100 members packed into Hexham Community Centre on February 6th to vote for the Constituency Party’s nomination for Leader and Deputy Leader.

After close contests conducted on a ‘preferential vote’ system members voted to nominate Keir Starmer for Leader and Dawn Butler for Deputy Leader.

Under preferential voting one candidate needs to secure more than 50% of votes cast to secure nomination, with the second preference votes from lower scoring candidates being allocated. In the final round for Leader Keir Starmer had 58 votes while Rebecca Long Bailey had 42 votes. In the final round for Deputy Leader Dawn Butler had 56 votes while Richard Burgon had 41.

The nomination meeting was part of the process whereby candidates qualify to be on the ballot lists for the election of Leader and Deputy Leader in which members, affiliated members and registered supporters will vote individually on a ‘one member, one vote’ basis. Ballots are due to be sent out to members and registered supporters from February 24th.

Members also nominated Trish Williams of Berwick CLP and Jo Bird of Wirral CLP for CLP section representatives on the National Executive Committee, and Keith Hussain of South Shields CLP as Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic representative on the National Executive Committee. ‘One member, one vote’ elections for these posts will run concurrently with the Leadership and Deputy Leadership elections.