Lord Kinnock: Jeremy Corbyn should resign or face leadership challenge if Labour's fortunes do not improve

Analysis of polling shows Labour – stuck around eight percentage points behind the Tories – has never performed so badly at this point in the election cycle since the Second World War.

Lord Kinnock lost two general elections as party leader, in 1987 and 1992, but is seen as central in starting the process of party modernisation that led to Tony Blair's 1997 election victory.

Speaking to the New Statesman magazine, Lord Kinnock emphatically rejected suggestions that centrist MPs should split from Labour and warned that would hand power to the Conservatives for much of the 21st century.

But he said it was "difficult" to regard Mr Corbyn as electable and said he must be judged "on performance in terms of Labour's advance or movement in the other direction".

Lord Kinnock said: “It’s difficult to see that [Jeremy Corbyn is electable]. Many of the people who voted for Jeremy are outstanding party members who said that they were frustrated – indeed, infuriated – by the failure of Labour to connect with the electorate. I know exactly what they mean, but that’s the test.

“If Jeremy is seen to be failing to connect to the electorate after a reasonable space of time then he may come to his own conclusions.”

Asked how MPs should respond if Corbyn refused to step down, the peer said: "There’s a fundamental question here and it is whether people want to secure power in the party or to win power for the party. Those people who want to win power, whether they’re left, right or centre, will be watching the evidence and will make their decision on the basis of that evidence.

"Not because of some spasm of emotion, or the fact that their candidate didn’t get elected, they’ll want to know that they have a party which is being led in its advance with the electorate. If that isn’t the case then conclusions must be drawn.”

Source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/579309/s/4d2b17fa/sc/13/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cpolitics0CJeremy0ICorbyn0C121255390CLord0EKinnock0EJeremy0ECorbyn0Eshould0Eresign0Eor0Eface0Eleadership0Echallenge0Eif0ELabours0Efortunes0Edo0Enot0Eimprove0Bhtml/story01.htm