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Politics

The Labour Leadership Election 2020

It has been announced that we will know by 4th April who the new leader of the UK’s Labour Party will be after Jeremy Corbyn’s stunning election defeat. So far six candidates have stood in the bid to become Labour’s new top dog and are hoping they will be the ones to fix Labour and lead them to an election win.

I will be as usual writing up overviews on the candidates and posting them up of which the first will begin releasing in February. The Labour Party leadership election will have registered party members and those who pay a fee of £25 can sign up temporarily to cast a vote in the leadership election, these are the same rules used when Corbyn was elected leader and the same fee used during the Owen Smith challenge to Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party (the fee was just £3 before then). The Labour Party has the highest membership out of any other party with a whopping 500,000+ and this may possibly grow with the new election.

Compare the above number with the Conservatives just under 200k members and the Liberal Democrat’s that sits at about 120k members. All three parties have though seen quite an increase in their membership numbers over the last few years, normally in sudden bouts but Labour by far still wins this race.

The Labour race will officially begin on the 7th January where each candidate will require at least 10% (22) of Labour MPs and MEPs to back them by 13th January and each candidate will also need backing from at least 5% of Labour constituency parties or backing from at least three Trade Unions by the 14th February. Candidates who achieve this can continue on towards the main leadership election where voting will begin from 21st February. If you want to vote in the leadership election you will need to become a party member by 20th January or you can instead be a registered supporter by paying £25 within 48 hours from 14th-16th January, which will allow you to vote while not being a full member.

Now unlike other elections, party leadership elections are not an overnight thing and voting takes place for just over a week until the ballot closes on 2nd April with the result being announced on the 4th April. The voting system uses the Single Transferable Vote where members vote by preference of each candidate by numbering them, which dictates how each vote transfers from candidate to candidate as others are knocked out by falling under a certain threshold, until the winner gets 50% of votes and goes on to be sworn in as Labour’s party leader.

The six candidates who have announced they will run are Sir Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry, Clive Lewis, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips and Rebecca Long-Bailey. So far, the favourite to win appears to be Keir Starmer but with leadership elections, there can often be a different result to the favourite, which is more prevalent than ever with Labour. Public opinion of a favourite will also often largely differ from who the favourites of the registered members/supporters are. The end result is often unpredictable.

For now, I would say the top two are Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey, while the underdogs are Clive Lewis and Jess Phillips who are less prominent and have not served a Shadow Cabinet position. Lisa Nandy has previously been on the Shadow Cabinet but is still less prominent than the top mentioned two. Emily Thornberry has been a fairly prominent member of the Shadow Cabinet in Labour but it remains to be seen if she will attract the support she needs from colleagues and members.

So far it appears Jess Phillips and Lisa Nandy are doing surprisingly well. Note that there is also a Labour Deputy Election, and by far Angela Rayner, a strong Corbyn ally, appears to be the favourite to win. I will not be covering the candidates in that election but instead putting my full focus on the main leadership election.

Could we end up with a situation where a more Centrist non-Corbynite MP such as Keir Starmer wins the leadership, while a Corbynite MP such as Angela Rayner wins the Deputy Leadership? It would be a switch from previous where Corbyn was leader and the more centrist non-Corbynite former-MP Tom Watson was Deputy leader. It remains to be seen, but is a strong possibility.


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