February 24th 2020 signalled the start of voting for the new Labour Party leader. Voting will close at midday on April 2nd, with the full results being announced a couple of days later.
With party members receiving their postal ballots and online voting forms, the race is really hotting up now to be the Leader of the Opposition. But there is a clear favourite in the three-horse race.
Keir Starmer is an industry best price at 1/9 in Next Labour Leader Betting* (betting odds taken from Betfred on January 26th, 2020 at 20:06 GMT).
Next Labour Leader betting odds*
Sir Keir Starmer 1/9
Rebecca Long-Bailey 8/1
Lisa Nandy
* (betting odds taken from Betfred on January 26th, 2020 at 20:06 GMT)
The race to get Labour back on track
There are some pretty clear divisions with the bookmakers’ numbers for the candidates. Starmer has long been the favourite to take over at the helm, even before Jeremy Corbyn formally announced his resignation back in December.
Labour suffered a crushing defeat in December’s General Election, dropping 60 seats overall. It highlights the long road back that the Labour Party has to try and raise any kind of challenge to incumbent PM Boris Johnson.
Labour are 6/4 second-favourites to win the most seats at the next General Election* (betting odds taken from Betfred on January 26th, 2020 at 20:06 GMT)
Starmer set for runaway success?
One of the key things that Starmer has stated is that he has put himself in a position of opposing austerity, a programme where reductions in public spending and tax hikes happen to try and reduce a budget deficit.
Starmer earned 88 Parliamentary nominations to qualify for the leadership race and is the 7/2 favourite to be the Next Prime Minister* (betting odds taken from Bet365 on January 26th, 2020 at 20:06 GMT)
Long-Bailey drifting
There hasn’t been a great deal of support for Rebecca Long-Bailey in the market for the next Labour Leader.
She has been drift and she finds herself out at 8/1 at the moment (as big a 12/1 with some bookies) and she is apparently sliding out of contention* (betting odds taken from Betfred on January 26th, 2020 at 20:06 GMT) according to the odds.
Long-Bailey is the Shadow Secretary of State for Business and is seen as one of Corbyn’s bigger supporters, so could pull in support from that angle.
Outsider Nandy closing the gap?
Some bookmakers have Nandy out at 25/1 but others are starting to show a significant shift into as short as 12/1 in some places* (betting odds taken from Betfred on January 26th, 2020 at 20:06 GMT).
So the way the recent trends are going, she could pull into the second favourite at some point. She most certainly was not a Corbyn supporter and claimed the endorsement of the Jewish Labour Movement this moment.
Starmer to wrap it up?
A recent poll in the Labour leadership contest by YouGov and Sky News has returned figures that predict that Starmer will get over 50% of the votes. That was from a poll of 1,323 people from a wide demographic. He recently got the support of Labour mayor of London Sadiq Khan.
