Key events
Jessica Elgot
Inside No 10, there is disquiet among some strategists about Lucy Powell as deputy leader. Relations with Keir Starmer’s team were particularly frosty over the welfare vote.
Powell was a key figure in the cabinet underlining the possibility that the government could lose the vote – and the first to tip off No 10 about the possibility of a reasoned amendment to kill the bill.
Some of Starmer’s team then suggested they believed she was in cahoots with some of the welfare rebels, which was fiercely denied. Trust was never regained – Powell was furious that her information led to her being cast as disloyal.
But a source close to Powell said she intended to be as collegiate as possible – and said she would expect to attend political cabinet, warning there would dire consequences if there was any attempt to ban her. They said Powell had declined numerous media offers to make explicit criticism of government mistakes.
Being the only candidate with the ability to influence cabinet decisions, Bridget Phillipson has made a number of firm commitments to members. She will sit on the future of work committee that oversees the workers’ rights legislation – promising she will veto any attempt to water down or slow the proposals.
She said she would formally seek members’ and trade unionists’ views each quarter and report them directly back to the cabinet. And she has argued she has the credentials to fight Reform, in a north-east seat that looks at risk in the next election.
There is no love lost between the two candidates, especially as the race has gone on. Powell is irritated at being seen as the proxy candidate for the leadership ambitions of Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester.
But there is a fear among Starmer allies that should Burnham seek to return to Westminster as an MP, blocking his candidacy would be harder with Powell as deputy leader, as she would sit on the national executive committee, which oversees selections.
Jessica Elgot
There will be no big event to mark the new deputy leader result on Saturday, just a camera in Labour HQ with the results and a short speech from the winner. Some of Lucy Powell’s backers are irritated by the low-key plan. There are fears that she may be in effect frozen out – and uncertainty over whether she would be able to do her own broadcast rounds or election organising. “They need to respect the mandate if she wins,” one ally said.
Senior strategists had hoped five weeks ago to avoid a contest altogether, with a high threshold for MP nominations. Keir Starmer made appointments in the reshuffle for the party chair and the deputy prime minister, crowding out the role of deputy leader.
But with a restive parliamentary party a fix looked unlikely even though some ministers and aides piled pressure on MPs to back Bridget Phillipson.
After the first polls dropped, amid the turmoil over the departure of both Angela Rayner and Peter Mandelson, Powell looked unassailable with a 17-point lead. But the race has a number of unknowns.
Phillipson’s team have made a number of strong policy interventions including on child poverty. Low turnout is expected from an apathetic party membership. And Phillipson, who has close union relations, has gained the endorsements of three major trade unions that have a vote in the deputy leadership – and which have never been polled.
She has more endorsements in London – with a higher membership – and will also be likely to command loyalty in the north-east, which also has high membership numbers. But even with all of those caveats, most Labour MPs believe Powell will win.
The leadership race has pushed both to be more publicly radical. Powell has pushed for an end to factionalism and a louder assault on Nigel Farage and the politics of division, warning about the voters being lost on the party’s left flank. She also made an early call for the end of the two-child benefit limit – a tank on Phillipson’s lawn.
Phillipson has made concrete policy commitments, which hold more weight as a cabinet minister, saying she will work to end to the two-child limit and will be the bulwark in government against the watering down of Labour’s workers’ rights package.
“The stakes are, on the surface, incredibly low,” one MP said. “But it has the potential to have huge consequences if Lucy wins. But for a hell of a lot of my members, believe it or not, they aren’t even that engaged.”
Prime minister Keir Starmer and justice secretary David Lammy should take responsibility for the error which led to a former asylum seeker who sexually assaulted a woman and a teenage girl to be accidentally released from prison, Epping Forest’s Tory MP said on Saturday.
Ethiopian asylum seeker Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38, was jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl, a crime which triggered protests at the Bell hotel in Epping where he had been staying.
Epping Forest MP Neil Hudson told BBC Radio 4’s Today:
This sounds like an operational error, but the buck has to stop somewhere, and it has to stop at the top, at the justice secretary, the home secretary and the prime minister.
They have said that they are livid and appalled. Well, quite right, they should be livid and appalled. But that’s that’s not good enough, and the Labour government needs to get a grip of this issue.
They need to apprehend this man, but they’ve got to sort this issue out, and that’s what my constituents, who are deeply distressed and upset are saying.
In case you missed it, in this previously published piece from the Guardian Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell answered reader questions on wealth taxes, Brexit, the climate crisis and the far right:
Today’s agenda
Here is today’s politics agenda, according to the PA news agency’s schedule:
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10am: Labour’s new deputy leader will be announced in central London. Speeches are expected afterwards from the winner of the contest and from the prime minister.
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1pm: Protesters from opposing groups are expected to descend on different sides of London after police banned Ukip supporters from gathering in Whitechapel, an area of the capital with a large Muslim population, because of what officers called a “realistic prospect of serious disorder”. Ukip supporters are expected to gather in west London at 1pm.
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Saturday: Counting is to begin today to reveal who the Irish public have voted to be their next president.
Epping Forest MP Neil Hudson is on the morning media rounds for the Conservatives.
Labour’s new deputy leader to be announced today, as polling puts Powell ahead of Phillipson
Labour’s new deputy leader will be announced today, with polling suggesting Lucy Powell enjoyed a healthy lead over education secretary Bridget Phillipson as voting closed on Thursday, reports the PA news agency.
During the campaign, Powell frequently referred to “mistakes” made by the party on issues such as the winter fuel allowance. And in a final message to supporters this week the Manchester Central MP appeared to criticise a “command and control” culture within government, arguing that “blindly following along” was “a dereliction of our duty to defeat the politics of hate and division”.
If Powell does emerge victorious, the result is likely to be seen as a rebuke to Keir Starmer’s leadership from Labour members, more than half of whom now believe the party is heading in the wrong direction, reports the PA news agency.
The prime minister has already endured a difficult week, dominated by a row over the grooming gangs inquiry and capped with defeat in a Senedd byelection in Caerphilly, a seat held by Labour for a century.
Labour’s struggles in the polls have already led to some questions among backbenchers about Starmer’s leadership of the party.
Powell has stressed that she wants to “help Keir and our government to succeed” but also told supporters the party “must change how we are doing things to turn things around”.
Meanwhile, Phillipson, seen as No 10’s preferred candidate for the deputy leadership, has stressed unity, warning that voting for her opponent would result in “internal debate and divisions that leads us back to opposition”.
The result of the deputy leadership election is expected to be announced on Saturday at 10am BST. I’ll bring you updates on the results and reaction as they come in.
Here are some other headlines from UK politics:
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Cutting the annual cash Isa allowance will not encourage many savers to switch to shares but could push up mortgage costs, MPs have warned the chancellor. Earlier this year, Rachel Reeves paused plans to limit the cash Isa allowance but in the run-up to next month’s budget there has been renewed speculation that it could be reduced to £10,000 in an attempt to promote growth.
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A wipeout for Labour in next May’s local elections would spell the end of Keir Starmer’s premiership, MPs have said, after the party suffered a crushing defeat in its traditional heartland in Wales. Though Plaid Cymru beat Reform UK to capture the Senedd seat in Caerphilly, the result highlighted a striking collapse of Labour’s vote, prompting fears in Westminster that Labour could be reduced to third place in Wales, a loss that would leave the leader’s position unrecoverable.
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Rishi Sunak was the only politician to be sent a witness statement by the deputy national security adviser at the centre of a controversy about the collapse of a case against two British men accused of spying for China. According to letters sent to the joint committee on the national security strategy, the statement from Matthew Collins in December 2023, which was sent to the then prime minister and his advisers, did not describe China as an enemy, another key element of the case.
