Labour will become a ‘pressure group’ if Corbyn wins, says Tristram Hunt

Labour is waking up this morning to the news that Jeremy Corbyn might stand a chance of actually become Labour leader. The question many are asking is how genuine this shift to the left is and will the poll ensure the party autocorrects itself onto a more centrist track. On the Today programme, the Blairite shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt argued that Labour has a ‘desire to return to some old certainties’ following its general election defeat:

‘The danger is that the Labour party, one of the great governing parties of the 20th and early 21st century that did enormously important things for Britain and Britain in the world, would be on a trajectory to becoming a pressure group – would not that have broad reach into all parts of the United Kingdom.’

Hunt expressed his concern that if Corbyn did happen to win, the Labour party would be giving up any hope of returning to government in the near future:

‘For the Labour party, our future cannot lie as a sort of Podemos-style party, a anti-austerity populist party because in the long run, that’s not going to put us into government.’

Does this make Jeremy Corbyn the Syriza candidate in this leadership contest?

‘Yes, I think this is a populist anti-austerity movement within the party and we’ve seen what’s happened to the Greek people thanks to some of the Syriza government.