Who is Labour’s new Queen of the North?
The most precious commodity in an election is momentum. As of this morning, both Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell enjoy it. The Education Secretary and north-east MP now has 47 backers for the deputy leadership while her rival – sacked last week by Keir Starmer as leader of the House of Commons – has 37. In third place is Bell Ribeiro-Addy of the Socialist Campaign Group with 12, followed by Emily Thornberry on eight (hindered by the preference for a northerner), local government minister Alison McGovern on six and Paula Barker, representing the new soft-left Mainstream group, on five.
Phillipson, who is No 10’s preferred candidate (“Keir really, really likes Bridget,” an insider told me back in June), is seeking to make the most of her frontrunner status. An ally tells me they are “very confident” of today achieving the 80 MP nominations required to make the ballot and hints that a coronation would be preferable. “There’ll be MPs who want to avoid a lengthy six-week campaign that potentially divides the party at a time when we need to be focusing on delivery.”
But Powell’s advance means they may not get their wish – allies are confident she will achieve 80 nominations. The former Ed Miliband aide is now entrenched as the soft left’s candidate of choice – endorsed last night by Louise Haigh and the Tribune Group – and is backed by over a dozen fellow north-west MPs (a group that suffered in last week’s reshuffle). Significantly, even though nominations are public, Powell is attracting ministerial support: social care minister Stephen Kinnock and Miatta Fahnbulleh (moved last week from energy to housing) have endorsed her.
At the start of this race the Westminster consensus was that any serving minister would lose. The election would be framed as a referendum on the government – which 64 per cent of party members believe is heading in the wrong direction – and a backbench champion would triumph.
But Phillipson has plausible grounds for hope. A new LabourList poll shows that she enjoys a net favourability rating of +39 among members (to Powell’s +1). That’s a reflection of the fact that, as one supportive MP puts it, “she has a policy portfolio that doesn’t piss people off very much and has done lots of nice stuff around free school meals and childcare”. Among a selectorate where teachers and education workers are a significant constituency, Phillipson’s reputation as a union ally will do her no harm at all. Indeed, it’s for such reasons that some in Labour have long regarded Phillipson rather than Wes Streeting as the true leader-in-waiting from the party’s traditionally Blairite wing.
Yet should Powell make the ballot, she will have two major advantages over Phillipson. The first is freedom from collective responsibility, liberating her to strike political positions that her opponent cannot. The second is the backing of Andy Burnham, the most popular Labour figure among members (with a rating of +78), and the party’s king over the water.
Phillipson vs Powell would not be an ideological battle for Labour’s soul to rival Benn vs Healey (Powell, after all, led the government’s legislative programme for more than a year). But the outcome of the contest will significantly reshape the party’s internal dynamics. Victory for Powell would weaken Starmer further while victory for Phillipson would spare the leadership’s blushes but see a new putative successor emerge.
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This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[See also: Bell Ribeiro-Addy has changed Labour’s deputy leadership race]
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