The British Labour Party leadership election of 1961 was held when, for the second year in succession, the incumbent leader was challenged for re-election. Normally the annual re-election of the leader had been a formality.

The challenge followed factional in-fighting over issues like nuclear disarmament. The leader favoured the retention of nuclear weapons by the UK, whereas the left wing of the party supported the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...

.

Candidates

Two candidates were nominated.

1. The left wing candidate the previous year had been Harold Wilson
   Harold Wilson
   James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
   
   . In 1961 the candidate was a lesser known political figure Anthony Greenwood (born 1911), the MP for the Lancashire
   Lancashire
   Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
   
    constituency of Rossendale
   Rossendale (UK Parliament constituency)
   Rossendale was a parliamentary constituency in the Lancashire, England. Created in 1885, it elected one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first-past-the-post voting system...
   
   . He had been an MP since 1946 and was the son of Arthur Greenwood
   Arthur Greenwood
   Arthur Greenwood CH was a prominent member of the Labour Party from the 1920s until the late 1940s. He rose to prominence within the party as secretary of its research department from 1920 and served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health in the short-lived Labour government of 1924...
   
    (1880-1954), who had been a Labour leadership candidate in 1935.
2. The incumbent right wing leader of the party was Hugh Gaitskell
   Hugh Gaitskell
   Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell CBE was a British Labour politician, who held Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955, until his death in 1963.-Early life:He was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest...
   
    (born 1906), who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer
   Chancellor of the Exchequer
   The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
   
    1950-1951. Gaitskell had been MP for Leeds South
   Leeds South (UK Parliament constituency)
   Leeds South was a parliamentary constituency in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1885 until it was abolished for the 1983 general election...
   
   since 1945 and party leader since 1955.

Ballot

The result of the only ballot of Labour MPs on 2 November was as follows:

Only Ballot: 2 November 1961
Candidate		Votes	%
	Hugh Gaitskell	171	74.35
	Anthony Greenwood	59	25.65
Majority		112	48.70
Turnout		230