Katy Balls Katy Balls

Emily Thornberry’s speech shows why Team Corbyn went cold on a female deputy

issue 06 October 2018

For those wondering why exactly Labour vetoed plans for a new female deputy leader this morning over fears the role could undermine Jeremy Corbyn, look no further than Emily Thornberry’s conference speech. This afternoon, the shadow foreign secretary offered a pretty good explanation as to why Corbyn’s allies had become nervous about the idea of promoting a woman to second in command.

Fresh from talking movingly about her backstory in a fringe event (Isabel reports on part 1 of Thornberry’s leadership launch here),

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