30,000 sign up to boost Starmer leadership bid
THE battle for the Labour leadership intensified last night amid claims that Gordon Brown is spearheading Sir Keir Starmer’s campaign to prise the party from the grip of the hard-Left.
According to rivals, the former prime minister has been rallying round Sir Keir and sounding out wavering MPs.
The Shadow Brexit Secretary is hotly tipped to stand in the Labour leadership race.
Favourite
He had his hopes of success bolstered yesterday after a surge in new party applicants since the election.
Insiders say the 30,000 people who have signed up in the past week are mostly moderate Remainers who support Sir Keir.
The news comes as Mr Brown’s former aide John Healey lashed out at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, accusing him of ignoring many British voters by concentrating solely on the “poorest” people.
So far, only Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry and Shadow Treasury Minister Clive Lewis have said they will enter the race to replace Jeremy Corbyn as leader.
But Yvette Cooper, chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, is said to be considering it, as is Tottenham MP David Lammy.
Shadow Business Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey is the current favourite, but she was yesterday accused of telling “tall tales” about her working-class youth in Manchester.
The Corbynite has repeatedly said her political outlook was shaped by watching her father worry about losing his job at Salford docks.
But Ms Long-Bailey, 40, was just two when the docks closed in 1982.
As a result, a former docker said it was “impossible” for her to have seen the process of de-industrialisation.
Backlash
Ms Long-Bailey has faced a backlash for appointing self-declared Stalinist Alex Halligan as her campaign manager.
It has also been revealed that Labour activist Jon Lansman, the chairman of pro-Corbyn group Momentum, has been informally advising Ms Long-Bailey.