Keir Starmer’s hopes of a coronation for his chosen successor to replace Angela Rayner as deputy leader seem to have been dashed.
His candidate for the crucial position, education secretary Bridget Phillipson, became the first to clear a major hurdle to secure the 80 MP nominations needed to get on the ballot paper.
With MPs hearing the pitches of the five remaining hopefuls, Ms Phillipson was far ahead with 116 nominations well beyond the 80 needed.
However, her chief rival, sacked former minister Lucy Powell was on 77. Ms Powell just needs three more MPs before nominations close at 5pm on Thursday which would put her in a run-off with Ms Phillipson in a vote by members.
Labour members are thought to be unhappy with Sir Keir over his policy on Gaza as well as attempts to cut welfare and there is a danger that the contest could become a referendum within the party on his premiership.
It was also a bad day for former frontbencher Dame Emily Thornberry who was trailing in last with 13 behind Liverpool Wavertree MP Paula Barker on 14 and the left’s main candidate Bell Ribeiro-Addy on 15.
Sir Keir now faces a potentially damaging contest and weeks of manoeuvring in the race to replace Ms Rayner, as Labour MPs unhappy with their party’s current direction back a former cabinet minister sacked by the prime minister less than a week ago.
Ms Powell, who received her marching orders as Commons leader on Friday, will provide tough opposition to the education secretary.
In a two-horse race she looks set to become a lightning rod for discontent in the Starmer government. Sources have said she fell out of favour ahead of the reshuffle for “standing up to [chief of staff] Morgan McSweeney and not taking his sh**.”
The contest has already sparked a furious row amid claims the party’s top brass has set up its rules to “squeeze out the left”.
And on Wednesday another candidate, backbencher MP Ms Barker, who is standing from the left of the party, hit out at the decision to hold the race’s main hustings event online.
The party has told MPs they do not have to be in parliament on Thursday, meaning many will be travelling back to their constituencies when the hustings takes place.
“I really don’t think that that is the best democratic way for us to run this contest,” she said.
With MPs given just a few days to get a large number of nominations, she also criticised the length of the contest, describing it as a “very, very narrow window of opportunity”.
Another MP from the left of the party, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, has called for Labour to “go back to the guiding values of our party and movement”.
Ms Phillipson also received a boost when another minister, Alison McGovern, who had been backed by the likes of the popular Labour MP Jess Phillips, pulled out – and announced she was backing Phillipson.
Members of the cabinet and other ministers were also being urged to nominate Ms Phillipson.
Ms McGovern said it was “clear” she would not get enough nominations to pass to the next stage of the contest, and said her government colleague was “best placed to unite our party and take the fight to our opponents”.
The education secretary emerged as the early frontrunner in the race on Tuesday, when, just hours after she threw her hat in the ring, a poll by Survation for the Labour-focused website LabourList showed that she was in pole position among Labour members.
From early on Wednesday allies of Ms Phillipson believed she would comfortably secure the 80 nominations by the end of the day.
Contenders have until 5pm on Thursday to secure the support of 80 MPs in order to reach the next round of the contest.
As her campaign faltered, Emily Thornberry, the chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, tried to convince colleagues that the idea that the next deputy leader should be a northern woman – to balance out Starmer – was misguided.
The London MP pointed to previous deputy leaders, saying: “Harman. Prescott. Rayner. What do they have in common? When they spoke, people listened. You’d have a drink with them. And they were Labour to their bones.”
