While the two contenders echoed each other’s sentiments on curtailing bankers’ bonuses, tackling tax evasion and investing billions in infrastructure, they clashed on the renewal of Trident.
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Incumbent leader Mr Corbyn was not required to secure nominations to take part in the contest, following a ruling by the party’s National Executive Committee. Nuclear weapons are the “ultimate weapon of mass destruction which indiscriminately kills” Mr Corbyn claimed.
Smith told Corbyn: “We are 14% behind the Tories under Theresa May”.
“You knew we had a no confidence vote in you coming that evening and you knew that many of my colleagues who didn’t ring me and ask me to resign, had resigned that Sunday”.
Earlier, Mr Smith warned that victory for Mr Corbyn could spell the end for Labour, telling the Guardian: “We are teetering on the edge of a precipice here”.
Challenged on why he resigned as shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, he said: ‘Because I don’t think you’re going to be able to deliver it. I don’t think we can win, Jeremy, at the moment. “We’ve got to win in order to get this stuff done, otherwise it’s just hot air”.
Mr Smith said he led the Labour opposition to disability cuts, adding: “I know how to fight these Tories and I know how to win”.
Elsewhere, Mr Corbyn conceded he had been hasty in calling for Article 50 – the formal process for leaving the European Union – to be triggered the day the United Kingdom voted to leave the bloc.
Accusing Labour rebels of “silly, childish behaviour”, he said the party’s MPs must work together to defeat the Tories.
It is clear that Mr Smith, who is relatively unknown outside the Parliamentary Labour Party, has the most to gain from the televised debates.
But speaking to The Independent, 71-year-old Julie Williams, a Labour Party member in the audience, said she was unsure who to vote for before the debate.
Ballot papers will be sent out to Labour Party members later this month.
“You can say there was only 150 people there, but that’s a pretty good number of people for a private, political meeting”.
The first Labour leadership debate has been dominated by shouting and booing in a feisty showdown between the two candidates.
The next head-to-head debates will be in Gateshead on Thursday August 11, Nottinghamshire on August 17, Birmingham on August 18, Glasgow on August 25 and London on September 1.
Sparking cheers, he challenged Mr Smith: “What I don’t understand is how you can complain about disunity in the party when you and others are the ones who resigned from the shadow cabinet at the very point when we could have taken it to them”.
“I thought Owen set out very clearly, very credible policies that he has”.
The latest opinion polls make uncomfortable reading, with one by ICM putting the Conservatives 16 points ahead, while a YouGov survey found 29 percent of Labour voters would prefer May to Corbyn as prime minister. He is one of the most ambitious career politicians I have met. I think we have moved on from that style of politics. “The vast majority who voted Jeremy a year ago are undecided”.
Mr Smith called for greater leadership in clamping down on incidents of anti-Semitism, while Mr Corbyn reiterated his opposition to the issue and said a lot of the allegations “predate my leadership”.
The battle for control of the party has exposed long-standing fault lines in Labour over whether to position itself to the left or centre-left of British politics, and led to fears that it could even split.
Mr McDonnell also repeated his calls from Mr Smith to denounce the threats of a split.
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The leadership contest has been soured by reports of bullying and intimidation with the Wallasey Labour Party suspended pending an investigation.
