Thornberry out of race for Labour leadership

EMILY Thornberry was last night knocked out of the Labour leadership race.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary, pictured, failed to garner enough nominations from local Labour branches to go forward to a vote of party members.

She needed 33 constituency parties to nominate her but had reached only 31.

It means only three candidates will go forward – Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy.

The website CLP Nominations said: ‘It appears no longer possible for Emily T horn berry to achieve sufficient CLP (Constituency Labour Party) support to get onto the ballot.’

It came as Jewish Labour supporters overwhelmingly rejected Corbynite Miss Long-Bailey.

She won just 1.4 per cent of votes cast by members of the Jewish Labour Movement, which endorsed Miss Nandy.

The JLM is one of the largest of such groups with the power to nominate leadership candidates.

This followed an event on Thursday at which all four candidates apologised to Jewish members over Labour’s handling of anti-Semitism.

Miss Nandy, the MP for Wigan, said she was ‘honoured’ to get the affiliate group’s official nomination.

She received 51 per cent of members’ votes, with Sir Keir second on 45 per cent and Miss Thornberry on 1.9 per cent.

During the hustings at a synagogue in north London, the candidates were pressed on their record on and ideas to tackle anti-Semitism in the party.

Labour’s handling of the issue has dominated the tenure of Jeremy Corbyn, who is standing down as leader after the party’s defeat in December.

All candidates committed to implementing recommendations of an inquiry by the Equality and Human Rights Commission into the issue.

The watchdog launched the probe into whether the party had ‘unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people because they are Jewish’ in May last year. Sir Keir, regarded as the frontrunner in the contest, received a further boost yesterday by winning the backing of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association. The winner of the leadership race will be announced on April 4.