HOVE MP Peter Kyle has said that having Jeremy Corbyn as his new boss would be an “electoral disaster” for the Labour party.

Mr Kyle said Labour leadership favourite Jeremy Corbyn was failing to “electrify” any voter outside the Labour party membership and would lead the party to an even heavier defeat than in May.

The Hove MP also said that the leadership contest had come too early and that Ed Miliband should have stayed on for a year to manage a smoother transition.

The deadline for new membership to the party was extended yesterday ahead of ballot papers being sent out later this week.

Mr Kyle said: “What Jeremy is doing is electrifying one part of the Labour party.

“But what Jeremy is not doing, he is not electrifying any part of electorate beyond the membership of the party and that was the key of my campaign in Hove.

“What Jeremy is doing is using the public platform to talk about issues that he has championed for 40 years, to me that is the same mistake that Ed Miliband made.

“We haven’t had the result yet but what is clear is that if Jeremy Corbyn is successful then he will take us further away from electoral victory and make the job for whoever comes next even harder.”

Mr Kyle, who is backing Liz Kendall for leader, said that the leadership race has happened too soon after election defeat.

He said: “We should have waited a year to recover from defeat, take a long hard look at why we lost this election and give the membership more time to get to know the candidates better.

“I think Ed Miliband should have stayed as leader to play a more active role in helping us understand the defeat and be much more upfront about his role in that defeat”

But the Hove MP disagreed that the process opening up voting to new members, which has seen Green, Left Unity and even Conservative MP Tim Loughton sign up hoping to play their part in selecting the party’s next leader, had damaged the party.

He said: “I’m not going to criticise that process, it has been quite exhilarating.

“It’s something we are not quite in control of and that is why some people are unnerved by that.

“I have had up to a dozen people a day coming to the offices and joining the Labour party, that is a dozen discussions a day with people who care about left-leaning politics and politics in general and that can only be a good thing.”