Will Chuka Umunna be the next Shadow Chancellor?

From being touted as leader of the resistance against Jeremy Corbyn, Chuka Umunna is now being tipped as being the left winger’s number two. With the betting markets still convinced that victory for Jeremy Corbyn is assured, Umunna’s odds for becoming the next Shadow Chancellor tumbled this morning. He is now second favourite for the role, just behind Andy Burnham, at 5/1.

Umunna appears to have publicly softened his position on leadership frontrunner Corbyn. It is no great secret that Campaign Group Corbyn and Kendall-backer Chuka are no ideological allies within the broad Labour church, and when he co-founded the Common Good within the PLP, accusatory fingers were pointed at the Shadow Business Secretary.

Since then, he has presented himself much more amenably. He categorically denied that Labour for the Common Good was any sort of anti-Corbyn plot, and last night demanded that MPs support whoever the new leader is. Then, on the Today programme this morning, he denied that he would refuse a Shadow Cabinet position out of hand.

So, is Chuka going to become the Shadow Chancellor?

Despite having once worked in events management company helping organise a huge gambling conference, my understanding of betting is vanishingly small (I know, I know, how do I keep landing jobs in fields I know nothing about?). However, I’m going to stick my neck out and dish out some advice: don’t put your money on it. Firstly, it seems that waiting until the odds fall is the wrong time to make a bet, and secondly, I don’t think it’s going to happen.

While a surprise Liz Kendall victory would make him a serious contender for the role, the other leadership candidates probably have their own supporters in mind. Rachel Reeves would be a strong choice for Burnham, while Cooper may choose Chris Leslie or Shabana Mahmood, who are both familiar with the brief already.

Should, as most of us expect, Jeremy Corbyn win on Saturday week, it’s difficult to see how Umunna could play such a major role on the frontbench. When asked this morning about taking on a shadow role, he said that it “would completely depend on the programme you’re being asked to sign up to”, citing NI, the EU referendum, NATO and nationalisation as areas where he had misgivings about Corbyn’s stances.

“We’re all keen to contribute,” he said, adding “Shadow Cabinet is not the only way to do that.”

That is an important point. Labour for the Common Good will not be the meeting place for an MPs’ coup, and it is not a given that Umunna or his co-founder Tristram Hunt will be the chairs of the campaign. They see the group as playing a big role in being a foundation for a future winning Labour platform – a forum for ideas rather than a cabal for plotting.

It is difficult to gauge precisely during the Parliamentary recess, but there appears to be very little appetite for immediate anti-Corbyn organising among Labour MPs. Expect a period of introversion from the party’s moderates, as they give themselves their own defeat the examination they feel the party has failed to apply to May.

There is, then, a good chance that many MPs will not simply wash their hands of the new leadership, and try and engage while they revitalise their own ideas. But Shadow Chancellor? Nah.