance a mixture of visits with different voices in the Labour party”.
Labour MPs backed a motion of no-confidence in Mr Corbyn’s leadership by 172 to 40 on 28 June, saying he could not win a general election.
Advertisement
Neale Coleman, who worked for Mr Corbyn until January, said failure to support leadership challenger Owen Smith would result in Labour’s greatest electoral defeat since 1931 – where Labour won 52 seats, 225 fewer than in 1929.
