Jeremy Corbyn has what it takes to become Prime Minister, says Ed Miliband

The former Labour leader said in some ways his successor had strengthened the party

Former Labour leader Ed Miliband (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Ed Miliband has launched a public defence of Jeremy Corbyn, arguing that the new Labour leader has in some respects strengthened the Labour party and that he has what it takes to become prime minister.

The former Labour leader promised not to be a “backseat driver” to his successor and praised shadow chancellor John McDonnell for taking forward his efforts to reform capitalism.

“I think [Labour] has a strength in depth in terms of our membership that we didn’t have before. Jeremy Corbyn has doubled our membership and I’ve seen that myself in my own constituency as a constituency MP and I think this is quite important,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“I’m seeking to work out how can we use these new members so we can do what we didn’t do under me which is become a community organisation that actually is a presence in communities up and down this country.”

Asked whether Mr Corbyn could win the general election and become prime minister, Mr Miliband replied: “Of course. In the end that is a decision for the electorate, as I discovered to my cost. That is a decision the electorate has to make.”

Mr Miliband, who lost the 2015 general election despite increasing Labour’s vote share from 2010, said that in some respects the new Labour leader had adopted aspects of his own political agenda.

“I also have a view, maybe borne of the way I think about politics, that sometimes you don’t succeed but some of the ideas that we put forward about how we have responsible capitalism, how we tackle inequality, how we get this country to work for most people again – I think those issues don’t go away,” he told the programme.

“If you look at some of the people John McDonnell has brought in – Thomas Pikkety, Joseph Stiglitz, international economists, they’re the people actually arguing for this big country that our country faces. This doesn’t go away. We’ve got a country divided between the top one per cent and everyone else.”

The public intervention comes after reports in the Mail on Sunday newspaper that Mr Miliband had privately told Labour MP Graham Stringer: “I bet you didn’t think things would actually get worse.”

It was reported this morning that Mr Corbyn has authorised a scathing attack against his own internal critics on his leadership campaign’s Facebook page.

The response came after months of internal criticism from some MPs on the party’s right wing despite a landslide victory amongst members in the leadership election.