Emily Thornberry is knocked out of the Labour leadership contest after failing to gain enough votes to make it onto the final ballot
- Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry will not be the next Labour leader
- She failed to secure the backing of 33 constituency parties needed to continue
- Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy will go onto the next stage
- The winner of the contest to replace Jeremy Corbyn will be announced on April 4
Emily Thornberry was last night knocked out of the Labour leadership race.
The Shadow Foreign Secretary failed to garner enough nominations from local Labour branches to go forward to a vote of party members.
She needed 33 constituency parties to nominate her but had reached only 31.
Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry, pictured, has dropped out of the party’s leadership election having failed to secure the support of 33 constituency parties
Ms Thornberry, pictured, secured the support of 31 local constituency parties, two short of the requirement to go through to the next stage
Lisa Nandy, Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey will all go through to the final vote of party members. The result of the election to replace Jeremy Corbyn will be known on April 4
It means only three candidates will go forward – Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy.
The website CLP Nominations said: ‘It appears no longer possible for Emily Thornberry to achieve sufficient CLP (Constituency Labour Party) support to get onto the ballot.’
It came as Jewish Labour supporters overwhelmingly rejected Corbynite Miss Long-Bailey.
She won just 1.4 per cent of votes cast by members of the Jewish Labour Movement, which endorsed Miss Nandy.
The JLM is one of the largest of such groups with the power to nominate leadership candidates.
This followed an event on Thursday at which all four candidates apologised to Jewish members over Labour’s handling of anti-Semitism.
Miss Nandy, the MP for Wigan, said she was ‘honoured’ to get the affiliate group’s official nomination.
She received 51 per cent of members’ votes, with Sir Keir second on 45 per cent and Miss Thornberry on 1.9 per cent.
During the hustings at a synagogue in north London, the candidates were pressed on their record on and ideas to tackle anti-Semitism in the party.
Jeremy Corbyn, pictured, will be replaced as Labour leader on April 4 when the new leader will be announced
Labour’s handling of the issue has dominated the tenure of Jeremy Corbyn, who is standing down as leader after the party’s defeat in December.
All candidates committed to implementing recommendations of an inquiry by the Equality and Human Rights Commission into the issue.
The watchdog launched the probe into whether the party had ‘unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people because they are Jewish’ in May last year. Sir Keir, regarded as the frontrunner in the contest, received a further boost yesterday by winning the backing of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association. The winner of the leadership race will be announced on April 4.