Defiant Jeremy Corbyn says all Labour MPs will have to re-apply for their jobs as he launched his campaign to keep his position as party leader
Embattled leftie pledged to tackle inequality, neglect, insecurity, prejudice and discrimination
A DEFIANT Jeremy Corbyn said all Labour MPs will have to re-apply for their jobs as he launched his campaign to keep his position as party leader.
At the official start of the contest against Owen Smith, the embattled leftie pledged to confront “five ills head on”, saying he will tackle inequality, neglect, insecurity, prejudice and discrimination.
But it was his call for every Labour MP to be re-selected for their seats after a review by Parliament which will cause alarm for his colleagues in the House of Commons.
There have been calls by Unite, pro-Corbyn union, to have anti-Corbyn MPs deselected so they cannot stand again in 2020 for opposing the leader.
He has previously held back from saying this could become official policy, but today in a speech in London he suggested all sitting MPs would have to re-apply for their jobs after the 2018 boundary review.
At the same time he issued a plea to the Parliamentary Labour Party, 172 of which issued a vote of no confidence in him, to unite behind him once the leadership election is over.
He said after the result is declared on September 24, it will be "the job, the duty, the responsibility" of every Labour MP to "get behind the party" and take on the Conservative Government.
Launching his campaign to see off a challenge from former shadow cabinet minister Owen Smith, he took a dig at his rival's former job for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.
Mr Corbyn said: "I hope Owen will fully agree with me that our NHS should be free at the point of use, should be run by publicly employed workers working for the NHS not for private contractors, and medical research shouldn't be farmed out to big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and others but should be funded through the Medical Research Council."
But he said that Mr Smith would be "very welcome" after the leadership election to rejoin the shadow cabinet, which he quit along with many other frontbenchers in the wake of the EU referendum in June.
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"Owen Smith was in the shadow cabinet until two weeks ago and he came to see me to say he was very happy in the shadow cabinet and wanted to stay there and then left the meeting and resigned which was a slightly odd thing to do," said the Labour leader.
"But of course he is very welcome to come back and I hope he would because that has got to be the right way of doing things."
Mr Corbyn indicated he would not hold grudges against critics in the Parliamentary Labour Party who have sought to oust him, saying: "I have an ability to very conveniently forget some of the unpleasant things that are said, because it's not worth it."
Asked if he believed he could take Labour into power, Mr Corbyn said: "This party is going places. This party is strong.
“This party is capable of winning a general election and if I am leader of the party I will be that prime minister."
The central plank of his speech was a vow to tackle discrimination in the workplace by forcing firms to publish details of the pay and conditions of workers.
He warned companies with more than 21 staff they could be fined unless they publish equality pay audits, and a Labour administration would require firms to publish the new equality pay audits "detailing pay, grade and hours of every job ... alongside data on recognised equality characteristics".
In an echo of the five "giant evils" identified by William Beveridge in the 1940s, Mr Corbyn said: "Today what is holding people back above all are inequality, neglect, insecurity, prejudice and discrimination.
"In my campaign I want to confront all five of those ills head on, setting out not only how Labour will campaign against these injustices in opposition but also spelling out some of the measures the next Labour government will take to overcome them."
It comes after Mr Corbyn's allies have been saying his chances of winning the leadership contest have been boosted by a surge of new supporters able to vote.
Labour received more than 180,000 applications to sign up as registered supporters, each paying £25 to get their vote.
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said earlier it was "reasonable to assume" that the majority of the new registrations come from supporters of the veteran left-winger.
But supporters of Mr Smith say the campaign group Save Labour have encouraged thousands to sign up and vote for the former shadow Cabinet Minister.