Labour select Dan Jarvis MP as Sheffield mayoral candidate raising prospect of Barnsley by-election

He won Labour’s nomination over Ben Curran, who was endorsed by the Jeremy Corbyn-backing organisation Momentum, with 2,548 votes

Jarvis has been the Labour MP for Barnsley Central since 2011 (REX Features)

Labour MP Dan Jarvis has been selected as Labour’s candidate to become Sheffield City Region mayor, raising the prospect of a by-election for his parliamentary seat in the coming months.

The former paratrooper and Barnsley Central MP will be the overwhelming favourite to win the contest, especially as all of the 14 South Yorkshire constituencies which will take part in the election were won by Labour at the snap general election in 2017.

He won Labour’s nomination over Ben Curran, who was endorsed by the Jeremy Corbyn-backing organisation Momentum, with 2,548 votes – or 58 per cent of the vote.

But a row within the party could be on the cards after the party’s ruling body – the National Executive Committee (NEC) – passed a ruling this week that its politicians should not hold more than one full-time elected public office at the same time.

Mr Jarvis, who was a shadow minister until Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader in 2015 and MP for Barnsley since 2011, has previously said he would combine both of the positions.

In a statement he said: “I am proud to have been chosen, grateful for the opportunity to serve, and please to have been part of such a comradely contest; the conduct of our members has been in our best traditions of our Labour movement.

“The election of a Mayor comes at a pivotal moment for the Sheffield City Region. To make the most of new opportunities, our first mayor will need to work with both local and national government to negotiate the best possible deal for the people of South Yorkshire.

“Only then will the mayor be able to end the status quo of how decisions are made and how public services are delivered; and use both devolution and cooperative principles to offer a more radical and effective way of the serving the public.

“Today’s result is a vote of confidence in the platform on which I am standing, and the potential of devolution; first in the Sheffield City Region and then across ‘wider Yorkshire’.”

Voters in the region will go to the polls on 3 May to elect the first Mayor of Sheffield.