It’s that time again, people are scrutinising applications to join the Labour Party in great detail. I was asked my advice, and wrote and posted this. I am strongly of the view that we should on the whole take people at face value and believe them if they state they’ve changed their mind. I think we are all agreed that expulsions and exclusions should only be used in exceptional cases; they must not become a tactic of member management as was sought to be done in 2015/2016. Before you read the bollocks below/overleaf, if you want to join the Labour Party, you can do so here. The rest of this article looks at Labour’s membership rules; there are two ways of being expelled from the LP and one way in which membership can be denied.
These, the expulsions, are campaigning for or standing as a candidate in opposition to Labour, supporting an organisation other than an official Labour organisation or being in breach of other conduct rules i.e. racism or bullying. (In addition, you might be expelled, or otherwise sanctioned for breaches of electoral law, other crimes, voting against Labour budgets in the Council, paying for someone else’s membership and or lying about one’s place of residence.)
CLPs (other than those in special measures) should review all applications for membership and recommend rejection if the candidates are ineligible for membership. These meetings should be done monthly so as to notify the GS in time for the eight week deadline.
Members must agree to accept the rules etc, be a Trade Unionist (if eligible), pay the Union’s political levy and be on the electoral register. They may not be a member of any other political party or an organisation incompatible with membership of the Labour Party. Members must also pay their own membership fees.
The rules are unclear as to how to request that a member’s application should be rejected although the decision is by rule taken by the GS, who may delegate this decision.
There seems to be an informal rule that if you stand against Labour, nominate or publicly donate to an opposing campaign, you need to wait 2 years, unless it would seem you are a public official; then we take you immediately. (This leads to the strange case, where someone who stands against us and loses can’t join while someone who wins can).
It seems that the Party is being very aggressive about being on the electoral roll for some new members. The article above implies that you must be on the electoral roll to be a member. This is not so, exceptions can be made and have historically been made for non-citizen residents. I’d have hoped that this leadership would have behaved differently but it seems that David Graeber has been rejected for this reason.