Jeremy Corbyn victory still not assured as voting closes amid chaos in Labour leadership election
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Version 0 of 1. Labour members have just a few hours left to vote for their next leader – and despite going from rank outsider to clear favourite, Jeremy Corbyn is far from guaranteed to succeed Ed Miliband. Polls will close at midday on Thursday, and the party continued to face criticism yesterday as a campaign dogged by accusations of shoddy management came to an end. Members continued to receive new ballot papers after complaining to party headquarters, and Andy Burnham’s campaign manager Michael Dugher said it was “unbelievable” UKLabour had closed its advice call centre with the chaos still going on. Corbyn remains the bookmakers’ firm favourite to emerge victorious when the new leader is announced during a special conference late on Saturday morning, with either Burnham or Yvette Cooper second and Liz Kendall in last place. But Corbyn’s bid could still be derailed by the Alternative Vote system which, instead of asking members simply to name their favourite, requires they list the candidates in order of preference. If the divisive left-winger takes more than 50 per cent of first preferences he will take the contest. But anything less, and members’ other preferences come into play. At that point, those who selected the candidate in fourth place – likely to be Liz Kendall – will have their second choice votes redistributed. The process is repeated until a clear winner emerges, and since Corbyn is not expected to receive many second-choice picks, it is at this point that another candidate could still sneak in. If he is still elected, Corbyn’s dramatic rise to power would be part of the lasting legacy of the Miliband years. The vote is the first to be held under a one-person one-vote system introduced in 2014 as part of reforms to reduce the influence of the unions. It has had the additional effect of dramatically reducing the power of Labour MPs to decide their next leader – where once they controlled a third of the vote as part of an electoral college. Only around 20 of the party’s 232 MPs openly support the man who is expected to be their leader come Saturday afternoon. Last night, speaking to the New Statesman magazine, George Osborne said that the chaos of the leadership campaign showed a generation of work moving Labour towards the centre of British politics had “unravelled in the space of 12 months”. Mr Osborne said he had “looked on in complete astonishment” during the contest as “the whole of the Labour Party moves leftwards, abandoning the centre, and I think therefore abandoning the working people of this country”. The Chancellor is widely regarded as most likely to be Conservative leader in the 2020 general election, throwing up the prospect of future clashes with Corbyn across the Commons. And getting in an early shot, he said his potential future adversary’s policies were “a real risk to Britain’s security were they ever to have the chance to be put into practice”. He said: “There's no doubt ideas like abandoning Britain's nuclear deterrent at a time when, frankly, more and more countries are trying to acquire nuclear weapons, or some of the things that have been said about terrorist organisations like Hamas, are deeply unpalatable. “I don't think they represent the views of the British people. But we don't regard what is being said in the Labour leadership contest as a joke. We take it deadly seriously.” Additional reporting by agencies |