There’s yet more bitterness in Labour’s deputy leadership contest, which is getting nastier now that party members have received their online ballot papers. Questions continue over whether Lucy Powell will be permitted to sit in political cabinet if she wins the race (results on 25 October).
“Any attempt to keep her out of political cabinet will hasten Keir’s demise,” one senior Labour MP who is supporting Powell told the Hitch. “He would be refusing to recognise the mood of the party expressed by giving Lucy a mandate.”
“It would be the worst thing he could do in response to a Lucy win,” said a Powell campaign source. “She is keen to play nice but if they try to freeze her out, there will be trouble.”
Yesterday the PM’s spokesperson refused to confirm whether Powell would be allowed into political cabinet, leaving wide open the option of leaving her on the backbenches.
The spokesperson said it was a matter for party HQ (a bold claim since the PM decides who sits around the cabinet table). The party also refused to answer the question.
Powell told the NS in an interview last week that she would sit in political cabinet as deputy leader.
In response a Labour source told us Powell was sacked in the September reshuffle because “she couldn’t be trusted not to brief or leak.”
The comments caused a stir in the Parliamentary Labour Party and Bridget Phillipson, Powell’s opponent for the deputy leadership, was questioned about them by Laura Kuenssberg on Saturday. She said in response: “I don’t know about that and I don’t know where that’s come from.”
The pressure on Starmer to bring Powell back into the fold is growing.
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