Labour’s deputy leadership contest is set to be a race between the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, and the ousted cabinet minister Lucy Powell, as three other candidates in the race struggled to make nominations.
Phillipson comfortably cleared the hurdle of 80 nominations on Wednesday evening with backing from 116 MPs, but Powell was not yet at the threshold with 77 nominations.
The three other candidates Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Paula Barker and Emily Thornberry all received support from fewer than 15 MPs and the communities minister Alison McGovern pulled out of the race on Wednesday afternoon and endorsed Phillipson.
Several MPs said any race between Powell and Phillipson would be deeply uncomfortable for No 10. “It’s a proxy war between Keir and Andy Burnham,” said one MP, referring to Powell’s close ties to the mayor of Greater Manchester, seen by many as a potential successor to Starmer.
The former Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop called it: “The first skirmish between Burnham and [Morgan] McSweeney.” A source close to Powell said the briefings were “frankly sexist” and were “wrong and stupid”.
MPs who attended a hustings hosted by the red wall group of MPs said Powell had won a significant number of them over in the room, many who had been expecting to back Phillipson. The soft-left Tribune group also voted to back Powell.
“She is definitely becoming the magnet for those of us who want a change,” one backer said.
Phillipson is the runaway favourite with MPs, according to the nominations and has been making the case to MPs about her experience as a north-east England MP on the frontline of the red wall and the battle against Reform UK.
“We have a broader cross-section of the PLP, MPs from every wing, and considerably more new MPs,” one source close to Phillipson said.
Allies of Phillipson said she had been dismayed that some rival camps were resorting to deeply personalised briefings in the media, including that she was “robotic”.
Most frontbenchers are expected to give Phillipson their backing, though one minister complained of mixed messaging from No 10 over whether they were officially expected to do so. A source close to Ed Miliband said it was “nonsense” that he was encouraging MPs to back Powell, his former chief of staff.
Powell, who as a recently ousted cabinet minister is likely to pick up the votes of those disgruntled with the leadership, is known in the party as a formidable organiser.
She is leading the race for votes among centrist and soft-left MPs who have been disillusioned with Starmer, ahead of her rival Thornberry, who had launched her deputy leadership campaign with explicit criticism of Starmer’s handling of the economy, welfare and the Gaza war, but who failed to pick up many endorsements.
MPs are thought to be wary of nominating another London MP. Thornberry is Starmer’s constituency neighbour in Islington.
McGovern dropped out of the race before Wednesday’s nominations were tallied, saying it was clear momentum had shifted. Earlier she had told the Guardian it was vital Labour took the argument to the far right to champion an inclusive and progressive Britain, saying: “The progressive cause is at risk of being lost unless we can tell that story.”
Her candidacy had caused some confusion among moderate MPs who had been unsure whether to back her or Phillipson. Labour MPs privately voiced despair on Tuesday over the chaotic nature of the race, with hustings cancelled because of tube strikes and issues with room bookings. The main hustings for MPs on Wednesday night was switched to a virtual meeting.
Ribeiro-Addy, the Labour left MP who is unlikely to gain enough support to progress to a members’ vote, told the Guardian that the deputy leadership race was being suffocated by anti-democratic rules that prevented a wider debate. She said it would ultimately drive more Labour members away, by preventing a proper contest.
“We are losing the people that win us elections, that crowd the streets, the activists. They are completely disenfranchised. And what I’m trying to do by standing is showing them that there’s still a place in this party for them,” she said.
“Some people think that us having this conversation is distracting from government and that we shouldn’t be debating amongst ourselves, and it looks like disunity. And I actually think if it’s done in the right way, it makes us look more mature.”
Many Labour MPs privately told the Guardian they were very unwilling to nominate anyone from the left in order to broaden the debate, given their experience with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, which was unpopular with many MPs.
“We’ve tried broadening the debate, now I want to try narrowing it,” one quipped.