Backbencher tipped as Corbyn challenger to call for party to be ‘tough on inequality, tough on the causes of inequality’

Dan Jarvis, the Labour backbencher widely touted as a potential challenger to Jeremy Corbyn, will lay out his vision for the future of Britain’s economy on Thursday, in a move that will be regarded as firing the starting gun on a bid for the leadership.

Jarvis, the former paratrooper who is known to have been raising money from former Labour donors, will deliver a speech at the thinktank Demos arguing that New Labour failed to get to grips with the root causes of rising inequality — including the impact of globalisation on the wages of UK workers.

“Let’s be frank, New Labour’s approach wasn’t enough. It didn’t get at the root causes,” he will say. “New Labour didn’t see with sufficient clarity the downsides of globalisation. They knew it meant cheap consumer goods. But, they didn’t recognise that too often, it meant cheap labour too.”

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He will urge his colleagues to adopt policies that are “tough on inequality, tough on the causes of inequality”, in language deliberately evocative of Tony Blair when he made a pitch to working-class voters that he would be “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”.

The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, suggested recently that the borders between nations would become “irrelevant” in the coming decades, allowing workers to travel freely from one economy to another. But Jarvis believes potential Labour voters are concerned about the risks of globalisation for jobs and wages.



He will add that today’s Labour politicians must be critical of some of the choices Labour made in power after 1997, while embracing others. “It’s a false choice to say we must either champion Labour’s record in government or denounce it,” he will say. “The truth is we should defend our achievements and learn from our mistakes. To anyone outside Westminster, that’s common sense.”

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Jarvis’s intervention comes as Labour members keen to shore up Corbyn’s leadership seek to change the process for electing a leader, to ensure that his name would be on the ballot paper in the event that a challenger emerged.

It emerged on Tuesday that the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) had drawn up proposals for the party’s ruling national executive committee that would see the incumbent’s name automatically placed on the ballot paper, and lower the threshold for the MPs and MEPs who would need to nominate him, from 15% to 5%.

However, a spokesman for the leader insisted on Wednesday that Corbyn had not been involved in the plans, saying: “Our view is that the leader of the Labour party is already on the ballot paper.” He added that if the CLPD’s measures came before the Labour party conference in September, they would be would be “dealt with through the democratic process”.

It is thought that Rachel Reeves, the former shadow work and pensions secretary, could be in line for the shadow chancellor role if Jarvis were to win the leadership. She gave her own speech on Monday setting out several detailed economic proposals, including cancelling George Osborne’s cuts to inheritance tax and using the money saved to boost childcare provision.

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Some of Corbyn’s critics think the best time to launch a coup would be on 24 June, straight after the EU referendum. But others warn that Corbyn would simply win the race again with the current level of support in the membership.

One senior MP said he believed the right strategy for Labour MPs seeking to challenge Corbyn was a “show not tell” approach, in which politicians with leadership ambitions did not lecture members but tried to persuade them by delivering speeches that chimed with their values.

Labour’s membership has increased sharply since last summer, as thousands of Corbyn supporters have joined up, many of them young voters, and the grassroots group Momentum has been formed to bring fresh energy to Labour’s political campaigning.

