Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell urges party to reunite progressive voters ahead of election

Labour's deputy leader, Lucy Powell, has said the party must reunite the progressive voter coalition to take advantage of a split on the right and win the next general election. Speaking to the Guardian ahead of the party conference, Powell said the government now has a second chance under Andy Burnham.

Powell, who won the deputy leadership race a year ago while warning Labour was losing ground to Reform UK, said the party clearly needed a change of leader after becoming too technical and pessimistic. Speculation this week suggested Burnham could call a snap election, but the prime minister rejected the idea on Friday, confirming the next contest would be held in 2029. The conference opens this weekend as polls show, for the first time in nearly two years, that Labour could be within reach of a majority — a striking reversal from a year ago, when Reform UK appeared set for a major win.

Powell argued that whichever party unites its voter coalition wins elections, and said Labour's task is to bring back progressive voters who had drifted to the Greens, the SNP or Plaid Cymru, as well as some who had considered Reform after losing faith in the status quo. She said a majority of the country rejects Reform's divisive politics, but that sentiment has been fragmented across parties.

Ahead of her conference speech, Powell, who is also education secretary, will announce an expansion of anti-harassment efforts in schools, requiring them to embed healthy relationships and a sense of belonging throughout school life, not only in dedicated lessons. She said schools cannot solve misogyny through teaching alone without a wider cultural shift, including on issues such as deepfakes and online abuse.

Powell said Labour is now more confident about promoting policies such as workers' rights and free childcare, and that the Starmer government had lost sight of its purpose after taking office. She expressed hope that Burnham would make Labour's values, including on pensioner poverty and the welfare safety net, clearer than before.