'It's the end of the Corbyn project’ Jacqui Smith drops shock Labour leadership prediction
JEREMY CORBYN’s “project” has come to an end according to Labour’s former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith as she revealed who could be the party’s next leader.
Labour: Jacqui Smith says 'it's the end of the Corbyn project'
Jeremy Corbyn announced he would stand down as Labour leader after suffering a humiliating defeat in the general election losing core seats to Boris Johnson. Labour’s former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has blamed Jeremy Corbyn for the “worst result in 80 years”. She went on to say Labour needs to find a leader who can bring together a wide coalition.
Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Ms Smith said: “People like me think that this is the end of the Corbyn project.
“That’s why we fell to our worst result in 80 years and that needs to now be put behind us.
“We now need to find a leader who can bring together a wide coalition, so that we actually stand a chance in four and a half years time.
“I don’t think there’s an obvious candidate but there are people who are brave and thoughtful.
“Jess Philips and Lisa Nandy for example who I think are worthy of serious consideration.”
Her comments come as Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry announced her bid to be the next Labour leader.
She attacked Jeremy Corbyn for allowing an election to go ahead without providing a clear Brexit strategy during her leadership bid.
She hit out at the socialist for bowing to pressure to hold a public vote in the run-up to Christmas, insisting he should have instead focused his energies on securing a referendum on Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.
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Announcing her decision to throw her hat into the ring, the 59-year-old used her record as Mr Johnson’s opponent, when he served as foreign secretary, as a means to whip up support for her bid.
Writing in the Guardian, Ms Thornberry said she pressured Mr Corbyn to vote against holding the election, saying the need to break the Brexit deadlock was not a good enough reason to give the Tories another five years in power.
She said: “I wrote to the leader’s office warning it would be ‘an act of catastrophic political folly’ to vote for the election, and explained exactly why we should not go along with it.
“I argued that the single issue of Brexit should not be enough to give Johnson a five-year mandate to enact his agenda on every issue.
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“Instead, I said we should insist on a referendum on his proposed deal, to get the issue of Brexit out of the way before any general election.”
The shadow cabinet member added: “So when the Labour leadership contest begins, whoever is standing.
“I hope to be one of the candidates.
“The first question shouldn’t be about their position on Brexit, or where they live in our country.”