Brexit, Boris and the battle to be Labour leader: Lisa Nandy interviewed

The Labour leadership contest has been going on for so long that two of its candidates, Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey, have taken to counting down the hours they have left. The race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn started in early January, and will finally finish on 4 April. When we meet, Nandy is feeling run-down — not because of coronavirus, but the sheer length of a contest that she had initially thought should run beyond May’s now-cancelled local elections. She regrets calling for that now.

A long contest should have helped the Wigan MP. When it started, she was not as well-known as the other candidates, and needed time to establish a reputation with party members. She is currently in third place and polling suggests that frontrunner Sir Keir Starmer might win on first preferences. Nandy’s supporters say they like the way she is honest about the Labour party’s problems, but that honesty doesn’t seem to be paying off in this contest. She has sparked a row with left-wing feminists about transgender rights, and she promotes an immigration policy that may put off the very voters her party needs to win back.

Both positions stem from a rather optimistic outlook. Nandy describes herself as an idealist, and doesn’t see that as a problem. Others do. Her position on trans rights, for instance, infuriated some Labour women with its assumption that there was no collision between the idea that people can self-identify their sex, and safety for biological women. She believes that if a convicted rapist identifies as a woman, then they are entitled to share a prison with women, many of whom will already have suffered sexual or domestic violence. ‘I think you’d find a way to accommodate them in a women’s ­prison but separate from other inmates. If they were a violent offender, I’d want them to do that anyway.