[bots]

Emily Thornberry and Paula Barker have both withdrawn from the Labour deputy leadership contest, leaving three candidates left in the race to replace Angela Rayner.

In order to progress to the next stage in the contest, MPs need to get the backing of 80 MPs by Thursday afternoon - a bar Thornberry and Barker looked unlikely to clear.

It is also doubtful that backbench MP Bell Riberio-Addy will garner enough support before the 5pm deadline.


--------------

They shouldn't have joined the race until they had the votes to support them

(so that looks like 2 left in the race)