Bridget Phillipson is set to take on Lucy Powell to be Labour’s new deputy leader after both women gained enough support from their fellow MPs.
Phillipson, the education secretary, received 175 nominations – well over the 80 needed to make it through to the next stage of the race to succeed Angela Rayner, who resigned last week.
Powell ended up on 117, with left-winger Bell Ribeiro-Addy on 24.
An ally of Phillipson, who is seen as the No.10-approved candidate, described the result as “a bit of a rout”.
Both her and Powell will now need to get enough support from constituency parties and affiliated unions to get through to the final ballot, when Labour members will be given the final say. The winner will be announced on October 25.
Powell said: “This is not a contest I expected nor any of us wanted but we must use it to focus on how the new deputy leader can be a bridge for all parts of our movement and help the government deliver the progressive change the country needs.
“I am Labour through and through. I will always fight for our party, our values and our traditions. At a time when there are forces trying to spread division and hatred, Labour must be the voice of unity and hope.”
Downing Street had hoped to hoped to avoid a contest altogether, fearing that a full-blown contest will lead to public criticism of Labour’s record in government so far.
In addition, Powell is known to be angry at being sacked as Commons leader by Starmer in last week’s cabinet reshuffle, and is therefore more likely to attack his leadership.
Senior party figures also believe that there will be an intriguing sub-plot to the contest, given Manchester Central MP Powell is a close ally of the city’s mayor, Andy Burnham.
He is known to still harbour ambitions of returning to Westminster and becoming Labour leader, and has been vocal in his criticism of the PM in recent weeks.
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Burnham is also a leading supporter of Mainstream, a new group within Labour urging the leadership to change course on a range of policies.
Following Peter Mandelson’s sacking as the UK’s ambassador to Washington, Mainstream’s national coordinator, Luke Hurst, said: “If Starmer keeps running a narrow and brittle political project it will break him and could break the Labour Party. We need a government and party of all the talents and all the views.”
Speaking on his Political Currency podcast, former Labour cabinet minister Ed Balls said the deputy leadership contest will be a “proxy war” for the battle between Starmer and Burnham.
He said: “This is not simply a bit of a distraction. This could turn out to be a much bigger problem for Keir Starmer and the government over the next year, especially if Bridget Phillipson doesn’t win.
“Now they may have hoped she was going to be the only person who’d get the nominations, but that’s not how it’s going to turn out. It looks very likely it’ll be her and Lucy Powell, who’s just been sacked from the cabinet. Lucy Powell, a north west MP very close to Andy Burnham
“So this is going to become Bridget Phillipson versus Lucy Powell, a proxy for Keir Starmer versus Andy Burnham.”
