London mayor: Labour Party ‘extremely unlikely to win’ under Corbyn

“Jeremy’s personal ratings are the worst of any opposition leader on record — and the Labour Party is suffering badly as a result”, Khan said.

Corbyn declined to give any assurances that he would do so if he won power. What I want to do is achieve a world where we don’t need to go to war, where there is no need for it.

“If these were my supporters I would be stopping them, Jeremy”.

Sadiq Khan endorsed Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s challenger, Owen Smith, in an opinion article published late on Saturday.

However, Corbyn supporters say that the current Labour leader will bring about real change to society with his more socialist and 1970s style politics.

The letter, which follows a separate piece from 246 councillors endorsing Corbyn, was organised by the Nottinghamshire councillor Michael Payne and the Westminster councillor Tim Roca.

There are about 6,000 Labour councillors in the UK.

Khan says he will instead be voting for Owen Smith, who he writes is “far more popular with the public than Jeremy – and far more likely to win the next election”.

The alliance enshrines principles of “collective defence” where an attack on one member considered an attack on all, and the Labour contenders were asked how they would react if a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally faced aggression from Russian Federation, in particular.

But party members in Hartlepool are standing firmly behind him as he vies for votes againt leadership rival Owen Smith.

“We have intimidation and bullying in Constituency Labour Parties up and down the country”.

It added: “Our party needs a leader who can win and is principled”.

A new Scottish referendum is on the horizon.

Dugdale also steered clear of the UK Labour leadership contest a year ago, although at the time she was also a candidate herself in the race to be Scottish leader. It is certainly delivering vastly improved results on the general, local and mayoral election defeats suffered under Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband – not to mention losing all but one of the party’s 41 seats in Scotland overnight in 2015.

In letters sent to Britain’s Foreign Ministry in June, Corbyn called for sanctions against Israel and described some of the Jewish state’s politicians as “criminals” who should be banned from Britain.

Corbyn has denied allegations from his critics that he failed to campaign strongly enough for Britain to stay in the European Union and his leadership campaign said Khan should note that he won his election as mayor with Corbyn’s help.

But relations between the mayor and Labour leader have always been frosty.