The soft left has most to gain from a deputy leadership contest. I can see one of Anneliese Dodds, Rosena Allin-Khan, Emily Thornberry, even Louise Haigh doing well Which, if you're Keir Starmer, is not great reading. All have had run-ins with the leadership
My theory has always been that someone from the hard left is nailed on as the winner at the next leadership election should one of them actually make it onto the ballot. The soft left membership has been utterly uninterested in their own MPs for a long time now (Lisa Nandy, Andy Burnham).
Starmer was elected as a hard leftist with some compromises towards a better position on the EU. He's fulfilled neither of these promises, and his approach has made things substantially worse than they were in 2015, when soft left perpetrated the Corbyn revolt.
There might be different dynamics with the deputy leadership – my own experience of participating in the last three leadership elections was that I had little interest in the deputy leadership – and the change in the party's composition might have been profound enough to have significant effect.
But I think there's every reason to a priori believe that there's severe discontent in the party's membership with current leadership; that the former consider the latter to have essentially no redeeming features.
Rosemary Allen-Khan for me. I wouldn’t see Emily T as left Labours
Get NEC to scrap the position and rubber stamp at conference. We don’t need a divisive and pointless scrap.
Lammy’s in a yes man well it was to be expected.
Wouldn't Rosena Allin-Khan hold out for the Mayoralty?
Dawn Butler makes no secret that she wants to go for the Mayoralty (She straight up says it in her autobiography) and if there isn't some kind of Blue Labour stitch up, she'd probably get the candidacy, as she is more popular with London Labour and has more name recognition than Allin-Khan.
Also, back-to-back Mayors from Tooting? perhaps that's too much.
Nothing to stop her trying for both contests