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Owen Smith’s attacks on Jeremy Corbyn are going into overdrive

Corbyn, who is entering the final stretch of the Labour leadership race with polls showing he continues to enjoy a healthy lead over rival Owen Smith, will today launch the new environment manifesto at an event in Nottingham.

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Smith, the former shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, has refused to return to the shadow Cabinet if Corbyn is re-elected and has also offered the veteran left-winger the position of party president or chairman if he manages to unseat him.

But the Labour MP Clive Betts has tabled a motion for debate at the PLP meeting on Monday night proposing their return.

Mr Corbyn opened the pair’s exchanges by warning that the average house price in Britain is £215,000 – more than eight times the average wage.

Labour has become increasingly divided on Jeremy’s watch and the people around him, like John McDonnell, appear content with seeing the party split.

Meanwhile, Mr Smith warned that the re-election of Mr Corbyn could leave a generation without their own home. In the end, they did so with just 37 per cent of the vote.

Corbyn hit back, criticising Smith’s attacks as unfair.

“Jeremy Corbyn says he condemns attacks on Labour Party staff, saying they should not be used as a “political football”. They are now as divided as his Labour Party”.

The majority (1,683) were blocked from voting by panels of the party’s national executive committee, which deals with cases referred to it.

A party spokeswoman said Labour had “a robust validation process for all votes in this year’s leadership contest to ensure every vote cast is eligible according to the party’s rules and agreed procedures”.

“However wishful thinking doesn’t generate the power we need to heat homes, keep the lights on and the economy functioning; this means that until there are technological breakthroughs in carbon capture or solar storage then gas and nuclear power are the only reliable, low-carbon shows in town for all those days when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow”.

But the Owen Smith campaign dismissed the numbers as a “blind assertion”.

“Our campaign has set out a positive vision to rebuild and transform Britain”.

He said he criticised the EU’s attempt to impose privatisation but argued that he still wanted access to the single market.

The new Prime Minister faced Mr Corbyn across the dispatch box for just the second time on Wednesday.

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His comments come after his aides suggested on Wednesday that he might rule out full membership of the single market unless the United Kingdom could negotiate exemptions from key European Union rules.

BBC Question Time with Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith