Jess Phillips moves to second place in the Corbyn successor MP nomination race
The one best placed for LAB to reconnect with its lost voters?
In the next few days we’re going to spend a lot of time checking the spreadsheet showing the MP support for different contenders in the Labour leader nomination race. The first stage, on getting support of fellow party MPs, closes next Monday and to go forward to the next round contenders have to have 22 fellow MP backers.
The big surprise after the first couple of days has been that Birmingham MP Jess Phillips is is in second place behind Keir Starmer with Long-Bailey -Bailey in third place with Lisa Nandy and Clive Lewis some way behind. So far there doesn’t seem to be anyone supporting Emily Thornberry.
I was in Westminster yesterday and and was quite surprised to find a level of enthusiasm for Phillips that has not been seen for other contenders. It is felt that she of all of them could be better at reconnecting with the parts of the country that so devastatingly went against LAB on December 12th.
This is far less about Brexit, left vs right or being pro or anti Corbyn but facing up to the political reality that saw Labour drop to it’s worst position since 1935.
I think gender is an issue here here and given the fact that Labour has never had a female leader then there is clearly a desire to move in that direction if at all possible.