On Tuesday, 7th January Labour’s leadership and deputy leadership races were officially underway with the party’s ruling National Executive Committee setting out the timetable for the three-stage contest. Jess Phillips, Emily Thornberry, Clive Lewis and Lisa Nandy are all running for the leadership race. Nandy a British Asian has been one of the most critical voices on the party’s Brexit policy in favour of a second referendum. She said offering a softer Brexit was the “only way that you would have prevented the scale of the collapse” in seats across the north, Midlands and Wales.
In the meantime, her campaign strategy has been all about returning economic prosperity to Britain’s towns, making sure they have good public services and jobs and combatting the increasing carbon footprint destroying the planet. She has said offers such as free broadband failed to resonate when a pledge to improve bus services could have been much more effective. A former shadow energy and climate change secretary, she has also made the case in recent days for the UK to rebuild its influence in the world and said Trump’s actions have created a “really, really dangerous moment for the entire world and for Britain in particular”.
Nandy has been critical of the manifesto and Brexit policy, but has also said Labour must not abandon the radicalism of the Corbyn era. She is considered to be on the soft left of the party and has stressed her socialist credentials, but some Corbyn allies may eye her with suspicion for having backed Owen Smith’s leadership challenge in 2016.
In the meantime, Rosena Allin-Khan, who still works as an A&E doctor in her constituency in Tooting, has decided to run for deputy leader of the Labour Party. She won her seat in south London after Sadiq Khan stepped down when he became Mayor of London. She becomes the fifth candidate to succeed Tom Watson as deputy leader, and is joined by Khalid Mahmood.
