Labour's Clive Lewis backs tactical Progressive Alliance to beat Tories but denies defying Jeremy Corbyn

Clive Lewis said he is backing the Progressive Alliance campaign.
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Labour’s Clive Lewis has denied the suggestion that his support for tactical voting is an act of defiance against leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The former shadow cabinet minister came out in support for the Progressive Alliance campaign, a cross-party alliance encouraging people to vote tactically, at its launch in London on Monday evening.

The aim is to defeat the Conservatives by parties working together. Some parties – for example the Greens – may decide not to field candidates to give others a better chance of winning.

The Labour Party has so far rejected calls for a progressive alliance.

Mr Lewis, the party's candidate for Norwich South, said at the launch event: "It's not an act of defiance.

"It's about understanding there are lots of people, hundreds and thousands of people, who actually want to see politics done differently.

"Jeremy Corbyn came in on the platform of doing politics differently.

Jeremy Corbyn on the campaign trail on Monday
PA

"This is about doing politics differently in a constructive way and I think that's a good thing."

Mr Lewis said first-past-the-post rules were "shoe-horning a multi-party system into a two-party electoral system" and described tactical voting as a "reality".

"There are lots of people who are accepting that tactical voting is a reality," he told reporters.

"It's always been a reality, it doesn't take me or the people here today to tell anyone how to tactically vote.

"People can see if they want to stop Theresa May on June 8 - they understand, they are sensible, they can work it out. So let's see what happens."

Addressing the crowd at the event, Mr Lewis said: "Our society is more complex, our social allegiances less fixed, our identities less certain than they were when the Labour Party was born.

"Other progressive parties now speak to parts of our country where we are no longer heard.

"And that means that just as you cannot thrive without us, so we cannot thrive without you."

Mr Lewis urged Labour supporters to "be true" to the party's history, adding: "The Labour Party at its birth and in its strongest most influential era has always been a progressive alliance."

Ending his plea for a cross-party alliance to prevent a Conservative landslide, he said: "The future is not inevitable.

"The future is what we collectively make it.

"We have fought and overcome bigger obstacles than this in our history, much bigger.

"But we are only strong when we stand together and offer a vision that says we stand for something bigger, something bolder, something better."

Additional reporting by Press Association.

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