The General Election in December 2019 saw the Labour party suffer its most catastrophic defeat, for which Jeremey Corbyn accepted full responsibility and publicly apologised to the party’s supporters. He faced considerable criticism as he failed to express humility over the scale of Labour’s defeat, and in response to this, has promised he will regain the trust of lifelong Labour voters and will step down from his position as party leader following their disastrous performance.
In response to this apology, Lisa Nandy, Wigan’s Labour MP, has declared she will be running to replace Jeremy Corbyn as party leader. Nandy was re-elected in the election, maintaining her Labour stronghold in the once ‘red wall’ of the North West, obtaining 46.7% of the votes. Having witnessed the shattering defeat of her party, watching the ‘entire Labour party crumble’ beneath their feet, she has decided to run. This brings Ms Nandy into the spotlight since she had taken a backseat for a while to avoid an association with the Corbyn-led faction of the Labour party.
Nandy has been an MP within her constituency for ten years, selected as Labour parliamentary candidate in February 2010 from an all-woman shortlist. This made her the constituency’s first female MP and one of the first Asian female MP’s for Wigan. There has been speculation in the past as to whether Nandy would run for party leadership, as Labour’s defeat in 2015 saw Ed Miliband resign, however, she declined. Now Nandy is placing herself at the forefront of Labour’s leadership race, running against Brexit secretary Keir Starmer and Birmingham MP Jess Philips.
Meanwhile, as Labour ready themselves for drastic change within their party, Boris Johnson has been preparing his new government agenda. Firstly, he has been visiting former Labour constituencies that have now fallen to the Tories. He travelled to Sedgefield in the North East of England, in which the Conservatives acquired a majority in a constituency that was once a Labour stronghold. Having once been the Labour heartland of Prime Minister Tony Blair, it has now swung to the opposition, marking just how drastic a defeat the Labour party suffered.
Mr Johnson is now pioneering his ‘revolutionary government’, in which we shall see a complete reshuffling of Cabinet posts and a rearrangement of government departments. The Conservatives landslide has shaken up the governmental framework, and the significance of this will be seen in the New Year.
By Grace Lea
