Reasons for Labour’s Corbynsceptics to be cheerful

We are coming to the end of a fairly quiet week, during which parliament was in recess and Labour’s leadership elections were in limbo between the close of nominations and ballots dropping. Although votes were originally supposed to go out today, members and supporters are now set to receive ballots from Monday. That is when we will be able to express preferences for candidates in the leadership and deputy leadership contests as well as the national executive committee by-elections.

The voting for those national elections may not have taken place yet, but other internal votes have been held in London over the last week. And the fresh results of Labour’s London Assembly candidate selections – due to be officially revealed today but leaked early last night – have delighted Corbynsceptics. A few months ago, they were not expecting to do well at all: it was a Corbynite membership; they felt the shortlist had been ‘stitched up’; and the freeze date applied was SeptemWber 2018 (yes, 2018, thanks to multiple delays mostly caused by the European elections and snap general).

Yet those selection candidates endorsed by Labour First, rather than Momentum, have almost swept the board in selections for constituencies. The results for the London-wide list were better for the Labour left. But this is a highly encouraging outcome for Corbynsceptics – particularly following the selection of Liam Byrne over Pete Lowe and Salma Yaqoob in the West Midlands. They believe the shock of the general election defeat has changed not only the make-up of the party membership, with the help of Jess Phillips’ and Keir Starmer’s campaigns, but even the minds (or at least the enthusiasm) of pre-existing members.

LGBT+ Labour held a hustings for leader and deputy leader candidates last night. As you might expect, disagreements over the trans rights pledges arose including in the form of heckling, and candidates directly addressed the comments made by Tony Blair earlier in the day. The former Prime Minister had warned leadership hopefuls against “launching yourself politically into a kind of culture war”, and said he would not have signed up to the 12 pledges.

Angela Rayner said she was “pretty upset” by Blair’s remarks. Separately, Dawn Butler said she was “sick and fucking tired” about how the debate was being conducted, noting that she couldn’t go on her Twitter timeline as she was receiving huge criticism following her appearance on Good Morning Britain. On a less serious note, Richard Burgon chose Madonna over Cher because “I don’t like the auto-tuning from Cher”.

On LabourList today, we have an exclusive interview with Lisa Nandy for you to read. The leadership candidate talks about misogyny during the contest, particularly from Labour MPs, and argues that those recommending a federal model for the UK – as Starmer has done – have “overwhelmingly missed the point”. We also talked contentious issues within feminism, specifically legislation relating to single-sex spaces and the sex industry, but also about her favourite Britney song, taking “quite a few” illicit drugs, the US Democratic primary and more. Read it here, then keep checking LabourList for coverage of all things Labour throughout the weekend.

• Friday: Lisa Nandy film with Danny Boyle goes live (6pm); Rebecca Long-Bailey rally in Peterborough (6.30pm)
• Saturday: Peterborough and Bedford party leadership hustings; RLB rally in Birmingham (5pm)
• Sunday: Durham leadership hustings; RLB rally in Durham (2pm); Lisa Nandy event in Newcastle (4pm)