The challenges facing Labour will not change on Saturday, says Liz Kendall

Liz Kendall has said that the old Blair/Brown feud is still holding back parts of the Labour Party, as she made her last speech of the leadership contest this morning. Speaking in London, she said that while the party will have a new leader on Saturday, the challenges facing Labour will remain the same.

As voting in the race closes, it is widely assumed that Kendall will not be victorious at this weekend’s special conference, and Kendall herself seems aware of this. While she entered the room to raucous applause (and blew kisses to the crowd), she pledged to “always loyally serve our party”, and set out what she “sought to do in this campaign”.

Privately, her campaign have conceded that the numbers are against them, and in an interview with LabourList last month Kendall herself said that she had “a hell of a long way to go” if she was to win.

Today, Kendall said that grudges held since the Blair and Brown battles are causing divisions among MPs and members who would do better to work together. She said that “those who want a modern, electable and outward-looking Labour Party must end the old Blairite/Brownite splits, which are long past their sell-by date and should be buried once and for all.”

She also warned against the tactic of running a leadership campaign in a different way to running a general election campaign, saying that the public would see the difference:

“Our leader will change on Saturday, but the challenges facing Labour will not.

Unless we regain people’s trust on the economy and offer a positive vision of a better life that the majority of people in this country can feel part of – we will not win in 2020.

I believe Labour’s next Prime Minister will have stood to be Leader on the same platform with which they win support in the country.

That is what I have sought to do in this campaign.

Those who want to lead can no longer tack-left to get the nomination, and tack-centre to win the country.

In the modern world – saturated with social media and 24 hour news – the public will spot the difference a mile off and punish the party for it in due course.”

The speech won praise from fellow leadership candidate Andy Burnham, who tweeted that it was “important” and that Kendall had run a “brave campaign”:

You can read the full speech here.