Rebecca Long-Bailey's campaign launch in Manchester had the look and feel of the Labour Party rallies we've got used to in the Corbyn years.

Activists cheered her to the stage with that familiar Corbyn chant, slightly tweaked - "Oh Becky Long-Bailey".

As she began her pitch, he joked with her supporters that they were "going to have to think of a new song".

She is the choice of the left but she is working hard to put some clear red water between Mr Corbyn and herself.

But she also knows that her route to victory is to unite the left that once flocked to Mr Corbyn.


Some early polls suggest the left is now splintering between Ms Long-Bailey and Sir Keir Starmer.

Both the front-runners are flexing their left credentials - a sign of how far the party has shifted in the past four years.

And the decision for the 500,000 or so Labour Party members over the next 11 weeks is the extent to which they want stick to the status quo of Corbynism via his protege Ms Long-Bailey or shift to Sir Keir, who is pitching himself as an oven-ready leader who will marry the best bits of Corbynism with electability.

It is set to be a tight race between the two candidates.

Image: Sir Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey are the front-runners for the Labour leadership

Sir Keir, out of the blocks early with a slick campaign and plenty of support from MPs and MEPs, looks like the one to beat, for now.

A YouGov survey of Labour members in the Times released on Friday night put Sir Keir on 63%, with Ms Long-Bailey on 37%.

But a different poll of members of the website LabourList this week put the shadow business secretary ahead of her opponents with 42% of first preference votes, against 37% for Sir Keir.

The shadow Brexit secretary may currently be the one to beat, but across 11 weeks of campaigning and 12 hustings, a lot could change if Ms Long-Bailey can convince those on the left to collect behind her.

And she has significant institutional backing.

Image: Ms Long-Bailey is being formally supported by Momentum

She is being formally supported by Momentum, the left-wing movement within the party that helped propel Mr Corbyn into leadership.

Next week she should get the formal support of the powerful Unite union, led by Len McCluskey, another key Corbyn ally who helped the outgoing leader to the top of the party and keep him there.

Those in the Corbyn camp tell me that Ms Long-Bailey is the candidate with the "right values" who will grow into the job and is grounded in the very communities Labour need to win back.

Ms Long-Bailey has the open support of John McDonnell and many in the shadow cabinet and Corbyn's team.

As one senior Labour figure in the Corbyn camp told me last week, Ms Long-Bailey is the only candidate that will truly "advance the socialist cause".

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But her anointment as the candidate of the left has not been a straight coronation, and there remains unease among some that she'll struggle to carry the Corbyn mantle - manifesting in the aborted leadership run of chairman Ian Lavery.

She may be the candidate to press on with the Corbyn project but has she got the charisma and experience to succeed where Mr Corbyn failed and convert that into something more than a protest movement?

Her allies insist that Ms Long-Bailey will bring a new energy to Corbynism and change the look and feel of Labour by broadening out the front-bench and bringing some of the talent sitting on the backbenchers back into the fold.

Even some who are publicly supporting her have their doubts.

"Becky can win the leadership but she can't win an election," one MP told me last week.

Sir Keir, meanwhile, is pitching himself as the candidate who can, promising to "rebuild" the party and "be in a position to win an election so that change can actually happen".

And his pledge to stay true to Mr Corbyn's radicalism is, in these early stages, appealing to members. His allies hope it will blunt Ms Long-Bailey and the radical left's attacks.

"If Keir defends Jeremy Corbyn's legacy and is not a threat to it, then it becomes much harder for the left to build emotional support behind her," said one senior MP who is supporting Sir Keir.

Ms Long-Bailey's challenge in the coming weeks is to prove to the members shattered from four successive election defeats that she can win where Mr Corbyn could not, in order to unite the left behind her rather than Sir Keir.