Clive Lewis has become the second MP to formally declare they are running for the Labour leadership.
The shadow Treasury minister said Labour had suffered “its own Dunkirk” after it had the worst election result since the 1930s.
The Norwich South MP has called for the party membership to be given more powers than they were under Corbyn, backed proportional representation and said Labour’s “indecisiveness” over Brexit hurt them.
But in contrast with many of the current analysis he suggested that the party had not gone far enough to break with the Blair and Brown era.
He will struggle in a competitive field of candidates.
So far only he and shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry have officially announced but shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer, Lisa Nandy and shadow business secretary Rebecca Long Bailey are all expected to run.
Mr Lewis, who is an ardent Remainer, said: “The truth is that indecisiveness and triangulation on the Brexit issue saw Jeremy’s favourability ratings fall from positive to catastrophic after the June 2017 election.”
He argued that members should be given even more of a role within Labour to turn them into “an army of activists”.
“I don’t want to manage the labour movement, I want to unleash it. That is the first route to victory,” he said.
Lewis said Labour had failed to convince people in its heartlands that it had made a break with the era of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, despite the huge change within the party under Corbyn’s leadership.
In an article for the Guardian, he said: “When trying to persuade them of our radicalism and sincerity, we often had the legacy of the 2000s thrown back in our faces. Persuading voters that we understand the sources of their long-held resentment and frustration, of their disappointment in how the Labour party has conducted itself since the 1990s, will be the first step towards winning back their trust.”
Former Labour MP John Woodcock was quick to dismiss Lewis’s pitch by sarcastically tweeting: “Labour lost because Corbyn was too Blairite”.
Mr Lewis also pledged to go further than Jeremy Corbyn in giving party members a say on policy and the selection of MPs.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Lewis, whose main challengers in Norwich South come from the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, also called for Labour to embrace proportional representation, which would likely necessitate working with other parties on the left in order to form a government.
“The truth is that after Jeremy became leader, we fought two elections on an electoral system that massively favours the Conservatives, and their voter base of propertied pensioners,” he said.
“A majority of the British public voted for parties of the left or the liberal centre.
“But this was in no way reflected in the election result. Labour should have committed itself to changing the voting system.”
Lewis will struggle in a field Labour MP Rachael Maskell said she will be supporting Clive Lewis to replace Mr Corbyn as leader.
