His campaign team said he was unable to find unreserved seats for his group, which included aide Emma Rees and his wife Laura Alvarez, s o he sat with other passengers in the corridor who were also unable to secure a seat.
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A video then emerged which showed Mr Corbyn sitting on the floor, reading a newspaper, and saying “this is a problem that many passengers face every day”, before calling for public ownership of the railways.
But Virgin Trains has released CCTV images which appear to show Mr Corbyn and his team walking past empty unreserved and reserved seats at 11.07am.
Mr Smith, who has the support of Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale to replace Jeremy Corbyn, said Labour has “too often looked far too London-centric”.
The train operator said the crew helped him to a coach where seats were available and that he sat down for the rest of his journey. Corbyn was filmed on the floor on his journey to Newcastle on 11 August while criticising Britain’s rail services.
The freaky row led to Virgin Trains’ communications department releasing a lengthy statement refuting Mr Corbyn’s claims, as well as CCTV images of the leader of the opposition as evidence that seating was available. The gesture gained substantial traction in the media and on social media, with Corbyn suggesting public ownership of the line to solve the capacity issue. It’s not the fault of the train staff who were, of course, “absolutely brilliant” being working people; it was the system that was wrong. The video showed him sitting on the floor of a train traveling from London to Newcastle for a hustings, claiming that he was unwilling to spend taxpayers’ money on an upgrade to first class.
And Peter Walker said: “Just spoken to passenger on Corbyn train who 100% backs his story”.
“The reality is there’s not enough trains – we need more of them – and they’re also incredibly expensive”.
Nearly 650,000 members of the party are eligible to vote in the election which has pitted current leader Corbyn against Owen Smith after Corbyn lost a no-confidence vote moved by his party’s MPs in June.
Dugdale’s comments prompted many of Corbyn supporters on Twitter to question whether the Scottish Labour leader had the credentials to speak out on how to win elections…
Although she said some members see Mr Corbyn as the party’s only hope to fight for Labour values like equality, Ms Onwurah said she believed he could not achieve the party’s key goals.
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Mr Corbyn was met with cheers as he said workers “in factories, in call centres, in local authorities” had ideas about how to change the economy, but were “frustrated that nobody is listening to them”.
