Thornberry joins Bridget Phillipson and Bell Ribeiro-Addy in having said she will stand Emily Thornberry, the chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, has confirmed that she is standing to be Labour’s deputy leader. In a statement on social media, she says: I’m running for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. We fought hard for a Labour government. But we’ve made mistakes and must listen. We do have to accept that we have to have a discussion about what members don’t like and what voters don’t like, and what’s gone wrong. It’s very important to note that a load of Labour members and voters are unhappy about the handling of the situation in Gaza, the winter fuel allowance, the welfare cuts. The Labour party is a broad church and, actually, when we are able to have debates, when we are able to bring forward different views, it actually makes us better. It makes us more appealing to the electorate and, more importantly, it’s what the Labour membership wants to see. One homogenous view is not going to get us anywhere. It hasn’t got us anywhere at the moment. We are currently haemorrhaging votes to the Lib Dems, to the Greens, and ultimately all we seem to want to do at the moment is chase down Reform. We cannot do that. We only have three days to consider who it is that’s going to be put forward to the membership to be deputy leader of the party, and that is not in the strong tradition of Labour party democracy, and it’s that tradition that makes our party strong. It is absolutely unfair and I don’t think it’s what the membership want. Ultimately, it’s their deputy leader. It’s about them and they should have the right to choose from a range of people. Continue reading...