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Angela Eagle drops out of Labour leader race Angela Eagle drops out of Labour leader race
(35 minutes later)
Angela Eagle has pulled out of the Labour leadership race and thrown her support behind Owen Smith in his challenge to Jeremy Corbyn.Angela Eagle has pulled out of the Labour leadership race and thrown her support behind Owen Smith in his challenge to Jeremy Corbyn.
The ex-shadow business secretary said she was dropping out "in the interests of the party" and would back Mr Smith "with all her might and enthusiasm".The ex-shadow business secretary said she was dropping out "in the interests of the party" and would back Mr Smith "with all her might and enthusiasm".
Critics of Mr Corbyn want a single challenger to take him on. It came as Mr Smith won the backing of more MPs in the process of selecting a single candidate to take on Mr Corbyn.
The news came as details of how many nominations the two challengers had received from MPs was to be published. Mr Corbyn says he will win despite losing the support of most of his MPs.
Both Ms Eagle and Mr Smith said whichever of the two them had the less support would withdraw from the race. Mr Smith has amassed 90 nominations from Labour MPs so far and, although Ms Eagle's figures have not been released the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg said she understood Ms Eagle had got 25 fewer.
Both Ms Eagle and Mr Smith said whichever of the two them had the least support would withdraw from the race.
Offering her congratulations to Mr Smith, Ms Eagle said the Labour Party under Mr Corbyn's leadership "was not working" and that he did not have the confidence of his MPs.
She urged Labour party members to register to vote in September's leadership election to ensure the party could be an effective opposition which could "take the fight" to the Conservative government.
'Just as radical'
Asked whether she had done a deal with Mr Smith, she said the two would be "in lockstep" from now on seeking to forge a "strong and united" opposition which "could do its job" under a leader which could "heal" the party.
Mr Smith said he had garnered "significantly more" support than Ms Eagle but praised her courage in coming forward to challenge Mr Corbyn and said he wanted her to be his "right-hand woman" during the leadership campaign and afterwards.
Promising to "move Labour on" from the turmoil of recent months, Mr Smith said he was "just as radical as Jeremy Corbyn" but better placed to help Labour get back into government and "put principles into practice".
Saying he represented a "new generation" of Labour politicians, Mr Smith - who was elected to Parliament as MP for Pontypridd in 2010 - said Labour had "been on the sidelines too long" and he was capable of "getting Labour ready to win back the the trust of the British people and getting Labour back into power".
The BBC's Laura Kuenssberg said Mr Smith was regarded as "clean skin" having only entered frontline politics relatively recently while Ms Eagle had served in government under Gordon Brown and, crucially, backed the Iraq War in 2003.
Both Ms Eagle and Mr Smith quit the shadow cabinet in the wake of the EU referendum result, which triggered a mass revolt against Mr Corbyn's leadership. Ms Eagle threw her hat into the ring first to challenge Mr Corbyn and was later joined by Mr Smith.
The former shadow work and pension secretary will now go up against Mr Corbyn in a head-to-head contest over the next two months.