David Miliband claims Labour hasn’t been further from power since the 1930s as Ed Balls says party is ‘disconnected’ as grandees hit out at Jeremy Corbyn

DAVID Miliband says Labour has not been further from power since the 1930s in a stinging attack on Jeremy Corbyn.

Fellow grandee Ed Balls has also stuck the knife into the hapless leftie leader, saying he is unable to remember a time when the party membership’s views were so "disconnected" from voters in marginal seats.

Mr Miliband, a one-time favourite for the leadership before losing to his brother Ed, branded the party "unelectable".

He said Mr Corbyn's "half-hearted" campaigning for Britain to remain in the European Union was "a betrayal of millions of working people".

Meanwhile, Mr Corbyn has insisted his leadership style is unlikely to change should he beat challenger Owen Smith and be named the winner of the contest for the Labour top job on Saturday.

"Sadly for everyone, it's the same Jeremy Corbyn," he said.

But Mr Miliband, the former foreign secretary, has set out a damning assessment of the incumbent.

Writing in The New Statesman, he said: "The main charge against Jeremy Corbyn is not just that his strategy is undesirable because it makes the party unelectable. That is only half the story.

"The real issue is that his strategy makes the party unelectable because it is in many aspects undesirable."

And Mr Miliband, who is now chair of charity International Rescue Committee is particularly critical of the Islington MP’s ";egregious" stance on foreign policy.

But he also attacked his domestic policy too, saying "nationalisation cannot be the answer to everything”, and that “It wouldn't work” and “people are not stupid”.

It is "disastrous" that people are branded "closet Tories" or "Tory Lite" if they disagree with Mr Corbyn, he added.

Mr Balls, who is appearing in the new series of Strictly Come Dancing, told BBC Newsnight that voters "don't feel that Labour at the moment is speaking for them" - and unless that changed the party would remain in opposition.

Speaking after the polls closed in the leadership contest, the former shadow chancellor said: "The problem is that in a democracy it's not the members of the party who elect the Government, it's the voters and I don't remember a time where the Labour Party membership and its views had become so disconnected from where the marginal seat, the swing voter, the centre left voter is.

"On issue after issue things have pulled apart.”