Labour leadership: Owen Smith intends to run in contest

Former shadow cabinet member Owen Smith will announce his intention to stand for the Labour leadership later.

The Pontypridd MP, who resigned as shadow work and pensions secretary last month, will join Angela Eagle in challenging Jeremy Corbyn.

On Tuesday, Labour's National Executive Committee ruled Mr Corbyn should automatically be included in the contest - a decision Mr Smith supports.

Opponents of Mr Corbyn argued he needed the support of 51 MPs or MEPs to stand.

However, the NEC voted 18-14 in favour of the Labour leader's inclusion on the ballot, following hours of talks.

Mr Smith will announce his intention to stand once he has spoken to Labour members in his south Wales constituency.

He has met Mr Corbyn several times in the past two weeks but failed to convince him to step aside and avoid a potentially bruising leadership contest.

Mr Corbyn was elected leader in a vote of grassroots members last year, but has been hit by a host of shadow cabinet resignations and a vote of no confidence among Labour MPs.

He has pledged to campaign "on all the things that matter", saying anyone within the party with disagreements should "come and talk about it".

The Labour Party said the timetable for the contest will be published on Thursday.Mr Smith told the BBC he agreed with the NEC's decision, saying Labour Party members, and not MPs, should decide who leads them.

On Monday, Mr Smith had said he was considering a leadership bid, as he wanted to do "whatever it takes to stop our party being destroyed".

Owen Smith had been mulling over a leadership challenge, but initially he put his efforts into trying to persuade Jeremy Corbyn to move to a different role because, in Mr Smith's view, he quite simply wasn't seen as a potential prime minister.

When it was clear the current leader was digging in, the former shadow work and pensions secretary canvassed support for a challenge.

Angela Eagle was first out of the traps and has argued that it is time that Labour - a party of equality - elected its first female leader.

Mr Smith will position himself to Angela Eagle's left, stressing support for Mr Corbyn's anti-austerity policies, and believes this enables him to appeal to an apparently radical membership.

But if the anti-Corbyn forces are split, that will boost the prospects of a leader whom both Mr Smith and Ms Eagle regard as unelectable.

So it remains to be seen if they can reconcile any differences and agree on a single challenger.

Speaking on the BBC's Newsnight on Tuesday, Ms Eagle urged Labour voters to sign up to become registered Labour supporters - a one-off status that gives them a vote, if they pay £25 - during a two-day window next week.

She said: "I would say to the nine million Labour voters out there, there's two days next week when you can actually pay £25, help save the Labour Party, make our democracy work, and help me heal our country."She added: "Join us in this battle, let us win the Labour Party back."

Ms Eagle said Labour had been created to "be the voice of working people in Parliament" and to do that "you have to be effective in Parliament".

She said she had "tried" to work with Mr Corbyn for nine months, but added that he "cannot lead in Parliament".The Labour leadership challenge follows the collapse of union-led peace talks last weekend.

Labour Party members need to have signed up on or before 12 January to be eligible to vote in the leadership contest.

Registered supporter status - which gives people a one-off vote if they pay a fee - will cost £25 this time, instead of £3 in the run-up to last September's vote, which Mr Corbyn won.