Labour MP Jess Phillips today accused Jeremy Corbyn of snubbing a meeting with her to discuss gender equality after another male candidate was chosen as a mayoral candidate.
She made the claim just minutes after it was revealed that Steve Rotheram would be the Labour candidate for Liverpool Metro Mayor – beating Luciana Berger and Joe Anderson.
Rotheram’s victory means that Labour’s candidates for the mayoralties of London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Tower Hamlets and Bristol are all men.
On Twitter, Phillips joked:
She then tweeted Jeremy Corbyn directly:
Labour has never had a permanent female leader – with Margaret Beckett and Harriet Harman only serving in an interim capacity.
In last year’s leadership contest, the two female candidates – Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall – came behind Andy Burnham and winner Jeremy Corbyn.
Tom Watson prevailed in the Deputy Leadership contest – beating Stella Creasy, Caroline Flint and Angela Eagle.
Eagle went on to challenge Corbyn for the Labour leadership in July, but MPs opted to back Owen Smith as the “unity candidate” instead.
In her first Prime Minster’s Questions as the Tory leader, Theresa May mocked Labour for never having had a women leader while the Conservatives had just elected their second.
She said: “You refer to me as the second woman Prime Minister, in my years here in this House I’ve long heard the Labour Party asking what the Conservative Party does for women - well, it just keeps making us Prime Minister.”