Rebecca Long-Bailey will promise to end “the gentlemen’s club” of politics when she launches her Labour leadership campaign on Friday.

The shadow business secretary’s comments will be seen as a dig at Sir Keir Starmer, her main rival in the race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn and the only man in the contest.

As the leadership race stepped up a gear, Sir Keir called for an end to Labour “factionalism” and insisted he was best placed to unite the party.

Labour announced on Thursday that 14,700 people had applied to become registered supporters of the party, at a cost of £25, in order to vote in the contest.

Ms Long-Bailey will launch her campaign in Manchester on Friday night, a day after being officially endorsed by the left-wing Momentum campaign group.

Emphasising her ordinary background and contrasting it with the “gentlemen’s club” of Westminster, she is expected to say: “Where I grew up, Westminster, even London, felt like a million miles away.

The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Show all 8 1 /8 The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Keir Starmer The former director of public prosecutions undoubtedly has announced that he is standing for the leadership. He is highly-regarded by both left-wingers and centrists in the party. As Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary, he played a key role in the party’s eventual backing of a second referendum. Before becoming an MP, he was a human rights lawyer - conducting cases in international courts including the European Court of Human Rights. Launching his bid, Starmer said that Labour must listen to the public on how to change "restore trust in our party as a force for good." A YouGov poll places him comfortably in the lead as the preferred candidate of 36% of party members EPA The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Lisa Nandy Wigan MP Lisa Nandy has announced she wil stand for the leadership. In a letter to the Wigan Post she said she wanted to bring Labour "home" to voters in its traditional strongholds who have abandoned the party. Nandy went on to say that she understands "that we have one chance to win back the trust of people in Wigan, Workington and Wrexham." A YouGov poll shows that Nandy is the first preference for 6% of partymembers. Getty The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Rebecca Long Bailey A key ally of the current left-wing leadership of the party, the Salford & Eccles MP is viewed in some quarters as the natural successor to Mr Corbyn and describes herself as a “proud socialist”. Highly regarded by the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell. She won also won plaudits for her performance filling in for Corbyn both at prime minister’s questions and during the general election debates. The shadow business secretary grew up by Old Trafford football ground and began her working life serving at the counter of a pawn shop. Launching her leadership bid, Long Bailey said the party needs to make the positive case for immigration as a "positive force." She also broke with Corbyn over Trident, saying "If you have a deterrent you have to be prepared to use it." PA The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Angela Rayner - Deputy leadership Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has joined the contest for deputy leadership of the party. After ruling herself out of running for the leadership, the Ashton-under-Lynne MP launched her bid for deputy warning that Labour faces the "biggest challenge" in its history and must "win or die." She is close with leadership contender Rebecca Long Bailey PA The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Rosena Allin-Khan - Deputy leadership Shadow sport minister Rosena Allin-Khan said Labour need to listen with "humility" to lost voters as she launched her bid for the deputy leadership. Writing in The Independent, the MP for Tooting refelcted: "We shouldn’t have ignored the warning signs in Scotland, and now we’ve paid the price in northern England, across the midlands and in Wales." PA The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Dawn Butler - Deputy leadership Shadow women and equalities secretary Dawn Butler was first to announce her bid for the deputy leadership. The Brent Central MP has served in Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet since 2016 PA The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Ian Murray - Deputy leadership Labour's only MP in Scotland said that the architects of the party's "catastrophic failure" in the December election can not be allowed to lead the party forward PA The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Richard Burgon - Deputy leadership Shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon is standing as a continuity candidate, flaunting his loyalty to Jeremy Corbyn and saying it is wrong to blame the current leader for the election defeat PA

“The story of the last few years is that many people feel there is something wrong with their laws being drafted hundreds of miles away by a distant and largely unaccountable bureaucratic elite in Brussels. But I’ll be honest, Westminster didn’t feel much closer, and it still doesn’t today.”

She will add: “That’s why I want to shake up the way government works and deliver a clear message to voters: we will put power where it belongs – in your hands. The British state needs a seismic shock, to prise it open at all levels to the people – their knowledge, their skills, their demands.

“Proper democracy takes power away from the offshore bank account and places it on the ballot paper, so workers can have more and chief executives less, and we can tackle the climate crisis with a Green New Deal that unites all of Labour’s heartlands. We will end the gentleman’s club of politics and we will be setting out plans to go further by devolving power out of Westminster to a regional and local level.”

Ms Long-Bailey will also promise to maintain many of the policies that Labour adopted under Mr Corbyn, including a Green New Deal and a programme of nationalisation to deliver “modern, democratic public ownership”.

She will launch her campaign after her main rival, Sir Keir, said that the next Labour leader would need to bring about “unifying peace”.

The shadow Brexit secretary told BBC News: “We need to unify the party and I think I can do that. We spent far too much time fighting ourselves and not fighting the Tories. Factions have been there in the Labour Party – they’ve got to go.

“I know from running a big organisation that if you’re going to change the values and the culture of the organisation, you’ve got to do it from the top down, so that unifying peace is vitally important. If we’re not united as a party, we are not going to win anything by way of an election, but we also need to be a very effective opposition.”

Sir Keir also hinted that he would continue Mr Corbyn’s pledge to take several key industries into public ownership, claiming “the arguments about nationalisation make themselves”.

He said: “I don’t accept the argument that private is good, and public is bad; you don’t have a good private sector if you don’t have a very strong public sector.

“But my priority is making sure that we have tackled, or are capable of tackling, that gross inequality, and also providing the chances, so we can genuinely say there’s an equal opportunity for everyone, wherever they come from and whatever their background.”

However, he suggested that Labour had lost the general election because voters did not trust it to “deliver”.

He said: “In this general election I didn’t hear people saying, ‘everything’s fine, nothing needs to change’.