Labour will not split if Jeremy Corbyn defeats Angela Eagle’s leadership challenge, the shadow cabinet member Diane Abbott has insisted, calling Eagle “the Empire Strikes Back candidate”.

Abbott, a key Corbyn ally, said the party membership would have a clear political choice between Eagle and Corbyn. “All I would ask is that finally these MPs get behind the leader the party selects,” Abbott told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Angela Eagle branded the 'Empire Strikes Back' candidate by Corbyn ally - Politics live Read more

“Angela Eagle [is] a perfectly nice woman but she is the Empire Strikes Back candidate. She voted for the Iraq war and more besides, and party members will be offered a clear political choice.”

Corbyn’s critics say he must gain nominations from MPs if he wants to be on the ballot paper against Eagle, but there is conflicting legal advice. Abbottdismissed talks of a split if Corbyn was to win again. “This talk of the Labour party splitting, I went through the whole SDP era, let me tell you, there will be no split,” she said.

Eagle, who will formally launch her candidacy on Monday, told the Mirror her priority was rebuilding a functioning party: “The Labour party needs to be saved – I’m stepping up to the plate to say it’s about time that we did this so we can make the Labour party relevant again and so we can contend for government.”

Eagle said she would be a “good prime minister for Britain”, adding: “We have got to ensure we change the Labour party so that we can do that historic task – and I think I am the person to do that.

Eagle described herself as a “good, sensible, down-to-earth woman with northern roots. I’m a gay woman – I know the difference between hope and fear.”

Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) is due to meet on Tuesday to discuss whether Corbyn must also seek nominations from MPs to be on the ballot paper, and what the rules will be for the £3 registered supporters who voted in droves in the last leadership election.



Harriet Harman, Labour’s former deputy leader, said a party leader who could not command the confidence of enough MPs to get nominations should not be on the ballot.

She told the Today programme Corbyn “has to have the continued support” of MPs and could not say “I’ve got the right to carry on come what may”.

“If you win that leadership that doesn’t give you the right to fail. It gives you the privilege of having the chance to try and lead the party. But if you fail, you can’t take the party down with you. That’s not fair.”

She said any attempt by Corbyn to take legal action if he was not automatically on the ballot paper would heap “more dysfunction” on the party.

“The idea that the leader of the party, having lost the confidence of Labour MPs, then takes the national executive of the party to court is just more dysfunction upon more dysfunction and the party is suffering.”

Christine Shawcross, who is on Labour’s NEC, said she believed rules over nominations were clear that Corbyn should be on the ballot. “The only reason we are having this argument is Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents want to keep him off the ballot paper because that’s their only hope of winning,’ she told the Today programme. “When he’s on the ballot paper he will win.”

The surge in membership was down to many of the £3 members who voted in the last leadership election converting to full membership, Shawcross said.

She dismissed the idea that the challenge to Corbyn was about leadership qualities. “People are politically opposed to him,” she said. “He’s brave, he’s honest, he’s principled, he doesn’t back down under pressure – they sound like good leadership qualities to us.”

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Paul Davies, the vice-chair of Wallasey constituency Labour party, who has backed Corbyn for the leadership, said local party members would feel it was a “slap in the face” if the leader was kept off the ballot paper. The local party has passed a motion of confidence in Corbyn, by 19 votes to two.



“I think there would be uproar and any calls for Angela to be deselected would increase,” he told the Guardian.

Davies added that no officer in the local party had called for her deselection and denied there were any formal moves to challenge her. But he said: “We know such calls have been made, and I know people are saying ‘what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.’



“She’s supported a vote of no confidence in Jeremy, and therefore she could hardly complain if there was one proposed against her. I suppose those same people would say, ‘well, as she kept asking Jeremy to accept that position, so should she’.”

Davies said he knew of no one in the local party who would seek to directly challenge Eagle for the seat or if it was even possible to start a process to deselect a candidate.



One ally of Eagle said they regard such moves against her as intimidation by a small faction. “Jeremy has a vote of no confidence from 80% of the PLP, who work with him,” the source said. “Angela’s would be carried by new members, part of Momentum, to intimidate her. There’s quite a big difference there.”