Labour leadership: Emily Thornberry announces bid to succeed Jeremy Corbyn

Shadow foreign secretary says she warned Labour leadership it would be ‘an act of catastrophic political folly’ to back a Brexit election

Emily Thornberry has announced plans to run to be Labour leader as she tore into Jeremy Corbyn for agreeing to gift Boris Johnson a Brexit election.

The shadow foreign secretary said she had warned the leader’s office that it would be “an act of catastrophic political folly” to vote for the election and compared the decision to “crackers voting for Christmas”.

In the first outright pitch for the top job, Ms Thornberry also boasted that she had already “pummelled” Boris Johnson at the despatch box when she deputised for Mr Corbyn during Prime Minister’s Questions.

Her announcement comes after Sir Keir Starmer said he was considering standing to succeed Mr Corbyn, as he sought to showcase his left-wing credentials by recalling how his mother worked as a nurse while his father was a factory toolmaker.

Labour has been engulfed in bitter recriminations following its devastating election showing, with clear splits emerging about the future direction of the party.

Writing in The Guardian, Ms Thornberry said: “Listening to Labour colleagues on the media over the last week, I have repeatedly heard the refrain that the problem we faced last Thursday was that ‘this became the Brexit election’.

“To which I can only say I look forward to their tweets of shock when next Wednesday’s lunch features turkey and Brussels sprouts … I wrote to the leader’s office warning it would be ‘an act of catastrophic political folly’ to vote for the election, and set out a lengthy draft narrative explaining why we should not go along with it.

“I argued that the single issue of Brexit should not be enough to give Johnson a five-year mandate to enact his agenda on every issue. Instead, I said we should insist on a referendum on his proposed deal, to get the issue of Brexit out of the way before any general election.”

In a memo to the shadow cabinet, Ms Thornberry privately warned that a Brexit election risked giving Mr Johnson “a parliamentary majority for five years, and a mandate to do whatever else is on his anti-public services agenda”.

She also claimed that Rebecca Long-Bailey – who is regarded the favoured candidate by the left of the party – voiced support for the election at a meeting of Labour’s top team, alongside party chair Ian Lavery.

Ms Thornberry said: “So we wilfully went into a single-issue election with no clear position on that issue and, as every pollster predicted, we were brutally squeezed by all the other parties with an unequivocal policy on Brexit, all of them sharing a clear strategy to eat into Labour’s base.”

In a pointed attack on Mr Corbyn and his allies, she said New Labour would “never have voted to give Johnson the Brexit election he craved” as Tony Blair and his allies held greater political insight and clarity of purpose than the current leadership.

The Islington South and Finsbury MP hit back at calls for the next Labour leader to be from a northern constituency to win back lost voters in Labour’s industrial heartlands.

She said: “The question is how we fight back from here. The answer is certainly not to have some great ideological debate between left, right and centre. Neither is it to set this up as a battle between Leave or Remain, north or south, and indeed men or women.

“When did we stop being for the many, not just half of us?”

But she may face an uphill battle to convince voters of her unifying credentials after a damaging row with ousted MP Caroline Flint, who accused her of calling Leave voters “stupid”.

Ms Thornberry said the comments were a “complete lie” and threatened to take legal action against the former Don Valley MP, who blamed Labour’s pro-Remain faction for its electoral disaster.

The claim was particularly damaging for Ms Thornberry, who previously had to resign from the front bench for tweeting a picture of a house with St George flags and a white van parked outside in Rochester, which was widely regarded as snobbish.

Sir Keir, a fellow north London MP, also signalled he could run on Wednesday, while Lisa Nandy, the MP for Wigan, admitted she was seriously considering a leadership bid.

Supporters of Mr Corbyn appear to be rallying around Ms Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary, who is understood to be in talks with Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, who could stand for the deputy job.

The leadership contest will begin in January and run until March, when Mr Corbyn will stand down.