Six women throw hats in ring to be Labour deputy

Candidates Dame Emily Thornberry, Alison McGovern, Bridget Phillipson, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Paula Barker and Lucy Powell

- CHRISTOPHER McKEON and DAVID HUGHES

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and fellow minister Alison McGovern are among the Labour figures vying for the party's deputy leadership.

Former Commons leader Lucy Powell, who was sacked by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in his reshuffle, is also standing in the contest to succeed Angela Rayner.

Commons Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Dame Emily Thornberry and backbenchers Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Paula Barker have also said they will stand.

Ms Phillipson appears to be the early frontrunner, securing public backing from several colleagues on social media and in private while vowing to take the fight to Nigel Farage's Reform UK.

Announcing her bid for the deputy leadership, the Houghton and Sunderland South MP described herself as “a proud working-class woman from the North East” who had gone from “a single-parent family on a tough council street” to the Cabinet table.

Adding that she had taken on “powerful vested interests in the education sector” and “never taken a backwards step? she pledged to “bring that same determination to every battle ahead of us”.

Ms Phillipson said: “Because, make no mistake, we are in a fight. We all know the dangers Reform poses to our country.