Labour Party leadership election 2015

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The reach of the various organised factions these days doesn't extend much beyond getting people elected to the NEC on their slates. Progress made a big effort to try to get 'its' candidates selected for open seats during the last Parliament and (to cut a long story short) failed abysmally, and the situation is no better for the Grassroots Alliance:¹ despite its domination of recent NEC elections, the organised parliamentary faction to which it is linked - the Socialist Campaign Group - is down to single digits. A case in point is provided by Christine Shawcroft², who somehow gets re-elected to the NEC every time (to the entirely understandable horror of many, myself very much included), but failed to be selected as PPC by her own (rather left-wing) CLP when the seat opened up for the 2010 General Election.

So when people talk about Labour Party factions they're referring more to general ideological tendencies - or, and this is something seen only within the PLP and not at the grassroots, between supporters of two former Labour leaders with surnames starting with the little 'B' - than to factions in a classic sense.

Does that help?

<sub>1. Which as all Labour nerds know is literally just the old Campaign for Labour Party Democracy in a bad wig.
2. Party membership currently suspended due to supporting Lutfur Rahman.</sub>

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Map of CLP nominations to date:



News also of Union endorsements: Corbyn has been nominated by ASLEF and the BWAFU, which is not exactly surprising. He has also been endorsed by the FBU and is expected to be endorsed pretty soon by the RMT; neither of these two are Labour affiliated these days, but the new rules mean that they could have some influence if they can get some of the members signed up as registered supporters.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sibboleth, what does the race in endorsements in Parliament look like at the moment?  (A map would be cool if you want to make one.)

PLP nominations have closed: you can find a map on the first page of the thread. Note that not every MP who nominates a candidate necessarily supports them (an issue with Corbyn more than the other candidates of course).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Updated map of CLP nominations is now at the head of the thread. This is not the easiest thing to keep track of, so apologies for any errors.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I tend to think there will be more in the way of checking for mischief makers from points right rather than left (who wouldn't be making mischief anyway, whatever they're doing). It will be interesting to see if the FBU and/or RMT make much of an effort on that front.

Anyway, Unite have issued an official endorsement for whatever it's worth*: Corbyn for first preference, Burnham for second.

_{*Unite being, contrary to media belief, a very diverse organisation not really capable of imposing political will across its membership.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

On the front of joining en masse to vote Corbyn, or on the front of mischief?

The former, obviously. Of course en masse would be relative as you could only ever get the politically committed to do so, and most people don't join unions for political reasons.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

True, is it even possible to keep track of?

Maybe if you were an FBU or RMT official

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I mean there have been (and maybe still are) Labour councillors who are members of Shiromani Akali Dal so, you know.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I will just say that if we're going to draw a line ever...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Corbyn could poll very well - the Left might suck at getting their candidates selected but they have a lot of residual strength in the CLPs and Corbyn is, frankly, an infinitely more credible candidate than Abbott - but he's a bit too much himself to attract the necessary transfers. Now, a more moderate Left candidate might have had a really good shot at winning: which may be why all such names floated opted against running.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Guardian, fwiw, do not want an interfactional civil war to break out in the Labour Party. That would be a certain consequence of two of the candidates in this race winning.

Correct.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

CLP map updated. The patterns are interesting, if not terribly surprising.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Lol Kendall

Indeed.

Of course inactive members are generally more moderate than active ones, but still...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I wonder if Kendall will win the endorsement in her own constituency party?

Unlike Leicester South, West is historically a very Right-leaning CLP (selecting in succession her, Patricia Hewitt and... er... Greville Janner) so she ought to given that she's the local MP. East will, of course, back whoever Keith Vaz tells it to.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

CLP nominations map updated... and I've added one for the Deputy contest.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Burnham seems to be the preferred second choice of most of the louder Corbyn backers, so I don't think that scenario would be particularly problematic.

I'm more interested in what Kendall (or more importantly the powers that be behind her candidacy) do if (as expected) she finishes a poor fourth. Will they do a Hodges, so to speak?

By 'powers that be' I presume you mean the noble Lord Mandelson?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A pretty transparent attempt to scare people on the Labour Right into a) mobilising and b) to cast tight preference chains: I personally wouldn't believe even a published poll of this sort of contest, let alone questionable leaks of supposed private 'polling'.

Still, there's no doubt that Corbyn is doing very well; maybe he really will top the poll. Actually winning would be much harder as he's unlikely to be transfer friendly. I think he would need a very large lead on first preferences and for their to be little transferring between the other candidates, which seems like a stretch.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Incidentally if Corbyn were to win then his age would not be an issue as it is very clear that he has no intention of actually leading Labour into an election. He would likely make certain structural changes and hand over as quickly as possible to someone on the Left - and that can be 'safely' asserted because if Corbyn wins it would be a pretty clear sign of Left dominance within the membership - who's younger than him.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Considering that such a Left figure would have to be very Left, I was in fact thinking pretty much exclusively of Cryer...

...of course it's also possible that a Corbyn leadership would end prematurely in a less comfortable way (there is a precedent, as all Labour history nerds know) in which case whatever would happen next would be very different.

Still, we're getting a looooooong way ahead of ourselves here.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyway, a bunch of new supporting nominations tonight: will update the map tomorrow. Kendall picked up some big London CLPs (including all three in Southwark) which may be notable or may just reflect the fact that factional lines are unusually stark in the capital.

Thing to note, and I might as well at this point as any other, is that the people who turn up to CLP meetings are not necessarily that reflective of the overall membership of the CLP: as such there will be a lot of CLPs that end up voting differently to their supporting nomination.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's worth noting that the election isn't exactly tomorrow. It's a long process and we're only about halfway through...

Oh, btw, if I were in Progress I'd have advocated Flint rather than Kendall/Umunna/Hunt for leader.

Yes, that's a curiosity isn't it. Or Creasy even. And as it happens it's almost certainly going to be one of those two that I'll first pref. for Deputy (though don't know which yet).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It may be an error, but the Staggers site has been updated with today's nominations and... er... it lists Leicester West for Cooper.

Speculation elsewhere that maybe they got their Easts and Wests mixed up, which sounds more likely. We'll see soon.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I would caution about treating that kind of internet rumour seriously unless there's good reason to think otherwise: 99% of the time we would be dealing with mischief making or the ramblings of total idiots.

Fwiw, the SDP split came after nearly a decade of brutal factional conflict (of a kind far, far worse than anything Labour has seen in recent years) and in the midst of an orchestrated attempt by Bennites to purge right-wingers from the PLP. Current situation doesn't strike me as particularly comparable.

As for Corbyn, yes, he's a crank.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Two endorsements of note today: UCATT (building trades) has endorsed Burnham. This is the first TU endorsement to not go to Corbyn. And Progress has endorsed Kendall. I'm sure you are all very very surprised at this development.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think what happens is that what-if wank goes in the what-if forum and not here.