Jeremy Corbyn is surrounded as female MPs hedge bets on leadership bids, with Jess Phillips and Rebecca Long-Bailey refusing to rule out entering the race
- Rebecca Long-Bailey said party leader should go if Labour loses next election
- This sentiment was echoed by shadow chancellor John McDonnell on Friday
- Jess Phillips, a critic of Mr Corbyn, has said she ‘might’ make a bid for the top job
Two female politicians tipped for Labour’s top job have refused to rule out contesting the leadership.
Rebecca Long-Bailey, the party’s business spokesman, piled pressure on Jeremy Corbyn yesterday as she suggested he should go if Labour loses at the next election.
And prominent backbencher Jess Phillips said this weekend she ‘might’ stand to replace him if he resigns.
Rebecca Long-Bailey, the party’s business spokesman, piled pressure on Jeremy Corbyn yesterday as she suggested he should go if Labour loses at the next election
It comes as Mr Corbyn has refused to say if he will stand down.
Last week his ally, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, said he expected the pair would quit if they lost.
But yesterday Mr Corbyn contradicted him, telling Sky News: ‘We are not expecting to lose the next election.
‘It is a hypothetical question. It is up to the members of our party to decide who the leader is.’
Yesterday Miss Long-Bailey told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show: ‘It’s right for John to say in the event of us losing a general election they would stand aside.’
Prominent backbencher Jess Phillips said this weekend she ‘might’ stand to replace him if he resigns
And asked at the Cheltenham Literature Festival whether she would run for the top job, Mrs Phillips said: ‘Might do, yes.
‘The answer is I genuinely don’t know. I’d have to see how the land lay at that moment.
‘What I don’t want to be is just a personality in politics. We have gone too far down that rabbit hole.
‘If I stand it has to be not just because people trust me, people do trust me, it isn’t just because people feel connected with that. That’s not enough, it has to be about having a genuine plan for the future for our country.
‘At that time, I would make that assessment about whether I was the best thing for the future of the country.’
REBECCA LONG-BAILEY, 40, MP for Salford and Eccles
Rebecca Long-Bailey
Elected in 2015, she was an early supporter of Jeremy Corbyn
Once cruelly nicknamed as ‘Rebecca Wrong Daily’ after robotic media performances
Her trade unionist father was a Salford docker, unloading oil from tankers at a Shell refinery
Her first job was in a pawnbroker in Ellesmere Port where she says she learned the ‘struggles of life’
She studied to be a solicitor and is married with one child
John McDonnell has praised her ‘convincing commonsense answers’.
JESS PHILLIPS, 38, MP for Birmingham Yardley
Jess Phillips
Elected in 2015, she nominated Yvette Cooper for leader
Has four tattoos, including the Chinese symbol for courage
She left the Labour Party when Tony Blair was in charge
Before becoming an MP, she worked for Women’s Aid managing refuges for domestic abuse victims
Married with two children
She once threatened Mr Corbyn, saying: ‘The day… you are hurting us more than you are helping us, I won’t knife you in the back, I’ll knife you in the front’