Labour deputy leader election: Date revealed for NEC meet to decide on contest as candidate speculation begins

The Labour party’s national executive committee (NEC) will meet on Monday to decide on the internal election to replace Angela Rayner as deputy leader, LabourList can reveal.

An emergency meeting of the party’s ruling body will be held virtually on Monday, according to multiple party sources.

Party staff are reportedly due to also meet on Sunday to help the NEC hatch plans for the first deputy leadership contest since 2020 – unless they decide to delay the election for logistical reasons with conference imminent, or more nakedly political ones to avoid a public battle.

It comes amid a tumultuous ministerial reshuffle that has also seen Anna Turley replace Ellie Reeves as party chair and David Lammy demoted but also made deputy Prime Minister.

The latter appointment appears designed to ease Lammy’s fall, but its ramifications for the deputy party leadership role have attracted less attention. It looks set to significantly constrain the influence of whoever wins the internal party contest, perhaps presaging the feared victory (from Number 10’s perspective) of a candidate to the left of Keir Starmer.

READ MORE: Who is Anna Turley, the new chair of the Labour Party

Naturally no candidates have yet thrown their hats in the ring or had allies publicly tipping them, but the media have naturally likewise already begun speculating on potential contenders – some more plausible than others.

There are even suggestions already of who the party leadership’s (likely only tacitly) favoured candidate could be, with Shabana Mahmood’s name floated in The Daily Telegraph. 

David Lammy, Wes Streeting,  Bridget Phillipson, Peter Kyle and Steve Reed are the other cabinet members floated at least by some so far. Names outside the cabinet include Rosena Allin-Khan, Louise Haigh and Emily Thornberry.

Arguably past leadership and deputy leadership contenders are worth keeping an eye on too.

Meanwhile other candidates with at least some support among LabourList readers in a small, unscientific snap survey we ran this week – not one of our larger, weighted and more professional Survation polls – included Andy Burnham, Richard Burgon, Dawn Butler, Darren Jones and Pat McFadden.

The New Statesman‘s Andrew Marr floats the possibility too that the contest could delayed with conference imminent, though he argues it is unlikely however painful both a contest and the potential winner could prove for the government.

READ MORE: ‘Angela Rayner’s treatment shows the double standards that punish the ambition of working class women’

If the NEC decides to proceed with rather than delay the contest, the Labour party’s rulebook states prospective candidates need the support of 20% of Labour MPs (80 as of today), and either five per cent of Constituency Labour Parties or at least three affiliated organisations (with at least two trade union affiliates) that make up at least five per cent of affiliated membership of the party.

Votes are cast in a single section made up of party members and affiliated supporters and are counted on the basis of one member, one vote. The election takes place with a preferential ballot.

If no candidate secures more than half of first preference votes, a redistribution of votes occurs until a candidate is elected. In 2020, Rayner was elected only in the third round, with the votes of Dawn Butler and Ian Murray redistributed.

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