Javid claims manufacturing won’t suffer from government plan not to stay aligned to EU rules

The justice secretary, Robert Buckland, has claimed the government is not politicising the death of the London Bridge terror attack victims by unveiling tougher prison sentences for the most serious offenders, my colleague Kate Proctor reports.

The Labour MP Justin Madders may be the first person in the party to call for a review of the way the party’s leadership election rules are currently working.

When Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader in 2015, candidates just needed nominations from 15% of MPs to get on the ballot. But subsequently the rules were changed. The 15% threshold was reduced to 10%, but, as a concession to the trade unions, a second hurdle was introduced – requiring candidates to get a certain number of nominations either from constituency Labour party, or from affiliate organisations. (See 10.13am.) At the time it was not widely acknowledged how restrictive this rule might be, particularly for a candidate like Emily Thornberry or Jess Phillips.

The Labour party has refused Lisa Nandy’s request to change the format of the leadership hustings, at least for now, HuffPost’s Paul Waugh reports.

Sir Keir Starmer, the favourite in the Labour leadership contest, told Sky News as he arrived for the private GMB hustings this morning this morning that his message to the union would be: “That the Labour party and the trade unions need to be shoulder to shoulder.”

HuffPost’s Paul Waugh says that Nandy is right to expect a warm welcome, but that this does not mean she will get the GMB nomination. In a briefing written last night he says:

The GMB has a strong tradition of promoting smart, soft left women (new MP Sarah Owen replaced the legendary late Mary Turner on the NEC until her election to parliament) and with Nandy campaign chair Louise Haigh another alumnus, it could be ‘the women-wot-win-it’. A big endorsement could provide the launchpad she desperately needs to show members she’s a heavyweight figure in this race (remember her ‘preferential strategy’ depends entirely on coming ahead of Long-Bailey, a big ask).

But the GMB’s central executive council (CEC) is made up of 55 ‘lay’ members and they’re proud of the democratic, regional structure. Although there are big Nandy fans (dubbed ‘Nandynistas’ by one party insider who shares my age and knowledge of Latin American leftists) in senior GMB posts, it’s possible that the 55 council members have picked up the same pro-Starmer rank-and-file sentiment as other unions.

According to Sky’s Joe Pike, Jess Phillips is not attending the private hustings for the GMB’s central executive committee taking place before the union decides which candidate it will nominate. She was not likely to win the GMB nomination anyway.

In an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain Emily Thornberry, the Labour leadership candidate, said the party should choose a woman to replace Jeremy Corbyn because she said Boris Johnson had a problem dealing with female political opponents. She said:L

It is an advantage to be a woman leader at this time because I think Boris Johnson has a woman problem, most definitely. He certainly has a problem with me. I think the Labour Party should think about that.

She also said she favoured the wealthy and businesses paying more in tax. She said:

Of course, if you have broader shoulders, then you should be paying more. Tax rates have changed under 10 years of the Tories – people who earn the most are actually paying less in terms of the percentage. Tax rates have gone down, tax rates on big companies have gone down. I’d put them back up to make them the average for rich countries around the world.

This is broadly in line with what Labour was proposing in its 2019 election manifesto.

Thornberry is one of five candidates still in the race, but she and Jess Phillips face a high risk of being eliminated on Friday 14 February, the next deadline in the contest.

All five candidates have already cleared the first hurdle in the election – getting nominations from 22 MPs or MEPs. But by 14 February they need to hit another threshold: either nominations from at least three affiliate organisations, of which at least two must be unions, comprising at least 5% of the entire affiliate vote; or nominations from at least 33 constituency Labour parties (5% of the total).

Sir Keir Starmer has already cleared this second hurdle, through the affiliates route, and Rebecca Long-Bailey is thought to be safe. Lisa Nandy’s fate may hinge on whether the GMB decide to nominate her this afternoon.

But Thornberry and Phillips seem to have very little chance of getting the big union backing they need to qualify through affiliates (without the support of one of the big five unions, it is impossible to reach the 5% target), and they will probably find it hard to win the backing of 33 CLPs.

According to the @CLPNominations Twitter feed, a reliable guide to CLP nominations, Starmer has 13 nominations so far, Long-Bailey has four, Thornberry and two, and Nandy and Phillips have none.