BREAKING: Jeremy Corbyn has been re-elected leader of the Labour Party
Rob Stothard / Stringer
Jeremy Corbyn has officially been re-elected as the leader of the Labour Party.
Corbyn was announced as the winner of the Labour leadership contest at the party's conference in Liverpool on Saturday morning.
As expected, the Islington North MP defeated challenger Owen Smith by a comfortable margin, receiving around 61.8% of the vote. It's the second leadership contest the veteran socialist has won in just over 12 months.
This is the result. It means Corbyn won an even bigger mandate than he did in last year's leadership contest.
JEREMY CORBYN - 61.8%
OWEN SMITH - 38.2%
Corbyn's re-election was widely expected long before the announcement due to the high levels of support he enjoys among the party's membership. At least 90,000 new members joined the party to support the divisive leader.
Smith, who came into the contest as an MP with little experience and profile, was the preferred choice with the vast majority of Labour MPs. He was endorsed by previous Labour leaders Tony Blair and Ed Miliband.
The MP for Pontypridd, who emerged as Corbyn's challenger after Angela Eagle dropped out of the race, billed himself as a "credible" opposition leader in waiting who could make Labour electable again.
But, despite his best attempts, Smith never really came close to threatening the position of Corbyn, who remains immensely popular with the party membership despite performing terribly in recent opinion polls.
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