Labour leadership contenders go head to head at Dewsbury Town Hall

The event, put on by Sky News at Dewsbury Town Hall, saw Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy go head to head and take questions from the audience on why they should win the contest.

The trio clashes over their response to the anti-Semitism crisis which has hit Labour.

Ms Nandy said there had been a “collective failure of leadership at the top of the party for years” where high-profile cases had not been dealt with.

The Wigan MP said that, as someone who is half-Indian, “I know what racism feels like”.

Taking on Sir Keir, she said: “I believe that you are sincere about this, but if we do not acknowledge how badly the shadow cabinet as a whole got this wrong we will not earn the trust of the Jewish community.

Sir Keir told her: “You were in the shadow cabinet when this issue came up as well.”

Ms Nandy shot back: “I spoke out publicly and then I left and I didn’t return.”

Sir Keir said: “Rebecca didn’t speak out in the same way that I did, in my view, but I don’t think it’s fair and it’s right for us to try to score points now off each other in relation to this.”

Ms Long-Bailey told the debate: “I’m not pointing fingers or making a note of the exact dates and times that particular individuals spoke at shadow cabinet.”

But one audience member felt the shadow cabinet had dealt with it in the right way, and said: “It’s not about anti-Semitism per se, it’s about propaganda [against Jeremy Corbyn].”

The candidates were also asked by Sophie Kelly from York how they could convince the electorate that Labour could be trusted on the economy.

Sir Keir said it was clear the economy was not working for everybody.

He said he walked to the debate from Dewsbury station and passed a soup kitchen with people queuing with their children.

He added: “They run this every week [...] the economy is not working for everyone.”

Ms Nandy said “we have to be honest with people” on how Labour would pay for things such as social care.

While Ms Long-Bailey added that their economic policies needed to be better explained but she “wouldn’t drop anything from the manifesto”.

She added it was about having “the right answers to the right questions”.

The Prime Minister also came under criticism from the candidates for not visiting flood-hit communities in Yorkshire, and both Ms Nandy and Ms Long-Bailey said they felt Mr Johnson would not know how to handle a female leader of the Labour Party.

But Sir Keir said: “I don’t think [...] that any of us are standing because we are a man or because we are a woman.”

Pushed on whether it made a difference that Labour had never had a female leader he says: “Of course it matters”.

But the trio were united in their shared view of the “devastation” of the General Election for Labour. Ms Nandy said the last general election “was no ordinary election”, and that with nurses and ex-miners turning from Labour to the Tories, the party needs an “honest reckoning with what has just happened”.