A LABOUR leadership candidate has warned the party is in danger if it does not vote for him.
Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham visited Newhall Labour Club, in High Street, Newhall, as part of his campaign to drum up support among grassroots members in South Derbyshire.
Before speaking to local supporters, Mr Burnham admitted to the Mail that he was not the favourite to win the Labour leadership race but thought he was ‘in a strong third place and gathering momentum’.
He said: “The reason I am making these trips is to tell people at a local level that I think it is time that we rebuild the Labour Party from the bottom up.
“I want to give the Labour Party back to the ordinary person on the street.
“By courting the media elite and the business elite, this party has lost touch with ordinary people and all of that has to change.
“I am quite happy to be the true grassroots candidate. Labour can’t have more of the same — it would be dangerous for Labour to carry on as we were.
“New Labour did great things and it was right for its time but it was born of a distrust of its members and it developed a top-down, controlling elitist style where a small number of people in London basically told everyone else how it was going to be.
"Now you cannot run a political party in that way, because if you do it's a recipe for the long-term decline of that party.
“I just want people to see that I am not New Labour, I am not old Labour — I am true Labour.” Andy Burnham has been the MP for Leigh since 2001.
He was Secretary of State for Health until May 11 when Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister. Prior to that, he was the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
The new Labour leader will be announced on September 25.
