Labour leadership candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey has said she would abolish the House of Lords if she won power.
The favoured candidate of the Labour left in the race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn also indicated that she would be ready to authorise a second independence referendum in Scotland.
Ms Long-Bailey is one of four contenders, alongside Keir Starmer, Jess Phillips and Lisa Nandy, to have secured the necessary 22 nominations from MPs and MEPs to join the race ahead of Monday’s deadline.
Launching her campaign last week, she vowed to go to war on the establishment, and she today confirmed that this would mean an end to the unelected Upper House of Parliament.
She declined to say what replacement she envisages for the second chamber, but indicated she wants a democratically accountable forum for experts who are not party political appointees.
Speaking to Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Ms Long-Bailey said: “I do want to abolish the House of Lords and we’ll be rolling out as my campaign progresses how we intend to to really shake up that constitutional package.
MPs like myself are fed up of the Westminster bubble and we’re fed up of our communities feeling like decisions about their lives are made in Westminster consistently. We’ve got to shift power and wealth into our communities and that needs to be done in a democratic and structured way.
Asked what she would put in place of the Lords, she said: There would need to be checks and balances in place but to have a set of completely unelected people doing that I don’t think is right, and I think many people within our communities would not think that was right.
We need to have people who are able, experts, people who feel that they’re democratically accountable to the communities that they represent, not people who were appointed by parties.