Jeremy Corbyn shrugs off coup risk in Labour leadership battle

MP dismisses 'plots and name-calling', and urges campaign of 'malice-free decency' in style of Abraham Lincoln

Jeremy Corbyn has brushed aside suggestions that he would face an internal coup to depose him if he became Labour leader, saying he would follow the example of Abraham Lincoln who acted as a unifying figure after the American civil war.

Established party figures, led by Neil Kinnock and Peter Mandelson, have warned of the "dangers" of a Corbyn victory. Corbyn, in Leeds at the launch of an economic plan to rejuvenate the north of England, said: "Plots and double plots and sub-plots and plotting - it's fascinating. I think Abraham Lincoln made a point. At the end of the American civil war he said, 'with malice toward none and charity towards all' we will go forward, I am sure that is the right way to do things."