Labour leadership: Five candidates through as nominations close

[MenInG]

Emily Thornberry will join four other candidates on the ballot to become the next Labour leader, after winning the support of enough MPs and MEPs.

The shadow foreign secretary passed the threshold of 22 backers less than 10 minutes before nominations closed.

She was helped by Clive Lewis quitting the race - with several of his backers switching to back her candidacy.

Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long Bailey, Lisa Nandy and Jess Phillips had already qualified for the next stage.

Sir Keir, the shadow Brexit secretary, led the way with 89 nominations, ahead of Mrs Long Bailey on 33, Ms Nandy on 31 and the other two contenders on 23 each.

Mr Lewis, the lowest-ranking candidate, pulled out after getting only five nominations.

The deputy Labour leader post is also vacant after Tom Watson stood down from Parliament.

All five candidates - Angela Rayner, Ian Murray, Dawn Butler, Rosena Allin-Khan and Richard Burgon - have secured enough nominations to get onto the ballot paper.

Jeremy Corbyn's successor will be announced on 4 April. He is standing down after Labour lost its fourth general election in a row last month.

Switching support

Announcing his exit on Twitter, Norwich South MP Mr Lewis said the contest "was never just about the Labour leadership but about our survival as a political movement and mapping our path to power".

Both Nadia Whittome and Rachael Maskell, who were originally backing Mr Lewis, switched to support Ms Thornberry.

Mr Lewis urged his opponents to take on board some of the ideas he had argued for during his short-lived campaign, including more working with other political parties and progressive forces.

"I now throw down the gauntlet to other Labour leadership candidates and ask them if they are brave enough, strong enough, to take forward some of the issues in my manifesto," he said.

"In the coming weeks I'll be watching their responses closely before deciding who to support."

Among the prominent figures backing Sir Keir are Tottenham MP David Lammy, who has been named vice-chair of his campaign, and former leader Ed Miliband, who said he had "the best experience and vision to deliver 21st Century socialism for the country".

In a speech in east London, Ms Nandy urged Labour to "think big and paint a broad canvass" as it seeks to bounce back from its defeat.

Although she accepted that Labour "did not have all the answers", particularly in Scotland, she said the party had a vital role to play in ensuring the "cause of social justice is beating back divisive nationalism and winning".

"I want to enable this country to become the country I've known we could be all my life but I've never seen," she said. "I feel I can almost touch it."

As part of her pitch, Ms Phillips is calling for the creation of a universal childcare service, based on provision in some Scandinavian countries.

She told LBC the last Labour's government offer of 15 hours free childcare a week had been a "lifeline" for her as a young mother at the time, but current level of provision was now "very limited and needed massive improvement".

How will the leadership race unfold?

13 January: Nomination period closes
14-16 January: Application period for registered supporters
15 January - 14 February: Second stage of nominations from Constituency Labour Parties (CLP) and affiliates, including unions
18 January: The first of seven scheduled hustings takes place in Liverpool
20 January: Freeze date for voting eligibility for new members and affiliated supporters
16 February: The last scheduled hustings is held in London
21 February: Ballot opens
2 April: Ballot closes
4 April: Special conference to announce results

She said the state needed to think of affordable childcare as an economic catalyst for families, in the same way as transport and broadband connections, and not just focus on whether a woman's earnings made her eligible for support.

"Universal free childcare will not only provide thousands and thousands of jobs to groups of people who are desperately in need of good, secure income, it will also enable masses more people to properly go out to work and make their families' lives better," she said.

Asked who she would most like to serve under if she did not win, she chose Ms Nandy, arguing it was time for Labour to have its first female leader.

Hustings complaint
Monday marks the close of the first stage of the nominations process.

Candidates also have to win the support of 5% of constituency Labour parties or three affiliate organisations, two of which must be trade unions, by 14 February. Unison, the UK's largest union, has said it is supporting Sir Keir.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir has written to party officials calling for leadership hustings to take place in "each region and nation" of the UK.

At the moment, there are only seven hustings scheduled between 18 January and 16 February - in Liverpool, Durham, Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham, Glasgow and London.

He said the process of rebuilding trust in Labour must "happen in communities across the country, not just in those we currently represent".



https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-51089217

 

[KingKhanWC]

The Labour party is finished.

Labour leadership rivals back '10 pledges' to tackle antisemitism

Labour’s leader and deputy leadership contenders have demonstrated their commitment to tackling antisemitism in the party by backing a series of pledges set out by the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Within hours of the organisation launching its “10 pledges”, which include adopting the international definition of antisemitism with all its examples and clauses, the majority of hopefuls had given their support.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ip-rivals-back-10-pledges-tackle-antisemitism

So from now on Labour is no longer independent and will not criticise Israel. The UK democracy has become a bit of joke now.

 

[Abdullah719]

Labour leadership candidates clash over handling of antisemitism

Spoiler

Labour leadership hopeful Jess Phillips has appeared to suggest that other candidates failed to speak out about antisemitism in the party.

The five contenders to be leader clashed over their personal records on the issue as they went head to head in public for the first time.

Emily Thornberry, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Sir Keir Starmer, Lisa Nandy and Ms Phillips were in Liverpool to discuss key policies in front of the party faithful.

When challenged on antisemitism Ms Phillips said the party needed a leader who spoke out "when others were keeping quiet" and said she "didn't remember some people here being there".

She added that the party owed it to their Jewish members and supporters to fight all forms of racism and Labour had "lost the moral high ground".

Responding to the suggestion she was not visible as the row engulfed the party last year, shadow foreign secretary Ms Thornberry said she had always stood against antisemitism.

She added that it was a problem across the country as well as in Labour, and said "you must be critical of Netanyahu and what the Israeli government is doing - but that is not the fault of the Jews".

Mrs Long-Bailey admitted that the party was not responding quickly enough when issues were raised, which meant trust was lost.

Ms Nandy said she was "ashamed" of what had happened, particularly over the failure of the party to adopt an internationally recognised definition of antisemitism despite being begged by Jewish MPs to do so.

Sir Keir also said there could be room to criticise Israeli policy without being antisemitic, but said "if you are antisemitic, you shouldn't be in Labour".

They also spoke on Brexit, with Ms Thornberry saying "let's not kid ourselves - we are going to leave the EU" before doubting that Boris Johnson would secure a trade deal by the end of the year.

Ms Nandy said Labour got the argument wrong because they allowed the Conservatives to frame the debate without tackling the nuance, while Sir Keir said people needed to move on from discussing people in terms of how they voted in 2016.

Mrs Long-Bailey said there needs to be a "democratic revolution" because people feel like there is a concentration of power in Westminster as they did with Brussels and the EU.

Asked why they were the candidate to battle against Mr Johnson, Ms Thornberry said she has experience in going up against him because she shadowed him when he was in the foreign office.

She said she could be on top of the detail and was proud of her record against him, adding: "That prime minister needs to be exposed".

Ms Nandy said Labour needed someone who could speak for every part of the country, adding that the luxuries of the hung parliament days were behind them.

Sir Keir said the party needed to be effective in opposition and that he had the skills and experience to lead a large organisation and bring people together.

Ms Long-Bailey said she knew why communities were angry amid de-industrialisation and said she was here to "shatter the Tory majority".

Ms Phillips said she had "silenced" Mr Johnson on occasion from the backbenches, but admitted the party may not have been successful so far as a whole, given his party's large majority.

The five were also asked for their least favourite policy in the most recent manifesto - with Ms Phillips admitting she was "literally laughed at on the school run on broadband".

Ms Thornberry said the manifesto had too many policies, hinting she couldn't keep up, let alone activists, while Ms Nandy said there had to be priorities set.

Sir Keir said the party should not "trash the last four years" but admitted the dense manifesto meant there was a "tipping point and people didn't believe it".

But Mrs Long-Bailey, who was behind many of the party's policies said she was proud of them but lacked a "shining conviction".

The new leader will be announced on 4 April.

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-leadership-candidates-clash-over-handling-of-antisemitism-11911426