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Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn calls on Labour to offer a 'true alternative' to Tory austerity Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn says 'we can learn a great deal from Karl Marx'
(about 9 hours later)
Jeremy Corbyn has said he believes everyone “owes a lot to Marx” and that lawmakers can “learn a great deal” from him. The Labour hierarchy has rejected demands for its fractious leadership contest to be suspended following claims that large numbers of hard-left “infiltrators” and Tory mischief-makers have signed up with the common aim of  electing Jeremy Corbyn.
When asked if he considered himself a Marxist he said it was “an interesting question” and "he was a fascinating figure who observed a great deal and from whom we can learn a great deal. Amid mounting alarm within the party mainstream that the influx could tip the result in his direction, the Islington North MP said the rise in membership was prompted by the enthusiasm of young activists becoming engaged in politics.
"Marx analysed what was happening in a quite brilliant way. The philosophy around Marx is absolutely fascinating." Mr Corbyn sidestepped questions about whether he was a Marxist, but insisted he was not championing a “revolutionary” policy platform.
Speaking on BBC One’s Andrew Marr show on Sunday, the Labour leadership contender laid out his vision for the future of the party. Labour has gained 52,000 members since Ed Miliband’s election defeat, pushing the total above 250,000, while another 18,000 have paid £3 to become “registered supporters” with the right to vote while the unions have signed up 25,000 “affiliate members”.
Jeremy Corbyn has become the surprise success of the campaign with 103 local branches of the party giving him their support compared with 100 declared for Burham, 87 for Yvette Cooper and just 14 for Liz Kendall, the New Statesman reports. At the current rate, some 140,000 new activists could be entitled to vote on Mr Miliband’s successor by the registration deadline of 12 August.
Mr Corbyn has become the surprise success of the campaign with 103 local branches of the party giving him their support compared with 100 declared for Burham, 87 for Yvette Cooper and just 14 for Liz Kendall, the New Statesman reports.
A private poll seen by the Times last week suggested Corbyn was fifteen points ahead of his nearest rival and could win the leadership.A private poll seen by the Times last week suggested Corbyn was fifteen points ahead of his nearest rival and could win the leadership.
But Corbyn puts his success down to an influx of younger voters who are keen to see “a real alternative” to Tory austerity. Two senior MPs called for Harriet Harman, the party’s acting leader, to suspend the contest to enable careful checks to be carried out on the new members.
He said: “What it is about is converting the Labour party into much more of a social movement and an awful lot of people have joined the party since the election. We now have 200,000 more members and probably 50,000 signed up as supporters.  John Mann, the MP for Bassetlaw, said: “It is becoming a farce, with long-standing members... in danger of getting trumped by people who have opposed the Labour Party and want to break it up. Some of it is the militant tendency types coming back in.”
“They all want to do something, they want to change society.” Graham Stringer, the MP for Blackley and Broughton, said he feared Conservative activists were trying to influence the outcome. He told the BBC: “I am worried that people who do not have the interests of the Labour Party at heart are joining the Labour Party.”
Mr Corbyn, who has been MP for Islington North since 1983, said he wants to make Labour move closer to its roots, which were  “essentially democratic, essentially socialist and essentially community [based]”. A suspension was ruled out by a Labour spokeswoman who said the party had a “robust system to prevent fraudulent or malicious applications”.
The Observer has reported that supporters of the hard left MP have been “shocked at the momentum” and the level of support for the campaign but says it has struggled to keep up the number of volunteers. She said: “All applications are verified against the Electoral Register and any who are identified by our verification team or by local Labour branches as not sharing the aims or values of the Labour Party will be denied a vote.”
It comes as senior figures among campaigners of the other candidates have deployed an "Anything But Corbyn" strategy to halt his rise. Mr Corbyn played down the significance of the new arrivals in Labour ranks. He told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show: “The entryism I see is lots of young people who were hitherto not very excited by politics coming in for the first time.”
Andy Burnham warned in the Sunday Mirror that a Corbyn victory “runs the risk” of splitting Labour and reducing it to “a party of protest riven by factions”. Calling for the renationalisation of the railways and energy companies, he argued that Labour lost the election because it was “too close to big business” and “too close to economic orthodoxy”.
Andy Burnham has warned that the Labour party faces being a "pointless party of protest" if Jeremy Corbyn wins the leadership Pressed on whether he was a Marxist, he replied: “I haven’t thought about that for a long time.” He described Karl Marx as “a fascinating figure who observed a great deal and from whom we can learn a great deal”.
One Labour backbencher has even called on acting leader Harriet Harman to suspend the race entirely as he believes the party is being infiltrated by hard left activists purely to swing the race to Corbyn, according to the Sunday Times. Andy Burnham played down talk of infiltration (Getty Images) Andy Burnham, regarded as the leadership frontrunner before the surge in support for Mr Corbyn, said he did not believe there had been “wide-scale” infiltration.
The Bassetlaw MP, John Mann said the contest was “out of control”. “Let’s have a debate about the party’s future. It is engaging a lot of people and beginning to attract a lot of interest and that’s a good thing for the Labour Party,” the shadow Health Secretary told Sky News.
He said: “It should be halted. It is becoming a farce with longstanding members . . . in danger of getting trumped by people who have opposed the Labour party and want to break it up, expressly want to break it up — some of it is the Militant Tendency types coming back in”, he said. The former cabinet minister Alan Milburn said a Corbyn victory would mean “political oblivion” and a “decade or more in the political wilderness”, while the Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk described the prospect as “a nightmare”.
Other senior figures have warned that the party could split if Mr Corbyn emerges victorious on 12 September.
Karl Marx had a vision of a class struggle which leads to the overthrow of the capitalism and the creation of a socialist society – and much of his treatise, Das Kapital, was written just four miles from Mr Corbyn’s political backyard, in the British Library.
Asked how the writings influenced him, the Islington North MP replied: “Marx obviously analysed what was happening in a quite brilliant way. The philosophy around Marx is absolutely fascinating.
“Does it all apply now? Well obviously philosophy applies at all times. Do we then take that as a way in which we ensure that people have reasonable security in their lives through public ownership of the major monopolies?”
The leadership contender, who could not bring himself to say whether he was a Marxist, backs bringing the entire railway system into public ownership, as well as a “regulated publicly run service” delivering energy and water supplies.
He backs the redistribution of wealth through extra taxes on the wealthy and business, along with the creation of a national investment bank and scrapping tuition fees.