Lucy Powell wins Labour deputy leadership race to add to Starmer’s headaches

Lucy Powell has won Labour’s deputy leadership election after a campaign based on a call for the party to change course.

The election result could spell trouble for Sir Keir Starmer as Ms Powell will be free to speak out against his Government’s policies from the back benches rather than being bound by collective responsibility like her defeated deputy leadership rival, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.

Ms Powell was sacked from Sir Keir’s Cabinet in September and has indicated she will refuse a return to a government role so she can speak more openly about the direction of the party in office.

She won the Labour deputy leadership contest with 54% of the vote, defeating Bridget Phillipson who took a 46% share.

Hope

The new deputy leader said: “We have to offer hope, to offer the big change the country is crying out for.

“We must give a stronger sense of our purpose, whose side we are on and of our Labour values and beliefs.”

She said that “people feel that this Government is not being bold enough in delivering the kind of change we promised”.

The contest was triggered by Angela Rayner’s resignation after she failed to pay the correct stamp duty on a property purchase.

Ms Powell received 87,407 votes from the Labour Party membership and affiliates while Ms Phillipson received 73,536 votes but the turnout was just 16.6%

In an apparent criticism of Labour’s approach to tackling Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, she said Labour “won’t win by trying to out-Reform Reform” after being crowned the party’s deputy leader.

Speaking after her victory, Ms Powell said: “It starts with us wrestling back the political megaphone and setting the agenda more strongly.

“Because let’s be honest, we’ve let Farage and his ilk run away with it. He wants to blame immigration for all the country’s problems.

“We reject that. Our diagnosis is different: that for too long, the country and the economy has worked in the interests of the few, not the many.”

‘Progressive consensus’

The Manchester Central MP added: “We won’t win by trying to out-Reform Reform, but by building a broad progressive consensus.”

Ms Powell’s election follows a bruising few days for Sir Keir after the chaos in the grooming gangs inquiry, the return of a small boat migrant who was sent to France under the one in, one out deal, the blunder which saw Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu released from prison, and defeat for Labour in its Welsh stronghold of Caerphilly.

Sir Keir said: “We must press ahead with the renewal that working people need to see.

“Now, this week, we received another reminder of just how urgent that task is.

“A bad result in Wales, I accept that, but a reminder that people need to look out their window and see change and renewal in their community, opportunities for their children, public services rebuilt, the cost of living crisis tackled.

“Renewal is the only answer to decline, to grievance and to division and we have to keep going on that.”