Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith told Labour leadership contest has made both look ‘unelectable’

Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith have been told that Labour’s bitter election contest has made them both look “unelectable” and they should step aside for another candidate, as the pair clashed in a series of tetchy exchanges.

Appearing in a live television hustings, Mr Smith and Mr Corbyn were jeered in the opening minutes of BBC One’s Question Time programme – the penultimate debate in the leadership contest. While Mr Corbyn was told he had no support from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), Mr Smith was accused of wanting to split the party.

“The squabbles have made the party look unelectable and both of you look unelectable,” an audience member said. “You should stand aside and let someone else, maybe Harriet Harman, somebody, just anybody, lead the party to victory.”

One voter told the candidates “I can't say my heart is beating for either side”, while another bemoaned the state of the party.

After being asked by a member of the audience what they would do to make Jewish people feel safe in the Labour Party, Mr Smith, the former shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said Shami Chakrabarti’s review of anti-Semitism in Labour’s ranks was viewed as inadequate by the Jewish community, and he would commission a new report.

The fractious event in Oldham consisted of an audience made up of people supporting both the Labour Party and other political parties, including Ukip, the Greens and Liberal Democrats. Among the Labour supporters, there was an even split of both Mr Smith and Mr Corbyn supporters.

The penultimate debate comes just two weeks before the Labour Party announces its next leader at a special conference in Liverpool. But many commentators are treating the race as a foregone conclusion, with Mr Corbyn, according to one poll, significantly ahead of his rival who has attempted to position himself as just as “radical” as the current leader.

When asked about the future of the party, Mr Corbyn said he had been talking to Labour MPs in recent weeks and believed they would turn their fire on the Conservatives after the contest. He added: "I think after the election is over and after the conference is over you will see the wish of MPs to reflect the wishes of party members all over the country that there is a coming together in order to oppose this Tory government."

Mr Smith, who ruled out serving in Mr Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet should lose the contest, repeated his claim that Labour would be out of power “for a generation” if the left-wing MP for Islington North remained at the helm of the deeply divided party.

He said: "I say to everybody in the Labour movement right now, it's in your hands, the choice is with you as to whether we want to be with Jeremy and in opposition, potentially for a generation, or start leading the way back to Labour being in power."