Mary Creagh pulls out of Labour leadership race

Mary Creagh had collected about 10 nominations from Labour MPs

Shadow international development secretary Mary Creagh has announced that she has withdrawn from Labour leadership race.

Writing in The Guardian, she said she made the announcement so her supporters could nominate another candidate.

Ms Creagh is believed to have collected about 10 nominations from Labour MPs, short of the 35 needed to feature in the final ballot of members.

"I look forward to working with the next leader," she wrote.

Shadow ministers Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall and MP Jeremy Corbyn remain in the running for the leadership.

Ms Creagh had fewer nominations than any of the other candidates who are hoping to get on the ballot paper.

She said she will not be nominating any other candidate.

'Played my part'

"I'm grateful to the people who told me I inspired them to begin their own leadership journeys," she said.

"I am proud to have played my part in opening up the debate about why Labour lost."

In the article, Ms Creagh criticised former leader Ed Miliband's stance on business.

"The leader's office did not understand business and didn't understand what business needed from government," she said.

"I spent 10 years working with small business people at London Enterprise Agency and Cranfield business school.

"I learned from them that Labour cannot be the party of working people and then disapprove when some working people do very well for themselves and create new businesses, jobs and wealth."

She said she believed Labour lost the election because the public "do not trust us to run the economy".

Ms Creagh also called on the party to "make the principled and unambiguous case that staying in the EU is in our national interest".

"The next Labour leader will have to show that Labour understands the problems facing the UK's five million self-employed people, sole traders and small businesses," she wrote.

"That understanding must run through our party's DNA like a golden thread"

Mr Burnham, Ms Cooper and Ms Kendall have secured the 35 nominations needed to guarantee a place on the ballot paper. Mr Corbyn has reached 18.

Labour leadership nominations close on Monday.