Lucy Powell has won Labour’s Deputy Leadership election, beating the leadership-backed Cabinet member Bridget Phillipson by 87,407 votes, 54% of those cast, to 73,536.

Turnout of voters was 16.6%, although this figure is misleading, as eligible voters included not just an estimated 280,000 Labour members but also 1.2 million political levy payees in affiliated trade unions. As many of these are less politically engaged, the reported turnout isn’t necessarily as low as might appear, and opinion pollster Survation suggest that around 43% of Labour members may have voted.

The Party has not released the actual turnout figures of its own members, perhaps because this would reveal just how far the number of members has fallen in recent months. Party officials discontinued the practice of revealing the figures even to the Party’s governing National Executive Committee some months ago. Labour lost a tenth of its membership in the first seven months of coming to power and overall has 200,000 fewer members than five years ago.

Bridget Phillipson had the backing of three of the largest trade unions which nominated – GMB, UNISON and USDAW – a fact which would have empowered them to contact their members to promote her candidacy. Government loyalists also lobbied hard for her to win – to no avail.

Lucy Powell, on the other hand, received the lion’s share of CLP nominations, with the backing of 269, and the support of unions such as ASLEF, the CWU and the FBU, along with the endorsement of the Co-operative Party.

Lucy Powell has little track record of opposing government policy, but as Leader of the Commons before her sacking last month, she was seen as someone who listened to backbenchers. During the campaign, she called for the whip to be restored to Labour MPs who had had it withdrawn for voting against retaining the two-child benefit cap.

She also  criticised the leadership for “missteps and mistakes” and said the Party needed to change direction. She warned against trying to “out-Reform, Reform”, and called for a November Budget focused on fairness, specifically urging the urgent lifting of the two-child benefit cap to tackle child poverty and address deep-seated inequalities. Phillipson responded by saying her rival would cost the Party the election.

In her victory speech, Powell urged the leadership to listen to members and MPs. “Our members and our elected representatives are not our weakness, they’re our key asset, delivering change on the ground,” she said. “Unity and loyalty comes from collective purpose, not from command-and-control.”

Most of Labour’s left backed Powell’s candidacy, after Bell Ribeiro-Addy, who fought a principled campaign earlier in the process, was unable to get enough nominations to proceed. Powell’s candidacy was also widely seen as a dress rehearsal for a possible leadership challenge later in this Parliament from Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham – assuming the factional bureaucracy that controls the Party apparatus allow him to stand as a Labour MP.  Powell herself, however, pushed back against this framing of the contest.

Momentum Co-Chair Alex Charilaou responded to Lucy Powell’s victory, saying: “Lucy Powell’s win against Cabinet Minister and Starmer ally Bridget Phillipson proves Labour Members are unhappy with the current direction of this Government. In the wake of Labour’s crushing defeat in the Caerphilly by-election this week, it’s clear that the Government needs to urgently change course.”

The centre-left group Mainstream said that Powell’s victory “shows that the majority of our movement wants Labour to be open, participatory and inclusive. Members have rejected the hyper-factional, top-down culture culpable for the missteps of our first year in government. The failed experiment in political centralisation being pursued by a tiny group at the top of the party must now end.”

Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP tweeted: “Labour Party members have spoken and the message is clear, they want change.”

Nadia Whittome MP agreed: “The message from Labour members and affiliated unions is clear: we urgently need a change of direction. No.10 must respect Lucy’s mandate, and the stitch ups and hollowing out of party democracy must be reversed. Our survival as a political party depends on it.” Likewise Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP: “This sends a clear signal that Labour members want to see a change of direction.”

Lucy Powell will not become Deputy Prime Minister and has in fact vowed not to take a Cabinet role – thus leaving her outside of collective responsibility. This leavers her free to champion backbenchers’ and members’ concerns both about the government’s wrong policies and the authoritarian internal regime which has barred so many local candidates and alienated so many members. Let’s see if she rises to the challenge.

Image:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Official_portrait_of_Lucy_Powell_MP_crop_2,_2024.jpg Lucy Powell MP. Source: https://members.parliament.uk/member/4263/portrait. Author: Laurie Noble, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.