MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The contest comes after last month’s rebellion against the sitting leader, Jeremy Corbyn, which saw half of the shadow cabinet resign in protest at what they claimed was Corbyn’s inability to head the main opposition party after Brexit.
UK’s broadcaster BBC said Smith, a member of parliament for Pontypridd who resigned as pensions secretary in June, would announce his bid once he had spoken to members of his Welsh county constituency.
The 46-year-old began his career as a BBC journalist and worked with the broadcaster for ten years before moving on to work as a government special adviser in Northern Ireland and finally joining the Labour frontbench in 2010.
