Labour’s leadership contest has finally been triggered as Angela Eagle made her bid for the position today. So how will this contest shape up? And will Jeremy Corbyn appear on the ballot paper? Isabel Hardman tells Fraser Nelson:
‘It’s going to be very bloody because Jeremy Corbyn wants to get back on that ballot paper, thinks he’s entitled to. If the NEC, the party’s ruling executive, says that he shouldn’t be back on that ballot paper unless he can get 51 nominations, the wrath from the membership will be enormous.’
If Corbyn prevails in this contest, might the moderates of the party then break away to form their own party? With their numbers and experience, perhaps they could become the new Opposition. James Forsyth thinks not. He tells Fraser Nelson:
‘The Labour name matters so much because there’s a view that 15 per cent of people just vote for the Labour party. If you split off from the Labour party and formed a new party, even if you called it ‘Classic Labour’, it would take you a generation to be a serious competitor for power, because you would have lost that core vote – the people who just look for Labour on the ballot paper.
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