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The received wisdom that Lucy Powell will win in Labour’s deputy leadership contest, now in its final furlong, is so embedded that even Kemi Badenoch – not much of a Labour whisperer – felt confident enough to describe Powell as the “soon to be deputy leader” in the House of Commons this week.
But as we approach the result, it’s worth evaluating the other possibility, one that a number of Labour MPs think is possible – that Bridget Phillipson might steal it.
It’s been a messy contest in which the two camps have traded some nasty barbs – a few of them in the NS. Powell, taken as the left-wing challenger, has been fairly guarded in her political pronouncements, choosing to dodge the question of whether there’s a genocide in Gaza and instead focussing on the Government’s previous blunders on issues like the Winter Fuel Payment. Phillipson, meanwhile, has made a splash by presenting herself as the sworn enemy of the “spiteful” two-child benefit cap.
A Survation poll of Labour members released today by LabourList shows that Powell’s lead has fallen by 13 points since the last time it tested the question, though she is still ahead. So how, you might ask, could Phillipson do it?
Her supporters point to one thing, above all: the union affiliate votes that could sway the contest.
Take Usdaw, with its 200,000 party affiliate members. The union enthusiastically endorsed Phillipson and, I hear, has been pressing its members to vote for her. She has also been endorsed by Unison, the GMB, Community, the National Union of Mineworkers and the Musician’s Union.
Powell got a show of support from smaller unions: ASLEF, the Communication Workers Union and the Fire Brigades Union. Hope of an endorsement from Unite, the second largest union, eluded Powell (it chose to stay out of the race).
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One Labour MP said: “No one has any idea what turnout is and what the impact of the union recommendations might be. Turnout is usually expected to be low but relative to the paid-up members it’s hard to guess.”
The question of turnout applies among the members, too. The electronic ballot is fairly simple – a picture of both candidates with a link to their statements. But have Labour members been particularly enthused by the chance to vote Powell and give Keir Starmer a wake-up call?
Another question is the composition of the party membership. It has fallen by hundreds of thousands since the last deputy leadership contest in early 2020. It appears to be falling still: the top brass have stopped revealing the monthly totals to the National Executive Committee for fear they would be leaked to journalists. Many tens of thousands have left since Labour came to power, with the general assumption that they did so because they were dissatisfied by what they saw from No 10. As a Labour MP observed to the NS: “A lot of the people who wanted to give Keir a punch on the nose already did that by leaving the party.”
The combination of a smaller, more pro-government membership and low turnout among the members Powell is targeting could complicate the result. It might not add up to a crowning victory, but it could give Phillipson room to squeak over the line if the margin is narrower than expected.
For the real political nerds, there are other indicators: the dominance of Phillipson in the London Constituency Labour Parties, where there are many votes up for grabs; Powell’s apparent weakness in her home region of the north-west, where she was expected to do well (Survation shows she trails Phillipson by ten points there, though the sample size was small); the fact that a lot of Labour members happen to be teachers who might feel they have benefited from Phillipson’s education programme and the two consecutive pay rises she has given them since the election; that, of the two, Phillipson has greater name recognition among less news-obsessed members.
The result will be declared on Saturday at a low-key press conference in London. And while conventional wisdom exists for a reason, I will be keeping one eye out for a shock result.
[Further reading: What’s next for Angela Rayner?]
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