The Labour leadership candidate has stated several times the EU is imperfect and needs reform, drawing criticism from rivals who demand clarity

Jeremy Corbyn has come under fire from senior party figures and rivals for the Labour leadership after refusing to rule out campaigning to take the UK out of the EU.

At the latest leadership hustings in Warrington on Saturday, the leftwing candidate said his decision would depend on whether David Cameron was able to change the EU for the better.

In recent weeks, Corbyn has refused several times to make clear whether he would, as Labour leader, campaign to stay in or get out, and has said merely that the EU is imperfect and needs reform.

The issue is a difficult one for Corbyn as he enjoys a surge in support. A number of his supporters on the left of the party are known to believe strongly that Corbyn should keep open the option of campaigning to leave – although the vast majority of Labour supporters back staying in.

All three other leadership candidates, Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall, have made clear they believe it is in the national interest for the UK to remain the EU, while saying reform is also needed.

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Asked again whether he would rule out campaigning to get out, the Islington North MP told the hustings: “No I wouldn’t rule it out … Because Cameron quite clearly follows an agenda which is about trading away workers’ rights, is about trading away environmental protection, is about trading away much of what is in the social chapter.

“The EU also knowingly, deliberately, maintains a number of tax havens and tax evasion posts around the continent – Luxembourg, Monaco and a number of others – and has this strange relationship with Switzerland which allows a lot of European companies to outsource their profits to Switzerland where tax rates are very low.”

Corbyn said Labour should set out its negotiating demands on issues such as workers’ rights, the environment, tax and wage protection. “I think we should be making those demands and negotiating on those demands rather than saying blanketly we’re going to support whatever Cameron comes out with in one, two years’ time, whenever he finally decides to hold this referendum.”

The EU’s handling of the leftwing Syriza government in Greece had shown, he added, “just how economically driven they are”.

Asked on Saturday by the Observer to clarify his position on the EU, Corbyn had suggested his preferred position was for the UK to remain inside a reformed community.

“Labour should set out its own clear position to influence negotiations, working with our European allies to set out a reform agenda to benefit ordinary Europeans across the continent,” he said. “We cannot be content with the state of the EU as it stands. But that does not mean walking away, but staying to fight together for a better Europe.”

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Senior party figures said it was unsustainable for anyone campaigning to lead the party to be unclear on such a fundamental question.

Alan Johnson, who is heading the party’s Yes campaign ahead of the referendum to be held by the end of 2017, said lack of clarity on such an important issue was not an option.

“The Labour party ditched its anti-European stance in the mid-80s, at the beginning of our long march back to electability. The membership has a right to know if any leadership candidate wants to take the party (and the country) back to its isolationist past to the detriment of of British jobs, growth and influence in an increasingly interdependent world.”

Yvette Cooper said all candidates to lead the party should make their position clear. “I want Labour to be leading the campaign to stay in the EU and championing Britain as a modern, confident and outward-looking nation. It is only right all those standing to be Labour leader make their positions on this vital issue crystal clear.”

Labour’s Europe spokesman, Pat McFadden, said it was wrong to compare Corbyn’s views to those of Syriza in Greece.

“There has been some attempt to suggest that Mr Corbyn’s campaign is a parallel of the Syriza movement in Greece, but Syriza is a firmly pro-European movement that has fought to keep Greece in the EU and the Eurozone. If Mr Corbyn comes out as anti-EU it will show there is nothing new about his politics – it is simply Bennism from the 1980s reheated. Is he going to fight for Britain as an open, outward-looking country engaged with the world or line up with Nigel Farage on a nationalist nostalgia trip?”

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Liz Kendall, writing for the Observer, says: “Our future should be as an open outward looking country leading the reform of Europe, not the wrongheaded and damaging isolationism of Labour’s past.”

Meanwhile – in a boost to the Corbyn campaign – a group of almost 30 Labour parliamentary candidates who failed to win seats on 7 May will announce their backing for the leftwinger on Sunday, saying he is the only leadership candidate who is true to the party’s founding principles.

The group – including several who lost out to the SNP in Scotland – have written to the Corbyn camp pledging support, saying Labour should be fighting “ideological spending cuts” and Tory plans to “dismantle the welfare state”.

The 27 say Labour did not lose the election because it was too leftwing but because it “failed to challenge the fundamental economic consensus on austerity. This cost all of us votes in our constituencies and played a part in the catastrophic result we suffered in Scotland.”

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Their move follows an extraordinary week for Corbyn, who entered the race as the rank outsider, but it is now seen as a serious challenger after opinion polls suggested he could beat Burnham, Cooper and Kendall.

Corbyn is riding high on a wave of discontent with more mainstream voices in party, despite warnings from Tony Blair and others that choosing a hard-left leader would be a disaster for the party.

The Observer has also learned that Harriet Harman has written to her local party to ask that it does not to endorse any candidate and to leave it up to individual members to make their own minds up. Her move will be seen an attempt to avoid negative headlines if she were to back Corbyn.

On Friday, Andy Burnham said he was worried the party could split. “It has become clear this week that Labour is at a fork in the road. This leadership election presents it with a big decision about its future direction.



“I am now worried that, if we take the wrong turn, there’s a real risk that the party could split. The only reason I supported the party’s position on welfare this week was that I was not prepared to plunge it into civil war.

“From September, I will ask our party to oppose the welfare bill and I will expect the same loyalty from my colleagues as I have shown to our party this week.”