Ballot papers sent out for Labour leadership contest as Dugdale, Khan back Smith

After court cases, rallies and shadow cabinet resignations, ballot papers for the Labour leadership contest were sent out on Monday, as Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale followed London mayor Sadiq Khan in declaring her support for challenger Owen Smith.

Ballot papers have been sent out to nearly 650,000 Labour members in order to vote between incumbent Jeremy Corbyn and former work and pensions secretary Owen Smith.

The result will be announced at the party conference in Liverpool on 24 September.

In July, new 'registered supporters' paying a £25 fee handed the party over £3.2m in just 48 hours to bolster its finances.

With a total of nearly 650,000 members and supporters, Labour has the largest political party membership in Europe, far eclipsing the Conservative party's near-150,000 registered members.

Labour's support base is made up of 350,000 registered members, the 129,000 registered supporters who paid £25 each, and 168,000 from trade unions and other affiliations.

Smith gains prominent support

While he is opposed by a majority of Labour’s MPs, Corbyn’s candidacy has been endorsed not only by 84% local constituencies but also the two largest trade unions, Unison and Unite, as well as smaller unions such as the train drivers’ representatives Aslef and from Young Labour, while Smith has been endorsed by the GMB, the third largest union, and several other smaller unions, as well as the Labour Movement for Europe.

While Corbyn has strong grassroots support, Smith gained two big-name supporters in recent days.

On Monday, Kezia Dugdale, the leader of the Scottish Labour party, gave her formal endorsement to Smith and warned that Corbyn could not unite the party.

Dugdale, the party's most highly elected female politician, wrote in the Daily Record on Monday that Smith could win a general election and reunite the party.

She said: “Owen Smith gets my vote. I believe Owen can unite our party, and mover us on from the divisions that exist under the current UK leader of Jeremy Corbyn.

“Owen understands that to have a chance of implementing Labour values, we need to win over some of those who didn’t vote for us at the last election."

Dugdale said if she had lost the support of her MSPs in the way Corbyn had with Labour MPs, she would have resigned. In June, Corbyn lost a confidence vote from the parliamentary party and there was an exodus of resignations of senior party figures from his shadow cabinet.

Dugdale said: “My only public comment on Jeremy’s leadership before this contest was to say he had lost the confidence of his parliamentary colleagues. That’s a fact.

“More than 80% of Labour MPs expressed a lack of confidence in Jeremy’s leadership. If 80% of my colleagues in the Scottish Parliament didn’t support me, I wouldn’t be able to do the job – even though I received 72% of the votes when party members and trade unionists in Scotland elected me to be their leader."

Dugdale’s latest endorsement comes after Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, also backed Smith for the leadership contest.

Khan wrote in the Observer on Sunday that Corbyn’s leadership had been disastrous and he should share part of the blame for the Brexit vote.

Khan said, although Corby was a “principled Labour man”, he felt he was “extremely unlikely” to win a general election.

He said: “Jeremy has already proved that he is unable to organise an effective team and has failed to win the trust and respect of the British people.

“Jeremy’s personal ratings are the worst of any opposition leader on record and the Labour party is suffering badly as a result. He has lost the confidence of more than 80% of Labour’s MPs in parliament – and I am afraid we simply cannot afford to go on like this."

He added: “Throughout the [EU referendum] campaign and aftermath, Jeremy failed to show the leadership we desperately needed. His position on EU membership was never clear – and voters didn’t believe him. A third of Labour voters said they did not know where the party stood on the referendum just a week before polling day."

During his campaign Corbyn said he planned several reforms and to “democratise the country from the ground up”.

His policies include devolving power to local councils and regions, replacing the House of Lords with an elected second chamber, mandatory collective bargaining in firms with 250 employees or more, and electing staff representatives to executive remuneration committees.