Chapter 5 of Labour’s Rules states that selected candidates with less than 12 months membership longevity can be approved by the NEC; so the Totnes candidate was not ineligible as alleged by Ben Bradshaw MP, just not approved by the NEC. So who’s fault is that? …
Honours
Four things about Owen Smith’s promise to ban “…former Labour Party staffers, advisers MPs and donors from receiving an honour or becoming a member of the House of Lords”. Firstly, I wonder how many of his supporters this’ll piss off, secondly, should he ever become Prime Minister, an increasingly unlikely event, he’ll find that he needs to make appointments to the House of Lords to, at the least, be part of a Government, thirdly, the timing makes this part of the shameful and sexist smear on Shami Chakrabrti, Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. Fourthly, what does he have to say about the Whitehall/Business revolving door which is arguably even more corrupt. …
Mandate
I am fed up hearing about the PLP’s 9m vote mandate. Firstly, the total labour vote is ~8.7m. Secondly just above 5m voted for winning candidates i.e.the members of the PLP, the other 3.7m voted for Labour candidates that lost and thirdly, they won because they were Labour candidates, and that is chosen by the Party membership. Read More …. …
The PLP’s mandate
I am fed up hearing about the PLP’s 9m vote mandate. Firstly, the total labour vote is ~8.7m. Secondly just above 5m voted for winning candidates i.e.the members of the PLP, the other 3.7m voted for Labour candidates that lost and thirdly, they won because they were Labour candidates, and that is chosen by the Party membership. …
Athens Polytechnic
I am advised on facebook that you can still buy the E.P.
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Rights Warrior
In Cameron’s resignation honour’s list, Jeremy Corbyn nominated Shami Chakrabarti to be a peer, a member of the House of Lords. This has upset some in the Labour Party, and some in the Jewish community. Chakrabarti’s appointment to the House of Lords as a Labour peer is a coup for the Labour Party, her track record in pursuing the defence of human rights and for grown-up adult politics makes her the most appropriate appointment for many years. The attacks by the Jewish community are an attempt to play the person not the ball, as they seek to prolong the smear that Labour is anti-semitic. There is also a subliminal return to the sexist attacks made on her when she was campaigning against the last Labour Government’s plans for a national ID database with David Davies MP because of the implication that she has been unjustly preferred. Labour Party members should be proud that its front bench (or at least its Leader) wants to be associated with such a brave, independent, capable and fair women. I am.
See Also
- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/honours-list-read-full-david-cameron-peers-knighthoods-mbes-nominations-a7172406.html
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36983112
Head or Heart, or both
I noted that the GMB are breaking a mandate from Congress to ask their membership who they want the GMB to nominate for Labour Leader. I received my online credentials earlier this week. As you can see from this screen shot, I used my head!
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50,000 missing
I am advised that Labour’s registered supporter sign up page doesn’t have separate billing and ‘delivery’ addresses, a common if not mandatory feature of all online shopping systems. This is one reason why there is an enormous number of failures, allegedly around 50,000. Many people are being rejected because the payments failed (they didn’t supply an accurate billing address), or they’re not on the register (they did supply an accurate billing address but aren’t on the register at that address; this assumes that the Party’s ability to perform this check is error free.) This could have been minimised by recording both addresses or using paypal. …
Consequences
The Jewish Chronicle reports that Shami Chakrabarti’s enquiry had access to the results of the Royall inquiry into Oxford University Labour Club and is failing to document whether she’d seen it. They major on the fact that Royall discovered evidence of acts of anti-semitism at Oxford University Labour Club but Royall descoped individual acts from her report as she stated she believed that the Party or University’s disciplinary code should be invoked. She (Royall) also argues for more training and is confused as to how far back people should be investigated for evidence of anti-semitism.
My red line is that the Labour Party must not put its disciplinary process in between a perpetrator and the police and courts. I think the language the rules use around culprits of electoral fraud, which is non-compromising should be used and her argument that there should be no statute of limitations is also unacceptable to me. …
Supporting Nominations
Over the last week, we see that a number of Labour CLPs, including mine, reported here by Jacquie Walker have been deciding not to hold meetings to make “supporting nominations” in Labour’s Leadership election. It would seem that this is a tactic to suppress support for Corbyn, to exclude the membership from talking about it with each other, particularly in constituencies where the MP is supporting Smith. In our case, our elected executive committee, a group of 13 have decided that over 2100 won’t meet, debate and collectively influence the result. This blog looks at the legalities, implications and practical consequences of the NEC rules for the Leadership election, I conclude that the bias and factional one-sidedness of the bureaucracy, in this case validated by an NEC majority is deliberate and sustained; the only way to rectify the democratic deficit in the Labour Party is to vote for and elect the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance slate.
The NEC, having decided to impose a freeze date, have also borrowed a number of other rules from the chapters on selection: the prohibition of visitors, i.e. members without a vote at all members’ meetings, the repeated advice from last year that CLPs may choose to use a General Committee[1] or an all members meeting, they have also limited the amount of debate to 30 mins (irrespective of attendance) and I believe instructed that the doors are to be ‘locked’[2] at the commencement of the meeting. (This is to stop people hiding in the toilet to confuse factional whips).
There are genuine practical difficulties in organising these meetings since even some General Committees are pretty big, the one I attend has over 60 members; it’ll be considerably larger next year when those who joined in 2015 are represented on the General Committee. The large numbers of some Parties make room booking a problem, due to both expense or notice requirements for booking. Such practical difficulties are exacerbated where all members in good standing[3] are invited to observe (& speak at) the General Committee as is the standard custom and practice at Lewisham Deptford. This is not, as far as I understand permitted for this meeting under the NEC advice.
There is of course the question of will, the fact that a number of CLPs, especially in London have been choosing not to have supporting nomination meetings shows that many local leaderships don’t want to hear what the membership have to say. I expect I’ll find out more when we finally do meet.
I felt last year that instructing London Parties they must have all members’ meetings to make nominations for the London Mayor but could choose to make nominations to the Leadership elections from GC if they chose, was an act of cowardice[4] by the NEC. We must begin to ask, if we haven’t already, just what value the PLP and their allies on the NEC place on discussion, debate and the collective voice of the ordinary membership. I think we know the answer.
It would seem to be a compelling conclusion that the bureaucracy has been using their monopoly powers of rule interpretation to delay and minimise the impact of the new joiners and the registered supporters since May 2015. From the decision in 2015 to mandate that the branch delegations should be based on membership as at 31st Dec 2014, (which had the effect of delaying new member’s entry to General & Executive committees), the banning of registered supporters from attending meetings, the attempted rigging of the current Leadership elections, the bogus administrative expulsion or suspension of socialists and activists (even when they are readmitted and despite the Chakrabarti Inquiry’s findings and recommendations) and the aggressive interpretation of the various probationary membership rules. This record of partisan activity strongly implies that the General Secretary, the Compliance Unit and its staff, backed by an NEC majority can no longer be considered neutral servants[5] of the party and its membership and have become an asset in Labour’s factional strife.
Some argue they are minimising divisiveness, but it’s debate and votes that heal, at least they do if both sides believe in Clause IV’s common endeavour,
…a democratic socialist Party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone,
It means you need to take advice from other party members and lose gracefully when in a minority, not rummage around in the rules cupboard looking for something that might be what you need or to misuse legacy power to stop the membership having their say.
The problem is the NEC. Frankly it has been for years, it’s their job to run the Party on behalf of the members and to control the bureaucracy, and hold the PLP accountable.
The first step in ensuring that the members’ voices are heard and become the last word is to vote for the Centre Left Grass Roots Alliance candidates for the NEC, Black, Woolfson, Webbe, Williams, Shawcroft & Willsman and those of us who are Union activists or members[6] need to examine the accountability of our representatives on the NEC.
ooOOOoo
Footnotes
[1] A General Committee is a delegate body based on one delegate/25 members plus Union delegates, with the membership snapshot date of the 31st Dec of the year previous to the AGM. For those CLPs who keep to the rule to have the AGM in the 2nd half of the year, we have GC’s based on the size the Party as at 31st Dec 2014, before the first surge in membership.
[2] Late arrivals may not participate in the meeting.
[3] Not in arrears, not under probation, not subject to freeze date exclusion or otherwise ineligible to attend.
[4] Maybe of foresight
[5] This is despite the help I was given in reversing membership rejections in 2015 by one member of the Compliance Unit.
[6] Chapter 2 Clause I 6 B states that members of the Labour Party must be members of a Union (if applicable) and must pay into the political fund of their Union, presumably if their Union has one.
See Also
- https://www.facebook.com/jacqueline.walker.3990/posts/10153885216584912
- https://davelevy.info/the-team-we-need/
- https://www.flickr.com/photos/anthonymck/15359452685