Rebecca Long-Bailey is one of the top three candidates in the leadership election to replace Jeremy Corbyn. On the subject of Jeremy Corbyn, she has been branded as the Corbyn continuity candidate due to her strong support for the outgoing leader and his policies. She was also one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Corbyn for the 2015 leadership race. When we look at the MPs who are backing her to reach the 22 required MPs to be allegeable for the leadership election, many of them are MPs who supported Corbyn in his 2016 challenge, including bigheads such as John Mcdonnel, Angela Rayner (who is currently one of the tops to become deputy party leader) and Diane Abbot.
Featured photo by Chris McAndrew. License
Down to this it is looking more and more like it is going to be a battle between the Centrists and Corbynites, with many of the MPs who didn’t back Corbyn in his 2016 challenge going to current top challenger Keir Starmer, who also became the first candidate to receive the backing of a trade union. Although the spread of non-Corbyn supporters was more even than Corbyn 2016 supporters who almost exclusively backed Long-Bailey.
Long-Bailey has though denied she is the Corbyn continuity candidate, declaring that she isn’t the continuity candidate of anybody. Bailey says she wants to develop the party’s policies to transform the country as well as its regions and nations and in her launch bid, she called herself a “proud socialist”.
Bailey has admitted that the party failed to adequately tackle anti-Semitism and that they could not pull in the trust for the party’s BREXIT stance or the trust in implementing their ambitious policies in an economically viable way, from which she said was one of the greatest manifesto offerings the party has ever had.
Long-Bailey has offered up her time in Mr. Corbyn’s top team as proof she is experienced and that her four years immersed in the policies, many of which she has helped to develop, has given her the confidence on their importance and deliverability. She also defended Corbyn, saying that she believes his character received an unprecedented level of attacks.
Bailey has been an MP for Labour since May 2015 when she was elected to her Salford and Eccles seat and it didn’t take her long before she started reaching prominent positions within Corbyn’s Shadow government and Cabinet and became a close ally of the now outgoing opposition leader. She also stood in for Corbyn in a number of the debates before the December General Election where she gained more popularity from the wider public.
The now Labour MP was born in Greater Manchester to Irish parents and her father was a Salford Docker and trade union representative, Long-Bailey has said that her time working at a pawn shop enabled her to see the struggles of life, she also went through a number of other working-class jobs such as call centers, furniture factory and working as a postwoman where she said she also witnessed the everyday struggles of others such as zero-hours contracts, low pay and temporary work. She eventually decided to study to become a solicitor where she studied Politics and Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University and also completed various part-time law conversion and solicitors’ courses.
Bailey eventually achieved her goal of becoming a solicitor where she highlighted working on behalf of NHS Bodies on a range of governance and contractual issues and expressed that she loved the job.
Long-Bailey says that she became interested in politics at a young age due to the struggles that her parents and other local families and work colleagues faced and she wanted to do something about the inequality and unfairness that she had witnessed. She states she believes in rebuilding the British economy with the welfare of British people at its heart and that the foundations should be prosperity and social justice rather than greed and despair.
Her ambition to become an MP was further solidified after she and her mum begun going to Labour Party meetings and instead of just attending and talking about how terrible everything was, she decided that she wanted to create a party that people would believe in. These meetings also helped her gain popularity in her now seat where people begun asking her to run for the seat, soon after she started gaining support from big names such as Ian Stewart Labour MP of the former Eccles seat, council leader John Merry and the Unite union and she was eventually selected from the all-woman’s shortlist that had been agreed on by Labour bosses for the seat earlier in the month and went on to win in the General Election.
During her time as MP she has derided the Conservative government for turning a blind eye to tax avoidance and giving tax breaks to millionaires. She also stated how she was emphatic about her constituency’s socialist history.
Not long after Corbyn’s election as party leader in 2015, Long-Bailey received her first promotion in the party, to Shadow Minister for the Treasury, a part of Corbyn’s frontbench team on 18th September 2015. Corbyn also appointed her as to Labour’s National Executive Committee one of three representatives from the frontbench, Labour’s NEC is the parties governing body that decides on overall strategy of the party as well as policy direction.
Just under a year later on 27th June 2016 Corbyn appointed her as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury after a number of resignations in revolt against Corbyn over BREXIT. Then on 9th February 2017 she was appointed as Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy after Clive Lewis, another candidate in the current leadership election, resigned, again due to Corbyn’s moves related to BREXIT. Long-Bailey has remained in this position since, still currently holding it today.
Bailey has been given the backing of the left-wing political organisation Momentum as well as the backing of the Unite union, both of which strongly backed Corbyn in the past.
Long-Bailey has said that if she was to reach Downing Street, she would abolish the House of Lords, although she agrees with having checks and balances, she disagrees with it being in the hands of unelected members. She has even suggested not standing in the way of a 2nd Scottish independence referendum. She has also vowed to move powers from Westminster to local levels/regions and power from chief executives to workers. Bailey also wants to end the “gentleman’s club of politics”. Bailey said she was opposed to abortion after 24 weeks on the grounds of disability, but that it was a personal view rather than a policy and that she fully supports a woman’s right of choice.
A poll by Survation published on the 16th January showed Long-Bailey leading above the favourite Keir Starmer among party members for the first time, although polls since have continued to favour Keir Starmer as the absolute front-runner. Long-Bailey received the 2nd highest number of CLP’s under Starmer. If she does end up winning it will likely be viewed as an upset – and as well know from the past, leadership elections do often like to give us unexpected upsets.
The final Labour Leadership Candidate profile, on Lisa Nandy, will be released next Wednesday (25th March).