Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Emily Thornberry scrapes through in the Labour leadership contest

Emily Thornberry has made it through to the second round of the Labour leadership contest, having secured the required number of nominations from MPs and MEPs at the eleventh hour. As I explained this morning, Thornberry had struggled to gain support from colleagues because of strained interpersonal relationships and her – somewhat unfair – reputation for sneering at working class voters. But her claim yesterday that she did have the numbers to get her over this threshold turned out to be true, and she will be the fifth candidate to go through to the next round. The others are Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy and Jess Phillips. Clive Lewis pulled out shortly before the 2.30pm deadline.

This next stage may be easier for Thornberry: the candidates must secure the backing of at least 33 constituency Labour parties or three affiliated organisations (of which two must be trade unions) in order to make it onto the ballot paper. She has a much higher profile among the membership thanks to her conference speeches and media appearances, and the interpersonal problems with MPs may turn out to be a plus point in the eyes of those voting at local party meetings. But there are fears in many of the campaigns that this stage is going to be tricky for everyone but Starmer, who may well gain a lot of nominations purely on the basis that he is the frontrunner in the contest and is therefore easily recognisable to members. Of course, Long-Bailey also has a very good chance at this stage, given she is likely to get the support of Corbynite grassroots organisation Momentum (its steering committee has already recommended Long-Bailey for leader and Angela Rayner for deputy, but plans to ballot members).

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