Politics
SNP leader and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon: “The reality today is that at a time when the country needs strong opposition to the Tories, Jeremy Corbyn leads a deeply, and very bitterly, divided party. Indeed, if Labour cannot quickly demonstrate that they have a credible chance of winning the next UK general election, many more people in Scotland are likely to conclude that independence is the only alternative to continued Tory government.”
Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood: “This cannot alter Labour’s dismal record in government in Wales”.
Ed Miliband: “I offer Jeremy Corbyn my support in what is a very difficult and demanding job, and I hope that people across the party will do the same. At the same time, I hope and expect that Jeremy will do everything he can to reach out and use the talents of people right across the party in the task of taking on the Tories and facing up to the very big challenges that we face.”
John Prescott, Labour’s former Deputy Prime Minister: “Four months has fundamentally changed the nature of the Labour Party, and the speech from the leader – who won in every section, in the biggest election we’ve had, and he’s the man who’s talked about what I call the traditional values of Labour; he talked about housing, he talked about the economy, about people’s working rights. They’re the values that the young people in this election really want to hear, and that’s why he’s won substantially.”
Ken Livingstone, former mayor of London: “It isn’t just the new members who joined who’ve supported Jeremy, he won a majority among the ones that have been there all through the Blair years as well, and so I think that people will come. You heard his speech, he’s very open. I mean he’s trying to bring everybody in. Some will object for a bit, but the moment Jeremy starts to do well in the polls, those doubts will go.”
Andy Burnham, Labour leadership runner-up and Shadow Home Secretary: “Today is not the day to head off into sunset. We need to stand together and get behind our new leader. It’s beholden on people like me to get behind the new leader.”
Yvette Cooper, Labour leadership third place runner-up: “I think obviously he and Tom and the new leadership team will now want to be reaching out across the country to the public, because this is what this is now got to be about, is not just our debate within the party that we’ve had within the last few months, but about the country as well.”
Liz Kendall, Labour leadership fourth place runner-up: “Jeremy has earned the right, with this huge mandate, to push his agenda and programme. We’ve got to turn away from an internal debate, to the public and turn our fire on the Tories and not in on ourselves. That’s how we’ll actually have the chance of winning in 2020 because we want to get the Tories out and we want to have the chance to put our principles into practice.”
Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney: “Tony Blair isn’t always right. The truth is, harnessing all the energy of all those young people – and older members who’ve returned to us – I believe the Labour Party’s going to go forward and win in 2020.”
Jamie Reed, former shadow health minister, resigning from the front bench: “No amount of well-meaning protest will protect the NHS, drive up standards, recruit more medical professionals or improve the accessibility of world-class health care to the British people. Only an elected Labour government will do this.”
Frank Field, who nominated Corbyn, “I don’t think Jeremy, despite this extraordinary win, will lead us anywhere other than into a cul-de-sac, but I do not believe those who are uneasy about Jeremy’s leadership have an alternative and a coherent set of policies which would win us an election.”
Michael Fallon, Conservative Defence Secretary: “This election shows that Labour now poses a very serious risk to our security – our national security, because they would undermine our defences; to our economic security, because there’d be taxes on jobs, taxes on earnings, and more borrowing, and to the security of every family. That would affect all working people.”
Nick Hurd, Conservative MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, tweeted: “Congrats to Jeremy Corbyn on stunning victory. Caution my party against complacency. Cocky Tory always a bad look.”
Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein president: “I have known Jeremy for many years. He is a good friend of Ireland and of the Irish peace process. I wish him well in his new and challenging role as leader of the British Labour Party and look forward to working with him in the time ahead to ensure that the gains of the peace process are built upon.”
Natalie Bennett, Green Party leader: “The selection of Jeremy Corbyn… shows how many people support an alternative to austerity economics, to the head-in-the-sand approach to our environmental crisis and to tired, business-as-usual politics. We hope Corbyn will encourage his supporters to join with us and other campaigners working on these issues, and, in particular, on pushing the issue of climate change to the top of the political agenda ahead of the upcoming Paris talks.”
Unions:
Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite: “Voters can now look at Labour and see, unquestionably, that it stands for fairness, justice, peace and strong communities. It is the party of hope, ready to take on a Government hell-bent on making life worse for ordinary people.”
Dave Prentis, Unison general secretary: “Today people for the first time in a decade are hearing a message of hope. A clarion call that there is another way, an alternative message that it doesn’t need to be like this. People see in Jeremy a politician who has created a wave, a vision of a better, kinder world that works for everyone, not just a self-serving few. Jeremy has ignited a spark of hope, a spark that had been dampened for decades. This is a chance to claim back the heart and the soul of the party and make it our Labour Party once more.”
Paul Kenny, GMB general secretary, said: “This is an historic moment in British politics. There is now a clear division between the parties. No longer will anyone be able to say that they are all the same. Jeremy has a massive job to do. It is one thing to win votes in a leadership election. It will be a much bigger job to win back the support of the millions who stopped voting Labour. Jeremy will concentrate on issues and not personalities. People should wait and see and judge.”
Business:
Simon Walker, director-general of the Institute of Directors (IoD): “From renationalising the railways, to raising taxes on businesses and increasing government spending, he has proposed policies in the leadership campaign that we believe would undermine our open and competitive economy.”
Jeremy Blackburn, RICS head of policy: “He has raised some challenging but principled issues around the expansion of Right to Buy to private landlords; as well as providing a voice for the widely-felt dissatisfaction of privatisation in our rail sector. There is undoubtedly opportunity in his agenda around infrastructure and public spending to get Britain building, and we look forward to sitting round the table and discussing this further.”
John Longworth, director general of the BCC: “Firms will be encouraged by recent statements favouring much-needed investment in the UK’s inadequate infrastructure and skills. We will be looking for the opposition to take a pragmatic and practical approach to business recognising that wealth creation is the necessary prerequisite for the delivery of any political objectives.”
Media
Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday: “Any thoughtful person should be at least be a little pleased to see the PR men and special advisors and the backstairs crawlers of British politics so wonderfully wrong-footed by a bearded old bicyclist.”
Tim Stanley, Sunday Telegraph: “The stunning election victory of El Corbyno does not mean the Labour Party is dead. On the contrary, it’s bigger and more principled than it has been in years. No, it’s Blairism that’s dead. Murdered in an act of sweet revenge.”
Adam Boulton, Sunday Times: “The most immediate changes will be inside Labour. Having languished on the back benches for the generation since Tony Benn failed to complete his putsch, Jeremy Corbyn and his fellow travellers will not miss this chance to consolidate their grip.”
BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg: “There are problems everywhere for Labour’s new leader. He has always been an outsider, an insurgent in his own party. How can he expect loyalty from his colleagues, unite the party, when he has rarely displayed it himself? MPs have been discussing ousting him for weeks. There is likely to be initial faint support from most. Don’t expect a rapid coup. But don’t doubt most smiles behind him at the despatch box will be through gritted teeth.”
The Observer: “Corbynism has proved a political earthquake that has shaken politics more than most would have thought imaginable. But it has yet to prove it can reshape the terrain to benefit the disadvantaged as well as offering progressive, popular and practical solutions to the problems facing Britain.”
The Independent: “It may be that the doubters are right: that a re-run of Labour’s long suicide note of 1983 is not the way to win the hearts of middle England. But it may be that Labour under Mr Corbyn’s unexpected leadership could throw up apparently outlandish ideas that test assumptions about whether policies are thinkable and unthinkable. It is not as if our political system is so perfect that it could not do with shaking up.”
Tim Montgomerie, The Times: “The Conservative Party has a double duty over the next five years. First, it must prevent the most dangerous man and entourage ever to have led Labour from getting into Downing Street. Second, and more profoundly, it must understand why so many decent Labour supporters were so desperate for change that they were willing to embrace a man from their party’s fringes… The Conservatives can probably count on a decade in power. They should use it to fix capitalism.”
Foreign:
Syriza party, Greece: “This election… through the activation of thousands of new members and a commitment to the need for halting the neoliberal policy, has boosted the broad front against austerity and sends a message of hope to the people of Europe.”
French Socialist party: “This clear victory allows Labour to rebuild in order to propose a clear left-wing alternative.”
Pablo Iglesias, leader of Spain’s Podemus party: “Great news. It’s a step forward towards change I Europe for the benefit of the people.”
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner: “Jeremy Corbyn is a great friend of Latin America and shares, in solidarity, our demands for equality and political sovereignty.”
German newspaper Die Welt described Corbyn as a “leftist Utopian, not fit for the real world”.
The Times of Israel: “The far-left MP has empathised with Hezbollah, Hamas… and ties to Holocaust deniers, terrorists and some outright anti-Semites.”