Labour leadership crisis: Who is Owen Smith?

The opposition Labour Party is also in turmoil at the top, with Jeremy Corbyn resisting intense pressure to resign.

Corbyn won an overwhelming mandate in the country, but only 10 percent of Labour lawmakers in the House of Commons voted for him.

This landslide crisis could as been warned to potentially fracture the Labour party in two if Corbyn wins another vote from the party membership.

In another blow to Ms Eagle (pictured), polling for Queen Mary University revealed yesterday found that 64 per cent of Labour members who have joined since the general election would vote for Mr Corbyn in a new leadership election. Watson ruled out standing himself.

“There’s no doubt in my mind these are going to be hard economic times”, Mr Cameron told Parliament.

“They have said “no negotiation, without notification” but I don’t think that excludes discussion that a new prime minister can have with partners or indeed with the institutions so that we continue to get off on the right foot”, he said.

It looked like the game was up, the experiment over: “Jez we can” was to become “Jez: you can’t”.

“He’s obviously been told to stay by his close ally John McDonnell and they’re a team and they’ve decided that they’re going to tough it out”, he told the BBC.

“Either the Labour Party will become an anti-globalisation protest party, or it’s going to become a party that is able to tell people how we can best manage”.

British Prime Minister David Cameron came out swinging in Parliament overnight at embattled Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Corbyn already faces strong pressure to step down as party leader after losing a no confidence vote earlier this week and being on the losing side of Britain’s referendum on European Union membership.

A letter to Ms Eagle from the Wallasey CLP secretary shows that, at a meeting on Friday, members mandated her to “reject the motion of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn”.

“I like him. Jerry is a good man”.

He remained defiant despite a vote of no confidence – and he brushed off Deputy Tom Watson’s pleas for him to leave for the sake of the party. It’s not in the national interest.

“It’s not a leaflet that went out”, he said.

The comment elicited rapturous cheers from Cameron’s Conservative benches and silence from Labour. “If Jeremy had walked on water during the (referendum) campaign he would have been blamed for the loss”.

It is thought Ms Eagle’s decision to wait is created to give Labour rebels more time to intensify the pressure on Mr Corbyn to quit of his own accord.

But removing Corbyn may not be easy. “We urge all Labour MPs to abide by those procedures, and to respect the authority of the Party’s leader”. Of more than 50 constituency Labour Party chairs and secretaries who endorsed Corbyn a year ago, 45 continue to offer their support and believe that their constituencies will again nominate the leader in the now inevitable leadership contest, according to BBC Newsnight.

In a statement released this afternoon Ms Smith said: “This morning, at the launch of the Chakrabarti Inquiry into antisemitism, I was verbally attacked by a Momentum activist and Jeremy Corbyn supporter who used traditional antisemitic slurs to attack me for being part of a “media conspiracy”.

Home Secretary Theresa May and pro-Brexit former London Mayor Boris Johnson are among the likely candidates.