Owen Smith to face Corbyn in Labour leadership challenge
Source: The Guardian
Owen Smith is set to challenge Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership in a head-to-head race following the decision by Angela Eagle to pull out.
Eagle, the former shadow business secretary stepped aside to make way for a single challenger in the race to lead the party after she attracted 72 nominations from MPs and MEPs, below Smith’s 90.
Eagle is stepping aside before the nomination process’s official deadline of 5pm on Wednesday in order to allow the party’s MPs who oppose Corbyn to focus their attention on signing up registered supporters. Teams backing Corbyn and those hoping to remove him have until Wednesday afternoon to persuade people to pay the controversial £25 fee, agreed by the party’s national executive committee, in order to be able to vote in the leadership contest.
The Guardian understands that the two camps received the names half an hour before the 5pm publication point, with Eagle’s team taking the decision to pull out of the race because of the disparity.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/19/owen-smith-jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-angela-eagle
= new reply since forum marked as read
Hi,
Owen Smith looks like an election winner to me. He has a 'man in the street' appearance that gives him at least a chance with the middle ground, he has had well paid work outside of Westminster, comes from Nye Bevan's homeland and is young enough to develop in the opposition role before a crack at the Tories. Of course, it is unlikely that the hard leftists will go near him, so we may as well forget it. 
D.
He supported the Iraq invasion
He supports privatizing the NHS
He supports the Private Finance Initiative
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/07/the-entirely-fake-owen-smith.html
Owen Smith went to Pfizer from a Labour Party job, while Labour were in government, and there is no doubt that his hiring was an example of the corrupt relationship between New Labour and big business which is why the Blairites are so hated by the public. It is also beyond any argument that if Pfizer had any doubts about Owen Smith’s willingness to promote the Big Pharma and NHS Privatisation agenda, they would never have hired him.
Owen Smith is a strong supporter of Trident and assiduously courts the arms industry. He is a regular at defence industry events.
Perhaps most crucially of all, Owen Smith joined his fellow Red Tories in abstaining on the Tory welfare benefit cuts.
Go Corbyn Go!
