Jeremy Corbyn will face only one challenger for the Labour leadership, former shadow work and pensions secretary Owen Smith, after Angela Eagle withdrew from the contest.
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If they had both run, it would have split the anti-Corbyn vote.Mr Smith was nominated by 88 MPs and two MEPs, a total of about 20 more than Ms Eagle, the former shadow Business Secretary.
The Labour leader has lost the support of 80 per cent of Labour MPs and Ms Eagle said a change of leadership was essential for the party to function effectively.
Around 130,000 people have joined the party since the result of the European Union referendum with the majority believed to be motivated by a desire to retain Jeremy Corbyn as leader.
Corbyn has struggled to secure full support from his party’s lawmakers in Parliament since he assumed office in Sept 2015. I grew up swaddled in stories of the Labour Party creating the NHS.
Amid the fallout of Brexit, 23 of his 31 cabinet politicians resigned in a demonstration of no confidence.
Ms Eagle said: “We have a Labour Party at the moment that is not working, we’ve got a leader that doesn’t have the confidence of his Members of Parliament and isn’t reaching out to the country”.
A YouGov poll found Mr Corbyn’s popularity remained high among activists and suggested he would defeat his challenger by 56 per cent to 34 per cent.
But allies of Mr Corbyn have been describing Mr Smith as the “Blair-lite candidate” saying “our members won’t be fooled by a TV-savvy turncoat who lobbied for big pharma and Tony Blair”.
Former shadow cabinet ministers Angela Eagle and Owen Smith have reached a “common understanding” about the best way to take on Mr Corbyn, who won a landslide victory previous year.
They say his remarks made as a lobbyist for a pharmaceuticals firm about “choice” have been taken out of context and he is committed to free healthcare.
“There must be no personal abuse or threatening behaviour, which undermines the democracy we, as socialists, cherish – democracy which I as leader will extend in our party and across the country”.
Mr Smith denied backing the part privatisation of the NHS and said he was just producing a press release about using private providers to cut waiting lists from a study carried out during the last Labour Government.
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Anger at Mr Corbyn’s leadership was evident in the Commons as MPs voted to renew the Trident nuclear deterrent system, with Labour splitting three ways.
