Labour reacts as Jeremy Corbyn wins bruising leadership contest

Owen Smith, a relative moderate and a former member of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, received 38.2 percent of the vote.

But most Labour lawmakers and a chunk of party members despair of ever regaining power while Corbyn is in charge.

For Corbyn supporters, it was a chance to repudiate the centrist “new Labour” vision of Blair, who won three British elections starting in 1997 but became too cozy with big business for some tastes and took Britain into the unpopular USA -led Iraq War.

“In spite of a heavy handed campaign from within the Labour Party to derail Corbyn’s chances, he won with a greater percentage than his initial election”, he added. It’s time for the Labour Party to unite and get on with holding this government to account – standing up for working people and winning their support rather than continually talking to ourselves about ourselves and banging on about our internal differences.

“I recognise that to be successful, the party has to reach out to all sections and I will do that”, he said.

“The most important thing is that both candidates said they want to bring the party back together, they want unity”.

“I hope that now the Parliamentary Labour Party will settle down and unite behind the leader”, she said.

“We have much more in common than that which divides us”, he told party members. “As far as I’m concerned, let’s wipe that slate clean from today and get on with the work we’ve got to do as a party”. “He now has to win the country and he will have my support in trying to do so”.

Mr Smith, who had previously ruled out returning to the front bench, said he respected the result and the onus was on Mr Corbyn to “heal divisions and unite our movement”.

“This country needs a sensible progressive party, and it will get one back”, he said.

Corbyn, a long-time back-bench lawmaker, was elected a year ago to lead Labour, which governed between 1997 and 2010 but has lost two successive general elections to the Conservatives.

After the June 23 European Union referendum, more than 170 of Labour’s 230 MPs declared no-confidence in Corbyn, but he refused to resign, sparking a leadership challenge from the little-known Smith.

But all eyes are on a crucial meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) later, which will be attended by Mr Corbyn, where there are competing plans for the election of a shadow cabinet.

The result was welcomed by leading trade unions while Momentum – the campaign group spawned by Mr Corbyn’s victory past year – hailed it as a “fantastic win”.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said it was up to Mr Corbyn’s critics to decide whether they wanted to serve under him, insisting he wanted “unity and stability” and there was a “way we can accommodate everybody”.

“He is nothing other than a complete and utter disaster for the Labour Party”, McTernan said.

“Politics is changing”, said Emma Hamblett, a Labour conference delegate from Romford, near London.

Setting out his plans for phase two of his leadership after a year of bitter disputes with his MPs, Corbyn said: “I have been given the authority by the members and that is what I intend to deliver on”. Supporters of Mr Corbyn fear that this could be used to construct a rival power base at the top of the party.