JEREMY Corbyn has branded the Conservatives’ £1.5 billion deal with the Democratic Unionists to prop up Theresa May’s Government “unsustainable” and that he is ready to fight another general election in the coming months.
The Labour leader, who will use the summer campaigning in marginal seats north and south of the border, said he would challenge the Conservative Government at every turn.
“We’ve already forced a lot of U-turns. They are U-turning every day because we have changed the agenda. We have changed the debate on the economy, social justice, education and so many other things; we are forcing them all the way.”
He added: “I do not believe it’s sustainable for this Government to give £1.5bn towards the DUP in order to stay in office. It’s unsustainable. I’m looking forward to another election. I’m ready for it.”
Mr Corbyn’s intervention came after calls were made for him not to try to use his party’s good performance at the General Election to oust unsupportive MPs as candidates at the next election.
As suggestions were made that the hard Left is plotting to oust Tom Watson as deputy leader and replace him with Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Baroness Armstrong, the party’s former Chief Whip, urged the party leader to show tolerance.
It was recalled how Tony Blair when leader did not heed calls to oust Mr Corbyn from his Islington North seat, believing Labour was a “broad church”. The then Labour backbencher famously rebelled against his party leadership more than 500 times.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's The Westminster Hour, Baroness Armstrong said she was pleased party chairman Ian Lavery had said de-selection was not the way forward but she noted how there was a “process of harassment” going on in local parties aimed at “grinding down” Labour centrists in a bid to say they no longer belonged in the party.
She added: "Jeremy has the opportunity over the summer and at party conference to make it absolutely clear that he is not going to lead a narrow sectarian faction, he's going to lead a broad church that is tolerant. And the real test for Jeremy is, is he up to it?"
Asked whether or not he would replicate Mr Blair’s tolerance of rebels and “call off the dogs” in threatening to deselect MPs who did not support him, Mr Corbyn replied: “What Hilary Armstrong seems to forget is that the selection process is done by party members.
“Yes, I was challenged twice during that period for reselection as the candidate for Islington North and, obviously, I was reselected on all those occasions by members of the party. There was a trigger ballot, there was a vote and I was reselected,” he added.
Meantime, Barry Gardiner, the Shadow International Trade Secretary, made clear there was no vacancy for deputy leader at the moment and the party should “not be fixated” on squabbles over de-selection but on creating unity.
“Tom is a colleague of mine as all the Shadow Cabinet are. We need to focus on a unity of purpose. That’s why we are going out over the country in the next six weeks…We are going to have a campaigning summer and Tom is going to be part of that as are all other members of the Shadow Cabinet.”
The Scot added: “The last thing we want is for us to try to replicate the disagreements and the fighting that’s going in the Conservative Party at the moment.”
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