Long-Bailey goes into lead in the race to take Corbyn’s job
REBECCA LONG-BAILEY is leading the race to be the next Labour leader, a new poll has suggested.
The Shadow Business Secretary appears to have clawed back ground on Sir Keir Starmer after the first poll of Labour members put him narrowly ahead.
Ms Long-Bailey would win 42 per cent of first-preference votes to the shadow Brexit secretary’s 37 per cent, according to a survey by Survation, the second carried out so far in the leadership race.
The pollsters asked readers of Labour List, a website focused on party news, for their preferences and then weighted the results to reflect the membership.
The poll indicates the five-candidate contest is wide open, with Ms Long-Bailey, who is backed by senior figures on the left of the party including influential campaign group Momentum, looking most popular with signed-up members.
The Salford and Eccles MP had come a long way second to Sir Keir in the round of nominations by MPs and MEPs, picking up 33 supporters to the Brexit spokesman’s 88.
But the contest will be decided
by the members, whose number was bolstered to around 500,000 under Jeremy Corbyn’s radical left-wing leadership.
The caveat for Ms Long-Bailey’s critics is that more than a third of those surveyed said they had not decided who they would vote for in the leadership bout and only 22 per cent said they were sure they would not change their mind in the remaining 11 weeks of the contest.
Candidates are due to start sparring during party-organised leadership hustings held across the UK, with the first scheduled for tomorrow in Liverpool.
Outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn picked up considerable support at this stage of the race in 2015 when he pulled off a shock victory.
It comes as Labour deputy leadership candidate Ian Murray has said the party must listen to the public or become “a diminishing, perpetual opposition”.
In a swipe at the leadership team, Mr Murray warned “the architects of our past can’t be the architects of our future” so the views and criticisms from voters had to be listened to, he said.
Reflecting on the 2019 election, Mr Murray said he was embarrassed by Labour’s campaign and performance. He said: “People were in tears, telling us on the doorsteps that – for the first time in their lives – they could not vote Labour.”
The architects of our past can’t be the architects of our future.
Labour deputy leadership candidate Ian Murray yesterday.