Theresa May will control Britain as long as Thatcher unless Labour gets a grip, warns Dame Beckett
THE former Labour foreign secretary said the leadership battle could be disastrous for the party
THERESA May will run Britain with “unfettered power” for as long as Maggie Thatcher unless Labour gets a grip, a former Labour foreign secretary declared yesterday.
Dame Margaret Beckett said Jeremy Corbyn had turned Labour into a cult fan club with “vast numbers” only joining the party to support the radical leftie.
The former acting leader’s claim came as Mr Corbyn was given the backing of the majority of constituency Labour parties yesterday.
The final Constituency Labour Party nominations tally was released, revealing he received 84 per cent of the nominations (285/338) – compared to 39 per cent in 2015 (152/387).
Dame Beckett, who sits on Labour’s National Executive Committee, said the leadership battle could cause a disastrous and irreparable divide in the Labour Party.
She warned: “We’ve been there and done that, and what it did was give Margaret Thatcher unfettered power for a very long time”.
The Dame added: "In principle everyone should be happy that more people are wanting to join the party, as long as it is the Labour Party they're wanting to join.
"We have had examples of people saying 'I want to join the Labour Party because of Jeremy but of course if he ceases to be the leader I shall leave'.
"Those are not members of the Labour Party, those are members of a fan club.
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"It's perfectly nice and legitimate thing to be a member of a fan club and they may get a great deal of satisfaction from it but that doesn't mean you belong to the Labour Party and I'll be sorry to think that vast numbers of those people in fact do not really want to be in the Labour Party, they just want to support Jeremy."
The blast came as a senior Corbyn-backer said a “clear-out” of Labour’s HQ would happen if Mr Corbyn wins the upcoming leadership contest.
In July last year Dame Margaret called herself a “moron” for nominating Mr Corbyn for the Labour leadership contest. She said she did not intend to vote for him, but wanted to see a range of candidates on the ballot.
While an Ipsos MORI poll revealed Mr Corbyn is nearly twice as unpopular as Michael Foot was at the same time during his Labour leadership.
Separately, leadership contender Owen Smith prepared to put the NHS at the centre of his campaign to run Labour.
He pledged to spend an extra £60billion on the NHS, after claiming Theresa May is planning to privatise it.
Mr Smith said he would increase NHS spending by four per cent every year through taxes on the wealthiest and by reversing the Tories’ planned reductions in corporation tax.