Mary Creagh has announced she is withdrawing from the Labour leadership contest. The shadow international development secretary has explained in tomorrow’s Guardian that she is quitting the race but won’t be backing another candidate. Given that Creagh had just seven MPs openly backing her — with only a rumoured handful still in the shadows — it was increasingly clear over the last week that she wouldn’t get the 35 names she needs to get on the ballot paper.
Creagh has used her spot in the Guardian to attack Ed Miliband’s leadership. She says Labour was too anti-business under him and that this approach must be reversed if the party is to have any chance of making it back into power. Creagh cites an incident during her tenure as shadow transport secretary, when Labour proposed devolving control of bus routes to local authorities:
‘I had good relationships with the five big bus companies, so we rang round to brief them as a courtesy. At Manchester town hall I explained that my team had done this and I was asked why. So I explained that we would need the bus companies to deliver the reforms we wanted to make. That’s when I was told that what we wanted to do was to “pick a fight” with these businesses, to show that Labour was tackling vested interests. I was dismayed.
‘That exchange in Manchester town hall crystallised for me that the leader’s office did not understand business and didn’t understand what business needed from government.’
Although Creagh had her pro-business vision, her farewell article shows that she did not have enough of a unique proposition to win over MPs. Andy Burnham may be sorry to see her out of the contest but Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper will be pleased there is not another centrist woman on the ballot. Given the strong pro-business rhetoric of her farewell article, it’s likely that most of her supporters will switch allegiances to Liz Kendall. Kendall’s campaign will happily welcome any pro-reform MPs to the fold.
So we now know the Labour leadership contest will consist of three or four candidates, compared to five in 2010. The only remaining question is whether Jeremy Corbyn makes it onto the ballot. If Corbyn does gather 35 MPs to support him, he will most likely have the other candidates to thank.
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