Exclusive: Bridget Phillipson Says Electing Lucy Powell Deputy Labour Leader Will Cost Party Next Election

Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell are going head-to-head.The gloves are off in the fight to become the next deputy Labour leader.Party members have until noon next Thursday to vote for either education secretary Bridget Phillipson or former Commons leader Lucy Powell.If the bookies are right, the race already looks to be all over bar the shouting, with Powell the heavy odds-on favourite to be announced as the winner on October 25.That might explain why Phillipson delivered her strongest criticism of Powell yet when speaking to HuffPost UK this week – warning that electing her rival will cost Labour the next election.Throughout the campaign, Phillipson has emphasised the fact that as a cabinet minister – unlike her sacked rival – she will be able to take Labour members’ concerns directly to the heart of government.“I’m standing to unite the party, to be that campaigning voice at the cabinet table,” she said. ”As deputy leader I’d have a voice at the cabinet table and take the views of our members there and get things done.”She added: “There is a risk from having a deputy leader outside government.“We can’t afford to gift our opponents any advantage. We need to be united to win elections. The only way we’ll be re-elected is by standing together.“Sadly we’ve already seen the risks that can come from airing some of our dirty linen in public. We need to be focused on getting our message across to the public.“I’ll be in a much stronger position to get things done rather than throwing rocks from outside.”Powell told HuffPost UK it was “ludicrous” to suggest that she would split the party, and expressed her disappointment at the tactics being employed by Phillipson.“It’s a shame that she’s decided to go down that road,” she said. “I’ve been really positive in this campaign and set out what kind of deputy leader I want to be and how we can be better. “I’ve always been incredibly loyal to the party. Loyalty means hearing all voices and being connected to our communities and changing the way we operate. I’m going to talk about what I’m doing and leave the rest to others.”The party leadership needs to be “more receptive to other voices and what people are picking up on the ground”, Powell insisted.“It’s not disloyal to say that. We’re on a lower poll rating than ever in history. We’re losing votes to all sides. Its important for the country that there’s a strong and effective Labour Party governing in people’s interests.”Powell said Labour must not shy away from the “mistakes” it has made during its first 15 months back in power, such as removing winter fuel payments from 10 million pensioners and the botched attempt to cut the personal independent payment.The party has also allowed Reform UK to seize the political agenda, she said, instead of using the megaphone of government to talk about the things it has done well.“We’ve done lots of good things, including some of things Bridget’s been responsible for,” Powell said.“It comes down to having a clear and compelling story about what is going wrong in the country and how we’re going to fix it. It’s about being strategic, principled and clear-sighted, and not as tactical as we have been.”Labour should stop trying to “out-Reform Reform” at the expense of ignoring its left-of-centre base, she said.“It doesn’t work and loses us votes all ways,” said Powell. “We’ve ceded the agenda to the extent that Nigel Farage and co want people to think that their problems are due to immigrants, and if you just round them up and kick them out life would be better. We reject that.”Like Powell, Phillipson also admitted that Labour has got many things wrong over the last 15 months, and said the government must get better at communicating its successes to the public.“AsAngela Rayner always used to say, we obsess about the 10% we do wrong and don’t focus on the 90% of things we do well,” she said.One of the government’s successes, she believes, is the workers’ rights package Rayner was piloting through the Commons before she was forced to resign for not paying enough stamp duty when buying a new flat.The legislation will, among other things, give employees rights from their first day in a new job, and bring an end to fire and rehire practices by unscrupulous bosses.Phillipson pointed out that Reform’s MPs voted against the bill, and said Labour must get better at exposing the holes in the party’s claims to be on the side of working class voters.“I’ll be out there week in, week out, taking the fight to Reform and establishing some clear dividing lines between us and them,” she said.“Reform are against day one rights for maternity leave and aren’t on the side of working people. We need to be far more forthright in our attacks on Reform.“We need to take the fight to Reform more strongly and expose how they’ve been against the measures this Labour government has brought in to improve the lives of working people. We need to be shouting about that. “One of the few policies they seem to have is restoring tax breaks for private schools. How many teachers do they plan to sack and how many breakfast clubs so they plan to close to pay for that? They’re not on the side of working people.”Both candidates will spend the last few days of the campaign criss-crossing the country in a final race for votes before the ballot closes.Regardless of who wins, it will be a long time before the divisions caused by the ill-tempered contest finally heal.Related...Exclusive: Bridget Phillipson Calls On Kemi Badenoch To Kick Liz Truss Out Of Tory PartyBridget Phillipson Set To Face Lucy Powell In Fight To Become Labour Deputy LeaderExclusive: Lucy Powell To Stand For Deputy Labour Leadership Days After Being Sacked By Starmer

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