Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (UK)

(Redirected from Deputy Labour Leader) Second highest ranking politician in the British Labour Party

Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
Incumbent Angela Rayner since 4 April 2020
Reports to	Leader of the Labour Party
Appointer	Labour Party
Inaugural holder	John Robert Clynes
Formation	1922

The Deputy Leader of the Labour Party is the second highest ranking politician in the British Labour Party. The Deputy Leader also serves as the Deputy Chairperson of the Labour Party, and acts as Leader in the House in events where the leader cannot.

History

The Labour Leader does not have the power to appoint or dismiss their Deputy. The post is instead directly elected by party members, registered supporters and affiliated supporters on a one-member-one-vote basis; before 2015, it was elected using the party's former electoral college system; and before 1981, it was elected by Labour MPs.

Recently, the office of Deputy Prime Minister has been revived and held by senior politicians in the governing party. A previous Labour Deputy Leader, John Prescott, held this post from 1997 to 2007. However, the Deputy Leader is essentially a party official and there is no constitutional link between the two roles. The former Labour British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced on his formal election as Labour Leader that the newly elected Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman, would instead become Party Chair. Brown subsequently appointed her Leader of the House of Commons in his first cabinet.

In the event of a vacancy in the office of Leader when the Labour Party is in opposition, the Deputy Leader automatically becomes temporary Leader of the Party until a new leader is elected. If a vacancy in the leadership occurs while the Labour Party is in government, then the Cabinet, in consultation with the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, chooses a new leader, who serves until a new Leader is elected. Such a vacancy has occurred only twice, when Harold Wilson resigned as Leader and Prime Minister in 1976, and when Tony Blair did so in 2007, but each remained in office until, respectively, James Callaghan and Gordon Brown had been elected as successor, and so no Acting Leader was required to take over.

To date, the only Deputy Leaders who have gone on to be elected Leader of the Labour Party are Clement Attlee and Michael Foot. Margaret Beckett briefly served as Labour Leader following the unexpected death of John Smith in 1994. Harriet Harman was Leader after Gordon Brown resigned in 2010 and after Ed Miliband resigned in 2015. Conversely, John Robert Clynes served as Leader prior to becoming Deputy Leader.

List of deputy leaders of the Labour Party

Portrait		Constituency	Term began	Term ended	Concurrent office(s)
1	John Robert Clynes (1869–1949)	Manchester Platting Lost seat 1931	22 November 1922	25 October 1932	Home Secretary	MacDonald
1	John Robert Clynes (1869–1949)	Manchester Platting Lost seat 1931	22 November 1922	25 October 1932	Home Secretary	Henderson
2	William Graham (1887–1932) (jointly with Clynes)	Edinburgh Central Lost seat 1931	28 August 1931	8 January 1932 Died in office	President of the Board of Trade	Henderson
3	Clement Attlee (1883–1967)	Limehouse	25 October 1932	8 October 1935 Elected leader	None	Lansbury
Vacant						Attlee
4	Arthur Greenwood (1880–1954)	Wakefield	26 November 1935	25 May 1945	Minister without portfolio
5	Herbert Morrison (1888–1965)	Lewisham East then Lewisham South	25 May 1945	14 December 1955	Deputy Prime Minister Foreign Secretary Leader of the House of Commons
5	Herbert Morrison (1888–1965)	Lewisham East then Lewisham South	25 May 1945	14 December 1955		Himself (acting)
Vacant						Gaitskell
6	Jim Griffiths (1890–1975)	Llanelli	2 February 1956	4 May 1959	None
7	Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960)	Ebbw Vale	4 May 1959	6 July 1960 Died in office	None
Vacant
8	George Brown (1914–1985)	Belper	15 July 1960	18 June 1970 Lost seat 1970	Deputy Prime Minister First Secretary of State Foreign Secretary Secretary of State for Economic Affairs
						Himself (acting)
						Wilson
Vacant
9	Roy Jenkins (1920–2003)	Birmingham Stechford	8 July 1970	10 April 1972	Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
Vacant
10	Edward Short (1912–2012)	Newcastle upon Tyne Central	25 April 1972	21 October 1976	Leader of the House of Commons
10	Edward Short (1912–2012)	Newcastle upon Tyne Central	25 April 1972	21 October 1976	Leader of the House of Commons	Callaghan
11	Michael Foot (1913–2010)	Ebbw Vale	21 October 1976	10 November 1980 Elected leader	Leader of the House of Commons	Callaghan
12	Denis Healey (1917–2015)	Leeds East	13 November 1980	2 October 1983	Shadow Foreign Secretary	Foot
13	Roy Hattersley (born 1932)	Birmingham Sparkbrook	2 October 1983	18 July 1992	Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Shadow Home Secretary	Kinnock
14	Margaret Beckett (born 1943)	Derby South	18 July 1992	21 July 1994	Shadow Leader of the House of Commons	Smith
14	Margaret Beckett (born 1943)	Derby South	18 July 1992	21 July 1994	Shadow Leader of the House of Commons	Herself (acting)
15	John Prescott (1938–2024)	Kingston upon Hull East	21 July 1994	24 June 2007	Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom First Secretary of State Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions	Blair
16	Harriet Harman (born 1950)	Camberwell and Peckham	24 June 2007	12 September 2015	Leader of the House of Commons Lord Privy Seal Minister for Women and Equalities Labour Party Chair Shadow Deputy Prime Minister Leader of the Opposition	Brown
						Herself (acting)
						Miliband
						Herself (acting)
17	Tom Watson (born 1967)	West Bromwich East	12 September 2015	12 December 2019	Shadow minister for the Cabinet Office Chair of the Labour Party Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport	Corbyn
Vacant						Corbyn
18	Angela Rayner (born 1980)	Ashton-under-Lyne	4 April 2020	Incumbent	Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Shadow First Secretary of State	Starmer

Timeline

References

Labour Party Rule Book 2013, Chapter 4, clause II.2.E.i and iv.

Labour Party

History

Main

History of the Labour Party

Topics

Leadership

Leaders	Hardie Henderson Barnes MacDonald Henderson Adamson Clynes MacDonald Henderson Lansbury Attlee Morrison^ Gaitskell Brown^ Wilson Callaghan Foot Kinnock Smith Beckett^ Blair Brown Harman^ Miliband Harman^ Corbyn Starmer
Deputy Leaders	Clynes Graham Attlee Greenwood Morrison Griffiths Bevan Brown Jenkins Short Foot Healey Hattersley Beckett Prescott Harman Watson Rayner
General Secretaries	MacDonald Henderson Middleton Phillips Williams Barker^ Nicholas Hayward Mortimer Whitty Sawyer McDonagh Triesman Carter Watt Collins McNicol Formby Evans
Treasurers	Henderson MacDonald Henderson Lathan Greenwood Gaitskell Bevan Nicholas Davies Callaghan Atkinson Varley Booth McCluskie Burlison Prosser Elsby Dromey Holland
Leaders in the Lords	Haldane Cripps Ponsonby Snell Addison Jowitt Alexander Pakenham Shackleton Shepherd Peart Hughes Richard Jay Williams Amos Ashton Royall Smith of Basildon
Scottish Labour Leaders	Dewar McLeish Jamieson^ McConnell Jamieson^ Alexander Jamieson^ Gray Lamont Sarwar^ Murphy Gray^ Dugdale Rowley^ Baillie^ Leonard Baillie^ Sarwar
PLP Chairs	Hardie Henderson Barnes MacDonald Henderson Hodge* Wardle* Adamson Clynes MacDonald Henderson Lansbury Attlee Lees-Smith* Pethick-Lawrence* Greenwood* Gaitskell Wilson Houghton Mikardo Hughes Willey Dormand Orme Hoyle Soley Corston Clwyd Lloyd Watts Cryer Morden
EPLP Leaders	Stewart Prescott Castle Lomas Martin Seal Ford Green David Donnelly Murphy Titley Willmott Corbett
* = wartime, in opposition ^ Interim/Acting

Internal elections and selections

Leadership elections	1922 Ramsay MacDonald 1931 Arthur Henderson 1932 George Lansbury 1935 Clement Attlee 1955 Hugh Gaitskell 1960 1961 1963 Harold Wilson 1976 James Callaghan 1980 Michael Foot 1983 Neil Kinnock 1988 1992 John Smith 1994 Tony Blair 2007 Gordon Brown 2010 Ed Miliband 2015 Jeremy Corbyn 2016 2020 Keir Starmer
Deputy Leadership elections	1952 Herbert Morrison 1953 1956 Jim Griffiths 1959 Aneurin Bevan 1960 George Brown 1961 1962 1970 Roy Jenkins 1971 1972 Edward Short 1976 Michael Foot 1980 Denis Healey 1981 1983 Roy Hattersley 1988 1992 Margaret Beckett 1994 John Prescott 2007 Harriet Harman 2015 Tom Watson 2020 Angela Rayner
Shadow Cabinet elections and reshuffles	Sep 1931 (Henderson) Nov 1931 1932 (Lansbury) 1933 1934 1935 (Attlee) 1936 1937 1938 1939 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 (Gaitskell) 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 (Wilson) 1970 1971 1972 1973 1979 (Callaghan) 1980 (Foot) 1981 1982 1983 (Kinnock) 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 (Smith) 1993 1994 (Blair) 1995 1996 2010 (Miliband) June 2016 (Corbyn) May 2021 (Starmer) November 2021 2023

Party structure

Constitution	Clause IV
Executive	National Executive Committee General Secretary Treasurer
Parliamentary	Parliamentary Labour Party Chief Whip of the Labour Party
Conference	Labour Party Conference
Subnational	Scottish Labour Welsh Labour Labour Party in Northern Ireland
Directly elected city mayoral authorities	London Labour
CLPs	Constituency Labour Party Labour International
Miscellaneous	National Policy Forum Affiliated trade unions Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation Labour Co-operative Co-operative Party Labour – Federation of Labour Groups

Associated organisations

List	Organisations associated with the Labour Party
Sectional groups	Young Labour Labour International LGBT+ Labour Labour Campaign for Trans Rights Labour Students BAME Labour Disability Labour
Factional groups	Blue Labour Campaign for Labour Party Democracy Christians on the Left Compass Fabian Society Young Fabians Future Britain Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance Jewish Labour Movement Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform Labour CND Labour Friends of Israel Labour Friends of Palestine & the Middle East Labour Growth Group Labour Party Irish Society Labour Representation Committee (2004) Labour Women's Network Momentum Open Labour National Union of Labour and Socialist Clubs Progressive Britain Revolutionary Communist Party Formerly Socialist Appeal Socialist Health Association Socialist Educational Association Socialist Environment and Resources Association Socialist Campaign Group Socialist Youth Network Socialist societies
Media publications	LabourList Tribune

Party alliances

Current	Party of European Socialists Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats Progressive Alliance Socialist International

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