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Who might replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader?

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn faced calls to stand down in the aftermath of the general election exit poll. Picture: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire/PA Images - Credit: PA Wire/PA Images

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has announced he will not lead the party into the next general election, but who will replace him?

Here’s a look at the key players who may be looked on as replacements for Labour’s leader.

– John McDonnell

The shadow chancellor has been prominent throughout the general election campaign and is a calm and avuncular media performer, but has appeared to have ruled himself out as a future leader.

As a close ally to Corbyn, McDonnell admitted in October that he “can’t see” how either he or Corbyn could continue to lead in the event of an election loss.

He ruled himself out more definitively on the evening of the election, saying he would not serve “either as a temporary or a permanent” leader if Corbyn resigns.

Nontheless, Oddschecker place him at 20/1 as next leader.

– Emily Thornberry

The shadow foreign secretary has stood at the despatch box in Corbyn’s place for PMQs and has represented the Labour Party on various overseas visits.

First elected to Islington South and Finsbury in 2005, she joined the party when she was 17 and campaigned for Remain during the 2016 referendum.

She was first elected as MP for Islington South and Finsbury on May 5 2005.

– Keir Starmer

The shadow Brexit secretary was a human rights lawyer before becoming an MP, and co-founded Doughty Street Chambers in 1990.

He has worked as a human rights adviser for the Policing Board in Northern Ireland and has been the head of the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales. 
He long nurtured ambitions to make Labour into a clearly Remain party, and lobbied hard for the party to back Remain in a future referendum.

Oddschecker place him as the favourite to replace Corbyn at 2/1.

– Angela Rayner

Shadow education secretary Rayner was tipped by McDonnell as a possible successor to Corbyn in an interview with The New European editor-at-large Alastair Campbell for GQ magazine in October, saying whoever comes after Corbyn “has got to be a woman”.

Rayner was brought up on a council estate and left her local comprehensive at 16 with no qualifications and pregnant, after being told she would “never amount to anything”, according to her website.

She has significant union experience to become the most senrio elected official of Unison in the North West.

During the election campaign she put in a robust performance at a Question Time under-30s special, best remembered for her dismissive reaction to being asked if Labour would “nationalise sausages”.

Oddschecker puts her as third favourite at 10/1.

– Rebecca Long-Bailey

The shadow business secretary grew up by Old Trafford football ground in Manchester and began her working life serving at the counter of a pawn shop, according to her website.

The Salford and Eccles MP has also worked in call centres, a furniture factory, and as a postwoman before eventually studying to become a solicitor, her online biography adds, while she describes herself as a “proud Socialist” in her Twitter profile.

She is second favourite on Oddschecker’s list, which places her at 7/2.

– Jess Phillips

Birmingham Yardley’s MP Phillips is not in the shadow cabinet but has enjoyed one of the highest profiles among Labour MPs despite – or maybe because of – her outspoken criticism of Corbyn.

The backbencher hinted in October that she “might” consider running to replace Corbyn if he stood down.

She qualified that by saying: “The answer is I genuinely don’t know. I’d have to see how the land lay at that moment,” adding that it shouldn’t just be about a “personality” in politics –

which, given her impassioned Commons contributions, would include herself.

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