Labour’s deputy leadership contest has four MPs in the running after Lucy Powell became the latest to declare. Powell, the Manchester Central MP who was dismissed by Sir Keir Starmer as leader of the Commons last week, said she had decided to stand ‘after much encouragement’ from colleagues. She added that her politics are rooted in the everyday hopes and fears of people and that, as deputy leader, she would place those concerns at the heart of Labour’s work and seek to unite the party and its broad voter coalition.

Powell is joined by Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Bridget Phillipson and Dame Emily Thornberry. Ribeiro-Addy, the London MP, was the first to declare on Monday night. Seen as representing Labour’s left, and backed by Socialist Campaign Group chair Richard Burgon, she has called for wealth taxes, scrapping the two-child cap, an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel, unbanning Palestine Action and restoring the whip to MPs punished for voting with their consciences.

Phillipson, regarded as the early frontrunner, described herself as ‘a proud working-class woman from the North East’ who had risen from a single-parent family on a tough council street to the Cabinet table. She pledged to challenge powerful vested interests in the education sector and bring the same determination to ‘every battle ahead of us’. Thornberry, chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, said she would be ‘a voice for the membership, unions, PLP, and our constituents – not just nod along’. Her priorities include welfare, Gaza, a wealth tax and planned changes to special educational needs provision. Nominations opened on Tuesday and close at 5pm on Thursday, with candidates needing 80 MPs to reach the next round. Some in the party have criticised the shortened nomination period as a stitch-up, while Ribeiro-Addy described it as unfair but argued that open debates and diverse views strengthen Labour.