Double boost for Nandy campaign
LISA NANDY received the backing of former Labour leadership rival Jess Phillips as she made it onto the final ballot paper for the contest.
Ms Nandy joins Sir Keir Starmer in making it through the nomination process after picking up the support of the Chinese For Labour group.
Wigan MP Ms Nandy had already been nominated for the leadership by the GMB and NUM trade unions, meaning she has cleared the threshold to get on the ballot.
Ms Nandy, whose father is Indian, said: “As someone of mixed heritage, I’m incredibly proud it is Chinese For Labour who have secured my place on the ballot paper.”
She said she was “looking forward to getting out into the country and laying out my vision for reuniting the party, rebuilding trust, and returning Labour to power”.
Ms Phillips announced on Tuesday that she was pulling out of the contest, saying she was not the right person to bring the party back together after its election defeat.
She said that while she would support both Sir Keir and Ms Nandy among the remaining four contenders, the Wigan MP would be her “number one preference”.
“I’ve said that right now, I can’t bring the party together and that’s why I have withdrawn from the race,” Ms Phillips said.
In a campaign speech at the Centrepoint charity in London, Ms Nandy said she would raise taxes in order to reverse Tory welfare cuts.
Ms Nandy said the party needed to go out and make the case that taxation was not “evil” but was essential to pay for public services.
She said the welfare system was in “real trouble” and that Labour needed to recover the ambition which led it to build the welfare state after the Second World War.
Meanwhile Rebecca Long-Bailey, the favourite of the Labour left, has insisted she would take the party in “completely different directions” to Mr Corbyn.
The shadow business secretary dismissed claims the outgoing leader and his allies would still run the party if she won.
In an interview with a national newspaper, Ms Long-Bailey, a frontrunner in the contest, said: “Insinuations have been made: ‘Oh these men have been pulling strings in the background.’
“I’ve been proud to stand on the policy platform that we’ve had. That’s not to say I’m not a completely different person from Jeremy because I am, and I’ll be taking the party in completely different directions.”
Ms Long-Bailey is yet to secure her place on the ballot, but is expected to get through the nominations process, while shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry also hopes to be in the final stage of the contest.
Ms Thornberry denied yesterday that she had been “sneering” at voters when she laughed at a colleague’s claim that anyone who does not hate Brexit has “something wrong” with them.
The frontbencher said she was instead reacting with shock at her shadow cabinet colleague Dawn Butler’s remarks.