Jeremy Corbyn has suggested he could stay on as Labour leader if the party loses the next election, as he soared ahead in the race to secure nominations from local party branches.
Corbyn, who is being challenged by the former shadow cabinet minister Owen Smith, said his position was ultimately always in the hands of the membership.
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor and chair of Corbyn’s leadership campaign, previously said the Labour leader would go if he lost, adding: “Any Labour leader who loses an election usually goes.”
But asked by the Huffington Post UK whether he would quit in such a case, Corbyn said: “Look, nothing is inevitable. And let’s not start predicting the results of the next general election, which may be four years away. I’m campaigning for the leadership of the party at the moment, again.
“I’m very happy to be doing that. I’ve been travelling the whole of the UK, but we are also doing it in a slightly different way to last year. We are visiting a lot of places we didn’t go to last year because there wasn’t time. We are also using it to campaign more openly and more publicly on how we bring back in communities that have been left behind by the Tories. And the crowds are even bigger than last year.”
Corbyn is the strong favourite to win in the leadership election against Smith after his landslide victory last year with more than 60% of the vote. Almost 120 constituency Labour parties have nominated him to be leader so far, with Smith securing the backing of just 24. He has defended the fact that his party is behind the Conservatives in the majority of opinion polls, pointing to a number of byelection wins at council and parliamentary level.
Asked about his future as Labour leader if the party continues to lag behind the Conservatives in the polls, he told the website: “The party members control what happens. They will decide, one way or another.
“You talked about polls, that’s fair enough. Yesterday, there were a number of [council] byelections. Labour gained in Newcastle-under-Lyme with a 19% swing. We lost one in Nottinghamshire narrowly to Ukip, gained the other from Ukip.
“[There was a] big swing to Labour in a byelection in Brighton yesterday, on a pretty substantial turnout for a local election. The results that we have actually achieved, the actual votes that have been cast, are far better than anything the opinion polls say.”
Last week, Corbyn set out a 10-point vision for the future of the UK, including an ambition of full employment and a million new jobs created by infrastructure investment. Rallies at Liverpool and Brighton have been attended by thousands of people, with supporters flowing out on to the street.
At the first Labour leadership hustings in Cardiff last week, Smith received a bruising reception: at times, sections of the crowd booed and heckled his speeches.
