Corbyn offers 'hand of friendship' to rebellious MPs and insists Labour can win under his leadership

Read More: Corbyn confident but not complacent of winning new leadership election as electorate tops 500,000

At the launch in a bland lecture room at the University of London, Mr Corbyn dismissed the warnings of his critics that his leadership made Labour unelectable, insisting he was capable of taking the party to power and of becoming prime minister.

"This party is going places. This party is strong. This party is capable of winning a general election and if I am leader of the party I will be that prime minister," he declared.

Mr Corbyn said his leadership would focus on tackling the “five ills of the 21st century”; inequality, neglect, insecurity, prejudice and discrimination.

This echoed the Beveridge report of 1942, which spoke of the "five giant evils," and which is seen as being the foundation of the post-war welfare state.

"The injustices that scar society today are not those of 1945; want, squalor, idleness, disease and ignorance. They have changed since I first entered Parliament in 1983; today what is holding people back above all are inequality, neglect, insecurity, prejudice and discrimination.”

Stressing how he would be bringing forward new policies during the leadership campaign, the party leader said he wanted to confront Britain’s ills head on, setting out not only how Labour would campaign against such injustices in opposition but also detailing the measures the next Labour government would take to overcome them and “move decisively towards a society in which opportunity and prosperity are truly shared”.

Read More: Corbyn confident but not complacent of winning new leadership election as electorate tops 500,000

Emphasising his commitment to tackle workplace discrimination, Mr Corbyn said that if he became Prime Minister, he would ensure all companies employing more than 21 staff would have to publish information about the pay, hours and grade of every job.

Answering questions following his speech, Mr Corbyn was asked about the lack of support he had within the parliamentary Labour party.

He said he had seen leaders come and go and that there was a huge amount of talent on the Labour benches, stressing how parliamentarians were part of the Labour Party and the Labour movement.

"I hope that those who may not agree with me politically, may not even like me personally...I hold out the hand of friendship to them all, because come September when this election is done and dusted, there will still be a Tory Government in office, there will still be grotesque levels of inequality in our society, there will still be whole parts of this country that are left-behind Britain.

"It's the job, it's the duty, it's the responsibility of every Labour MP to get behind the party at that point and put it there against the Tories about the different, fairer kind of Britain that we can build together.

"I appeal to them to work together to put that case forward, because we owe it to the people that founded this party, that support this party, the half-million who give their money and their time to help this party survive and strengthen and grow. I hope they will recognise that and come on board."

Mr Corbyn is favourite to win the postal ballot of Labour's members - whose ranks he said had swelled to more than 500,000 - as well as the 183,000 people who paid £25 and signed up this week as registered supporters and the affiliated supporters in the unions. It was suggested that the early indications were that the split of the registered supporters was 60/40 in the party leader’s favour.

Read More: Corbyn confident but not complacent of winning new leadership election as electorate tops 500,000

The London MP took a dig at his rival, Owen Smith's former job for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, saying: "I hope Owen will fully agree with me that our NHS should be free at the point of use, should be run by publicly employed workers working for the NHS not for private contractors, and medical research shouldn't be farmed out to big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and others but should be funded through the Medical Research Council."

But he said that Mr Smith would be "very welcome" after the leadership election to rejoin the shadow cabinet, which he quit along with many other frontbenchers in the wake of the EU referendum in June.

"Owen Smith was in the shadow cabinet until two weeks ago and he came to see me to say he was very happy in the shadow cabinet and wanted to stay there and then left the meeting and resigned which was a slightly odd thing to do," added Mr Corbyn.

Earlier, the leader’s close ally, Diane Abbott also made derogatory remarks about Mr Smith’s past. Saying: “I don't believe that someone whose history is having been a special adviser and a pharmaceutical company lobbyist is going to enthuse the base.

"People find the link between lobbyists and politics very distasteful and having been a former pharmaceutical company lobbyist will not help Owen Smith," said the shadow health secretary.

She also took issue with Mr Smith’s criticism of Mr Corbyn’s performance against Theresa May at Prime Minister’s Questions this week, which the Pontypridd MP said he was “furious” about and showed the party leader was “not up to the job”.

Ms Abbott said: “If Owen Smith wants Jeremy to score over Theresa May at Prime Minister's Questions he needs to talk to his colleagues. They refuse to cheer, they sit on their hands, they sulk, they chat among themselves.

“Some of these Labour MPs need to understand it is not about supporting Jeremy as a person, it is about going into the chamber for Prime Minister's Questions and supporting your party.

"When Theresa May came in she got huge cheers from the Tory benches, when Jeremy came in there was silence. If your own side isn't behind you, it is really difficult to hit your stride," she added.