Brown intervenes in Labour leadership race

Britain's Labour Party must choose a leader who can make it electable and not just a party of protest, former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown has said, after a poll found voters believed the frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn would worsen its chances of winning an election.

Opinion polls suggest left-winger Mr Corbyn is leading the race, with the result due on September 12th. Many supporters of Mr Corbyn, who wants to return the party to its socialist roots, have said that by moving towards the centre ground under Tony Blair, Labour sacrificed its principles in pursuit of power.

Although he avoided naming Mr Corbyn, Mr Brown made a veiled warning to the more than 600,000 people eligible to vote in the leadership contest that Labour would be unelectable if it chose him.

“It is not an abandonment of principles to seek power,” Mr Brown, who was prime minister from 2007-2010, said in a speech in London.

“The best way of realising our high ideals is to show that we are an alternative in government that is credible, is radical and is electable . . . Protest will not be enough.”

Mr Brown’s intervention in the increasingly fractious leadership contest follows warnings by Mr Blair that the party cannot win on a left-wing platform and faces annihilation if it picks Mr Corbyn.

A poll for the Independent on Sunday found 31 per cent of people believed Mr Corbyn would worsen Labour's chances of winning in 2020, compared with 21 per cent who thought he would improve it. – Reuters