Who will be the Labour candidate in Copeland?

Embed from Getty Images

When Jamie Reed resigned as MP for Copeland, someone suggested that the ideal Labour candidate in the resultant by-election would be in favour of Brexit and so pro nuclear power that they glowed in the dark,

The New Statesman thinks it knows who that will be:

The leader’s office have found a candidate who they believe may have the stuff necessary to keep the seat: Rachel Holliday, the founder of Calderwood House, a homelessness charity. It was as a result of that work that Holliday was named as Cumbria’s Woman of the Year in 2015. 

That her husband, a police officer, works on Sellafield’s security only adds to her appeal as far as party strategists are concerned. Rival candidates say that she has been given advance sight of the party’s membership list.

Labour List details the other possible candidates, including Thomas Docherty the former MP for Dunfermline and West Fife.