Eagle withdraws from UK Labour leadership contest

“He has crossed a couple of red lines for me and I will find it very hard to fall in line with a further Jeremy Corbyn Labour Party”.

Asked whether Labour MPs would face a re-selection process in 2018, Corbyn said: “If this parliament runs to full term, then the new boundaries will be the basis on which elections take place”.

“We, the Labour party, will be stronger, even stronger, and hopefully even bigger at the end of this campaign”, Corbyn said.

“Broadly speaking, we made a mistake, the last Labour government, in not appreciating how a Tory government would ride a coach and horses through the language”.

In a punchy exchange, during what has been widely viewed as an accomplished performance, she said: “I suspect that there are many members on the opposition benches who might be familiar with an unscrupulous boss”.

Yet, Corbyn is the overwhelming favourite going into the upcoming Labour leadership election.

Smith has also taken the trouble to describe as nonsense the suggestion that he was ever in favour of private-sector penetration of the NHS, despite issuing a press release to this effect when paid £80,000 a year by United States transnational corporation Pfizer to push this agenda.

“I felt that it was for him to make those statements publicly for other people to judge”.

Owen Smith has the nominations of 162 of the party’s MPs – some 70% of its representation in the Commons – along with half of Labour’s MEPs.

Professor Tim Bale, of Queen Mary University’s politics department, told the London Evening Standard he gives the party an 80 to 90 per cent chance of splitting if Corbyn wins a second leadership election.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling backed the campaign, saying it was “for those who feel we need a decent opposition”, while Emmerdale actor Nick Miles said: “It’s time for Corbyn to resign for the good of our country”.

Earlier this week, Owen Smith pledged to debate Jeremy Corbyn in a “comradely, kind, gentle fashion”.

Conventional wisdom has it that the beneficiary will again be Mr Corbyn who was propelled to an overwhelming victory in last year’s contest with the support of the £3 members.

The Labour leader is facing a challenge from former shadow work and pensions secretary Owen Smith in an all-male contest, after Angela Eagle withdrew her candidacy on Tuesday.

But he attacked cuts to its budget and this year called for a review of the plans.

Asked to imagine Ms Eagle was off the ticket, 56% said they would vote for Mr Corbyn and 34% chose Mr Smith.

Mrs May also used this week’s Trident vote to draw attention to the deep divisions within the party, thanking the majority of Labour MPs who defied the hard-left leader by supporting the Government’s motion to renew the nuclear deterrent.

“A boss who doesn’t listen to his workers?” “I don’t think that is what Jeremy is about fundamentally”, he said.

If, as it seems possible, the rump of the party MPs still loyal to Corbyn was less than the SNP’s 54, Labour would be finished.

“She has come a long way since we were on the hustings together in north west Durham”, he said.

The new influx – with applications by 183,541 people – means that Labour will pocket a potential £4.25 million.