U.K. Labour Party Begins Contest to Succeed Corbyn as Leader

(Bloomberg) --

The U.K. opposition Labour Party formally begins the contest to succeed Jeremy Corbyn on Monday after a weekend that saw the favorite, Keir Starmer, throw his hat into the ring for the party's leadership.

The 57-year-old lawyer became one of Labour's most prominent faces as he organized the ultimately unsuccessful opposition to Brexit in Parliament. That often put him at odds with Corbyn, an instinctive supporter of leaving the European Union.

A YouGov poll of Labour party members published on Jan. 2 put Starmer at 36%, comfortably ahead of the field. In second place was the party's business spokeswoman, Rebecca Long Bailey, who is seen as the preferred candidate of those around Corbyn.

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Corbyn, the outgoing leader, said he'd resign after last year's crushing general election defeat, in which the party sank to its lowest number of seats since 1935. But Starmer was careful not to criticize Corbyn too much in an interview on Sunday.

“We all have to take responsibility,” he told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show. “It's a devastating result. Cumulatively, we lost the public's trust in the Labour party as a force for good and a force for change. After four general election losses, we have to address that.”

Starmer seems to be trying to pitch himself as a natural successor to Corbyn. His launch campaign video focused on his legal career, fighting for trade unions against the Conservative government in the 1980s. It used a lot of the current leader's buzzwords about foreign policy and the media.

He has warned the party not to “oversteer” after the election defeat, arguing Labour should “build on” Corbyn's anti-austerity message and radical agenda.

Early Days

Starmer has also emphasized his humble origins. He told the BBC in December that he'd never been in an office until he left university, because his father worked in a factory and his mother was a nurse.

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Labour's National Executive Committee is meeting to sign off how much support a candidate needs to get onto the ballot paper, and the timetable for the contest, including, crucially, the cut-off point for new members to join if they want to have a vote.

The party's existing membership overwhelmingly backed Corbyn in two contests, and some members who opposed him left the party. Candidates who want a change of course have been encouraging supporters to join or rejoin, and are likely to want as much time for that to happen as possible.

Female Opposition

One big problem Starmer faces is that he's a man. There are expected to be at least four women in the contest. One of them, Long Bailey, has yet to formally announce -- but has the backing of her flatmate Angela Rayner, Labour's education spokeswoman, who launched her own bid to be deputy leader on Monday.

“I will be voting for my friend Rebecca Long-Bailey if she stands for the leadership,” Rayner said in a speech in Stockport, according to the Press Association. “As a party we face a choice: win or die. And I fight to win.”

Three other female candidates made media appearances on Sunday. Emily Thornberry mainly spoke in her capacity as foreign affairs spokeswoman, attacking Boris Johnson for staying on vacation during the Iran crisis.

Two others, Jess Phillips and Lisa Nandy, used their distance from Corbyn's leadership to attack his approach.

Attacking the Leader

Phillips told the BBC that the contest now “has got to be about whether the Labour party can speak and connect and be trusted by the public.” While she didn't explicitly commit to pulling back on some of its pre-election pledges such as free broadband for everyone, she said that it “just wasn't believable” at a time when essential services are struggling with funding.

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Phillips, who opposes leaving the European Union, also refused to rule out rejoining the bloc in future. “If our country is safer, if it is more economically viable to be in the EU, then I will fight for that regardless of how difficult that argument is to make,” she said.

Nandy told Sky News that “there is definitely a disconnect between the hierarchy of the Labour Party and the people of the country and towns like mine.” She said her voters in Wigan, northwest England, felt they “lacked the means to effect change in their own lives,” and that the party's response had been “paternalistic.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Alex Morales

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