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Gordon Brown to speak on Labour leadership as MPs panic over Corbyn Gordon Brown to speak on Labour leadership as MPs panic over Corbyn
(about 2 hours later)
Gordon Brown will break his silence on the Labour leadership contest this weekend after a string of senior figures from Tony Blair to Alan Johnson warned that electing the frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn could split the party. Gordon Brown will break his silence on the Labour leadership contest this weekend, as frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn was further boosted by a survey suggesting he has more appeal for the wider electorate than many of his critics claim.
The former prime minister will give a speech about the future of the Labour party at the Southbank Centre in London on Sunday, as the first ballot papers arrive on the doormats and in the email inboxes of up to 610,000 members and supporters. The former prime minister will give a speech about the future of the Labour party in London on Sunday, as the first ballot papers arrive for up to 610,000 members and supporters in the dramatic contest.
Brown has not pronounced on his choice of leader, but the title of the event – Power for a Purpose – hints that he could echo arguments from other party figures that Labour needs to elect a leader with the best chance of removing the Conservatives from power in 2020. Brown is staging his intervention after warnings that Corbyn would be electorally disastrous from senior figures including Tony Blair, Alan Johnson, Jack Straw, and Alistair Campbell, which have failed to dent Corbyn’s status as the favourite to win.
Related: Andy Burnham says Jeremy Corbyn vote will make Labour 'party of protest' He is not at this point expected to pronounce on his choice of leader, but the title of the event – Power for a Purpose – hints that he could echo arguments from other party figures that Labour needs to elect a leader with the best chance of removing the Conservatives from power in 2020.
The speech has the same name as an essay written by Blair in 1995setting out his vision for New Labour, two years before he won powerfrom the Conservatives. However, a poll conducted by Survation suggests Corbyn was rated the highest when 1,000 people were asked about the candidates’ personal qualities and which would be best at holding the government to account as leader of the opposition. He scored highest on a range of questions with the wider electorate, faring particularly well among Ukip supporters as well as those from his own party.
Panic has been mounting in the party establishment about a Corbyn victory, after a YouGov poll showed the leftwing backbencher’s support as high as 53%. All three of Corbyn’s rival candidates have intensified their criticism of his policies over the last two days, having initially held back over fears it would appear they were ganging up against him.
Labour MPs – most of whom do not back Corbyn – have been pushing for an intervention from Brown, whom they believe may have more sway over members and supporters than Blair. Burnham has appealed for a “silent majority” to reject Corbyn’s politics as Burnham’s camp said their data shows the gap between him and the leading candidate is much smaller than previous polls suggested. The shadow health secretary singled out Corbyn’s plans to nationalise the energy sector and create an entirely free education system as two policies that were unrealistic.
Some are also keen for Ed Miliband to speak out against Corbyn, but he is understood to be abroad. One of Miliband’s closest advisers, Tom Baldwin, wrote in the FT this week that something could be learned from the way Corbyn has engaged people in politics but he also warned that if the party elects him it “will push Labour further away from an electorate that concluded three months ago we lacked economic credibility and were out of touch”. Earlier, Kendall said that choosing Corbyn would be tantamount to submitting “our resignation letter to the British people as a serious party of government”, while Cooper was the first to deliver a detailed critique of Corbyn’s positions on Thursday over his plans to bring back coalmines and print money to pay for infrastructure investment.
Throughout the various attacks on his candidacy, Corbyn has calmly rebuffed the dire warnings, saying he does not get involved in responding to such attacks.Throughout the various attacks on his candidacy, Corbyn has calmly rebuffed the dire warnings, saying he does not get involved in responding to such attacks.
He said on Thursday: “We’re the one putting forward ideas, so I don’t do personal, I don’t do reaction, I don’t do abuse … I think we should try and enhance the democratic life of this country, not reduce it to that level.” At a rally in Edinburgh on Friday, where he received a rapturous reception, Corbyn said: “People are totally and absolutely and completely turned off by the politics of celebrity, personality, name calling, abuse and all that kind of behaviour, so I’m not really very bothered about what anybody says about anybody in our campaign, including me. We are not responding, we are not dealing with that level of politics.”
He continued: “Can we please – and I say this to everyone – just talk about the issues that people are facing: the poverty levels, the inequality levels, the health problems, the way in which austerity is impacting on the lives of the most vulnerable in society? That is what’s most important.” Addressing criticism of his policies, 28 university professors wrote to the Guardian on Friday endorsing Corbyn, and arguing that “rather than a backward looking ‘old Labour’ approach to politics, this is about recognising the inspiring possibilities for a fairer and more equal society offered by an information economy in an interdependent world”.
Burnham, Cooper and Kendall have all now critiqued his policies, having initially held back over fears it would look like they were ganging up against him. Panic has been mounting in much of the parliamentary party and Labour hierarchy about a Corbyn victory, after a YouGov poll showed the leftwing backbencher’s support as high as 53%.
Burnham has appealed for a “silent majority” to reject Corbyn’s politics as his camp said their data shows the gap between him and the leading candidate is much smaller than previous polls suggested. Labour MPs – most of whom do not back Corbyn – have been pushing for an intervention from Brown, who they believe may have more sway over members and supporters than Blair.
The shadow health secretary singled out Corbyn’s plans to nationalise the energy sector and abolish student fees as two policies that were unrealistic. Related: Poll puts Jeremy Corbyn on course for leadership victory – should we trust it?
Earlier, Kendall said that choosing Corbyn would be tantamount to submitting “our resignation letter to the British people as a serious party of government”. There was also a blistering intervention from John Woodcock, chairman of Progress, the group which describes itself as “Labour’s new mainstream”. He urged his colleagues that they must be “passionately intolerant of the self-indulgence of the new Bennites masquerading as evangelists of a new politics”. He also hit out at those who appear to think questioning why the Tories were more popular at the election is actively wicked, calling this the “flawed logic of the cult”.
Cooper, the shadow home secretary, was the first to deliver a detailed critique of Corbyn’s positions on Thursday over his plans to bring back coalmines and print money to pay for infrastructure investment. Two frontbenchers supporting Liz Kendall, Tristram Hunt and Chuka Umunna, have begun to mobilise parliamentary colleagues, writing privately to some Labour MPs asking them to meet four days before the result is due out and making a case that more rigorous political thinking needs to be done by moderates in the party. The group has been dubbed “the resistance” by one MP.
Some MPs are also keen for Ed Miliband to speak out against Corbyn, but the former Labour leader is understood to be abroad.
One of Miliband’s closest advisers, Tom Baldwin, wrote in the Financial Times this week that something could be learned from the way Corbyn has engaged people in politics, but he also warned that if the party elects him it “will push Labour further away from an electorate that concluded three months ago we lacked economic credibility and were out of touch”.
However, in the Survation poll, in which people were shown short video clips of the candidates, Corbyn scored the highest for seeming in touch with ordinary people at 57%, trustworthy at 40%, intelligent at 79%, and most likely to fare the best in a television debate against David Cameron at 33%. Burnham scored highest for seeming tough at 43%, and Kendall for seeming normal at 69%.Asked whether the candidate would make them more or less likely to votefor the Labour party, a net 32% said yes to Corbyn, compared with 25%for Burnham, 22% for Kendall and 20% for Cooper.
Among Ukip voters, 39% of them liked Corbyn the most – higher than the 38% of Labour voters for whom he also topped the poll. But just 22% of Conservatives liked him, compared with 25% who liked Burnham.
When asked who would make the best prime minister, Burnham was narrowly ahead with 25% against 24% for Corbyn, and when asked who would be most likely to win the next general election as Labour leader, the two were tied on 26%.
The two female candidates, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall, were trailing the men on the vast majority of questions asked.
Survation said its results on the face of it do not bear out arguments from senior Labour figures that either Corbyn or his policies would be deeply unpopular with the country.
The other camps and non-Corbyn supporters are likely to point out that it needs treating with some caution, given voters who support other parties could have various motives for saying they like or dislike Corbyn.
The polling was commissioned by the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) union and carried out this week, but Survation said it was completely independent and followed the same online methodology as on previous occasions when it has conducted polls on the Labour leadership for the Mail on Sunday.
Responding to the survey, a spokeswoman for the Corbyn campaign said they do not usually comment on polls but this one, along with a another by YouGov, points to an “emerging, clear fact – that Jeremy Corbyn reaches voters beyond Labour’s existing vote, and that he has a strong electability factor based on his ability to take on David Cameron and stand up for ordinary people”.
“These polls show the value of leadership – straight-talking politics that give people hope and a real sense that winning with a better kind of politics is possible,” she said.