John McDonnell: "I will never stand to be the leader of the Labour Party"

Over the past few weeks there has been some media speculation about who will be the next leader of the Labour Party.

More specifcally, there has been some speculation about whether John McDonnell will be the next leader of the Labour Party.

At East Midlands' first Momentum conference last Saturday, I asked McDonnell for his response to this.

"Jeremy Corbyn is my closest friend, we've worked together for over thirty years, he's the leader of the party, he's going to be the next Prime Minister of this country.

"I'm pleased that he's chosen me to be the Shadow Chancellor and that's the role that I'll play.

"I will never stand to be the leader of the Labour Party.

"The recent poll in terms of Jeremy's support, the support among the Labour party in rank and file has gone up since he was elected.

"He was elected nearly 60% of the electorate last time around, and if there was another leadership election tomorrow or in the next couple of years he'd win it by even more.

"We have a stable leadership, it's a really good partnership of a collective leadership which I think is working really well.

"There's a few people in the parliamentary Labour party who haven't come to terms with that yet, but they will.

"The vast bulk of the Labour Party rank and file just want to get on with the job in hand of opposing the Tories and preparing for government."

I also spoke to McDonnell about the Gender Pay Gap.

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