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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Andrew Sparrow and Claire Phipps

Corbyn holds out 'hand of friendship' to opponents - as it happened

Jeremy Corbyn offers ‘hand of friendship’ to rebel MPs

Afternoon summary

  • The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry has criticised Corbyn for saying that medical research should not be “farmed out to big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer”. (See 2.07pm.)

That’s all from me for today - my colleague Chris Johnson will be picking up the liveblog shortly to report May’s meeting with Hollande.

Thanks for the comments.

Jeremy Corbyn with supporters arrives to launch his leadership campaign.
Jeremy Corbyn with supporters arrives to launch his leadership campaign. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

Updated

Channel 4 News’ Michael Crick says it might be a mistake for Jeremy Corbyn to criticise the pharmaceutical industry.

This is from the Times columnist Janice Turner.

A Labour leadership contest reading list

Here is a Labour leadership contest reading list.

Claims that Corbyn “embarrassed his critics” by losing council seats are facile, even on their own terms; there was a 3% swing towards the Tories compared with when the seats were last fought, in 2012. Just because some pundits thought Labour might lose 200 seats, it doesn’t mean that “only” losing eighteen becomes a good result.

But what can we take from this? Can local election results tell us anything about General Election prospects? Well, yes they can, actually. Matt Singh has demonstrated the following relationship ...

That 1% Labour lead in May’s elections translates to the Conservatives having a 10–12% advantage at the next General Election.

May’s results were desperately poor. They point to an increased Conservative majority.

But there’s something I do know. One lesson of Corbyn’s victory last year, the rise of Trump and the vote for Brexit is that those who talk about “electability” know much less about the future than they pretend. As Adam Kotsko said, “electability” is “a purely speculative property.” All statements about the future must be heavily discounted. When pundits blather about “electability” they tell us little about Corbyn, but plenty about their own overconfidence, failure to learn from past mistakes and under-appreciation of the importance of complexity and obliquity.

But there’s something I do know. One lesson of Corbyn’s victory last year, the rise of Trump and the vote for Brexit is that those who talk about “electability” know much less about the future than they pretend. As Adam Kotsko said, “electability” is “a purely speculative property.” All statements about the future must be heavily discounted. When pundits blather about “electability” they tell us little about Corbyn, but plenty about their own overconfidence, failure to learn from past mistakes and under-appreciation of the importance of complexity and obliquity.

The political reason for making what seems to be a very naive comment is that it plays into the suspicion of many of his supporters that big business is always bad and doesn’t help society, whether that be by employing a lot of people, or, in the case for big pharma, responding to demand for drugs by researching and producing drugs. Big pharma is one of those dirty bogeymen that it is easy to set up as The Enemy, without really thinking through what the implications of taking out that Enemy might be.

Kinnock could purge Militant because it was a tiny, nutty Trotskyite sect; Momentum is basically the biggest single organisation in today’s Labour movement: idealisitc, motivated and digi-native. Smith and the Parliamentary Labour Party don’t stand a chance.

A socialist to his core, Smith is in that fine Labour tradition and he has lost no time in setting out what his Labour leadership and his Labour government will look like. He knows the mistakes made in the past long before he was elected – that’s why he has said every Labour policy has to be tested against this benchmark: “Is it going to reduce inequalities in wealth, in power, in outcomes and opportunities, or is it not?”

First, eliminate his negatives. He is doing this rather neatly. He has challenged the assertion that he is a Blairite—the standard Corbynista abuse for anyone who disagrees with the High Sparrow is that they are a Tory, or worse a Blairite—by praising Corbyn. Smith said: “Jeremy is owed a debt of gratitude for helping Labour to rediscover its radical roots.” But he cleverly balanced that by adding: “but we do need a new generation of Labour men and women to take this party forward, to get us ready for government once more. We’ve been on the sidelines for too long.” Not so much Blair-lite as Corbyn-plus.

Second, accentuate his positives. Which he has done by offering policies from the get-go. So far he has promised: the restoration of wage councils, a £200bn investment plan, a War Powers Act so that parliament can properly consider military action and, most importantly, he has floated the possibility of a second referendum on Brexit. This last has been done cleverly. Smith has said that we were right to trust the public to vote in the first referendum, so we can trust them to sign off the deal with a second one. The decision is more serious than buying a pig in a poke, after all.

This has the merit, as do all his main promises, of concerning a fight over the future rather than a fight over the past. It is not just that as a new MP (first elected in 2010) Smith has no baggage, but that he is free to take the best of the past and to shape a better future. Radicalism is his central claim and it is his greatest hope for victory. The many Labour members in London and the south east who were disillusioned by Corbyn’s lacklustre EU referendum campaign still want radical change. Owen Smith overtook Angela Eagle by painting her as the past— the establishment candidate, in effect. Now he must continue his insurgency. It is the only route to victory.

And, while we are doing Labour Twitter rebuttals, here is the Labour MP Ian Austin responding to Diane Abbott’s claim this morning that Labour MPs were partly to blame for Jeremy Corbyn underperforming at PMQs. (See 8.31am.)

In his speech this morning Jeremy Corbyn spoke about how Labour had won votes in the House of Lords over the last 10 months as evidence of how he was making the party strong. (See 10.44pm.)

Maggie Jones, a shadow environment minister in the Lords, says Corbyn should not be trying to take the credit for those government defeats.

Jeremy Corbyn is on Newsnight tonight.

These are from the BBC’s Norman Smith.

Campaigners have lodged a complaint with police over alleged incitement to racial and religious hatred by former Ukip leader Nigel Farage and Leave.EU during the referendum, the Press Association reports.

The complaint, backed by almost 40,000 names on an online petition, was handed in to police in north London on Wednesday and given a crime reference number.

Campaign organiser Zack Newman launched the petition in response to a controversial poster used in the referendum campaign.

It was launched by Farage in the final days of the referendum and depicted a column of migrants walking through the European countryside under the slogan Breaking Point.

The complaint asks police to investigate whether comments made by Mr Farage and others in the Leave.EU camp were “systematically and purposefully designed to incite and stir up fear and intolerance of immigrants in order to procure votes”.

A Ukip spokesman said: “If a generation of ‘clicktivists’ want to wallow in their own outrage, that is their right. Fortunately, fair-minded people will see through their attempts to silence free speech.”

Support for Jeremy Corbyn from Tyrone O’Sullivan, a fourth-generation south Wales miner who led a workers’ buy-out of Tower Colliery to save it from closure.

I’ve been close to Jeremy since the miners’ strike. Knowing the man, knowing his abilities and his education, it was a dream come true for me when be became leader. His ideas and values are more necessary here in south Wales than probably anywhere else in the country. He wants victory for Labour, but only under our terms - for a change.

O’Sullivan, a lifelong Labour member, says he has nothing personally against Owen Smith but is embarrassed that a fellow Welshman is standing against Corbyn.

I feel embarrassed as a Welshman that he hasn’t got the sense to see he’s being used as a stalking horse. If Jeremy dropped out tomorrow there would be 10 other names in front of him to be leader. He would be 11th. For him to come out like this against a true socialist, I thought he would have more sense. Jeremy is the only true socialist we’ve had as leader for 20 or 30 years.

At his campaign launch, in response to a question about Owen Smith, Jeremy Corbyn said it was wrong for medical research to be “farmed out to big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer”. (See 1.01pm.) The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry has responded with a statement suggesting it thinks Corbyn does not understand how medical research works. It said:

The pharmaceutical industry invests more than £88bn a year into research and development in order to bring new medicines and vaccines to patients to fight disease. These new medicines include treatments for diabetes, cancer and cures for Hepatitis C, transforming the lives of patients and their families. In the UK this equates to £4.1bn per year of investment in R&D, with the [Medical Research Council] also contributing £770m and research charities £1.3bn. Clearly the taxpayer could not replace the world-wide investment made by industry in researching new medicines. Collaboration between industry researchers, academics and clinicians in the development of medicines for patient benefit is hugely important.

A spokesman for the Owen Smith campaign has questioned Jeremy Corbyn’s account of the circumstances leading up to Smith’s resignation from the shadow cabinet. (See 1.23pm.) The spokesman said that Smith went to see Corbyn with Lisa Nandy, John Healey, Nia Griffith and Kate Green when they were all still shadow cabinet members. He went on:

They had hoped to leave that meeting with the confidence to continue to support the leadership in bringing the Labour party together from within the shadow cabinet. During the course of the meeting it became apparent that this would not be possible.

At the end of the meeting it was clear that Jeremy Corbyn would not and could not respond to their concerns with a concrete plan and commitment to unite the party. It was evident they were not happy with Jeremy’s response and proposals. Immediately following this they resigned.

Ringing Donald Trump to congratulate him on his Republican nomination will not be Theresa May’s highest priority, it appears.

The prime minister’s spokeswoman told journalists at the daily lobby briefing that her new boss was continuing to take calls from world leaders offering their congratulations on her new role, eight days into the job.

But asked if she planned to make a congratulatory phone call to Trump, her spokeswoman said May was prioritising receiving the calls, rather than making them herself.

“At the moment it’s the prime minister taking the calls from a number of people around the world, as she has been appointed,” her spokeswoman said. “In terms of engagement with the presidential candidates, the PM’s intention is to follow the approach of many before her, to wait to see their schedules and plans.”

Corbyn accuses Smith of betrayal

Jeremy Corbyn stepped up his attack on Owen Smith in an interview with Sky News after his campaign launch. Going further than what he said in his Q&A earlier (see 1.01pm), he accused Smith of betrayal and mocked Smith’s decision to offer to make Corbyn Labour president if he won the leadership. Corbyn said:

Owen Smith was shadow work and pensions secretary. I appointed him last year to that position. We worked very well together in opposing the cuts in working tax credits. Two weeks ago he came to see me to assure me of his support and then, mysteriously, a few days later decided the support was no longer there and is now offering me a position if he were elected leader that does not exist and is not in his gift to offer anyway. That’s not the kind of politics that I want to be involved in.

Jeremy Corbyn on Sky News.
Jeremy Corbyn on Sky News. Photograph: Sky News/Jeremy Corbyn on Sky News

Corbyn's campaign launch - Summary

Here are the main points from Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign launch.

  • Corbyn said that all Labour MPs would face effective reselection as a result of the boundary changes being introduced. Asked about mandatory reselection, Corbyn suggested that there has been no change to the party’s rules. But he said the boundary changes would require all MPs to get reselected.

If this parliament runs to the full term, then the new boundaries will be the basis on which the elections take place and in that case there would be a full selection process in every constituency. But the sitting MP for any part or any substantial part of the new boundary would have the opportunity to put their name forward so there will be a full and open selection process for every constituency Labour party in the UK.

  • He challenged Owen Smith, his rival, to commit himself to distance himself form his onetime employer, Pfizer. Asked if he agreed with what Diane Abbott said on the Today programme this morning criticising Smith for having worked for Pfizer (see 8.35am), Corbyn replied:

I hope Owen will fully agree with me that our NHS should be free at the point of use, should be run by publicly employed workers working for the NHS not for private contractors, and medical research shouldn’t be farmed out to big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and others but should be funded through the Medical Research Council.

Newsnight’s Chris Cook wonders if Corbyn really means what this implies.

  • Corbyn accused Smith of misleading him in advance of his resignation from the shadow cabinet. He said:

Owen Smith was in the shadow cabinet until two weeks ago and he came to see me to say he was very happy in the shadow cabinet and wanted to stay there and then left the meeting and resigned which was a slightly odd thing to do. But of course he is very welcome to come back and I hope he would because that has got to be the right way of doing things.

  • He claimed he forgot unpleasant things said about him.

I have an ability to very conveniently forget some of the unpleasant things that are said, because it’s not worth it.

  • He claimed he could become prime minister.

This party is going places. This party is strong. This party is capable of winning a general election and if I am leader of the party I will be that prime minister.

And he insisted that the polls “will change, will improve” for Labour.

I say to Labour MPs quite simply this - I’ve been in Parliament a very long time. I’ve seen lots of leaders. I’ve seen them come and I’ve seen them go. There is a huge amount of talent on the Labour benches. We are part of but not the entirety of the Labour party and the Labour movement. And I hope that those that may not agree with me politically, may not even like me personally - I find that hard to believe, but there are some people apparently who don’t like me - I hold out the hand of friendship to them all, because come September when this election is done and dusted, there will still be a Tory Government in office, there will still be grotesque levels of inequality in our society, there will still be whole parts of this country that are left-behind Britain.

It’s the job, it’s the duty, it’s the responsibility of every Labour MP to get behind the party at that point and put it there against the Tories about the different, fairer kind of Britain that we can build together.

I appeal to them to work together to put that case forward, because we owe it to the people that founded this party, that support this party, the half-million who give their money and their time to help this party survive and strengthen and grow. I hope they will recognise that and come on board.

  • He claimed that Labour had become “stronger” under his leadership. (See 10.42am.)

These are from Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh.

And here is Robert Harris, the writer and former political journalist, commenting on these figures.

Updated

Here is some more reaction to Jeremy Corbyn’s launch from journalists.

From the former Times political editor Philip Webster

From the Guardian’s Peter Walker

From Channel 4 News’ Michael Crick

From Sky’s Tamara Cohen

I will post a summary of the news lines from the event soon.

Corbyn's campaign launch - Verdict

Jeremy Corbyn has rarely sounded more confident. Unlike many other MPs, he has little time or respect for Westminster journalists (in some cases, understandably) and some of his previous encounters with the press have been awkward, to put it mildly. But today he was relaxed and good-humoured and, above all, confident. He gave the impression that he believes that he will win this leadership contest easily. And it is not hard to see why. (See 10.28am.)

His speech contained a defence of his record over the last 10 months, a broad statement about tackling injustice and the modern equivalents of Beveridge’s five “giant evils” and a policy announcement about pay audits. Corbyn has had relatively little new to say on policy since he was elected leader (which is odd, because in the leadership contest last summer he produced a dozen or so quite substantial policy papers - will they get recycled?) and so in that sense the speech was refreshing. But it was still relatively threadbare. By comparison, Theresa May’s one proper leadership campaign speech, delivered last Monday, contained much more new thinking.

What was more telling, though, was what Corbyn did not say. He did not mention Owen Smith, his opponent, at all in his speech, in line with the usual reluctance of incumbents to talk up the status of their challengers. But he also had absolutely nothing to say about the circumstance that have led to 75% of Labour MPs declaring they have no confidence in him. Corbyn’s allies, like John McDonnell, insist that these MPs are opposing Corbyn because they cannot support his leftwing politics. The MPs themselves largely insist that he has lost their support because of his incompetence. (See, for example, Lilian Greenwood’s recent speech - perhaps the most detailed and judicious account of Corbyn’s failings from a member of the shadow cabinet.) But as for what Corbyn thinks? We don’t really know. He refused to address this issue in his speech, and was not much more forthcoming in the Q&A. To his critics this must have come over as the ultimate complacency.

But Corbyn just did not seem to care. He knows that his support amongst members remains high, and he does not seem to rate Smith as a threat. Untroubled by self-doubt, he looked like someone expecting the contest to be a walkover.

Updated

Q: [From my colleague Peter Walker] The polls suggest people do not think Labour will win the election. Are they wrong?

Corbyn says he thinks the polls will change. The Guardian was predicting Labour would lose many seats in the south in the local elections, he says. It did not. He says after the leadership contest people will see that Labour is offering a better alternative. He says the government cuts are most severe in the places where poverty is highest.

And that’s it.

I will post a verdict shortly.

Corbyn says Owen Smith was in the shadow cabinet until two weeks ago. He came to see Corbyn, said he was happy there, but then promptly resigned. He hopes he comes back.

Corbyn says there is a system for the reselection of MPs. There will be a boundary review. So new selection processes will have to take place. But sitting MPs will be able to put their names forward.

But there are issues surrounding the boundary review, he says. The electorate has increased since the cut-off date used to set the new constituency boundaries. The Electoral Commission should look again at this. He says young people and black and ethnic minority people are disproportionately underrepresented on the electoral register.

Kate Osamor calls the BBC’s Norman Smith. Smith is not there. Corbyn jokes that it cannot be a proper event without Smith.

Q: Did you agree with what Diane Abbott said about Owen Smith on Today this morning?

Corbyn says he does not listen to Today every day. But he followed this on social media. He hopes Smith agrees that the NHS should be run by publicly-paid staff. And medical research should be dominated the the medical research agency, not by private companies. He hopes Smith will come on board to the idea of the NHS being run by publicly-employed people.

Q: It is not that your MPs don’t like it; it’s that they don’t think you will be prime minister.

Corbyn says he wishes they were on board. He wishes they contributed to the economy debate yesterday. Do MPs think ill of him? He does not think so. Do they disagree with him? They might. But he hopes they get on board.

Why is he so frightening, he asks.

He says Labour is “going places”. It is strong. It is capable of winning an election. And if he is leader, he will be that prime minister.

Q: Your MPs do not think you are up to the job. Does it matter that your MPs do not support you?

Corbyn says he set out policy changes last year. He has changed policy, especially on the economy. Because of John McDonnell the economic debate has changed.

He says he appointed a broad-based shadow cabinet. Three months later he made a few changes. And after the EU referendum he appointed a new shadow cabinet. Some members were new MPs. But they stepped up and have done a brilliant job.

He says MPs are not the entirety of the Labour movement. Some MPs may not like him. He finds that hard to believe, he says. But after the leadership contest it is the responsibility of every Labour MP to get behind the leader. They owe it to their supporters to help Labour build a better society.

He says he has an ability to forget some of the more unpleasant things that are said. It is because it is not worth it, he says.

Corbyn's Q&A

Jeremy Corbyn is now taking questions.

Q: [From Sky] There will be a vetting process for new members. Do you feel people from other parties should be allowed to join.

Corbyn says anyone joining must support the aims and values of Labour. He hopes that process is enforced. But he welcomes people from other parties.

Q: Will you publish the pay breakdown for your own office?

The equal pay audit will cover all employers, he says.

Corbyn says many employers are opposed to discrimination.

Many employers wouldn’t want to discriminate against their staff … such discrimination holds back companies and our economy …

… If our economy is to thrive it needs to harness the talents of everyone …

So this is about making our economy stronger … the workplace fairer … reducing the discrimination that holds people back.

Corbyn is winding up now.

Over the next couple of months, our campaign will set out how we plan to defeat the Tories … and elect a Labour government that will act to tame the forces holding people back: … of Inequality … Neglect … Insecurity … Prejudice … and Discrimination …

Corbyn says young workers face discrimination.

Young workers are institutionally discriminated against … not entitled to the full minimum wage … not entitled to equal rates of housing benefit … and so many are now saddled with huge student debts.

He pays tribute to the unions.

I want to pay tribute to trade unions … they have won millions of pounds for workers who faced discrimination … They won them back-pay … but they also won them dignity and equality.

But not every workplace is unionised … and these are often complex cases that can take years.

We are calling time on discrimination … and, as we know from the minimum wage, proper enforcement matters and makes the difference …

So we are also committing to fund the Equalities and Human Rights Commission …

McDonnell says he came into politics to stand up against injustice.

The injustices that scar society today are not those of 1945 … Want, Squalor, Idleness, Disease and Ignorance …

… And they have changed since I first entered Parliament in 1983…

Today what is holding people back above all are … Inequality … Neglect … Insecurity … Prejudice … and Discrimination …

… In my campaign I want to confront all five of those ills head on … setting out, not only how Labour will campaign against these injustices in opposition … but also spelling out some of the measures … the next Labour government will take to overcome them … and move decisively towards a society in which opportunity and prosperity is truly shared …

… in which no individual is held back … and no community left behind.

And now he is talking about his plans to promote equal pay. Some of these extracts were released in advance, and I covered them in a post at 9.47am.

Corbyn pays tribute to Debbie Abrahams, the shadow work and pensions secretary, and John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor.

He says McDonnell has demolished the case for austerity.

[McDonnell] said it: “austerity is a political choice not an economic necessity”.

Every single plank of George Osborne’s failed and destructive economic programme is being torn up …

From a year ago … when Labour was too cautious in criticising cuts … Now, you’re hard-pressed to find even a Tory to defend it … as one fiscal target after another has been ditched … first by Osborne, and now by Theresa May. The long-term economic plan is dead.

Most people now believe that the government’s cuts are both unfair … and bad for our economy.

In post-Brexit Britain … even Tories like Stephen Crabb and Sajid Javid are converts … making the case for tens of billions in investment.

But it is Labour’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell who led the way … and who earlier this week made the case for a National Investment Bank … and a network of regional investment banks … to redistribute wealth and power …

Corbyn says he is bringing in a “kinder, gentler politics”.

That is laying the ground for a kinder, gentler politics … that respects those unable to work … that treats disabled people with dignity …

Corbyn says Labour got the government to reverse the planned personal independence payments cuts.

And it has changed the language on welfare, he says.

We have helped change the debate on welfare … no frontbench politician is now using disgraceful, divisive terms like ‘scrounger’, ‘shirker’ or ‘skiver’. They have been shamed by the reality of life … for millions of our people in left-behind Britain.

Corbyn says Labour has delivered “concrete results”.

3 million families are over £1,000 better off this year … because Labour stood up and opposed cuts to tax credits.

That was Labour making a real difference for those at the sharp end … mobilising our supporters and those losing out to lobby Parliament … challenging the Prime Minister week after week in the House of Commons … and our Labour Lords winning the votes … and defeating the government in Parliament.

We won back billions of pounds for working class families … directly improving the lives of working people and their families … which is of course exactly what the Labour party was created to do …

Just over a year ago there were those in our party in parliament … who were unsure about whether to oppose a Bill …. that threatened to take £12 billion from welfare … cash support for the less well off, low paid workers and the disabled.

(I am using the text supplied by Labour. The dots are in the original text.)

Corbyn starts by talking about what Labour has achieved under his leadership.

Labour is stronger … we have won every parliamentary by-election we have faced … three of them with greatly increased majorities.

We overtook the Tories in the May elections. We won all four mayoral contests – in Liverpool and Salford, in London for the first time since 2004 and in Bristol for the first time ever. We also won Bristol Council for the first time since 2003.

Our party membership has gone from below 200,000 just over a year ago … to over half a million today.

He also says the Fire Brigades Union has been welcomed back into the Labour family.

Jeremy Corbyn's campaign launch

The Labour MP Kate Osamor, the shadow international development secretary, is introducing Jeremy Corbyn.

She says Corbyn has shown he is principled, dignified, resilient and honest.

His campaign will be about bringing people together, she says.

The pro-Corbyn Morning Star says in its splash story that Jeremy Corbyn is on course to win - and that he could win by an even bigger margin than in 2015, when he won 59.5% of first preference votes against three other candidates.

Here is Jeremy Corbyn arriving for his campaign launch.

Jeremy Corbyn arriving for his campaign launch.
Jeremy Corbyn arriving for his campaign launch. Photograph: Sky News

Today’s written ministerial statements (see 9.35am) are starting to come out, and we’ve had a relatively important one from Justine Greening, the new education secretary. She has said that the new funding formula for schools being devised by the government will come into force from 2018-19, a year later than planned.

My colleague Peter Walker is at the Jeremy Corbyn campaign launch.

Here is the Guardian’s preview story about Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign launch.

And here is an extract from his speech, released overnight, giving more details of his plan to force all but the smallest firms to carry out equal pay audits.

As far back as 195 the ‘Equal Remuneration Convention’ of the International Labour Organisation, a UN body, supported the principle of equal pay for men and women workers for work of equal value.

Sixty-five years on and women are over-represented in the lowest paying sectors … cleaning, catering and caring vital sectors of our economy doing valuable work … but not work that is fairly rewarded or equally respected.

And we know too that many disabled workers are not being given the same opportunities to fulfil their potential.

Last year Britain was ranked 18th in the world for its gender pay gap, below Nicaragua, Namibia and New Zealand. We can and must do far better.

So Labour is calling time on the waiting game and I am making the commitment today that the next Labour government will require all employers with more than 21 staff to publish equality pay audits, detailing pay, grade and hours of every job, alongside data on recognised equality characteristics.

Because it is not only women who face workplace discrimination but disabled workers, the youngest and oldest workers, black and ethnic minority workers.

It’s the last day before the Commons summer recess. As usual, that means the government is putting out a raft of announcements on the same day (statements that have to be made to parliament). There are 30 written ministerial statements. On a normal day, we only get around half a dozen.

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Claire.

Jeremy Corbyn is launching his leadership campaign at 10.30am. In a speech at a rally last night, Corbyn said he hoped the campaign would be clean. He said:

You may have noticed that I have received one or two criticisms over the last 10 months. But I don’t really have time to read all of those; I’m very busy. But it’s quite important that we don’t reply in the same terms, because I’m not going to get in the gutter with anybody.

Jeremy Corbyn at a rally last night.
Jeremy Corbyn at a rally last night. Photograph: BBC News/BBC

Abbott says offering Chakrabarti a peerage would be 'entirely appropriate' for Labour

Abbott was asked about reports that Shami Chakrabarti, who chaired an independent inquiry into antisemitism in the the Labour party, had been offered a peerage – a question Chakrabarti herself said she would “evade”. Jessica Elgot, the Guardian’s political reporter, has more:

Diane Abbott said she did not know if Chakrabarti had been offered a peerage but said her work as a human rights campaign meant she deserved a seat in the Lords.

“I don’t think it would be improper at all. Shami has an incredibly distinguished career, she is just the sort of person who should be going into the Lords,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“If you look at her record at Liberty and you look at her defence of human rights and civil liberties, she’s exactly the right sort of person.”

Asked if it might look as if she had been offered the peerage while conducting an independent review, Abbott said: “The ‘look of it’, in my opinion, is one of the most distinguished women in public life is going into the Lords, that is entirely appropriate.”

Here is the video showing Chakrabarti evading a question about whether she has been offered a seat in the House of Lords. The key exchange starts at 1.12 minutes in.

Shami Chakrabarti being asked about whether she has been offered a peerage

Updated

Diane Abbott welcomes the 180,000 registered supporters who signed up to Labour this week (although she says £25 fee was an attempt to gerrymander the result):

I’m really glad all these people have joined. We believe many of them are Jeremy supporters …

It’s not enough but it’s quite exciting that we’ve got the biggest Labour party we’ve ever had.

She says Corbyn will not spend the two months of the leadership bout campaigning:

He’s very keen that we don’t spend the summer looking inwards. He wants to look outwards … it would be quite wrong if he was forced just to look inwards.

And if Corbyn pulls off a second win?

He’ll have won twice. There is obviously a hardcore of Labour MPs who will never reconcile themselves.

But she says she hopes others will realise “they really have to come behind him … I don’t expect them to leave”.

There won’t be a split, Abbott says, adding that she was around for the SDP years, which “didn’t go well”.

Anti Trident demonstration, London, UK - 18 Jul 2016Mandatory Credit: Photo by Steve Parkins/REX/Shutterstock (5772508b) Diane Abbott Anti Trident demonstration, London, UK - 18 Jul 2016
Diane Abbott: Corbyn ‘wants to look outwards’. Photograph: Steve Parkins/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

In that Guardian interview, Smith denied having been a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical firms he worked for:

Let’s get the terms right – I was never a lobbyist. I was head of policy at Pfizer, then director of health economics and corporate affairs at Amgen … I never held a lobby pass, I have never lobbied MPs.

Abbott tells the Today programme she’s not buying that version:

For practical purposes, he was … He wasn’t a scientist, he was a lobbyist.

He’s a great bloke and so on … but I don’t believe someone who’s been a special adviser and a pharmaceutical lobbyist is going to enthuse the base …

People find the link between politics and lobbyists very distasteful … There’s no issue close to Labour members’ hearts than the NHS.

Abbott criticises Labour MPs for not supporting Corbyn at PMQs

Diane Abbott, shadow health secretary and a Corbyn backer, is defending the Labour leader’s performance at PMQs yesterday (which Owen Smith told the Guardian had made his blood boil).

Abbott says that when Theresa May entered the chamber, she won a huge cheer from her side. When Corbyn came in, there was nothing from his own side, whom she accuses of “sitting on their hands”:

If Owen Smith wants Jeremy to score over Theresa May at prime minister’s questions he needs to talk to his colleagues.

They refuse to cheer, they sit on their hands, they sulk, they chat among themselves. Some of these Labour MPs need to understand it is not about supporting Jeremy as a person, it is about going into the chamber for prime minister’s questions and supporting your party.

When Theresa May came in she got huge cheers from the Tory benches. When Jeremy came in there was silence. If your own side isn’t behind you, it is really difficult to hit your stride.

Updated

If today you’d like your politics 1983-style, take a look at what’s been turfed up in newly released Downing Street documents:

And something that isn’t being revealed:

Gisela Stuart 'seriously thinking' about not voting in Labour leadership

Stuart says Labour is losing its traditional voters:

To be back in government, we have to actually reflect what our voters want, and they want greater cohesion and greater control …

Those who felt they had nothing left to lose voted in large numbers for Leave and they are not rejoining the Labour party.

She says she has not decided whether to back Corbyn or Smith in the leadership battle:

I genuinely at the moment do not know what I should do.

And, she adds, she is considering not voting at all:

I seriously have to think about it … That tells you we’ve got a problem with the Labour party.

Stuart was not enthused by the prospect of Corbyn’s leadership launch today, saying of his expected new policies:

You don’t just write them overnight in your relaunch of defending your leadership.

Gisela Stuart Labour Party MP for Birmingham Edgbaston and Chair of the Vote Leave campaign celebrates after results show Britain voted to leave the EU referendum at Manchester Town Hall in Manchester in England on June 24, 2016. Britain has voted to leave the European Union by 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent, final results from all 382 of Britain’s local counting centres showed on Friday / AFP PHOTO / Lindsey ParnabyLINDSEY PARNABY/AFP/Getty Images
Gisela Stuart: ‘We’ve got a problem with the Labour party.’ Photograph: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Gisela Stuart, the Labour MP who chaired the Vote Leave campaign but has been rather quieter than her Brexiter colleagues Boris Johnson and Michael Gove since the referendum, has been on the Today programme.

Labour – and its leadership – needs to accept the result of the vote to leave the EU, she says:

That was the decision, we should get the best deal for the country.

Stuart says both Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith have misjudged what voters want. Corbyn would like unlimited immigration, she says, arguing it is “not good to have immigration policy that doesn’t address feelings of voters”.

And on Smith’s plans to ask the country again about the terms of any Brexit deal:

A second referendum is not the answer.

She says politics at the moment tends towards the Bertolt Brecht quote, as she puts it:

Would it therefore not be better for the government to dismiss the people and elect a better one?

Updated

The 180,000+ new registered supporters who signed up in the 48-hour window that closed yesterday outnumber, it’s thought (because the Tory figures aren’t public), the entire membership of the Conservative party. That’s estimated at around 130,000-150,000, according to this analysis.

Jeremy Corbyn – perhaps encouraged by reports that judge it most likely that the bulk of new joiners are #TeamJC4PM – has welcomed them this morning:

Prior to the registered supporters sign-up, Labour membership stood at over 503,000 – the highest number in modern history.

Updated

Corbyn calls for compulsory pay audits for all but the smallest firms

Ahead of Jeremy Corbyn’s official campaign launch at 10am, we have some details about one of the policies he intends to set out:

  • forcing all but the smallest firms to carry out compulsory pay audits of their staff (current regulations compel compulsory pay audits for firms with over 250 staff).
  • extending those pay audits, which examine potential discrimination against female employees, to cover disabled people and those from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Corbyn will say:

Women are over-represented in the lowest paying sectors: cleaning, catering and caring – vital sectors of our economy, doing valuable work, but not work that is fairly rewarded or equally respected.

Updated

Morning briefing

Good morning and welcome to our daily politics live blog. As parliament heads into its summer recess, there’s still a fair bit to keep politics-watchers happy, not least the launch today of Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for the Labour leadership (again).

Do come and share thoughts and questions in the comments below, or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps. Andrew Sparrow will be along later, but first: your morning briefing.

The big picture

And so the official Corbyn fightback begins, with more than 180,000 new supporters signed up to vote in the leadership contest, in addition to those who already met the six-month membership rule. The 48-hour sprint for those £25 registered supporters has, if nothing else, raised £4,588,525 for Labour. Internal strife has to have some upsides.

In a speech in London today, Corbyn will hit back at jibes by challenger Owen Smith that he offers questions but not answers by spelling out some fresh policies (and keep an eye out for that mention of “the next Labour government”).

With more than a nod to William Beveridge’s “five evils”, the Labour leader will say:

The injustices that scar society today are not those of 1945: want, squalor, idleness, disease and ignorance. And they have changed since I first entered parliament in 1983. Today what is holding people back above all are inequality, neglect, insecurity, prejudice and discrimination.

In my campaign I want to confront all five of those ills head-on … setting out not only how Labour will campaign against these injustices in opposition, but also spelling out some of the measures the next Labour government will take to overcome them and move decisively towards a society in which opportunity and prosperity is truly shared.

Owen Smith, Labour MP and leadership candidate in opposition to Jeremy Corbyn
Owen Smith. Furiousness not pictured. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

In an interview with the Guardian, Corbyn’s opponent, Owen Smith, adds another to the list of ills: fury. With Corbyn, that is, and his performance as Theresa May stepped up for her first PMQs yesterday:

I was more than frustrated: I was furious that we were sitting there with a Tory government that has imposed swingeing cuts on public services, on tax credits, on universal credit, that have smashed women and public sector workers the length and breadth of Britain, and we are taking lectures from them about social justice and economic fairness.

It makes my blood boil to see us so useless at saying to them: ‘How dare you have the temerity to make these claims, to make these arguments.’ Jeremy is just not up to the job of taking them on at the dispatch box. I don’t think he enjoys it; I don’t think he’s robust enough at arguing Labour’s case.

Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn clash in PMQs – video

Robustness will certainly be required for politics-watchers, who have two months of leadership campaigning ahead of them before the winner is lifted aloft at the party conference in September.

It’s still not as long as we’ve been waiting for universal credit, the new benefits system that suffered yet another timetable slip yesterday. In the seventh new launch date since 2013, the year 2022 has now been dangled – I’m not going to say set – as the completion date. That’s five years behind its original projected finish date.

In more “what’s the hurry” news, May has hinted that the government pledge/aim/Post-it note saying that net migration would be brought down below 100,000 by 2020 might not be met. Questioned at PMQs, she said “it will take some time” to swipe down the current 333,000 figure to the tens of thousands.

Later on Wednesday, however, May’s spokeswoman insisted: “The manifesto stands.” Which is handy, as that manifesto has been liberally cited as a reason for May not needing to call a general election before 2020.

Does anyone have a Brexit plan yet?

Sssshh now. There’s no rush. Or at least that appears to be what May and Angela Merkel agreed in their meeting yesterday. It was “absolutely understandable”, the German chancellor said, that the new British government would need to “take a moment first and try to seek to identify its interests”.

May – who’s off to Paris today to talk Brexit with the French president, François Hollande – reiterated her determination that there was no need for article 50 to be triggered this year (let’s not use up all the news before 2017 starts, right?):

The United Kingdom will not invoke article 50 until our objectives are clear … I understand this timescale will not please everyone but I think it is important to provide clarity on that now.

Merkel supports May’s plan not to trigger Brexit this year – video

Veiled compliment of the day – there’s bound to be a German word for that – goes to Merkel, when quizzed about the promotion of Boris Johnson to UK foreign secretary:

Negotiations with Britain have always been exhausting, interesting and tactically clever negotiations.

Nigel Farage had a try at sarcasm, too, telling Republicans at the national convention in Cleveland that the US president’s plea for Britain to stay in the EU had been a tremendous boon:

I’m a huge fan of Barack Obama. Without him we wouldn’t have won the referendum. He was very helpful.

But unveiled non-compliment of the day goes to MPs on the foreign affairs committee whose report on the absence of contingency planning for a Brexit vote concludes that David Cameron’s decision

not to instruct key departments including the foreign office to plan for the possibility that the electorate would vote to leave the EU amounted to gross negligence.

You should also know:

Has Jeremy Corbyn invited Shami Chakrabarti to the House of Lords?
Has Jeremy Corbyn invited Shami Chakrabarti to the House of Lords? Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

Poll position

As Labour reeled from the Brexit vote and the leadership turmoil, the Guardian surveyed 101 constituency parties. As Ewen MacAskill reports:

Enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyn has waned since the start of the year among Labour supporters … The Guardian exercise found many local party officers blaming the softening of support on the Labour leader’s performance in the EU referendum campaign.

Six months ago the Guardian conducted a similar survey against a backdrop of euphoria over huge rises in membership after Corbyn’s election in September. While support is more muted by comparison, party officers report that he remains ahead and likely to win.

One stark finding in the survey is that there is no evidence of support for an alternative candidate – with barely a mention of either Owen Smith, relatively unknown until he launched his challenge to Corbyn, or Angela Eagle, who dropped out shortly after the survey was completed.

You can read the full survey here.

Support rally for Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, Leeds, UK - 02 Jul 2016Mandatory Credit: Photo by Harry Whitehead/REX/Shutterstock (5744383c) Sid, a 9-year-old greyhound, wears a red coat and Labour badges in support of Jeremy Corbyn, during a rally to support the Labour Leader, in Leeds, West Yorkshire Support rally for Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, Leeds, UK - 02 Jul 2016 Mr Corbyn’s leadership is under threat after numerous frontbench resignations and a no-confidence vote by his MPs, following the result of the EU Referendum Vote.
Dogs for Corbyn. This greyhound was not surveyed by the Guardian. Photograph: Harry Whitehead/REX/Shutterstock

Diary

  • The Today programme hears from Labour Vote Leave champion Gisela Stuart at 7.50am, with shadow health secretary Diane Abbott on at 8.20am.
  • At 10am, Jeremy Corbyn launches his leadership campaign with a speech in London.
  • At 10:30 the high court hears a claim by a group of junior doctors challenging the imposition of new contracts by health secretary Jeremy Hunt.
  • Theresa May is in Paris to meet French president François Hollande; there’ll be a news conference at around 5.30pm ahead of their working dinner.
  • At 5pm, London mayor Sadiq Khan is on LBC for his Speak to Sadiq phone-in.
  • Boris Johnson is in Washington with defence secretary Michael Fallon to discuss international efforts to defeat Isis.
  • Lisa Nandy, one of Owen Smith’s campaign co-chairs, makes a speech about the future for Labour post-Brexit.

Read these

Jenni Russell in the Times says Theresa May’s new cabinet could help shift perceptions about older workers:

When David Cameron became prime minister, the average age of the holders of the four great offices of state was 46. Under Theresa May it is just under 56. That decade’s difference will send a strong subliminal message about the power and potential of older people. And that message has a remarkable effect on our bodies, our health and our own longevity.

When Tony Blair became PM at 43, I knew a whole raft of people a little older who were grief-stricken. His success left them feeling that they were over the hill and that if they weren’t at the top of their professions by their early forties they’d had it … We internalise society’s beliefs about ageing many decades before we get old ourselves. Whether those are positive or negative has a dramatic effect on how well we age and how long we live.

And do read Zadie Smith’s essay in the New York Review of Books on the Brexit fallout:

While we loudly and rightly condemn the misguided racial attitudes that led to millions asking ‘them’ to leave ‘us’, to get out of our jobs and public housing and hospitals and schools and country, we might also take a look at the last thirty years and ask ourselves what kind of attitudes have allowed a different class of people to discreetly manoeuvre, behind the scenes, to ensure that ‘them’ and ‘us’ never actually meet anywhere but in symbol. Wealthy London, whether red or blue, has always been able to pick and choose the nature of its multicultural and cross-class relations, to lecture the rest of the country on its narrow-mindedness while simultaneously fencing off its own discreet advantages. We may walk past ‘them’ very often in the street and get into their cabs and eat their food in their ethnic restaurants, but the truth is that more often than not they are not in our schools, or in our social circles, and they very rarely enter our houses – unless they’ve come to work on our endlessly remodelled kitchens.

Elsewhere in Britain people really do live cheek-by-jowl with the recently migrated, and experience the undercutting of their wages by newcomers. They really do have to fight for resources under an austerity government that makes it all too easy to blame your unavailable hospital bed on the migrant family next door, or on an oblique bureaucracy across the Channel, which the nitwit demagogues on the TV keep telling you is the reason there’s not enough money in the NHS. In this atmosphere of hypocrisy and outright deceit, should the working-class poor have shown themselves to be the ‘better man’ when all around them is corruption and venality?

Crafty scheme of the day

Strictly speaking, that day was in 1983, but we’ve only just discovered it via newly released Downing Street files: Margaret Thatcher’s press secretary, Bernard Ingham, came up with a plan to keep CND protests out of the headlines by suggesting the release of video footage of royal baby Prince William pootling about with his parents.

Nice try. Luckily we readers are more sophisticated these days. Oh hello, Thursday’s Daily Mail!

UK Daily Mail front page, 21 July 2016, shows a trail for a supplement of pictures of royal babies.
Look, a royal baby! Photograph: @DailyMailUK

Celebrity endorsement of the day

At the Republican National Congress, disappointed former presidential candidate Ted Cruz won a resounding huzzah when he praised the UK’s vote for Brexit, saying voters had showed their dislike of the political establishment and “big government”.

Cruz was later booed off the stage after failing to endorse Donald Trump in his speech.

The day in a tweet

A former shadow cabinet minister calls for calm:

Former Labour shadow cabinet minister Lilian Greenwood tweets in response to pro-Corbyn supporters as the UK Labour leadership contest begins, July 2016.

If today were a seemingly endless film franchise

It would be the Fast and the (really very) Furious.

And another thing

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