Angela Eagle is believed to have the support of the 51 MPs and MEPs needed to mount a challenge [Image: PA].

So the challenger is to be Angela Eagle, according to the BBC. This Writer can’t help but wonder. Stalking horse?

Ms Eagle may have the support of 51 MPs or MEPs needed to mount a challenge, but will she have the support of any members, considering the way she treated her own Constituency Labour Party earlier this week?

The secretary of her CLP wrote to her with instructions from the membership of the Wallasey Labour Party – not to oppose Corbyn, not to quit the Shadow Cabinet, and not to vote against him in the motion of ‘no confidence’.

We know for a fact that she ignored the first two instructions and from her current actions we can assume she scorned the third as well.

If that happened in my own constituency, the representative responsible would very quickly find themselves representing nothing at all, and I’m sure Wallasey won’t let this pass.

Of course, the rest of us also know what she has done and, in a party where the membership is supreme, I think you know how we’re likely to vote.

Jeremy Corbyn should welcome this challenge. Personally, I relish it.

It is time a member of the so-called ‘Labour Coup’ had some humiliation for a change.

Oh, and by the way, the BBC report had a few words from Tom Watson, still Labour’s deputy leader, who has said he will not stand for the leadership.

The BBC reports that he echoed Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, who had said if she had lost the confidence of 80 per cent of her MSPs, she would not be able to do her job.

Well, she didn’t lose their confidence but she did lose 50 per cent of her MSPs (from 46 to 23) in the May elections. Some might ascribe that to her ability – or lack of it – to do her job. But she has spoken out against Corbyn so that’s all right then, it seems.

Mr Watson said: “He does have a members’ mandate but those members who join a political party also know you need a parliamentary mandate if you are to form a government.”

Presumably he means a mandate from the other MPs in the party, and one can see his point.

However, with the vast majority of the Labour membership supporting Corbyn, surely an intelligent man like Mr Watson can see it is the rebel MPs who are in the wrong party, not the leader?

Angela Eagle will challenge Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership on Thursday, the BBC has been told.

It is understood the former shadow business secretary has the support of the 51 MPs needed to mount a challenge.

Ms Eagle is one of 20 members of the shadow cabinet to have quit since Sunday, which led to MPs passing a motion of no confidence in Mr Corbyn.

Mr Corbyn’s allies have accused rebel MPs of trying to “bully” him and say they believe he will win an election.

And union leaders have rallied behind Mr Corbyn, issuing a joint statement saying that the Labour leader had a “resounding mandate” and a leadership election would be an “unnecessary distraction”.

Source: Corbyn to face Labour leadership challenge from Angela Eagle – BBC News

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