The press have launched an attack on London Labour’s Left for having the temerity to attempt to get their supporters selected as candidates for next year’s council elections. The bulk of the words talks of Haringey where a debate about housing finance and gentrification has polarised the Party, but of course, Ealing, Enfield and Lewisham are mentioned, with good old Crofton Park’s decision to place Cllr Lord Roy Kennedy on an open short list is mentioned as a “losing his trigger ballot”, which while true does not mean that he was replaced as a candidate. It should be noted that in Ealing and Lewisham, the Left are not making gains.
This quote from the Standard,
Others believe the involvement is more direct. “There’s no way local members are doing this on their own. They’re getting assistance to stir things up in a way they didn’t think of,” said one MP.
just shows that the anger at the manipulation and manoeuvring, the refusal to welcome new members and the refusal to listen. is completely underestimated and the aggressive use of the complaints process, rules and legacy bureaucratic power merely reinforces this anger, the sense of unfairness and the will to change the Party!
For the record, there is no national committee nor caucus in the Leader’s office, nor the Momentum office, not even in Unite, TSSA nor CWU planning this. They are winning in Haringey because of the issue and in other places, where they are, because these people no longer represent the membership
The swawkbox covers Haringey with an article written by a recent joiner who has not joined Momentum. I am grateful for them both, for reminding me that this gets quite nasty, and deeply undemocratic … the freedom to associate is a fundamental right and those who organise to drive new members out through boredom, complaint or bureaucratic manoeuvre are serving the Labour Party and democracy poorly.
The skwakbox quotes its anonymous correspondent as follows,
… I met members from the other Haringey CLP, Tottenham and some of the new members from my own CLP who had been excluded from participating.
It struck me that they were really nice people; they came from a mixture of backgrounds. … They were a mix of ages, ethnic backgrounds and ranged from having manual and highly professional jobs. What surprised me the most was they were members who had been members for decades and some just a few months.
They told me they did not care how long people had been members, they were all made to feel welcomed. Some were already on the executive committee and one had already became a councillor in a by-election. New members were being fully engaged and there was not a nasty atmosphere as there was in my CLP. Over the snap election the Tottenham members were campaigning all over the country, they were focused on getting a Labour government. They were all seemed to get along. I was jealous.