UK LABOUR PARTY ELECTS NEW DEPUTY LEADER – Keir Starmer welcomed Lucy Powell’s election as ‘a proud defender of Labour values’
UK’s Labour Party has announced that Lucy Powell had won the members vote to become the party’s deputy leader, a victory for a candidate whom Prime Minister Keir Starmer sacked as a government minister last month.
Powell defeated education minister Bridget Phillipson by a 54-46 margin on a low 17% turnout, and called on Starmer to stop courting voters tempted by opposing immigration policies and instead focus on bolstering lthe party’s support.
Labour lost a seat in the Welsh parliament on Friday to the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru party, and was pushed into third place by former Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, which is focused on cutting illegal immigration.
The election of a new deputy Labour leader followed the resignation of Angela Rayner in September who she breached ministerial rules by an erroneous failure to pay the correct tax when buying a house.
Powell lost her job in Starmer’s government in a ministerial reshuffle after Rayner’s resignation. She has suggested she might have been sacked from her job overseeing the government’s legislative agenda for letting Starmer know that things such as planned welfare cuts were unpopular with the party.
Powell has promised to be “a strong independent voice” after the party’s tough first year in government, during which its popularity has decreased.
Responding to Powell’s victory speech, Starmer welcomed her election as “a proud defender of Labour values” and said Friday’s defeat in Wales highlighted the urgency of delivering visible improvements to voters.
