Bridget Phillipson has become the first candidate to reach the required 80 nominations from her fellow MPs as she leads the way in the race to succeed Angela Rayner as Labour’s next deputy leader.
The education secretary is among three MPs who are still in the contest after Emily Thornberry, Paula Barker and Alison McGovern dropped out.
Candidates have until 5pm on Thursday to secure the support of 80 MPs in order to reach the next round.
Who is in the running?
Bridget Phillipson
Ms Phillipson, the education secretary, has emerged as the early frontrunner, securing the backing of the most colleagues in the first official tally after nominations opened on Tuesday.
A close ally of Sir Keir Starmer, she is one of the few cabinet ministers to have stayed in the same role in his recent reshuffle.
Announcing her bid for the deputy leadership, she described herself as “a proud working-class woman from the North East” who had gone from “a single-parent family on a tough council street” to the cabinet table.
These credentials could play well within the party, where some figures have expressed a preference for Ms Rayner’s successor to be both a woman and someone hailing from the north of England.
However, being a member of Sir Keir’s cabinet could count against her if MPs want the deputy to be more of a thorn in the side of the government.
Ms Phillipson, who said she had taken on “powerful vested interests in the education sector”, has generally won plaudits from MPs for her work in the education brief.
She also vowed to take the fight to Nigel Farage’s party, saying: “We all know the dangers Reform poses to our country.”
At school in the former mining town of Washington, Ms Phillipson was a star pupil who won a place at Oxford University before becoming MP for Houghton and Sunderland South in 2010, aged just 26.
Lucy Powell
Former Commons leader Lucy Powell has 35 of the 99 overall nominations as of Tuesday evening.
The Manchester Central MP would bring a similar geographical balance to Ms Phillipson.
Having been sacked by Sir Keir in his reshuffle, her status as more of an outsider could work in her favour.
Ms Powell, from the party’s soft left, had been urged by several of her colleagues to stand for the deputy leadership, and said she had made the decision “after much encouragement”.
Describing herself as “proud” to have served in Sir Keir’s government, Ms Powell said her politics were “rooted” in “an understanding of people’s everyday hopes and fears”.
She said she would aim to bring “together all parts of the party and uniting our broad voter coalition”.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
Backbencher Bell Ribeiro-Addy was the first to declare her candidacy.
Seen as coming from the left of the party and supported by Socialist Campaign Group chair Richard Burgon, she has called for Labour to “go back to the guiding values of our party and movement”.
The Clapham and Brixton Hill MP has also called for wealth taxes, scrapping the two-child benefit cap, imposing a full arms embargo and sanctions on Israel, unbanning Palestine Action and returning the whip to MPs “punished for voting with their consciences”.
With eight nominations so far, she is unlikely to get enough supporters to enter the next round, but she is using her campaign to call on the government to change course.
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