Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn refuses to take part in hustings hosted by 'biased' media organisations

Campaign director accuses the Mirror, New Statesman, Guardian and Channel Four of taking ‘partisan positions against Jeremy’s leadership or campaign’

Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith (right) clash during their first leadership debate in Cardiff (Getty)

Jeremy Corbyn is refusing to take part in Labour leadership hustings organised by the New Statesman, The Guardian, the Mirror or Channel Four on account of them having previously shown bias against him.

Jon Lansman, the director of Momentum, the group running Mr Corbyn’s leadership campaign, wrote in an email that all four had “taken partisan positions against Jeremy’s leadership or campaign... therefore can’t be regarded as impartial hosts or moderators.”

The emails, which have been seen by the Huffington Post, are part of a long email conversation between Mr Corbyn’s team and Labour HQ, whose job it is to arrange the hustings.

In an email sent on Tuesday Mr Lansman said: “Our only issue for the rest of the campaign is potentially with dates, and the identity of third party organisations proposed to host further hustings.

“We are deeply concerned that some of those media organisations or their leading presenters have taken partisan positions against Jeremy’s leadership or campaign, and therefore can’t be regarded as impartial hosts or moderators.

“In the case of broadcasters, they do of course have a statutory duty of impartiality, which the party under successive leaders has always been committed to ensuring is upheld.

“On that basis, we are fine to carry on taking part in Labour Party-hosted hustings, including next week’s hustings in Scotland. We would also be glad to take part in, for example, a TULO [Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation]-hosted hustings, as took place last year, if that can be arranged.

“We have agreed to a BBC Question Time-hosted hustings and we are close to agreement on a Sky-hosted hustings. And we would would be happy to do events with Mumsnet and Facebook, depending on the nature of the proposed format.

“However on the basis of the point made above, we would not be prepared to take part in hustings debates hosted by the Mirror, New Statesman, Guardian or Channel Four.

“We are of course prepared to do interviews or audience events with all these organisations, as we have done in the past.

“We note that the next proposed event is Channel 4 and clearly in the light of the comments above this is not something which we can support.”