Yvette Cooper fires “two futures” warning to Labour

Yvette Cooper has sent a warning to the Labour Party about “a choice of two futures” in the leadership contest. The message, in an interview in this morning’s Independent, comes after a leaked private poll of unknown origin last night suggested Cooper could be in second place.

Cooper says that if Labour makes “the wrong choice in this election, we will be condemning our world to a Tory future.” This echoes her remarks made in the Sunday Mirror this weekend, when she said that if Labour choose the wrong leader, the party can “write off the 2020 election”. This is a much different approach to the popularity of Jeremy Corbyn than the one being taken Andy Burnham, who last night told a rally in Leeds that “dire warnings of ‘oblivion'” would do nothing to stymie the left winger’s support.

The Shadow Home Secretary also told the paper that Labour would do no good if they were reduced to “shouting from the sidelines” rather than being a credible alternative government:

“Inevitably there is frustration and anger at the prospect of five more years of Tory government. It is really important we channel that anger into defeating the Tories.  It is no use just shouting from the sidelines. It is no use being angry about the world. We have got to change the world.”

She made clear that winning over the support from people who voted Tory in May was a priority for regaining power in 2020. She said the “big challenge is to win back a lot of votes from people who voted Tory at the last election. That means we have to take the Tories on –including beating them on their own terms as well as setting out a strong alternative.”

With Corbyn and Burnham still favourite for the leadership, and Tom Watson considered the frontrunner in the deputy leadership race, Cooper said that an all-male leadership team would “turn the clock back” in the fight for women’s rights. This would be a setback, she said “at a time when we have done so much to broaden our appeal –with 40 per cent of our MPs now women – and want to keep championing women’s equality in the future.”