Labour accused of ‘stitch-up’ over deputy leadership election contest – UK politics live | Politics

Good morning. The Labour party has had 18 deputy leaders in its history, but only two of them have also served as deputy PM and one of those, Angela Rayner, resigned last week. In the reshuffle that started on Friday, Keir Starmer in effect decoupled those posts, appointing David Lammy as deputy PM (as well as justice secretary). Labour said there would be an election for a new deputy leader to replace Rayner and today the timetable for that election will be set. There is no guarantee that the winner will even have a job in government.

Elections are, by definition, divisive, and the easiest option for Keir Starmer would be for Labour MPs to coalesce behind one consensus candidate. Under the rules, an MP needs the support of 20% of the PLP (80 MPs) to be nominated and so it is possible that this could happen. Anyone perceived as a “rebel” candidate might struggle to reach this threshold. Ministers, and cabinet ministers, are free to enter the contest. If Lammy were to stand, and win, he could re-unite the deputy PM and deputy leader jobs, but there is a strong sense in the party that the deputy leader should be a woman, and should represent a seat outside London, and Lammy does not seem interested anyway. At this point there is no obvious favourite, but Annabelle Dickson and Bethany Dawson have a good guide to potential candidates in their London Playbook for Politico.

Already, there is a row about process. Here are the key developments this morning.

• Deputy leadership candidates will only have four days to collect the 80 MP nominations they need, it is being reported. Labour’s national executive committee will reportedly set 5pm on Thursday as the deadline for nominations, with the ballot taking place between 8 and 23 October – with the election over well before the budget, which is taking place on 26 November.

• Richard Burgon, one of the leading figures in the leftwing Socialist Campaign group in parliament, and a candidate for deputy leader in 2020, has accused the party of a stitch-up. In a post on social media last night, he said:

I’ve been warning about attempts to fix the deputy leadership election – and what I’ve heard is now being proposed is the mother of all stitch-ups. Just a couple of days to secure MPs’ nominations!

This is a desperate move to keep Labour members’ voices out of this race and to dodge serious discussion on what’s gone wrong over the last year – from the positions on disability benefits cuts, on winter fuel payments, on Gaza and more. This outrageous timetable shows a leadership that’s unwilling to listen and to learn the lessons needed if we’re to rebuild support and stop Nigel Farage.

• Louise Haigh, the former transport secretary and a potential candidate for the deputy leadership, has published on the New Statesman’s website what amounts to a pitch for the job, demanding “an economic reset” and “a decisive break with the fiscal rules and institutional constraints that hold back renewal”. It is a serious intervention, and, by implication, a damning critique of Rachel Reeves, the chancellor. Here is an extract.

There is a democratic argument at the heart of this as well. A Labour government with a landslide majority in parliament cannot – and should not – be stopped from delivering the change we clearly set out in our manifesto simply because of assumptions made by the OBR [Office for Budget Responsibility]. If we let unelected institutions dictate the limits of change, we betray the people and communities who put their trust in us.

And if mainstream politics can’t deliver proper renewal, populists like Nigel Farage will fill the void. Britain’s economy is broken not just in outcomes but in architecture. Unless we rewrite the rules, we risk managed decline dressed up as moderation.

I am devastated by the departure of Angela Rayner last week, who consistently offered a challenge to the establishment orthodoxy. Her absence is a real loss to those of us who want to see bold, radical thinking at the heart of government. The reshuffle has been billed as a political reset, but if we are serious about delivering on our priorities, it must offer more than a change of personnel around the Cabinet table. What the country needs now is an economic reset: a decisive break with the fiscal rules and institutional constraints that hold back renewal. Only then can Labour turn its democratic mandate into the transformation Britain so urgently needs.

Haigh would have difficulty winning a deputy leadership contest, because of her resignation last year over a 10-year-old conviction relating to mobile phone fraud, but a lot of Labour members will probably agree with the argument in her New Statesman article. I will post more from it soon.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Paul Nowak, TUC general secretary, speaks at the TUC conference in Brighton. The delegates are debating motions relating to the economy and public services in the morning, and workers’ rights in the afternoon.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Noon: Labour’s national executive committee meets to decide the timetable for the deputy leadership election.

2.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

3pm: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, speaks at an event to launch the children’s plan.

6pm: Starmer speaks to Labour MPs at a private meeting of the parliamentary Labour party (PLP).

And at some point today Shabana Mahmood, the new home secretary, is chairing a meeting the Five Eyes security alliance.

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