RICHARD BURGON has called on Labour to ensure a fair deputy leadership election following the resignation of Angela Rayner, and not “skew it to get the outcome leadership wants.”

The Leeds East MP warned Labour’s national executive committee (NEC), which meets tomorrow, against rushing the process through. 

He said that the nomination process must run until at least the end of the Labour Party Conference to allow “proper” husting opportunities and give party members a chance to hear directly from the candidates. 

“Yet we are already hearing rumours that that part of the process will be truncated to just a week or so,” he said. 

“Any attempt to squeeze it into such a short timeframe would look like a stitch-up — and it would be wrong.”

Mr Burgon also called for MPs suspended over the disability cuts to be able to nominate, saying prevention would “amount to a double punishment.”

“It would only deepen the sense that the process is being rigged,” he said.

The deputy leader has a “crucial role,” he said, “to be a voice for members at the top table.”

“Members are the eyes and ears of the party across the country,” Mr Burgon said. 

“Time and again, they have been right on the big issues when the leadership has been wrong — on winter fuel payments, on disability cuts, on Gaza. 

“Ignoring them has contributed to people feeling let down by Labour’s first year in government, and leading to the disastrous polls that show a Reform government is, as it stands, likely.

“Members must not again be sidelined. They deserve respect, and their democratic rights must be upheld.”