After reports dissenting MPs are preparing to elect their own leader and launch a legal challenge for the party’s name and assets if Owen Smith fails to win the top job, Mr Corbyn insisted they would never be able to take the Labour name.
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The case had been brought by Michael Foster, a former parliamentary candidate and party donor, whose counsel argued that Corbyn should be forced to sign up the required number of nominations in order to stand.
Following the ruling, the contest for the Labour leadership will proceed as a two-man contest between incumbent leader Mr Corbyn and challenger Owen Smith.
And speaking earlier today, Mr Corbyn said: ‘We are getting into some fairly weird territory here where unnamed MPs, funded from unnamed sources, are apparently trying to challenge – via the Daily Telegraph – the very existence of this party.
“[Mr Foster] has been very generous in the way he has offered financial support to the party in the past. but it is disappointing that somebody appears to think they are bigger than the party”, he said.
Labour’s Great Grimsby constituency has nominated Owen Smith to be the next party leader.
“At the end of this we’ll unite behind the leader to defeat the Tories”.
Mr Smith, who was at a rally in Liverpool on Saturday, said he anxious about a split if Mr Corbyn won.
A source close to the Labour leader said the MP for Islington North would attend the official hustings arranged by the Labour party’s national executive committee, but that they withheld the right to reject additional events proposed by media organisations, even if Labour HQ had agreed to them.
Party activists in Hull have criticised the city MPs for failing to support Mr Corbyn’s leadership, claiming the democratic will of the party is not being respected, and hundreds turned out for a rally in support of the leader following the resignations.
The Pontypridd MP said he was standing to prevent such a split from occurring, as Labour needed to act as “really powerful opposition” to this “rotten government”.
“This leadership election should be about the candidates debating their visions for the future of Labour and the country”.
She also sought assurances he would engage in such events before the result of the contest is announced on September 24.
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“Labour are so weak and the Liberal Democrats are not coming back yet, so it is hard not to see them getting a comfortable majority of up to 50 or 60”.
