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Labour leadership: Jeremy Corbyn given unassailable lead ahead of Andy Burnham

They are asked to confirm they “support the aims and values of the Labour Party”.

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Former Labour cabinet minister Peter Hain said he had switched his support from Mr Burnham to Ms Cooper.

These are people who are going to vote Red anyway, what the party needs to be doing is winning members of the electorate who chose Conservative, the Liberal Democrats or UKIP at the last election.

Mr Hain’s call comes after an opinion poll suggested left-wing MP Mr Corbyn will romp to victory in Labour’s leadership contest.

“Everything is seen through the prism of what the poll apparently says, rather than us drawing our own conclusions about what’s going on, talking to voters and understanding what really matters …” That means no first preferences, no second preferences, no any preferences. Yvette Cooper took 16% of the London vote, Liz Kendall 12% and Andy Burnham just 11%.

Ballot papers will be sent out from Friday.

Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair warned it would be impossible to win an election from a “traditional leftist platform”, while his ex-communications chief Alastair Campbell said a victory for Mr Corbyn would be a “car crash” and urged supporters to vote for “anyone but Corbyn“.

An additional 70,000 registered supporters, who each paid £3, and 92,000 affiliated supporters from trade unions and other groups with links to Labour, will make up the rest of the electorate.

He added: “If he fails to win, many of those who helped him get close to it will feel they can just keep on playing the politics of opposition against whoever beats him, and use their new found influence in the party to take that person out”.

“Corbyn’s odds have collapsed from 100/1 to 1/2 in the space of a few weeks”, Ladbrokes’ head of political odds, Matthew Shaddick, said in an e-mailed statement.

“If they choose somebody as leader that the others don’t like, well, I think they have to accept there’s a democratic process”, he said.

Labour insists that it has “robust” systems in place to prevent “fraudulent or malicious” applications.

Speaking in a video message to accompany the manifesto launch, Mr Burnham said: “It’s a proud moment because I’ve been working on this for a long time, this is me and this is what I believe in”.

However, Labour deputy leadership contender Tom Watson has told the BBC that critics of Mr Corbyn should keep quiet.

The results of the party’s leadership election will be revealed September 12.

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Tonight, Rochdale’s Labour MP Simon Danczuk said: “Having seen the list in relation to Rochdale and hearing the horror stories from around the country in terms of entryism within the Labour party, I do think we’re moving to a position where the election probably isn’t tenable”.

Jeremy Corbyn in London yesterday at an event marking the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb