Angela Rayner to face in Labour deputy management race

Shadow schooling secretary Angela Rayner has introduced she is becoming a member of the competition to interchange Tom Watson as Labour’s deputy chief.

She is the fourth Labour MP to declare her intention to run, alongside Richard Burgon, Daybreak Butler and Khalid Mahmood.

Ms Rayner stated Labour now confronted a stark alternative following December’s heavy election defeat – “win or die”.

Each the brand new chief and deputy chief might be introduced on four April, the get together’s ruling physique has determined.

Clive Lewis, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips, Sir Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry have formally entered the race to interchange outgoing chief Jeremy Corbyn.

Shadow enterprise secretary Rebecca Lengthy Bailey, who’s a good friend and flatmate of Ms Rayner, can also be anticipated to affix the primary contest quickly.

Launching her deputy management bid in Stockport, Ms Rayner stated Labour’s defeat final month had left the get together dealing with its “greatest problem in our historical past”.

She stated Labour wanted to discover a “new sort of coalition” to regain energy, and wanted to “win again” former supporters who had abandoned the get together.

She stated Mr Corbyn’s management had been an element within the get together’s poor efficiency, but in addition blamed the election technique, saying its record of goal seats had proved to be “extensive of the mark”.

“Seats the place we suffered catastrophic defeats had been seen as safe, whereas we tried to battle ‘goal’ seats we had successfully already misplaced. It can not occur once more.”

And she or he continued: “The fast repair of a brand new chief won’t be sufficient. We should rethink and renew our objective and the way we persuade the individuals to share it.

“Both we resist these new instances or we develop into irrelevant. The subsequent 5 years would be the battle of our lives.”

Endorsements

Ms Rayner stated she would again Ms Lengthy Bailey if she stood for the highest job, including that she needed the management of the get together to be a “workforce effort”.

After the launch, Ms Lengthy Bailey tweeted that she could be lending her “full help” to her “good good friend” Ms Rayner in her pitch for the deputy’s publish.

Ms Rayner additionally unveiled a listing of different Labour MPs backing her candidacy, together with shadow commerce secretary Barry Gardiner – seen as a possible contender himself – and senior colleagues Louise Haigh and Jonathan Reynolds.

Ms Rayner turned shadow schooling secretary in June 2016, simply over a yr after she turned MP for Ashton-under-Lyne in Better Manchester.

After leaving faculty aged 16, she turned a care employee and consultant for the Unison union earlier than getting into Parliament. She has beforehand described herself as being on the “smooth left” of the get together.

At her launch she additionally referred to as for the get together to attract a “line within the sand” over the difficulty of anti-Semitism inside its ranks, so it may “regain the ethical authority” to unite the nation towards racism.

The get together, she added, wanted to “educate the place there may be ignorance” and “take away bigotry wherever it’s discovered”.

Contest guidelines determined

Underneath get together guidelines determined by the get together’s ruling Nationwide Govt Committee (NEC) on Monday, deputy chief and chief candidates should be nominated by a minimum of 22 Labour MPs or MEPs.

They need to additionally safe nominations from a minimum of 5% of Labour’s constituency events or three affiliated our bodies – two of which should be commerce unions.

New members can have till 20 January to affix and be eligible to vote in each contests, with voting to start on 21 February.

There may also be a 48-hour window from 14-16 January for registered supporters – who should not full members – to pay £25 in an effort to safe a vote.

The four April announcement date means the winners will take their posts earlier than English council elections in Could.

‘Brutality and hostility’

Former deputy Tom Watson introduced he was stepping down from his position and wouldn’t stand as an MP earlier than final month’s normal election.

Mr Watson was elected deputy chief in 2015, on the identical day that Mr Corbyn received his personal poll to run the get together.

Nonetheless, the pair got here from totally different wings of the get together and had been typically at odds on plenty of points, notably over the get together’s place on Brexit.

Mr Watson has since said he confronted “political factionalism” and “brutality and hostility” inside the get together throughout his time in publish.