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Lucy Powell has been elected deputy leader of Britain’s ruling Labour party just weeks after she was sacked from the cabinet, in a victory built on the support of left-leaning party members disappointed at Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s record.
On Saturday, Powell secured 87,407 votes from party members compared with 73,536 for rival Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, the party announced.
Powell was sacked from the cabinet in September as part of a reshuffle following the resignation of former deputy leader Angela Rayner over a tax scandal.
Speaking after her victory, Powell said that voters felt that the government was not being “bold enough” in delivering the change it had promised after sweeping back to power in a landslide victory last year.
“We have this one big chance to show that progressive mainstream politics really can change people’s lives for the better,” she said.
Her triumph comes after Labour suffered a historic defeat in a Welsh by-election to nationalist party Plaid Cymru on Thursday.
The loss underlined the government’s vulnerability after a difficult 16 months in power marked by lacklustre economic growth, a rebellion by MPs on welfare reform and a shift to the right on immigration to counter the threat from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
“We won’t win by trying to out-Reform Reform, but by building a broad progressive consensus,” Powell said.
After a seven-week leadership contest in which she criticised Starmer, Powell on Saturday called on the party leadership to listen to members rather than impose “command and control” from above.
Starmer praised Powell as a “proud defender of Labour values”, as he congratulated the MP for Manchester Central on her victory.
Powell’s election as deputy party leader will not see her return to the cabinet, but she will wield influence with MPs and the wider Labour party. The position also carries a seat on the national executive committee, the party’s rulemaking body.
Powell’s elevation comes a month ahead of a tough Budget, when chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to raise taxes to fill a fiscal hole that economists estimate at between £20bn and £30bn.
In June, the government was forced into a U-turn over cuts to welfare spending, a debacle that Powell said was caused by the failure of Starmer’s team to listen to MPs.
She has suggested that her private opposition to the welfare cuts — and criticism of the leadership for suspending several rebel MPs over it — may have led to her dismissal from the cabinet.
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