Leadership Bid
On 22 February 2007, Meacher declared his intention to stand for the leadership of the Labour Party claiming he had the support of a large number of MPs. The decisions of both Michael Meacher and John McDonnell to run for the leadership have been controversial with many annoyed that John McDonnell did not consult with other members of the Socialist Campaign Group, and many others accusing Michael Meacher of trying to split the nominations and keep John McDonnell off the ballot paper, although neither candidate was thought by many to have any chance of winning the Labour leadership.
On 21 April 2007, The Guardian claimed that Meacher had the support of no more than 3 MPs and that his campaign was "virtually dead in the water".
On 27 April 2007, it was reported that Meacher had reached an agreement with John McDonnell that on the day Tony Blair announced his resignation, whichever of the two of them had the fewer nominations would step aside and allow the other to challenge Gordon Brown.
On 14 May 2007, Meacher agreed to stand aside to allow John McDonnell to be the sole leadership candidate of the left. Subsequent articles reported that Meacher had 21 declarations of support while McDonnell had 24. In the Labour Party's leadership nomination process, McDonnell received nominations from 29 MPs.
Read more about this topic: Michael Meacher
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