Long-Bailey in furious row over Labour Party's election loss - 'Not YOUR communities'
REBECCA LONG-BAILEY was grilled over the Labour Party's alleged attempt to take control of British voters despite the majority of the country voting for the Conservatives in the past four general elections.
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Rebecca Long-Bailey came under fire from former deputy Prime Minister Damian Green after she explained Labour will have to convince "our communities" the party can deliver on his pledges to win an election. Ms Long-Bailey, a candidate to take over the helm of the Labour Party from Jeremy Corbyn, insisted the last election loss was the result of a failure to "articulate" party policies with traditional voters. But Mr Green accused her fellow ITV Peston guest of adopting the belief certain voters naturally "belong" to Labour.
Mr Green said: "Can I pick up on one thing Becky’s just said? She talked about ‘our communities,’ - they are not your communities.
"They are communities all over the country and most of them voted Conservative.
"It’s not a personal criticism but it is a really deep problem for the Labour Party that they think there are people in this country that just belong to them.
"That they are Labour people, that they are ‘our communities'."
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Ms Long-Bailey dismissed the accusation and insisted she had used the term "our communities" to indicate any potential Labour voter rather than a set group of the electorate.
The Labour shadow Business Secretary said: "I wasn’t saying that actually. When I said our communities I meant our communities collectively.
"I wasn’t attributing them to Labour or the Conservative Party."
She previously said: "I think we need to be as electable as we possibly can but I think we don’t do that at the expense of offering that big vision and big future to our communities.
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"Having the ideas and supporting the principles that we fought for the last five years is important.
"What we’ve got to do is recognise we didn’t articulate them well enough and our communities didn’t understand that we were for them and we were going to improve their lives."
Ms Long-Bailey is currently second-favourite to succeed Jeremy Corbyn at the leadership of the party after the Labour leader announced plans to quit following the heavy losses suffered at the general election.
Latest odds from The Pools have the Labour frontbencher on 9/2 odds to become the next Labour leader, with shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer on 1/4 odds.
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Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry has been struggling to secure a spot on the final ballot after major trade unions shunned her.
Ms Thornberry and Wigan MP Lisa Nandy have both backed re-nationalising rail and mail but stopped short of returning energy into public ownership despite the proposal being one of the major policies of the last Labour Party manifesto.
Sir Keir has so far only committed to bringing back rail into public ownership but is expected to revisit the issue later in the campaign.
The next Labour leader will be announced on April 4.