John McDonnell withdraws from the race to help Abbott

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

UPDATE: Diane Abbott has secured the nominations of 33 Labour MPs, and along with Andy Burnham, David Miliband, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, will be on the ballot for the Labour leadership.

UPDATE: The New Statesman is reporting that Diane Abbott has the nominations now to make it on to the ballot.

UPDATE: David Miliband will nominate Diane Abbott, not Andy Burnham as I thought he would, who has already said he has the required 33 nominations. The next round of nominations to be submitted will be released by the party at 12.30pm.

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John McDonnell will stand down from the leadership race today to make it easier for Diane Abbott to secure the nominations required to be on the ballot.

McDonnell has done an honourable thing in making this decision, effectively sacrificing his own campaign for Abbott’s. He said:

“It is now clear that I am unlikely to secure enough nominations and so I am withdrawing in the hope that we can at least secure a woman on the ballot paper…Yesterday I wrote to Harriet Harman to urge her to use her position as Acting Leader in association with the party’s national officers to secure a reduction of the qualifying threshold for candidates to be allowed onto the ballot paper. Regrettably this has not occurred and so I have no other option but to withdraw in the interests of the party.”

McDonnell’s decision makes it more likely, though not certain, that Diane Abbott will be on the ballot. She needs 22 more nominations. 16 of these could come from John McDonnell’s supprot in the PLP – and there’ll be some last minute rushing around and glances at the rule book. Even then, Abbott would still be 5 nominations short.

Alternatively, she could secure 22 of the 52 remaining nominations yet to be submitted, just over 42% of the remaining MPs.

But with a combination of those two routes to nomination, and other candidates including Andy Burnham now almost certainly on the ballot, I think she’ll make it, if only just.

Burnham’s own continued candidacy is dependent on receiving two more nominations. It is likely that he will be edged over the threshold of 33 MPs by David Miliband. Miliband is keen to overcome the interpretation that his “hoovering up” of the nominations has led to the scarcity for other candidates in the first place, and so has offered his nomination to others.

Ed Miliband has already comfortably made the ballot, and also continues to gather new support in the PLP, particularly since the PLP hustings on Monday.

Ed Balls’ handling of the ill-fitting nominations process has perhaps been the most dignified. He secured the required 33 nominations over ten days ago, and has not courted more since. Rather, he has apparently encouraged MPs willing to support him to nominate elsewhere.