Powell maintains lead over Phillipson in final poll of deputy leadership election

Lucy Powell has a commanding but narrower lead in our final opinion poll of the deputy leadership election, LabourList can reveal.

In an exclusive poll conducted by Survation before polling closed for the contest, 57% of Labour members said they will vote or have voted for the former Commons leader, unchanged from our last poll in late September, with the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson securing 40%, up 14 points, and three percent undecided.

With don’t knows excluded, Powell holds a 16-point lead over Phillipson, on 58% to 42%.

Among those who backed Keir Starmer in the 2020 leadership election, Powell secured a ten-point majority of support, with 55% backing her, compared with 45% supporting Phillipson.

When excluding don’t knows, Lucy Powell also lead Phillipson in every region of Great Britain, except in her own home region of the North West, where the Houghton and Sunderland South MP has a lead over Powell of ten points.

Polls closed for the deputy leadership election at midday, with results set to be announced on Saturday.

The contest was triggered following the resignation of Angela Rayner last month after admitting to underpaying stamp duty on a property purchase in Hove, with a report concluding she had broken the Ministerial Code.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Rayner said she took “full responsibility for the error” and said: “I deeply regret my decision to not seek additional specialist tax advice given both my position as Housing Secretary and my complex family arrangements. I would like to take this opportunity to repeat that it was never my intention to do anything other than pay the right amount.”

In a speech to the House of Commons yesterday, her first since her resignation, Rayner said she took responsibility for not paying stamp duty and said: “There is no excuse not to pay taxes owed and I will do so”.

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The poll is the latest in a series of regular polls LabourList is publishing in partnership with leading pollsters Survation, a member of the British Polling Council and a Market Research Society Partner.

Survation surveyed 1,005 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between October 17 and 22.

Data was weighted to the profile of party members by region, gender, age group, trade union membership and 2020 Labour leadership vote, targets for which were derived from the British Election Study and the results of the 2020 leadership election.

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