Labour leadership election: When will the result be announced, who can vote and who is likely to win?

With hours to go until Labour announces the result of its leadership contest, here The Independent answers some crucial questions on the contest.

The candidates in the race are Jeremy Corbyn, the current leader, and Owen Smith, the former shadow work and pensions secretary who launched his leadership challenge shortly after Britain voted to leave the European Union.

While Mr Corbyn has been on the backbenches in Wesminster for around 30 years, Mr Smith was relatively unknown before the contest having only started as an MP in 2010 but managed to rapidly climb the party’s ranks.

The turbulent – and at times bitter – summer for the party began with a string of resignations from the shadow Cabinet following the sacking of the former shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn two days after the EU referendum. It was claimed he was encouraging other colleagues to resign in the wake the Brexit vote and Mr Corbyn’s “lacklustre” performance during the campaign.

Over the course of the next few days, a string of shadow Cabinet ministers resigned and a no confidence vote in Mr Corbyn was passed by 172-40. But the Labour leader refused to step down, despite a blow to his authority from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).

An official leadership challenge was then mounted by Angela Eagle, the former shadow business secretary and a prominent Labour MP, who decided Mr Corbyn’s leadership “was not working”. However, after receiving fewer votes than Mr Smith in a round of nominations from Labour MPs she withdrew from the race in July and backed the Pontypridd MP as the “unity candidate”.

How many people are voting in the contest?

Approximately 640,500 are eligible to vote in the contest – or more than the entire population of Luxembourg.

Around 130,000 supporters were denied a vote in the contest after Labour’s governing body, the National Executive Committee (NEC), decided to introduce a “freeze date” – meaning those who joined the party after January 2016 were not qualified to vote in the leadership contest.

In Liverpool on Saturday 24 September – the special conference, a day before the start of the party’s annual conference, will begin around 11.30am. Party sources expect the leadership announcement to be wrapped up by midday. It will be broadcast live on the party’s website.

Most MPs, and commentators, believe Mr Corbyn will again secure the leadership of the party and there is speculation from both camps that he could actually secure a more significant win than he did in the summer of 2015. It appears in the last few days Mr Smith, and his team, have appeared to concede defeat in the contest and said he “won’t be serving in Jeremy’s Cabinet” – without adding that would be the case if it turned out he had lost to Mr Corbyn.