Andy Burnham in unity plea to Labour leadership rival Jeremy Corbyn

“The Labour party needs to be an effective opposition more than ever – both in Westminster and in our streets – and I believe that suspending or delaying the leadership election would only undermine our ability to do that”.

Mr Burnham has insisted he is the only candidate capable of halting front-runner Mr Corbyn’s progress but promises to involve him in “rebuilding our party” if he wins.

As Simon Wren-Lewis, an Oxford economist, says, when Labour supporters reject this move, they aren’t “moving left”, they’re refusing to follow a party elite that has decided to move sharply to the right.

The highly controversial 2003 invasion was instigated by then Labour prime minister Tony Blair in support of George W Bush’s US administration.

Mr Corbyn has also faced accusations that some of his supporters have been posting anti-Jewish abuse on social media but he described racist views as “beyond appalling”.

Corbyn denied knowing the activist and his campaign released a statement last night (19 August): “My staff have researched this and tell me that I did meet this man in 2009 but I have no recollection of him”.

The other candidates are Liz Kendall and Andy Burnham.

The ballots are out, and supporters of the U.K.’s Labour party now have about a month to decide their party’s new leader.

Calls from Ms Cooper’s camp that he should stand down because she was most likely to beat Mr Corbyn were “disappointing” and also “quite strange” as polls put himself second behind the leftwinger, said Mr Burnham.

Although Ed Miliband had to pay a late night visit to the comedian-turned-revolutionary’s £2 million apartment in order to win his endorsement during the general election, Brand has come out for Corbyn all on his own accord. He or she has to be able to unite the broad church that has always been the Labour Party, look to the future, help us to build a progressive majority against the Tories in the country and lead us to victory in 2020.

The favourite to win the Labour leadership made the comments in a June 2014 interview with Moscow-funded news channel Russian Federation Today.

“All our meetings are absolutely packed out within hours of us putting them up on the website”, he said, speaking at London’s King’s Cross station. “I don’t think it’s our job”.

‘We have to encourage the Parliamentary Labour Party to be part of that process and not to stand in the way of democratising the party and empowering the party members. It is an enormous strategic mistake.

“Allowing policies to harden into dogma, or to fail to think anew, is the road to electoral oblivion and it is a road we must not take”.