While Mr Corbyn attracts thousands to his rallies, Mr Smith attracts hundreds as was the case in Milton Keynes this week when around 250 people turned up to hear the 46-year-old speak at the Open University.
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Mr Corbyn is the frontrunner in the leadership contest involving fellow Labour MP Owen Smith, with Thursday’s speech an attempt to further his own vision following a series of policy announcements from his rival.
Across the rest of the south – full of the seats Labour needs to win to get back into government – just 14 per cent think Corbyn is best placed to be Prime Minister, with just 18 per cent saying the same in the Midlands and Wales. “I don’t think our leadership has been strong enough about stamping it out”, Smith said.
“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”. “Not radical in protesting against the Tories”. I will end up in the Labour Party that is at the heart of the Labour movement alongside our trade union colleagues; that’s where I am from and where I will always be.
In response to Smith, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said: “I’ve given my whole life to this party, there’s no way I am ever, ever going to allow this party to split”.
Corbyn, on the other hand, is the person who created a unified shadow cabinet in September 2015 with MPs from the left, right and centre of the party.
“Two million Labour voters are telling us they would rather have a Tory prime minister than a Labour government and that’s got to be a wake-up call to everyone in this party”, he said.
Looking at his challenger, Mr Corbyn responded: “You walked away”.
Mr Smith said the party is failing to provide “credible opposition” while Mr Corbyn was in charge as the men came to blows in Cardiff during a televised debate.
But Corbyn should not take too much solace from the favourable odds – his 2020 exit prediction coincides with the time when most bookmakers think the next UK General Election will happen, suggesting bookies think Corbyn will have no chance of winning when his party goes head to head with Theresa May’s Conservatives.
Both candidates spoke of the need for party unity, after Smith claimed Labour was “teetering on the edge of a precipice” and could split unless a new leader was put in place.
He added: “It’s a very precious thing to be elected to Parliament, it’s a very great responsibility to be elected as a Labour MP to represent our party, our movement and its values”. We are fighting like ferrets in a sack.
Corbyn said unilaterally giving up the weapons would encourage other countries to follow Britain’s lead, while Smith argued that renewing them gives the United Kingdom more leverage in disarmament negotiations. Nuclear weapons are the “ultimate weapon of mass destruction which indiscriminately kills” Mr Corbyn claimed.
But it has become a bitter fight, and local party meetings have been banned during the leadership contest due to allegations of intimidation, mainly levelled against Corbyn’s supporters.
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Mr Corbyn’s call on the day after the poll for the withdrawal process to begin immediately had effectively “allied ourselves to the Tories” he said.
