Ex-Labour leader Neil Kinnock warns there will not be a Labour government if Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected
Ex-Labour leader says this is the greatest crisis his party has ever faced
LABOUR heavyweight Neil Kinnock says his party will not get into power again in his lifetime if Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected.
The former party leader’s stark warning comes just days before polls close in the Labour leadership election – with Corbyn widely expected to beat his challenger Owen Smith.
Speaking to the 's Panorama programme, Lord Kinnock said: "Unless things change radically, and rapidly, it's very doubtful I'll see another Labour government in my lifetime."
Lord Kinnock, who led the fight against left-wing extremism in the 1980s, when Labour was paralysed by faction fighting, said: "Not just in my lifetime but stretching back to the 1930s, by any examination this is the greatest crisis that the Labour Party has faced."
But Corbyn says he will unite the party after the contest and although he has said there will be changes because of proposals to alter the boundaries – he has denied there will be deselection.
His closest friend at Westminster, shadow chancellor John McDonnell, has said the Labour leader and himself were willing to take lessons in leadership.
These "tutorials" from former senior ministers and shadow ministers would aim to stop them being accused of being incompetent, and improve relations within the parliamentary Labour party and make them more effective in the House of Commons.
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The leadership insists it does not want to purge the party of hostile MPs by getting them deselected as candidates by left-wing local parties.
But the leader of the Unite union, Len McCluskey, told Panorama: "I believe some of the MPs have behaved absolutely disgracefully and they've not shown any respect whatsoever to the leader.
"They should be held to account."
And he said anyone who continued to vocally oppose Corbyn if and when he is re-elected would be “asking for it" when it came to the question of de-selection.
The Panorama show Labour: Is the party over? featuring Lord Kinnock’s comments will be on BBC One at 8.30pm tomorrow night.
On this morning’s Peston on Sunday show Corbyn was asked about what Lord Kinnock had said.
He replied: “I hope Neil can be a bit more optimistic.”