Corbyn calls for party unity to take on Tories
JEREMY CORBYN has issued a plea to Labour MPs to unite behind him once the leadership election is over. Launching his campaign to see off a challenge from former Shadow Cabinet Minister and Pontypridd MP Owen Smith, the Labour leader said that after the election result is declared on September 24, it will be “the job, the duty, the responsibility” of every Labour MP to “get behind the party” and take on the Conservative Government.
Mr Corbyn is favourite to win the postal ballot of Labour’s members. But he said that Mr Smith would be “very welcome” to rejoin the Shadow Cabinet, which he quit along with many other frontbenchers in the wake of the EU referendum in June.
“Owen Smith was in the Shadow Cabinet until two weeks ago and he came to see me to say he was very happy in the Shadow Cabinet and wanted to stay there and then left the meeting and resigned which was a slightly odd thing to do,” said the Labour leader.
“But of course he is very welcome to come back.”
LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday claimed that leadership challenger Owen Smith told him he was happy in the Shadow Cabinet and wanted to remain there before going out and announcing his resignation.
Speaking at the launch of his campaign to hold on to the leadership, Mr Corbyn gave his account of a meeting with Pontypridd MP Mr Smith before he resigned.
This came as he offered the “hand of friendship” to rebellious MPs but confirmed they could face re-selection contests ahead of the 2020 general election.
When asked if Mr Smith would have a place in his Shadow Cabinet, Mr Corbyn said: “Well, Owen Smith was in the Shadow Cabinet until two weeks ago. And he came to see me to say he was very happy in the Shadow Cabinet and he wanted to stay there, and then left the meeting and resigned, which was a slightly odd thing to do.
“Of course, he’s very welcome to come back and I hope he would.”
A spokesman for Mr Smith’s campaign gave its account of the meeting which preceded his June 27 resignation.
He said: “While still members of the Shadow Cabinet Owen Smith, Lisa Nandy, John Healey, Nia Griffith and Kate Green met with Jeremy to discuss the future of the party.
“They had hoped to leave that meeting with the confidence to continue to support the leadership in bringing the Labour Party together from within the Shadow Cabinet.
“During the course of the meeting it became apparent that this would not be possible. At the end of the meeting it was clear that Jeremy Corbyn would not and could not respond to their concerns with a concrete plan and commitment to unite the party.
“It was evident they were not happy with Jeremy’s response and proposals. Immediately following this meeting they resigned.”
Mr Smith used a BBC interview to blame Mr Corbyn for Labour’s fall in support in the May Assembly elections, saying: “For us to almost lose Blaenau Gwent, for us to lose the Rhondda, these were hammer blows to the Labour Party and that’s something Jeremy Corbyn needed to respond to, but he’s been poor at taking Labour’s case to the Tories in Westminster and he’s not been successful in going beyond slogans.”
He also outlined plans to give First Minister Carwyn Jones a role in decision-making, saying that he would have the Welsh Labour leader sitting “alongside other leaders from metropolitan bits of England and the leader in Scotland, sitting regularly in effectively a regional shadow, national Shadow Cabinet to make big decisions, to think about defence, economic areas where there isn’t responsibility held in Wales but where there is clear interest in Wales, or in Scotland, in those decisions”.
Mr Corbyn used his campaign launch to state that after the result is declared on September 24 it will be “the job, the duty, the responsibility” of every Labour MP to “get behind the party” and take on the Conservative government.
When given the chance to rule out mandatory re-selection of candidates ahead of the 2020 election, Mr Corbyn said there would be a “full selection process in every constituency” as a result of the redrawing of the electoral map that is expected to take place as part of the Conservative government’s commitment to reduce the number of seats from 650 to 600.
This could reduce the number of Welsh MPs from 40 to just 29.
“If this parliament runs to the full term, then the new boundaries will be the basis on which the elections take place and in that case there would be a full selection process in every constituency,” Mr Corbyn said. “But the sitting MP for any part or any substantial part of the new boundary would have the opportunity to put their name forward so there will be a full and open selection process for every Constituency Labour Party in the UK.”
Owen Smith responded by telling the BBC it is “not much of an employer that says, you know, work for me and work harder or I’m going to sack you all – which is effectively what he’s doing today.”
Mr Corbyn also sought to challenge claims that under his leadership the party is doomed to opposition.
He insisted Labour is “going places” and is “capable of winning a general election”.
A future Labour government, he claimed, will tackle the “five ills” of 21st-century Britain – inequality, neglect, insecurity, prejudice and discrimination.
This was a clear echo of the five “giant evils” – want, squalor, idleness, disease and ignorance – identified by welfare state pioneer William Beveridge in the 1940s.
Under Mr Corbyn’s plans, companies with more than 21 staff could be fined unless they publish equality pay audits.
These businesses would be required to publish audits “detailing pay, grade and hours of every job... alongside data on recognised equality characteristics”.
In a clear indication of the level of passion the leadership contest has ignited, Labour received more than 180,000 applications to sign up as registered supporters, each paying £25 to get their vote.
And in the latest sign that Mr Corbyn’s campaign intends to highlight Mr Smith’s background as an employee of pharmaceutical
giant Pfizer, the Labour leader said at his launch: “I hope that Owen will fully agree with me that our NHS should be free at the point of use, should be run by publicly employed workers, working for the NHS, not for private contractors, and that medical research shouldn’t be farmed out to big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and others but should be funded through the medical research council as a way of developing those drugs and not allowing the private pharma companies [to] become overdominant in the way the NHS provides [medicine].”
Mr Smith stressed his commitment to the NHS this week, saying: “It is a gross exaggeration and extrapolation of one comment in a press release about a report commissioned by Pfizer before I worked there, at a period in which the last Labour government was using the word ‘choice’ to describe getting private providers to do hip and knee and cataract operations.”