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A Tory MP has said he “feels sorry” for the left of the Labour party because they “deserve someone better” than Rebecca Long-Bailey to put their faith in.
Bim Afolami offered a brutal assessment of the Labour leadership race as he declared that none of the candidates were “going to present too much difficulty” for the Tories.
But he reserved his fiercest criticism for Long-Bailey, who in recent days has attempted to distance herself from the continuity-Corbyn mantle.
Afolami told HuffPost UK’s Commons People podcast: “Rebecca Long-Bailey, I mean honestly.
“I feel sorry for people on the left of the Labour party in so far as they deserve someone a lot better to try and invest in.
“This is somebody who as everybody knows… she’s trying to take on the mantle of Corbynism without the perceived good bits of Corbyn, taking all the bad.
“That’s not going to work.
“I think she’s going to sink very quickly.”
I don’t see with any of them anybody who is going to present too much difficulty
Afolami said he had been watching the Labour leadership contest “quite closely, just because I’m a political obsessive and I love this stuff”.
The Hitchin and Harpenden MP warned so-called moderate supporters of frontrunner Sir Keir Starmer he will find it difficult to tack to the centre ground if he wins, having “tried to buy off” the left.
“When you buy off the left they are not all just going to go away and allow you to take the party to the centre,” Afolami said.
“And he will find out that he is going to have to cleave to some pretty hard left positions and find it very difficult to move the party anywhere.”
Afolami also said outsider Lisa Nandy “could be a lot more honest” about what Labour needs to do but has instead decided not to “cross the rubicon” so she does not alienate the membership.
“But through that lack of bravery I think (it) will make it almost impossible for her to win, her only chance of winning is to blow this open,” he said.
Afolami added: “The core thing that you learn about, whether it be Boris Johnson, Tony Blair, successful politicians when they win through their party is when they say this is how I’m going to lead this party.
“And you say it before you win and that way you’ve got that mandate.”
He went on: “I don’t see with any of them anybody who is going to present too much difficulty.”