Blair warns his party of ‘annihilation’

The Shadow Home Secretary insisted she was the “real radical” and made the case to be Labour’s first woman leader – saying the party needed a “feminist approach to our economy and society”.

He said any potential decision about Labour’s stance would be for the Scottish party to make but he fully expected it to once again campaign for the continuation of the United Kingdom.

In an article posted for the Guardian, Blair said the party is walking “over the cliff’s edge” and could lose its 100-year history if Corbyn comes at the helm.

Clause IV, which backed “common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange”, was removed from the constitution at a special Labour conference in Easter 1995 when the party was led by Mr Blair.

As the party prepared to send ballot papers to the more than 600,000 who will have a vote in the contest, candidates continued to raise concerns about the fairness of the rules.

Britain’s main opposition Labour party starts voting for a new leader Friday, with Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran socialist who would move the party significantly to the left, favourite to win.

Ms Cooper told her audience that the vote was not about personalities but about the future of the country, adding that she would not duck the fight.

Some reports say more than 610,000 people applied for a vote in the Labour leadership contest after a last-minute frenzy registration.

He is competing with Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall to succeed Ed Miliband, who quit after the Conservatives retained power in May’s election.

“I will be using my second and third preferences…It won’t be for Jeremy“. It won’t be for Jeremy.

Ms Kendall, who could finish fourth, is trying to sway supporters towards their second preference.

“The more that I go out and see people and convince them, the better I will do”.

But she said she would not “pander” to them either and claim to be a “more electable version” of what they stand for.

“The truth is that Jeremy is offering old solutions to old
problems, not new answers to
the problems of today”.

Indeed, civil partnerships likely would not have happened if Mr Corbyn was Labour leader – because the lifelong supporter of LGBT rights recently suggested to PinkNews that he would have introduced same-sex marriage instead.

Looking ahead to the May Assembly elections, Mr Antoniw said: “At the time when we’re drawing up a Welsh Labour manifesto for the Assembly elections next year, I don’t think that the Welsh Government and the Welsh Labour party will have any hard at all in forming a common bond with the sorts of views that Jeremy Corbyn is expressing and the sorts of views we’ve been talking about in terms of political change within Wales for the last few years”.