Since then, Hull West and Hessle MP Alan Johnson has criticised Mr Corbyn’s leadership as “risible” and MPs at Westminster have criticised the party leader as lacking the qualities to lead the party and or being unable to come up with policies to challenge the Tories outside of anti-austerity slogans.
Advertisement
Leader of Reading Borough Council Jo Lovelock and her deputy Tony Page head the list of Owen Smith supporters.
What’s the truth of the matter?
However, these plans depend above all on the fact that Corbyn, his main ally Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and their supporters, have done nothing to seriously challenge the right wing.
Mrs Hodgson has cited Mr Corbyn’s “lacklustre” handling of the European Union referendum campaign as a key reason for her loss of confidence in his leadership and insists he isn’t “up for the job”.
He previously criticized George Osborne’s decision to raise the inheritance tax threshold announced in the 2015 Summer Budget, and called for the tax to be “graded” to target the richest homeowners.
The debate has become so poisonous that most local party meetings have been suspended and Labour lawmakers say they have faced abuse ranging from rape threats to vandalised cars.
“I have to carry around a thing that I can press so the police can find me”, Labour lawmaker Jess Phillips told Reuters. I hope that in future the i can remain true to its predecessor’s name and offer a more independent and impartial view of these leadership campaigns than the rest of the mainstream media.
Ms Eagle said it was “extraordinarily disingenuous” for Mr Corbyn’s team to “cloak Jeremy in the mantle of feminism by saying that we have to be sensitive about our use of language, especially around women MPs”.
On one side are hundreds of thousands of vocal grassroots loyalists who are fiercely protective of Corbyn’s left-wing principles. The issue is not the transformation of Labour into a “social movement”, but for the working class to adopt a genuinely socialist and internationalist programme, which the Socialist Equality Party alone fights for.
“And that’s probably why I lost the last leadership election”.
What else does Owen Smith stand for?
If you take a look at the Saving Labour pamphlets being handed out up and down the country, they say “Labour needs a fresh start and new leadership” – language which implies a new direction for the party.
Thanking the union for its support, Mr Corbyn said it was “time to end rip-off Britain”.
Advertisement
Unlike Mr Corbyn, Owen Smith is against scrapping the Trident nuclear deterrent.
