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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Labour leadership: NEC decides contest to last three months, with result announced Saturday 4 April – as it happened

Rebecca Long Bailey, Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry, Clive Lewis, Jess Phillips Lisa Nandy.
Rebecca Long Bailey, Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry, Clive Lewis, Jess Phillips Lisa Nandy. Photograph: UK Parliament

Afternoon summary

  • Jess Phillips, a Labour leadership candidate, has backed away from her suggestion yesterday that she could support the UK rejoining the EU at the next general election. In an article published this morning, she said she could not imagine the Labour party supporting this idea. (See 8.51am.)
  • Yvette Cooper, the former Labour cabinet minister, has announced that she will not be standing for the Labour leadership. But, in an article for the Guardian, she has identified seven tasks for the person who does replace Jeremy Corbyn. Her article is here.
  • Sir Ed Davey, the acting Lib Dem leader, has allocated “frontbench” roles for his MPs. Davey himself will combine being acting leader with being Treasury spokesperson.

That is all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

From LabourList’s Sienna Rodgers

Talks in Belfast aimed at getting the Northern Ireland assembly and its power-sharing executive back up and running have not been running smoothly, the BBC’s Jayne McCormack reports.

Jackson Carlaw confirms he is standing to be Scottish Conservative leader

Jackson Carlaw, the acting leader of the Scottish Conservatives, has declared he will campaign to succeed Ruth Davidson, as the contest formally began.

Carlaw, the then deputy Scottish Tory leader, became interim leader after Davidson unexpectedly resigned last August, citing family pressures and her long-standing unhappiness over the UK party’s stance on Brexit.

The overwhelming favourite, Carlaw announced on Monday on Twitter he would stand and said: “We must take the fight to Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP, broadening our platform and diversifying our party.”

He told the Sunday Times he thought the Tories would need to ditch some “precious” policies to compete more aggressively in the centre ground as “blue collar Conservatives”, although he failed to specify which.

He is expected to face competition from Michelle Ballantyne, an MSP who is the party’s social security spokeswoman, who said she believed there needed to be “a contest and not a coronation”. Ballantyne said she would stand if she won nominations from 100 party members.

A remain voter who has since enthusiastically backed Boris Johnson’s Brexit stance, Carlaw been backed by several senior colleagues, including Murdo Fraser, a former leadership candidate who lost out to Davidson in 2011. Liam Kerr and Rachael Hamilton, two other frontbench MSPs, are to chair his campaign.

There had been speculation that Adam Tomkins, the constitutional affairs spokesman, could stand but Tomkins said he backed Carlaw.

The Telegraph has reported party grandees would prefer to avoid a contest, arguing a three-month long leadership campaign will detract from their efforts to oppose Nicola Sturgeon’s government, with 15 months left to the next Holyrood election.

The Tories became the second largest party at Holyrood under Davidson’s leadership, winning 31 of its 129 seats in the 2016 election.

Nominations close at noon on 17 January.

Jackson Carlaw.
Jackson Carlaw. Photograph: Ken Jack/Getty Images

Updated

From New Statesman’s Stephen Bush

From HuffPost’s Paul Waugh

Labour leadership contest timetable - Analysis

Last week, there was speculation that Labour’s national executive committee, which has a majority of members loyal to Jeremy Corbyn but which is far from 100% Corbynite, might try to fix the rules of the leadership contest to help Corbyn’s preferred candidate (widely assumed to be Rebecca Long Bailey, although some of Corbyn’s allies are pushing Ian Lavery as a candidate). But the decisions taken today (see 3.23pm) are in line with the plan announced by the party last month for the leadership contest to be over by the end of March (the party will miss this deadline, but only by a week), and it is hard to see anything partisan in the timetable.

Candidates will have a week to get the 22 nominations they need from MPs and MEPs. Some of the candidates who have announced that they are standing may struggle to meet this threshold, but if they can’t get the numbers over a week, they are probably not in a strong position to complain.

The window during which people can apply to vote as a registered supporter is open for just 48 hours, and a £25 fee will apply. These rules are a lot more restrictive than those in place in 2015. But they are the same as those in place in 2016, and so the NEC can argue it is just sticking with precedent. And in 2016 about 120,000 people managed to sign up during that period. (See 10.37am.)

If candidates can get the requisite number of nominations from MPs, under rules introduced while Corbyn has been leader they have to clear a second nomination hurdle – either by getting 5% of the union/affiliate vote, or by getting nominations from 10% of constituency Labour parties (ie 33 of them). According to this useful explainer by Luke Akehurst, any candidate with the backing of one of the five big Labour unions – Unite, Unison, GMB, Usdaw and the CWU – should be able to clear the 5% union/affiliate hurdle easily. (They would need either two smaller unions, or a smaller union and a socialist society, backing them too, but that should not be a problem for someone with a big union behind them.) Getting the support of 33 CLPs might be harder, particularly for candidates not backed by Momentum (which is well organised at CLP level), but the NEC has given candidates a month to secure these nominations, which does not seem too unreasonable a timetable.

Updated

Timetable for Labour leadership contest

Here are the details of the timetable for the Labour leadership election decided by the NEC.

Tuesday 7 January: Nominations open from MPs and MEPs.
Monday 13 January: Nominations from MPs and MEPs close at 2.30pm.
Tuesday 14 January: Registered supporters applications open at 5pm.
Thursday 16 January: Registered supporters’ applications close at 5pm.
Wednesday 15 January: Second stage of nominations from constituency Labour parties and affiliates opens.
Monday 20 January: Freeze date for eligibility for new members and affiliated supporters. Closes at 5pm.
Friday 14 February: Close of CLP and affiliate nominations.
Friday 21 February: Ballot opens.
Thursday 2 April: Ballot closes at 12pm.
Saturday 4 April: Special conference to announce results.

Updated

Labour leadership contest to last three months, with Corbyn's replacement announced Saturday 4 April

The NEC has announced the timetable for the leadership election. A Labour spokesman said:

Our national executive committee has agreed the timetable and process for the leadership and deputy leadership elections. The ballot will run from 21 February to 2 April, with the results announced on Saturday 4 April.

We are by far the largest political party in the UK with well over half a million members. We want as many of our members and supporters to take part, so it has been designed to be open, fair and democratic.

Updated

Labour's NEC sets £25 fee and 48-hour application window for registered supporters voting in leadership contest

Here is more from the NEC meeting.

From ITV’s Paul Brand

From the FT’s Jim Pickard

This is from HuffPost’s Paul Waugh.

A £25 fee and a 48-hour registration period are what applied in 2016, when Labour last staged a leadership contest. It was assumed at the time that this might discourage people from registering, but it didn’t; around 120,000 people signed up and voted in the contest as registered supporters. (See 10.37am.)

Ian Murray preparing to stand to be Labour's deputy leader

Ian Murray, Labour’s only surviving MP in Scotland, is preparing to enter the contest to become Labour’s deputy leader on a platform of constitutional reform and countering nationalism.

Murray, an arch-critic of Jeremy Corbyn and an opponent of Brexit, is expected to signal his intention to run tomorrow after being asked to stand by other Labour MPs. His plans to run are thought to depend on getting sufficient early nominations, but it would fuel the brewing conflict between the party’s pro-Corbyn wing and its centrists.

Before the election, the union Unite had attempted to block his nomination because of his open hostility to Corbyn and to Len McClusky, the Unite leader, but failed.

Murray held Edinburgh South on 12 December with an 11,095 (22.3%) majority while Labour suffered its worst general election result in Scotland of the modern era. It lost six of its seven MPs in another Scottish National party landslide after winning only 18.6% of the vote.

Party sources say Murray has told other MPs he believes Labour’s future and the UK’s survival rests on it tackling Scottish, English and Welsh nationalism, with a substantial constitutional reform programme.

He has not yet specified what those reforms would involve, but he echoed a pledge in Labour’s manifesto to set up a constitutional convention or – if it eventually formed a UK government, through a royal commission.

In a note circulated around the parliamentary party, he accused Corbyn, and by implication Ed Miliband, of failing to tackle nationalism effectively. He said:

There are no doubts that constitutional and nationalist issues are engulfing our politics. I have the experience and knowledge of dealing with both, and the Labour party has ducked this issue for too long. English nationalism from the Tories and Scottish nationalism from the SNP are squeezing the Labour party and we must stop it.

[The] danger for our party across the UK is what I have been warning of since 2015. If we don’t tackle the big constitutional issues with reference to our own values and the national interest, then we lose our core purpose.

Ian Murray at his Edinburgh South election count last month.
Ian Murray at his Edinburgh South election count last month.
 Photograph: Brian Anderson/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

Angela Rayner's speech - summary

After listening to Angela Rayner’s speech this morning, my colleague Kate Proctor concluded it was hard to see why she was running for the deputy Labour leadership when she might be a strong candidate for leader. (See 12.23pm.) It is not hard to see why. It’s a good speech, with some compelling lines and a superb opening.

Here is the opening.

I wanted to make this speech here, on the estate where I grew up and lived for most of my life.

I talk about my background because for too long I felt I wasn’t good enough; I felt ashamed of who I was. It took me time for that shame to turn into pride.

I want children growing up here now to know they are worth as much as anyone else. And I want the world of Westminster politics to hear that too.

Because I remember when I first spoke from the frontbench in the House of Commons, a parliamentary sketchwriter said I must have got lost from the set of Little Britain.

It was another way of saying I didn’t know my place.

Maybe I don’t.

But I know the place I came from. It’s here.

Not Little Britain. Real Britain. And people here deserve the very best our country has to offer. But they will only get it from a Labour government.

(It was Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail who compared Rayner to a Little Britain character.)

And here are some of the news lines from the speech.

  • Rayner said it was a mistake for Labour to describe some of its policies are revolutionary when it would have been better to present them as common sense.

We fell into the trap of describing a platform of revolutionary change. By the standards of recent politics, it was, and rightly so. But actually, we could have told a simpler story.

So many of our policies simply restored services that an older generation could remember our country having had before.

So much of our platform could have been explained as simple common sense. A contrast to absurdities like our trains being run by nationalised companies from every European country except our own.

And when we have new policies to offer, it is so much better to show than to tell.

To show what has been achieved in other countries and ask why we can’t have the same.

  • She said that some of Labour’s manifesto promises were seen as “glib promises of free things … and distrusted as much as any other sales pitch”.
  • She said Labour leave supporters felt patronised by the party. She said:

Many of the friends I grew up with, my own family even, voted to leave the EU. They felt like we treated them as embarrassing aunts or uncles.

That we didn’t listen, didn’t understand, and didn’t act on their democratic vote.

  • She said Labour should deal more firmly with antisemitism.

There are also lines beyond which there is no dialogue and no compromise possible.

And the first line in the sand is antisemitism. Cross that line and you’re out.

Apologies are worthless without action. We need to make clear now that we will take that action.

To educate where there is ignorance. And to quickly remove bigotry wherever it is found.

  • She said the coalition that had sustained the Labour party (the working class and the progressive middle class) was “broken”. Explaining how bad the election result was for Labour, she said it had lost working-class seats it had held for decades, that in some seats it had only won because the leave vote was split, and that the Tories were ahead of Labour by 40% to 23% among blue collar workers. And even in remain areas the party was vulnerable, she said:

Nor should we take for granted the new voters we have won over, any more than we should have done those we have lost.

For all that’s said about London, we made no net advance in seats there either. We faced a fight to hold others like Dagenham and Rainham – a place that, like my own constituency, has so much to gain from a Labour government, but where too many people felt our party had lost touch with them.

  • She said Labour was facing the biggest challenge in its history.
  • She said other social democratic parties were also facing the same problems.

Across Europe social democratic parties are collapsing. The once mighty German SPD, the biggest and oldest social democratic party in the world is on 11%. The combined forces of the French centre left parties are on … 6%.

We are now in danger of the same fate.

  • She said Labour needed a “collectivist” approach to its problems, and that she did not have all the answers herself.

I don’t pretend that I have all the answers. That is the point of being a collectivist. That by the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we do alone.

That final sentence is a quote from the new Clause IV introduced by Tony Blair.

  • She said she owed much of her life to Labour, including policies introduced by the Blair government.

I owe much of my life to Labour. The Labour governments that provided the welfare state, Sure Start, and the minimum wage, which gave me the help I needed to not just survive but succeed.

The trade unions that gave me a political education, skills and a vocation.

Angela Rayner launching her bid to become the deputy leader of the Labour party at an event in Stockport
Angela Rayner launching her bid to become the deputy leader of the Labour party at an event in Stockport. Photograph: Pat Hurst/PA

Updated

Here are some lines from Labour’s NEC meeting.

From the Yorkshire Post’s Geri Scott

From the FT’s Jim Pickard

From the Telegraph’s Harry Yorke

Keith Vaz sits on the NEC as the representative of BAME Labour.

Updated

Downing Street has issued a read-out following Boris Johnson’s conversation with his Iraqi opposite number, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, this morning. A No 10 spokesperson said:

The prime minister spoke to prime minister Abdul Mahdi of Iraq this morning. The leaders discussed the need to de-escalate tensions in the region following the death of Qassem Suleimani and agreed to work together to find a diplomatic way forward.

The prime minister underlined the UK’s unwavering commitment to Iraq’s stability and sovereignty and emphasised the importance of the continued fight against the shared threat from Daesh.

Updated

Rayner rejects claims she and Long Bailey would be continuity candidates

This morning, Tom Watson, the former deputy Labour leader, said he was worried that Rebecca Long Bailey would be a “continuity candidate”. (See 9.38am.) But Angela Rayner, who is standing to replace Watson as deputy leader and backing her friend and London flatmate for leader, told Sky News this claim was wrong. When it was put to her that she and Long Bailey were seen as Jeremy Corbyn continuity candidates, Rayner replied:

Well, to be honest, as a northern working-class lass, I’ve been underestimated, and told my place, ever since I was born. And two northern women, I can tell you, will not be being told that we are continuity anything from any man. We will set out what we are. I’m sure Rebecca will set out who she is, and if she decides to stand she will get my support. She’s nobody’s continuation. Rebecca is her own person. And I’m my own person. I won’t be told what Angela Rayner should be either. I’m there to support my electorate.

In her Guardian article last week, Long Bailey said she was backing Rayner for the deputy leadership. Rayner is reciprocating. But, in her Sky News interview, Rayner also said the fact that she was supporting her friend did not mean she was opposed to having anyone else as Labour leader. Asked who she wanted to lead the party, Rayner replied:

Well, I would take any of [the candidates] as my boss. I think one of the things you will find over the next couple of months is that we’ve got fantastic support and fantastic candidates, and some great quality in our leadership candidates.

I will obviously support my flatmate and friend, Rebecca Long Bailey, because I think she’s another fantastic northern woman who will really be able to give it to Boris Johnson and the Tories, and hold them to account, but I’ll happily work under any of our leadership contenders. It is not for me to say who our membership should vote for.

When asked if she would be happy to have Jess Phillips as party leader, Rayner replied:

I’d work for Jess Phillips as well, absolutely … Jess is absolutely fantastic as well.

Angela Rayner
Angela Rayner. Photograph: Sky News

Updated

From my colleague Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor

When Boris Johnson meets Ursula Von Der Leyen, the European commission president, at No 10 on Wednesday, Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, will attend too. The European commission’s chief spokesman said the meeting was taking place at “a very specific moment” before trade talks had begun. “This is not a meeting that will go into the details of the trade negotiation.”

The EU is not expected to finalise its mandate for talks on the future relationship with the UK until 25 February, the first time the EU’s European affairs ministers will meet after the UK’s departure on 31 January.

Angela Rayner says Labour must 'win or die' as she launches campaign for deputy leadership

While I was at the No 10 lobby briefing, Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, was launching her campaign to be Labour’s deputy leader. My colleague Kate Proctor was there and here is her story about the speech.

And here are some more tweets from Kate.

I will post more on the speech shortly.

Labour's NEC meets to consider arrangements for leadership election

Labour’s national executive committee is meeting now to discuss the arrangements for the leadership contest.

As he arrived for the meeting, Ian Lavery, the party chairman, who has not ruled out standing for the leadership himself, said he expected the NEC to come up with the “right solution” during its discussion on the leadership contest. He said:

We’ll be having thorough discussions. Let me tell you that this NEC will not be a five-minute job, it never is. Every letter and every proposal will be discussed and we’ll come up with the right solution, believe me.

Ian Lavery arriving at the Labour party offices for the NEC meeting
Ian Lavery arriving at the Labour party offices for the NEC meeting. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA

Updated

No 10 lobby briefing - Summary

I’m just back from the No 10 lobby briefing. Holding these meetings in 9 Downing Street, instead of in a room in the Houses of Parliament, will probably be good for lobby journalists’ exercise levels, although it is hard to see any other benefits at the moment, and for someone writing a live blog it’s a big inconvenience.

Here are the main points.

  • Britain would oppose any move by the US to attack cultural sites in Iran, the prime minister’s spokesman confirmed. The spokesman said it was clear that this was not allowed under international conventions – although he stopped short of saying the move would amount to a war crime.
  • Boris Johnson will host a meeting of senior ministers this afternoon to discuss Iran, the spokesman said. And tomorrow he will chair a national security council meeting on the topic.
  • Britain is urging Iraq not to insist on the withdrawal of American troops, the spokesman said. He said:

The coalition is in Iraq to protect Iraqis and others from the threat from Daesh [Isis] at the request of the Iraqi government. We urge the Iraqi government to ensure the coalition is able to continue our vital work countering this shared threat.

Johnson was speaking to his Iraqi counterpart on this issue this morning, the spokesman said.

  • The spokesman rejected suggestions that the US assassination of Qassem Suleimani was illegal. Asked about this, he said:

States have a right to take action such as this in self-defence and the US have been clear that Suleimani was plotting imminent attacks on American diplomats and military personnel.

But the spokesman refused to say if the UK government had been shown any evidence by the Americans to justify their claim that Suleimani posed an imminent threat to US personnel when he was killed.

  • Dominic Cummings will not be allowed bypass normal civil service recruitment processes when hiring staff for No 10, the spokesman said. Asked about the blog by Cummings, the PM’s chief adviser, inviting “weirdos” and others interested in working for him to respond to a private email address, the spokesman said this was for “expressions of interest” only. He said new civil servants would be appointed in the usual way.
10 Downing Street.
10 Downing Street.
 Photograph: Mark Thomas/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

This is from ITV’s Paul Brand.

I’m off to the No 10 lobby briefing now. From today, No 10 is holding the briefings in Downing Street, instead of in a room in the House of Commons (about two minutes’ walk from the corridor where press gallery journalists are based), and this means getting to and from the meetings is going to take longer and be more cumbersome (because it will involve clearing No 10 security). I probably won’t be able to post again until after 11.45am.

Updated

These are from Alice Perry, a local government representative on Labour’s national executive committee. One of the key issues to be decided at today’s NEC meeting is what the arrangements will be for registered supporters to vote in the leadership contest. Under the rules introduced when Ed Miliband was leader, registered supporters can vote, as well as proper party members and people who are affiliated to the party through membership of a trade union. But the NEC will have to decide how much people will have to pay to vote as a registered supporter, and how long they will get to register.

In 2015, the fee was just £3. People in the party were not sure how popular the scheme would be, but more than 100,000 people ended up registering. In 2016, the fee was set at £25 and registration was open for just 48 hours, but 120,000 people registered anyway. At the time Corbynites on the NEC were worried about the registered supporters scheme being exploited by Owen Smith supporters, but in the event 70% of the people who signed up in the 48-hour window voted for Jeremy Corbyn.

Updated

Tom Watson says he worries about Long Bailey standing for 'Corbynism in its purest sense'

In an interview with Sky News this morning, Tom Watson, the former Labour deputy leader, refused to say whom he would be backing in the Labour leadership contest. But he said that Rebecca Long Bailey, the shadow business secretary, was the candidate he was worried about. He explained:

The one that I worry about – but I don’t know what she stands for – when I look at Rebecca Long Bailey, she’s really the continuity candidate. She stands for Corbynism in its purest sense. And that’s perfectly legitimate but we have lost two elections with that play.

But he also acknowledged that, when Long Bailey does announce her campaign, she might adopt a different line.

She hasn’t said anything yet; as far as I know she has not formally announced and it might be that she chimes a different note in her opening bid and that she wants to take the party in a different direction and she’s very candid about what went wrong, in which case then she’s in quite a good position to shift things around. But I think it’s fair for me to reserve judgment.

It is true that Long Bailey has not said anything in the form of an interview or a speech. But she did make an opening pitch in the form of an article in the Guardian last week.

Tom Watson
Tom Watson. Photograph: Sky News

Updated

For the record, this is what Sir Keir Starmer, the frontrunner in the Labour leadership contest, said in his Andrew Marr interview (pdf) yesterday when asked if he would back rejoining the EU if he became Labour leader.

Well, we are going to leave the EU in the next few weeks and it’s important for all of us, including myself, to recognise that the argument about leave and remain goes with it. We are leaving. We will have left the EU …

This election blew away the argument for a second referendum, rightly or wrongly, and we have to adjust to that situation. The argument has to move on and the argument now is, can we insist on that close relationship with the EU, close economic relationship, but collaboration in other areas? And also what is the framework now for future trade relations? Because my concern is less about technical membership of the EU now, it’s if we shift our focus from the EU and move away from those standards and arrangements, it is inevitable that Boris Johnson and his government will look to America for a trade deal and we need to know the terms of that because we’ve had a lot of discussion about the NHS being part of those negotiations, but all public services could be part of those negotiations.

Starmer was not pressed on whether he was firmly ruling out Labour ever adopting a rejoin position under his leadership, or whether he was just saying there was no realistic possibility of this being an option over the next five years (which is now Jess Phillips’ position - see 8.51am).

Updated

There are two other lines in Jess Phillips’ article in the Independent today that are worth pointing out.

First, she argues that one of Labour’s biggest mistakes during the election was to allow Boris Johnson to get away with the claim that he would “get Brexit done” by 31 January. She says:

The prime minister is well known for being economical with the truth, but one of the biggest mistakes Labour’s top team made during the general election campaign was to let him get away with a whopper: that he will get Brexit done by 31 January. Instead we know the biggest challenge yet to come is getting a trade deal in place to agree the terms of our future relationship with the European Union and making sure we avert the serious risk of crashing out without a deal.

This is also what Keir Starmer, the favourite in the contest, has been arguing. For pro-Europeans like Starmer and Phillips, who strongly supported a second referendum, it is a way of acknowledging that Brexit was a problem for the party during the election (an argument being made powerfully by Corbynites in the party), without accepting the second referendum policy was at fault.

And, second, while implicitly accepting that she have gone too far in her Andrew Marr interview (see 8.51am), Phillips argues that overall honesty and plain speaking are positive attributes. She says:

We’ve seen where a lack of honesty and plain speaking, courage and conviction got Labour at the last election. In trying to look both ways we ended up pleasing no one.

In my experience, honesty is the best policy. People in my Birmingham Yardley constituency voted to leave the European Union by about 60%. They know that I think leaving the European Union presents huge risks to our country and they know that I haven’t suddenly changed my mind. But it hasn’t broken their trust in me or my faith in them, because we’re honest with each other. Contained in that honesty is mutual respect. We don’t always agree on everything, but we have good faith that our intentions are good. There is not enough of that about at the moment.

Updated

Jess Phillips clarifies Brexit stance, saying party won't back rejoin at next election

Good morning. Labour’s national executive committee is meeting today to decide the detailed arrangements for the party’s leadership contest. And this morning we have witnessed what amounts to something close to the first U-turn by one of the candidates.

Yesterday, in an interview (pdf) with the BBC’s Andrew Marr, Jess Phillips did not rule out Labour campaigning to rejoin the European Union at the next election. As my colleague Heather Stewart points out, this contrasted with the approach taken by Keir Starmer, who stressed it was time to move one. Asked if the party would be a “return party” at the next election, Phillips said:

I have a leave seat but I campaigned for remain because I thought it was the best thing for the people that I represent and I thought it was the best thing for the country and I’m not going to just change my mind on that. But what we have to do is wait and see.

And when pressed if, as leader, she could make rejoining the EU official Labour policy, she replied:

You would have to look at what was going on at the time … what our job is for the next three years is to hold Boris Johnson to account on all the promises. So if we are living in an absolute paradise of trade and we’re totally safe in the world and we’re not worrying about having to constantly look to America for our safety and security, then maybe I’ll be proven wrong. But the reality is if our country is safer, if it is more economically viable to be in the European Union, then I will fight for that regardless of how difficult that argument is to make.

Some commentators viewed this as a mistake, and Phillips herself seems to agree because in an article for the Independent this morning she has clarified her position, saying she could not imagine Labour backing rejoin at the next election. She says:

People are asking me if I’ll lead the campaign to rejoin the EU. We haven’t even left yet! The honest answer is that I don’t know what the future will hold, but we must accept the result, move our country forward and hold Boris Johnson to account. I can’t see a campaign to rejoin winning support in the next Labour manifesto.

Labour should always be an outward-facing and a pro-European party, but we know in our heads as well as our hearts that our failure to win the election means the terms of the debate have changed.

There are, of course, more important things happening in the world than the Labour leadership contest, although any influence the UK may have over the conflict between President Trump and Iran may be limited. But Boris Johnson will be discussing it today with ministers on his first full day back from holiday. Parliament does not return until tomorrow, but we will be getting a No 10 lobby briefing.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Boris Johnson is due to hold talks with ministers about the Iran crisis following his return from holiday.

11am: Downing Street lobby briefing.

11am: Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, gives a speech in Stockport. She is expected to announce that she is standing to be Labour’s deputy leader.

12pm: Labour’s national executive committee meets to decide the arrangements for the party’s leadership contest.

As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary when I wrap up.

You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe roundup of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.

Updated

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