I can’t win: Yvette set to ditch bid for Labour leadership
YVETTE Cooper is set to pull out of the race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn amid fears she cannot win.
Miss Cooper, who refused to serve in Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, said last month she would ‘decide over Christmas’ whether to make a second bid for the leadership.
At the weekend the former cabinet minister fuelled speculation she would run by penning a newspaper article warning Labour must resist ‘pressure to be a factional or narrow hard-Left party’.
But one friend last night told the Mail that Miss Cooper was likely to withdraw as she feared being punished by Mr Corbyn’s army of fanatical supporters for failing to support him in office.
The friend said: ‘From the way Yvette is talking, she is not going to stand. The way the party is now, it is going to be very difficult for anyone who has criticised the Dear Leader, as she has. It’s ridiculous when he’s just lost us another election. It’s also a crying shame. Yvette is one of the few grown-ups we’ve got left – she’s probably our best chance.’
Miss Cooper’s office last night declined to comment. In the 2015 leadership contest she came third. But her 17 per cent vote share was far behind Mr Corbyn’s 59.5 per cent.
Although she has impressed moderates in her role as chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, she alienated Left-wingers by refusing to serve in the shadow cabinet and backed Owen Smith in the 2016 leadership contest that followed the botched coup against Mr Corbyn.
She also suffered a setback last month when the majority in her pro-Leave Yorkshire constituency was slashed from 14,499 to just 1,762. Meanwhile, Labour chairman Ian Lavery yesterday dropped the heaviest hint yet that he will challenge for the leadership despite masterminding an election campaign that led to the party’s worst result since 1935.
Mr Lavery said it was ‘ridiculous’ to suggest Labour’s ruinously expensive policies were to blame for the defeat. And he warned against a
‘One of our few grown-ups’
return to ‘bland centrism’. Writing in the Daily Mirror, Mr Lavery said Brexit played a key role in Labour’s defeat. The former president of the National Union of Mineworkers added: ‘It seems ridiculous having to point out it was not our policies that led to defeat. For some, that would be a neat conclusion allowing them to return to a bland centrism of 2015. But it isn’t true.’
He insisted: ‘Labour lost because of our Brexit position, in-fighting, a collapse of industry in our communities and a lack of trust in our ability to deliver. Talk of a second referendum was seen by many as a way to foist Remain upon them. Communities represented by Labour for generations felt abandoned.’
Mr Lavery also warned that Labour could be finished as an electoral force if it responded the wrong way to defeat, saying the party did not have ‘ a divine right to exist’. Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee will meet next week to agree the rules for the contest to succeed Mr Corbyn.
Shadow business secretary Rebecca Long Bailey has been groomed by Mr Corbyn’s allies as the ‘continuity’ candidate, but even supporters say she lacks charisma.
She will face a challenge from fellow frontbencher Clive Lewis, who wants to take the party further to the Left, and potentially from Mr Lavery. Other expected contenders are shadow ministers Sir Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry, Wigan MP Lisa Nandy and outspoken maverick Jess Phillips.