VOTING has closed in the contest for the next leader of the Labour Party with the result due to be announced on Saturday.

Either Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy or Sir Keir Starmer will replace Jeremy Corbyn as the leader of the opposition.

Mr Corbyn, who became leader in 2015, announced that he would stand down following Labour’s defeat at the last general election.

In December, Labour stalwart Sir David Crausby lost his seat in Bolton North East after serving as an MP in the constituency for 22 years.

Bolton North East is one of 369 Constinuency Labour Partys (CLPs) which nominated Sir Keir as leader, putting him firmly on the final ballot.

Councillor Richard Silvester explained why he is voting for the Shadow Brexit Secretary.

He said: “I supported his campaign from the beginning and even before he declared he would stand for the leadership, I was hoping he would do.

“I believe he will be an excellent leader and has the experience of being the former director of public prosecutions leading a government department.

“He speaks well and I think he will have a greater appeal with voters, hopefully winning people back who have left us over the past few years.

“I think he will also be more challenging to the present government.”

Fellow Horwich North East councillor Kevin McKeon is also voting for Sir Keir.

But their CLP of Bolton West, as well as Bolton South East CLP, nominated Rebecca Long-Bailey as leader earlier this year.

The Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, who is the MP for Salford and Eccles, received 161 nominations from CLPs.

A total of 70 CLPs nominated Wigan MP Lisa Nandy.

Voting for the new party leader opened on February 24 and closed on April 2 at midday.

Polls for the party’s next deputy leader, replacing Tom Watson who resigned before the election, has also closed.

The candidates for deputy leader are Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, Richard Burgon, Dawn Butler, Ian Murray and Angela Rayner.

The Labour Party uses a preferential voting system, with members ranking the candidates in order of preference.

If a candidate fails to get more than half the first preference votes, the second preference votes of the lowest-ranked candidate are redistributed.

This is repeated until the contest produces a winner.

The results will be announced online on Saturday morning.