Angela Eagle: I’ll run if Corbyn does not quit
The Labour MP says she has the support needed to launch a Labour leadership bid.
Angela Eagle says she has support to “resolve this impasse” over the Labour Party leadership “if Jeremy doesn’t take action soon”.
Mr Corbyn last week resoundingly lost a confidence vote among the party’s MPs, by a vote of 172 to 40 – with around 16 abstentions.
Speaking outside her home, Ms Eagle said Mr Corbyn was “not properly engaged – with even the deputy leader of the party”.
“It’s a week since Jeremy lost that vote of no confidence and there are many other people up and down the country wanting him to consider his position.”
“There are many people – MPs, party members up and down the country, asking me to resolve this impasse”, she added.
Ms Eagle – a left-winger who was instrumental to Corbyn’s leadership until last week – had allegedly agreed a deal with Labour deputy leader Tom Watson following Mr Corbyn’s crushing defeat among his fellow Labour MPs.
If victorious, she would be the UK Labour Party’s first openly gay leader – though Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale came out last year.
However, she is set to face strong opposition from the left side of the party, as well as the trade unions – most of whom have agreed to back Mr Corbyn and suggested they broker a deal between the warring factions.
Just last month, Ms Eagle told PinkNews that she would happily stand as leader of the party.
“I have to step very carefully here because we have a leader already. But, I enjoyed doing PMQs, let’s put it that way. I don’t think I did too badly,” she said at the time.
As she joined the majority of her colleagues in resigning from the shadow cabinet last week, she told the Mr Corbyn that the party needed a leader “who can unite, not divide”.
Rumours of Ms Eagle replacing Mr Corbyn first circulated in April, after frontbenchers and donors said that they see her as a viable replacement for Mr Corbyn, claiming she could unite the party in the event of a Labour civil war.
