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MAXWELLS DUBLIN
Tone deaf
Tony Blair stuck his oar into the Labour leadership race - and some people are livid
“If Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader … It will mean rout, possibly annihilation.”
Updated at 4.30pm
IF YOU’VE BEEN keeping up with the leadership race in the British Labour Party, you will know that the front-runner is Jeremy Corbyn.
Corbyn is from Labour’s leftest wing and has ridden a surge of support from young people and new Labour supporters to move from being a rank outsider to the frontrunner to succeed Ed Miliband, who resigned after losing May’s general election.
A recent YouGov poll showed Corbyn on 53% of support, 32 points ahead of nearest rival Andy Burnham. That was up ten points from the first poll, having seemingly come from nowhere to seize the race.
Yesterday, the last man to win an election as Labour leader had his say.
“The Labour party is in danger more mortal today than at any point in the over 100 years of its existence,” Tony Blair wrote in an article in the Guardian.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the left, right or centre of the party, whether you used to support me or hate me. But please understand the danger we are in.
“If Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader … It will mean rout, possibly annihilation.”
The piece angered a lot of people on Twitter, who saw the former Prime Minister as over-stepping his boundaries.
MaryB / Twitter
MaryB / Twitter / Twitter
Gareth McLean / Twitter
Gareth McLean / Twitter / Twitter
Chris Skinner / Twitter
Chris Skinner / Twitter / Twitter
Whatever Blair’s intent, it has galvanised many in their support of Corbyn, who is seen as the antidote to Labour lurching to the centre in search of electoral gains.
Owen Jones / Twitter
Owen Jones / Twitter / Twitter
David Baddiel / Twitter
David Baddiel / Twitter / Twitter
Corbyn, 66, is a veteran campaigner who has repeatedly voted against the Labour party line over his 32 years in parliament, supports scrapping nuclear weapons, and has never held a frontline ministerial position.
But more centrist Labour lawmakers and voters have expressed fear his policies are out of sync with the wider British electorate.
With AFP reporting
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