Britain’s Labour poised to gamble on socialism in leadership contest

Mr Corbyn is launching his plan in Glasgow and a copy will be sent to all Labour members in a bid to secure their vote as the party sends out the first ballot papers.

YVETTE Cooper has won the backing of Labour members in Basingstoke after they voted her as their top choice to become the next leader of the party.

The campaign teams of all four candidates attended a meeting yesterday designed to clear up confusion around how the competition would work, while Labour MP Simon Danczuk joined those calling for the contest to be re-run.

The film director Ken Loach, who split with the Labour party a number of years ago over its tilt to the Right and is now a member of the Left Unity party, also had his application rejected, as did the journalist, Toby Young.

Ward called for support on the grounds of Corbyn’s policies and to signal a move to the left and against austerity in the party.

On Wednesday, alast-minute surge of people wanting to register to vote caused the party’s website to crash, meaning supporters were given an extra three hours to sign up.

Corbyn now boasts a huge lead in the polls, and is favourite to replace Ed Miliband.

That mirrors closely a YouGov survey of 1,400 entitled to vote in the leadership contest earlier this week, which suggests similar levels of support among members and wider supporters.

In an unusually personal attack, she warned in a speech in Manchester: ‘I’m not going to dismiss the values and the intentions of Jeremy and those who are supporting him.

Let me be clear, this is not about my personal preference for leader.

Corbyn is 1/3 favorite to win the leadership with bookmaker William Hill Plc, ahead of health spokesman Andy Burnham, who is 10/3, home-affairs spokeswoman Yvette Cooper on 13/2 and outsider Liz Kendall, who is 100/1.

And Kendall also condemned Corbyn this week, saying to the BBC that electing Corbyn would effectively be Labour sending a “resignation letter to the British people as a serious party of government”.

Registered supporters are a new category of voter in this Leadership Election.

Writing for Breitbart, Mr Farage said: “Whilst I have absolutely no faith in the wisdom of his economics, his victory is seriously good news for the No campaign in the forthcoming EU referendum”.

Asked if he agreed, Mr Burnham told the Press Association: “Everybody is entitled to express their views on this contest, particularly former prime ministers”.

“I feel that some of those people that resort to personal abuse, name-calling and all that are probably a bit nervous about the power of democracy”, he said.