Harman rules out three year leadership ‘break clause’

Interim Labour leader, Harriet Harman, has said that she rejects the idea that the next Labour leader should allow another leadership election in three years time.

This idea, whereby the next elected leader would give the party a chance to change leaders after three years, was floated by Tristram Hunt, shadow education secretary. One of the leadership candidates, Liz Kendall, said she’d consider such a break clause.

However, Harman, who has also been a Deputy Leader since 2007, has rejected this idea, saying that once a leader has been elected through the one member one vote system  it was “for them to be getting on and doing that job” for five years until the 2020 general election.

She told the Observer that she has also told each of the four candidates (Burnham, Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall and Mary Creagh) that they can’t just focus all of their attention on the leadership contest, thereby letting the Tories go unchallenged.

Harman said:

“We did not get the job of being in government, but we did get the job of being the official opposition, and that is a very important part of democracy, and they are not on leave from that: I have definitely said [that] to them in the shadow cabinet.

“The leadership candidates really need to be showing they can scrutinise and hold the Tories to account and land blows on them, because that is what they are going to need to do if they become leader of the opposition.

“It is not just a beauty contest. They have got to show that they can really do the job and the job is taking on the Tories. It is important to be reminding them. The eyes of the party are on them.”