Leftist Alliance leadership election, 2015 (Fascist Coup Britain)

The 2015 Leftist Alliance leadership was held of the the months of August and September and resulted in the election of Hilary Benn as leader in a highly contentious election.

Background
The election was held in the aftermath of the landslide victory of the Democratic Coalition in the 2015 general election which resulted in the election of Jack Straw as party leader.

Candidates
First Round Second Round Only
 * Andy Burnham: Former Minister for Health and Member of Parliament for Bolton and Wigan
 * Yvette Cooper: Former Minister for the Home Office and Member of Parliament for Wakefield and West Yorkshire
 * Jeremy Corbyn: Member of Parliament for Islington
 * Mary Creagh: Former Minister of International Development and Member of Parliament for Wakefield and West Yorkshire
 * Liz Kendall: Former Minister in the Health Department for Care and Older People and Member of Parliament for Leicester and East Leicestershire
 * Hilary Benn: Former Minister for Local Government and Member of Parliament for Leeds

Results
The election resulted in a shock First Round result with Jeremy Corbyn winning a plurality of votes in the electoral college used to elect a leader, the first such instance of a hung college in the history of the alliance. As a result of a potential Corbyn victory the opposing candidates agreed to combine their electoral votes behind Hilary Benn, who despite not running was viewed as a potential unity candidate. As a result of this alliance Hilary Benn won the second vote with a majority of delegates.

Aftermath
The result of this alliance proved to be highly contentious and have since been viewed as marking the beginning of the end of the Leftist Alliance; in the weeks following the election the Socialist Party to which Jeremy Corbyn belonged protested the result as an affront to democracy claiming that Jeremy Corbyn had won a plurality of votes and would have won the second round had it not been for the other candidates conspiring against him, a fact reinforced by the second round only requiring a plurality of votes for a leader to be elected. In October the Socialist Party announced it would hold a referendum amongst its members over the decision to withdraw from the Leftist Alliance and pursue a merger with the New Left Party as a result of Corbyn's defeat, the referendum passed with over 3 quarters of party members voting in favour of withdrawal.

In early 2016 Hilary Benn announced a proposed merger of the remaining parties of the Leftist Alliance into a single party and called a referendum amongst the Party members of the alliance, the referendum narrowly passed with members of the Labour and Cooperative Parties voting in favour whilst the members of the Social Democratic and Left Liberal Parties voted heavily against. The referendum led to the dissolution of the Leftist Alliance with the Cooperative Party merging into the Labour Party, the Social Democratic Party entering into alliance with the Social Liberal Party and the Left Liberal Party establishing itself as an independent Party