This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Blair]

In Parliamentary news it appears that the speaker is unlikely to say that the amendment on foreign aid to the advanced research bill is within scope… which means that the Tory rebels will not get their vote today.

This has of course led to twitter.com to decide that Lindsay Hoyle is the Antichrist- my deeply unpopular opinion is that he should follow the advice of the clerks on something like this.

Meh, I think it's out of frustration with Corbynites acting as if they won the election in a landslide, when in fact you were over 50 seats off the Tories despite May's awful campaign.

The 2015 baseline made getting up to 280 in seat numbers quite hard... I’m hardly a devout corbynite but 2017 saw results in traditional English marginals that I don’t think Labour will see even on a good night in 2023.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Meh, I think it's out of frustration with Corbynites acting as if they won the election in a landslide, when in fact you were over 50 seats off the Tories despite May's awful campaign.

The 2015 baseline made getting up to 280 in seat numbers quite hard... I’m hardly a devout corbynite but 2017 saw results in traditional English marginals that I don’t think Labour will see even on a good night in 2023.

Fine, but that's not particularly useful if you can't get into government.

[CumbrianLefty]

Another centrist "talking point" is "Corbyn only just won more seats in 2017 than Brown in 2010".

And yes, this is correct in itself, but it is also stripped of all meaningful context. In between a certain event happened which cost Labour 40 seats at a stroke - and the "moderates" in the party were more culpable (in both the short and longer terms) for that than the left.

[S019]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/08/centre-left-unite-union-leadership-candidate-through-to-final-ballot

Coyne has secured enough nominations to make it to the final ballot for the Unite leadership election

[Blair]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/08/centre-left-unite-union-leadership-candidate-through-to-final-ballot

Coyne has secured enough nominations to make it to the final ballot for the Unite leadership election

The interesting and unsurprising news is that Steve Turner is out in front with the most nominations – he won the United left (the main faction in UNITE) endorsement and was widely seen as the heir apparent to unite and is a well respected trade unionist- he is of the left.

Howard Beckett, despite his online fame, came third in the nominations.

there is now a fight between Turner Beckett and Graham about which one of them should drop out so that there were only two people from the unite left running. Of course people are expecting that Graham should drop out on account of being a women.

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/Phil_Brickell/status/1403730502507544577?s=20

For all the complaining about 'twitter lefties' (which is often deserved), the moderates can be just as daft. I refer to the tweeter, not Jerry Hicks who I believe supports Beckett.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yeah, a TWITTER POLL!!

[Blair]

This race really is a great microcosm for the problems & wider dynamics of the left.

Howard Beckett in a move of pure egotism has pissed the bed so badly that it is now impossible for a single left candidate; this week he called for a hustings between the three candidates on the left to decide who would be the single choice- which ignores the fact we had this with the UNITED LEFT vote and he lost (and had signed a pledge that the losers would respect the result)

Turner is by all rights the front-runner & the candidate of the left within UNITE- he won the endorsement! It's been funny how many people on twitter.com are accusing him of being supported by Starmer, or are saying they won't vote for Turner because they have never having heard of him.

The fact that Beckett came third despite the amount of online noise really shows that twitter isn't unite... the latest dream is that Beckett will inspire a boost in turn out* & that means a 4 way race would be fine.

On this point it does feel like History is repeating itself- the party had a great deal of discussion after 1979 about why trade union members were voting conservative in such numbers yet we seem to be back in this weird idea that every UNITE member is an extremely engaged political member of the left.

This race is a fitting end to Len's rule- UNITE are an extremely effective union when they focus on industrial action but the top of the union has basically been a study of what happens when the worse parts of the Labour culture run riot.

Pretty impressive considering that Len has organised & had control over the date of this election too (I can't remember the how & why but he wasn't suppose to be serving for this long) I'm a broken record on this but this is the exact same way in which Corbyn and his faction not only lost power but gave the Labour right complete control over the party machinery in two months after taking 4 years to get there hands on it.



*If every UNITE member actually voted (and getting on the ballot wasn't rigged) then the result would be extremely different- my uncle is a life-long conservative voter but still has a union membership through one of the many mergers. He's only ever voted once and that was in 2017 to get rid of Len!


 

[CumbrianLefty]

Ideal result for me - Turner wins, Chapman 2nd, Coyne 3rd, Beckett last. Not least because the total meltdown that would cause amongst the latter's online worshippers would be awe-inspiring

[Blair]

The other thing I forgot to note was that the dynamics of this elections were designed for McCuskley to have his successor installed- you needed a higher number of branches to nominate you to get on the ballot (this was to stop Coyne but also the grassroots left who ran in 2017 & nearly cost Len his job) and I understand these branches are also quite easy to organise in a certain way.

Turners campaign claim they've won the larger & more important ones- where as a lot of Becketts strength came from Scotland & Ireland and some of the community branches (UNITE community is another story)

Ideal result for me - Turner wins, Chapman 2nd, Coyne 3rd, Beckett last. Not least because the total meltdown that would cause amongst the latter's online worshippers would be awe-inspiring

It's quite a skill that they're insisting he be the unity candidate when he has came last by every metric & also has the distinction of not being eligible to even attend party events.

I'm not even sure how much power Coyne would have seeing as the UNITE executive was always to the left of Len (who famously wanted to back Andy Burnham in 2015 but was stopped his exec) At best he'd be able to appoint someone else as the UNITE rep to the NEC... but it would be a big body blow, especially when many people on the left made a point of talking about getting more involved with union politics after Keir won

[Blair]

https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1403409049388003328

[CumbrianLefty]

How does getting a union place on the NEC actually work?

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1404836467654987779?s=20

Not officially confirmed - people blaming Beckett but that's almost instinctive.

[Blair]

How does getting a union place on the NEC actually work?

I think they nominate and then the new NEC positions are decided at an away day before conference; I think it’s often stitched up by the a big three unions and the officers groups on the NEC. Community lost their NEC seat in either 2015 or 2016 to the Bakers union after the right of the party basically forgot this process existed.

Both the MU and Community have nominated below- so if they get in that’s another pro KS vote.

https://labour.org.uk/activist-hub/governance-and-legal-hub/ballots-and-nominations/internal-ballots-2021/nec-nominations/

[Zinneke]

Today I realised how ineffectual and sterile Keir Starmer was as a LOTO. The fact that without Cummings and several others breaking every rule in the playbook, Bojo would have an open field to propagandise. I mean, the real leaders of the opposition are a footballer, the PMs former Chief of Staff, and a former PM of the same party as the PM. Starmer cannot get a single hit in.

[CumbrianLefty]

The normal trajectory for opposition leaders (barring obvious superstars like Blair, and even he had the odd glitch early on) is for them to start a bit uncertainly as they have to learn on the job, but gain assurance and confidence later on if they are any use at all.

Starmer's is pretty much the opposite, and yes that is pretty jarring.

I note the latest brainwave from the galaxy brains around him (has *any* LOTO had a more hapless entourage - IDS possibly?) is to exhume the slogan that worked so well for HRC in 2016.

I'm not exactly an unalloyed fan, but Deb Mattinson's arrival can't come soon enough - even though the likelihood grows by the day that she will actually end up advising a new leader.....

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1405829184593829889?s=20

It seems this was the safest option for the left of Unite to maintain power.

[CumbrianLefty]

Thank heavens that he belatedly saw sense.

Interesting to see how the more excitable of his online claque take this news, though.

[Blair]

Ah the rumours of Lisa Nandy setting up phonelines have started to begin..

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It seems this was the safest option for the left of Unite to maintain power.

Depends on how many votes he was likely to actually get - the general supposition was that hardly anyone outside the ghasty absurdity that is Unite's 'community member' section (which is not large) were likely to vote for him. But it avoids personal humiliation (well... er... it avoids some personal humiliation) for him, and allows for the impression of unity or whatever.

[Blair]

It seems that there's quite a big clear out in LOTO this weekend.

Both the Director of Communications (Ben Nunn*) & Deputy Director of Communications has quit with the Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney being 'moved'.

I heard on the NS Podcast that they were looking for a new communications director- and Morgan has been briefed quite heavily against for a few months. In an interesting turn of events Jenny Chapman is the only survivor of his senior original leadership campaign team-- it has only been a year.

*In true labour style one report said that Starmer told him they'd an 'open door in the future' while another said he was leaving politics all together.

[Astatine]

Don't know whether it belongs in this thread, but John Bercow is now a member of the Labour Party.

[PSOL]

John Bercow is Labour’s best hope for 2024 against Johnson.

[Blair]

What are people's bets on a leadership challenge after Batley & Spen is lost?

[CumbrianLefty]

It seems that there's quite a big clear out in LOTO this weekend.

Both the Director of Communications (Ben Nunn*) & Deputy Director of Communications has quit with the Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney being 'moved'.

I heard on the NS Podcast that they were looking for a new communications director- and Morgan has been briefed quite heavily against for a few months. In an interesting turn of events Jenny Chapman is the only survivor of his senior original leadership campaign team-- it has only been a year.

*In true labour style one report said that Starmer told him they'd an 'open door in the future' while another said he was leaving politics all together.

Now if Starmer had done all this immediately after Hartlepool - rather than, very likely at their behest, picking a bizarre and totally unwinnable fight with Rayner - he might be in a less parlous position now. That dynamited his remaining credibilty, and the dogs in the street know it.