The Labour Party lacks the courage and big ideas to win back lost voters, MP Andy Burnham, a frontrunner to become the party’s new leader, will say on Tuesday as Labour battles to define its political identity after a painful election defeat.
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According to the findings of Britain’s most respected opinion pollster Professor John Curtice – who more or less predicted the outcome of the 2015 election – Labour didn’t lose for being too left wing and moving away from the “social democracy” of Blair, they were outflanked and ousted from Scotland for being too right wing.
“Their choice shows a clear need for change towards a fairer society where work is fairly rewarded, and where those living and working in poverty supported”.
The Sun’s deputy political editor Steve Hawkes has called the move a “huge development”, tweeting that Yvette Cooper’s campaign “will be stunned”.
More than 20,000 new full members have joined the party since the leadership nominations closed, and interim Labour leader Harriet Harman has said “rigorous due diligence” is being undertaken to ensure only genuine supporters will get a vote, after the party was hit with claims that the process is open to manipulation by bogus applicants.
In a further boost for the Corbyn campaign, he won the backing of Unison, while Ms Cooper was its second choice. While proclaimed as a means of keeping Labour in touch with public sentiment, its real objective was to remove the party leadership from any semblance of control by its dwindling rank-and-file.
“What our members are telling us is that they are yearning for a different style of politics from Labour and a break with the bad habits of the past”, he will say.
The BBC’s Norman Smith said: “The Corbyn bandwagon rolls on”.
But it is seen as a blow to Andy Burnham, who had hoped for union backing for his campaign. The decision was taken by Unison’s 23-strong National Labour Link Committee “following a thorough consultation with all the regions”, it said.
The Telegraph reported, “Senior Labour MPs are plotting to oust Jeremy Corbyn if he is elected party leader”, with “shadow cabinet sources” telling the newspaper that a “coup could be launched within days of the result” on September 12.
The leaders of the country’s biggest union said that Mr Corbyn was the candidate whose policies are most closely aligned to the union. Today’s four- and five-year-olds could have to spend their childhood under a Tory government if we are not determined and ready to win again.
The relatively pedestrian contest was electrified last week when the Times published a YouGov poll placing Corbyn in the lead on first preference votes on 43%, ahead of Burnham on 26%, Cooper on 20% and Kendall on 11%. Under the rules, anyone can vote in the leadership contest if they pay £3 and sign, or make a verbal agreement to support, a commitment to support Labour values.
But it’s the candidate of the left,
Jeremy Corbyn,
who looks set to benefit most. Once second preferences were taken into account, she was behind only by 49% to 51%.
The union’s declaration was made after Ms Cooper and Mr Burnham warned party members they risk consigning the party to years in opposition if they choose Mr Corbyn as successor to Ed Miliband.
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She said: “I don’t think we want to go back to the 1980s and just be a protest movement”.
