Tom Watson: Labour Party proud to fight Tory cuts

Tom Watson told a packed fringe meeting at the party's annual conference: "We have an anti-austerity leader and an anti-austerity deputy leader, and we reject the Tory narrative that says capping benefits, closing sure start centres, cutting tax credits for millions is the right way to get the economy on track. We will oppose that. It is what a centre-left party should do."

Mr Watson told the meeting at the Labour Party conference in Brighton that he meets people in his West Bromwich constituency with two or three part-time jobs to make ends meet, and having to rely on food banks.

Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne had "no idea" how people lived, otherwise they would not be making such big changes to the welfare system, he said.

Mr Watson has also revealed that the conference could vote to impose mandatory re-selection of MPs. He said that while both he and leader Jeremy Corbyn opposed requiring MPs to face a vote of local party activists, he admitted they could not control the views of conference.

In a radio interview, the MP for West Bromwich East said: "We are both very much against mandatory re-selection but unfortunately that decision is made by our party conference."

His comments came amid fears among Labour moderates that some hard left supporters of Mr Corbyn want to introduce mandatory re-selection in order to purge them from the party.

Shadow culture secretary Michael Dugher warned that any such move would be "totally destructive" and risked plunging the party back into the bitter internal feuding of the 1980s.

While Mr Corbyn backed mid-term election for the leader during the leadership campaign, Mr Watson warned that MPs hoping to get rid of Mr Corbyn should not bank on the idea.

"If MPs feel very strongly about that they could put an MP up, but, I tell you what, I think that if they did put an MP up against Jeremy Corbyn he would win hands down," he said.