LABOUR leadership hopeful Rebecca Long-Bailey will not stand in the way of indyref2 if she succeeds Jeremy Corbyn as the party’s leader.
The left-winger, who is one of the favourites for the top job, told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme that she was “fully committed” to the Union.
“I don’t think that should be shaken in any way, but ultimately the people of Scotland need to make the case,” she said.
“They’ve got their own parliament to determine whether they want to push that and that will be for me as a prime minister to review and to look at.
“I wouldn’t want to inhibit the democracy of people because that’s one of the most fundamental pillars that we’re proud of in this country.”
READ MORE: Ian Murray likens indy debate to talking about future of an English high street
Those throwing their hat into the ring to stand for the leadership need nominations from 10% of MP and MEPs in their party – a total of 22 – by 2.30pm today.
So far, Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips and Keir Starmer have all passed the threshold, and will all be on the ballot paper.
Clive Lewis, who also wants the top job has only secured the backing of four other MPs, while Emily Thornberry has the support of 10 of her parliamentary colleagues.
Both say they are confident of getting enough support before this afternoon’s deadline.
Appearing on the Andrew Marr Show, the Shadow Foreign Secretary said her campaign had been a “slow starter”.
“As long as I don’t get any slippage I’ll be fine, I’ll get across the line,” she said.
Lewis said his lack of nominations was down to Labour’s “structural sexism” and “structural racism”.
He said: “If you want to understand why we haven’t had a woman, why we haven’t had a person of colour, as leader of the Labour Party, then we have to look at the entity of the issue.”
Scottish independence has become a key issue in the leadership contest. Earlier this week, writing exclusively in The National, Lewis said “the question of independence and a second referendum is unavoidable”.
READ MORE: Clive Lewis: Scotland has the right to decide its own future
“It is not for me, as an English MP for an English constituency, to dictate to Scotland what that form of government should be, and there should be no question of Labour opposing a second independence referendum if there is a mandate to hold one,” he said.
That was in contrast to Phillips who had earlier told the BBC: “I don’t think we should have another referendum on Scottish independence – 53% of the Scottish public in the General Election did not vote for a party that was promoting independence. I think we should be talking about things that are relevant to the lives of people in Scotland.
“I can’t see a circumstance where I think it would be better for Scotland to leave the UK.”
Elsewhere in her interview with Sky, Long-Bailey vowed to abolish the House of Lords.
She told told Ridge: “I do want to abolish the House of Lords and we’ll be rolling out as my campaign progresses how we intend to really shake up that constitutional package.”
She added: “There would need to be checks and balances in place, but to have a set of completely unelected people doing that I don’t think is right.”
READ MORE: Labour faces grassroots rebellion over indyref2 position
Long-Bailey also promised to work “very hard and very robustly” to tackle anti-Semitism in Labour, and and she was unhappy at how it had been deal with in the past.
“I wasn’t happy with the way our process was being run, I’ll be honest, I don’t think we were dealing with complaints quickly enough and I think that’s quite clear, I’ve been quite vocal about that,” she said.
“I spoke to Jeremy about it, I spoke to the various members of the team, I spoke to various members of the NEC [National Executive Committee] about that.”
Asked if Corbyn bore personal responsibility, she said: “He does and he’s apologised.
“I think any Labour politician that leads the Labour Party should apologise again for what has happened because it has been unacceptable.”
The comments came as the Board of Deputies of British Jews urged all the candidates to back their 10 pledges “Labour needs to sign up to in order to begin healing its relationship with the Jewish community”.
They said they would “expect candidates for Labour Leader or Deputy Leader to publicly and unequivocally endorse these in full”.
Starmer has promised to “take personal responsibility for dealing with this issue and to work alongside the Jewish community to end this crisis within our movement once and for all”.
The contest looks set to last another three months, with the winner revealed in April.
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