Labour leadership challenger Sir Keir Starmer warns party risks being out of power for a generation unless it unites as Lisa Nandy admits ‘we’re just not relevant’ to many voters
- Voting in the Labour leadership contest starts tomorrow, voting closes April 2
- Sir Kier Starmer, Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey on the final ballot paper
- Sir Keir warned party will be locked out of power for generation if it fails to unite
- Lisa Nandy said party must change approach, admitting: ‘We’re just not relevant’
Sir Keir Starmer has warned Labour activists the party risks being out of power for a generation unless it unites and fights the Tories.
Voting in the Labour leadership contest will get underway tomorrow and Sir Keir said members have a choice when they cast their ballot.
The favourite in the race to replace Jeremy Corbyn said people could either choose to continue to ‘mope around’ after the party’s devastating general election results or ‘pull together’.
Meanwhile, his leadership challenger Lisa Nandy said the party must dramatically change its approach to many issues as she proclaimed: ‘We’re just not relevant.’
Sir Keir Starmer, pictured in Durham today, has warned Labour risks being out of power for a generation
Meanwhile, Lisa Nandy, pictured in Peterborough yesterday, said Labour is no longer ‘relevant’ to many voters
Sir Keir and Ms Nandy are battling along with shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey to take over from Mr Corbyn.
They now have six weeks to win over party members before the winner of the contest is announced at a special event on April 4.
Sir Keir today described ‘uniting the party’ as his first priority while his second will be to establish an effective opposition to Boris Johnson who he labelled a ‘really dangerous man’.
The shadow Brexit secretary told The Observer: ‘My message to our members is essentially that they’ve got a choice: we as a party can mope around, head in hands, arguing with each other, pointing fingers about who’s to blame for this, that and the other.
‘Or we could decide the next four years of our history is for us – we can pull together and shape what happens next.’
He said that if Labour loses the next general election then an entire generation ‘will have not had the protection and benefit of a Labour government’.
‘This is a choice we’ve got to make, a conscious choice for half a million members,’ he said.
‘Do you want to make history, pull together and change? If the answer to that is yes, then let’s do it. Because if not, we’re going to lose.’
Meanwhile, Ms Nandy told the Sunday Express that the party needed to fight for its right to exist and persuade voters it can provide the solutions to the challenges they face.
Sir Keir, Ms Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey, pictured in Durham today, will find out which one of them has won the Labour leadership race on April 4
The Wigan MP said: ‘We don’t have a God-given right to exist. We’ve got to show that we’ve understood this right now.
‘The sense people have in Wigan and many similar towns across the country is that they haven’t left Labour, Labour has left them.
‘It’s not even that we’re too radical – for a lot of people we’re just not relevant.’