Labour’s divisions will become irreconcilable and the damage to the party terminal if it enters another year of bitter infighting after Jeremy Corbyn’s likely re-election, a senior shadow cabinet member has warned.



The result of the Labour leadership contest between Corbyn and his challenger, Owen Smith, is expected at 11.45am on Saturday, with insiders suggesting Corbyn could secure 65% of the vote.

Andy Burnham said that Corbyn had been treated appallingly when he was elected to the leadership last year, facing no honeymoon but instead a “sulphurous” first meeting of the party’s Westminster politicians.

“I’ve never seen in 15 years [as an MP] a Labour leader treated like that; it was disrespectful,” the shadow home secretary told the Guardian, adding that if Corbyn renewed his mandate he would have earned the right to lead “without interruptions, noises off and undermining”.



Labour’s candidate to become the mayor of Greater Manchester said that if Corbyn won, then MPs should “serve on Corbyn’s frontbench and do so in the right spirit”.

Andy Burnham said that Labour would only be able to heal if there were serious concessions from the leader as well. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

But Burnham, who remained neutral during the leadership race, said Labour would only be able to heal if there were serious concessions from the leader as well.

He said the “quid pro quo” should be for Corbyn to stamp out all talk of deselections of MPs or councillors by any supporters, to take a zero-tolerance approach to abuse and to sign up to a deadline at which the Labour party would take stock of progress with the public, when it could readdress issues including those around the leadership.

In a message to Labour supporters, Corbyn reached out to those who backed his rival, saying there was a duty on everyone to “unite, cherish and build our movement”.

He said: “We must win the next general election so that Labour can rebuild and transform Britain – so that no one and no community is left behind. We can and must do that together.

“That includes those who have voted, volunteered and campaigned for Owen Smith. This summer, we have had a debate about the future of Labour and the future of Britain. It has been robust, and at times difficult, but it has been overwhelmingly respectful in tone.

“Together, we are making history – we have made Labour the biggest left-of-centre party in Europe and gained support from people we lost decades ago. As I’ve said throughout this campaign, this isn’t, and has never been, about me; it’s about all of us.”

Burnham called on Corbyn to agree to shadow cabinet elections amid a clamour from MPs that they would offer people a dignified way back to the shadow cabinet and help him to fill the rest of his frontbench team.



Following mass resignations during the summer, more than 50 shadow ministerial posts remain unfilled, with a number of people doing two jobs or more.

Labour’s national executive committee will address the possibility of a deal between Corbyn and his MPs at a special meeting on Saturday night, on the eve of the party’s conference in Liverpool.

But the Guardian understands that there have been no formal talks about such reconciliation and the leader is not ready to do a deal with the parliamentary Labour party over how he puts together his frontbench team.

Sources suggested that there were politicians ready to come back with or without elections and that some frontbench posts were not necessary so the total number could be reduced. However, they suggested that Corbyn was not closed to a compromise and that some sort of deal could be struck at a later date.

The introduction of shadow cabinet elections is understood to be likely to attract certain high-profile MPs back to the frontbench, with names such as Lucy Powell and Keir Starmer being suggested.

But other Labour MPs opposed to Corbyn suggested that his victory would simply be “groundhog day” for them as they expect the leader to continue in the same style as he has done over the past year. Some are considering other ways to serve the party from the backbenches.

Chris Leslie, the former shadow chancellor, said he hoped backbench MPs would start to organise themselves more effectively.



“I hope that the parliamentary Labour party will look at constructive ways of thinking about sensible policy-making that is not simply reliant on the frontbench,” Leslie said.

“We have got a duty to defend some really basic principles – like reform of society through parliamentary democracy – and we mustn’t be afraid to hold whoever becomes leader to account for them.”

Others are understood to be considering forming thinktanks to draw up ways in which Labour could react to the Brexit vote, which threw up mass alienation among the party’s traditional voters across the north and are believed to be attracting funding from donors.

One leading rebel MP predicted that while some shadow ministers might drift back to Corbyn’s team, there could be a couple more resignations from the frontbench. “Some people are really fed up and want out but may have been waiting until after the leadership election to go,” he said.

Another MP said: “I don’t think many colleagues will go back to the

shadow cabinet of their own volition.”

Some high-profile figures have warned that unity will be difficult to secure and that MPs are likely to face the threat of deselection. In an interview to be published in the Fabian review, Lord Kinnock warned “the strife can’t be concluded”.

Labour’s former leader added: “I say that with no threat and much regret. The inability of Jeremy Corbyn to select a convincing shadow cabinet shows he is not fit to lead the Labour party.

“Those who will not serve are people who, in all conscience, cannot support a leadership that lacks all credibility. There will then be threats, some veiled, some not, against those MPs.”

Lord Kinnock: ‘Those who will not serve are people who, in all conscience, cannot support a leadership that lacks all credibility.’ Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Kinnock said the likely Corbyn victory would be the will of existing members and newcomers, with only a small number of ultra-leftists. He said that Momentum, the pro-Corbyn group that has helped to organise his re-election campaign, was much more influential than Militant, the group proscribed by Labour in the 1980s, had been.

But Kinnock argued: “When [Momentum] people are presented with doorstep arguments, they will realise that they need a credible leader.”

Burnham said Corbyn had been treated unfairly last summer when he was elected party leader. The MP, who was beaten in that leadership election, said he had been bruised and was licking his wounds but was “taken aback by the immediate hostility” towards the new leader.

He said this election had seen Labour “trapped in a battle of tit for tat, which is all the while turning the public off and away from us”, with a depressing debate that has been embarrassing at times.

“We cannot afford another year like the one we’ve just had, otherwise the differences may well become irreconcilable and the damage terminal. The war of attrition can’t carry on.

“The message has to be that everyone has to take a look at themselves in terms of how they are going to contribute going forward, turn the page and basically start a new chapter, and the focus has to turn from internal consideration to external.”

Burnham said the winner would have earned the right to a period of time when they were left to get their message across. “If I’m being honest, if I look back, it didn’t happen after 2015 – there was no honeymoon.”

But he added that there should be a deadline for Labour to take another look at its position, including the leadership question, if it failed to make progress in electability.



“Through mediation via trade union colleagues and the NEC and others, we need to agree on a point of time where there will be a stock-take of where we are up to,” said Burnham, who added that one suggestion made during last year’s leadership race had been to hold an annual review.