Corbyn gains momentum in Labour leadership race

When Jeremy Corbyn joined the race to become the next Labour leader he did not exude confidence about his prospects, admitting he was only entering the contest to create a "policy debate".

Even now, with one poll on Wednesday suggesting the veteran left-winger is on course to win the leadership contest, some of the MPs who nominated him cannot believe he will actually take the job. "Jeremy keeps saying he doesn't want to be leader, he doesn't want to win," said one of the 35 MPs who supported him for the ballot paper. "I think Jeremy will quietly tell his supporters to vote for Andy Burnham. "

Neil Coyle, who also backed him in June, said: “I don’t think he is credible and I think he knows that.” A third former supporter admitted Mr Corbyn did not have the skills or experience to lead the party.

“He is good at opposition, not negotiating a common line we can sell to the public,” he said. “I hope we have reached ‘peak Corbyn’.”

But the depth of support for his candidacy – leading to Wednesday’s YouGov poll showing him to be the likely winner – has astonished Corbyn. Some of his supporters believe he is starting to take the prospect of becoming Labour leader more seriously. “I don’t think he was very serious about it at first, he didn’t think he could or would win,” said one MP who nominated him.

“Given the amount of publicity and momentum he now has, I think he is beginning to seriously believe it is possible.”

It is an improbable story for a man who last month admitted it had taken some persuading for him to become the token "hard left" candidate after Ed Miliband, the party's former leader, lost the general election on May 7th. Even after standing he put himself forward to join a Commons committee – a sign that he expected to lose.

"Diane Abbott and John McDonnell have done it before, so it was my turn," the Islington North MP told the Guardian. "I have never held any appointed office, so in that sense it's unusual, but if I can promote some causes and debate by doing this, then good."

Anguish

His success, and the rise of “Corbyn fever”, has caused anguish among Labour’s more moderate wing. Corbyn is far to the left of Miliband, who led the party to its worst defeat since 1992 on a “soft left” platform that was widely perceived as anti-business. John McTernan, an adviser to the former Labour prime minister

Tony Blair

, has rounded on the 35 MPs who nominated Corbyn, branding them “morons”.

Blair held an event in London on Wednesday morning where he urged his party to rediscover the art of winning – advice from a former Labour leader who won three general elections in a row between 1997 and 2005, making him the most successful British politician since Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

Blair said the contest was being presented as a choice between “heart and head”, adding that those who thought their heart was with Corbyn should “get a transplant”.

Many of the 35 original Corbyn backers are getting cold feet, including Margaret Beckett, former foreign secretary, who accepted that she had been – in McTernan's words – a "moron" for backing him. "I did not intend to vote for Jeremy myself – nice as he is – nor advise anyone else to do it," she said. "We were being urged as MPs to have a field of candidates."

Some MPs have speculated that a Corbyn victory could provoke a repeat of the Labour split in 1981, when four prominent moderates left to found the SDP.

‘Highly undesirable’

“The last time Labour split we had a Tory government for years as a result,” Beckett told the

Financial Times

. “I think a repeat of that is highly unlikely and highly undesirable. Everybody should calm down and not get so excited.”

Meanwhile Corbyn made a speech in London – off limits to journalists – promising a state-led “expansion and reconstruction” of the economy. Afterwards he said his campaign was going well but said talk of his victory was still premature.

As for Blair’s criticism, he said it was “rather silly”, adding: “Surely we should be talking about the situation facing Britain today, the situation facing many of the poorest people in this country today, and maybe think if our policies are relevant.”

Corbyn has surrounded himself with fellow travellers on the hard left, including John McDonnell, MP for Hayes & Harlington, and Simon Fletcher, who was Miliband’s link man with the unions.

Yet his credibility is starting to fray as those who nominated him get cold feet. Coyle said he did not regret lending his name to team Corbyn, but admitted: “If he won, I might.”

He said that there was a “Farage effect” where the left-winger was getting more attention from the media because of his sharper views.

“If we think Ed Miliband was given a hard time in the national press, imagine what would happen to Jeremy Corbyn. I respect his views, but he is not a leader. He would be a disaster for Labour.”

–(Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2015)