WESTMINSTER, United Kingdom – A senior Labour MP has called for the party's leadership election to be halted amidst claims large numbers of people were deliberately joining to vote for the hard-left candidate Jeremy Corbyn. When Corbyn entered the race he was seen as an 'also ran' but polling now has him ahead, leading John Mann MP to demand the process be stopped.
Mr Mann claimed the system by which anyone could vote if they gave £3 to the party risked leaving genuine members outvoted by entryists. Registration can be done via text message, and is believed to have been incredibly popular, although the party has not published exact numbers of signups.
Mann told the Sunday Times: “It is becoming a farce with longstanding members.” He claimed they were “in danger of getting trumped by people who have opposed the Labour party and want to break it up.”
His claims were backed by another Labour MP, John Cryer, who says he has evidence the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is encouraging its members to register to vote. The group is the successor to Militant Tendency, which rendered the Labour Party unelectable in the 1980s.
Under Margaret Thatcher's Premiership, the Militant Tendency group's grip on Labour was so strong many moderate party members left altogether and founded the Social Democratic Party. Since then many have returned and are now known as the Blairites, after their most successful leader Tony Blair.
It's not just the hard left that want to see Corbyn win the leadership. The Thatcherite pressure group Conservative Way Forward published a survey this week showing 56 percent of their members favor Corbyn. Many believe Corbyn cannot win the next election and his leadership would guarantee the Conservatives stay in Downing Street until at least 2025.
Some Conservatives claim to have gone even further than moral support and claiming to have joined the party in order to vote for Corbyn. Privately some are admitting to making up false names to vote more than once.
Corbyn's camp can hardly believe their luck, his long-term political aide Maggie Dunn told the Guardian: “It does feel unreal. I am having political discussions that I haven’t had for donkey’s years. People are talking about whether we should be renationalising things. It is wonderful.”
Today a YouGov published a poll indicating 25 percent more young people would vote Labour if Corbyn won. This puts him a long way ahead of his nearest rival, the former Health Secretary Andy Burnham. At the start of the campaign Mr Burnham had looked guaranteed to win, whereas most pundits hardly bothered to mention Corbyn.
Corbyn was pictured this week entertaining the former head of the Irish Republican terrorist group the IRA. He also has strong connections with Palestinian terrorist organisations, and is widely considered to have been pro-Soviet as a younger man.
He divorced his wife when she asked to send their son to a selective school.
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