This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[CumbrianLefty]

Khan getting the selection ahead of Jowell was announced a day or two before Corbyn's win in 2015. The immediate reaction of some on the Labour right was "that's London lost again next year, then". And his being "on the left" was at least as much a part of that as being a Muslim.

[Conservatopia]

Lest we forget, Khan backed Bloomberg for President in 2020.

[Torrain]

There’s a piece in the Times today about the Labour leadership trying to figure out what to do with the Rt Honourable Member for Islington North at the next election. The consensus at the moment seems to be that he’s determined to run, either as a member of the party, or as an independent. The local CLP seems to be supportive enough that they’d renominate him for 2024, so even deselecting Corbyn (which still feels like the nuclear option - given the size of party factions) seems difficult.

Do you guys have any predictions/hunches about how this plays out? Is there a playbook for how to deal with this this, or is it destined to be another intro-party struggle?

[Blair]

Khan getting the selection ahead of Jowell was announced a day or two before Corbyn's win in 2015. The immediate reaction of some on the Labour right was "that's London lost again next year, then". And his being "on the left" was at least as much a part of that as being a Muslim.

I have a very boring lecture about the 2015 London Mayoral Selection as being the best example of how the Labour electorate works.

Jowell winning with the membership because she was well known & liked, Sadiq doing extremely well with affiliates/registered supporters due to the TU support & his own track record (he had people leafletting at Corbyn rallies iirc), Lammy doing awfully because he was quite right wing & had been very low profile, Diane Abbott getting screwed over by the left for several reasons.

It will be interesting if there's another mayoral selection in 2024; the last one was very busy because it was right after a GE & people didn't want to go into opposition. But my hunch for the next one is that MPs would not be allowed to run for both.

A key factor is also that it's likely to be a first-past the post election which would actually be harder for Sadiq- but I think the Government have forgotten it might be on the same day as a GE which would be a godsend for Labour.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If journalists are going to write pieces on that mess, they should probably check to see what the Labour Party's rules on the matter are: as much of a horrifying joke as they often are, they are reasonably clear on the procedures regarded an MP suspended from the PLP and selection.

[Blair]

There’s a piece in the Times today about the Labour leadership trying to figure out what to do with the Rt Honourable Member for Islington North at the next election. The consensus at the moment seems to be that he’s determined to run, either as a member of the party, or as an independent. The local CLP seems to be supportive enough that they’d renominate him for 2024, so even deselecting Corbyn (which still feels like the nuclear option - given the size of party factions) seems difficult.

Do you guys have any predictions/hunches about how this plays out? Is there a playbook for how to deal with this this, or is it destined to be another intro-party struggle?

It's a strange situation as he is still a Labour Member; if you lose the whip for personal conduct you usually get suspended as a party member.

My rulebook knowledge is shaky but it was always my assumption that you cannot be re-selected as a Labour MP without the whip. This was why the hairbrained plan in the JC years to see some Labour members sit as 'independent Labour' never happened because the fear was that you would then be de-selected right before the GE.

My hunch would be that his CLP is not allowed to re-select him; as in a trigger ballot (the process by which you decide whether to 'trigger a full process or not) would not be allowed by London region and would be seen as out of order.

They would then be ordered to run a selection process for an 'open seat' or have it imposed before an election; the CLP could boycott this and have a shortlist imposed- which would happen, and some ambitious and poor soul would run. I would guess a councillor, or someone local not engaged in the Forever war- the talk of parachuting an ex-MP wouldn't happen.

He could then run as an independent; he would take a lot of activists with him but anyone supporting him would be suspended from the party & yes the party is sad enough to use this as an excuse to expel as many people as they want. This is why sitting Labour MPs will not endorse him- they would be suspended and barred from standing for three years.

The question of whether he could win is an open one; I'm much more bullish of his chances than others as he is a popular local MP & there's an ideological reason to vote him which independent candidates need (you cannot win on I will fix your bins alone)

There is a logical solution- he could retire (he is an MP in his 70s who was never a parliamentarian in the narrow sense)

Update- it appears I was wrong

https://twitter.com/lukeakehurst/status/1492843773457481732

[EastAnglianLefty]

Having this hanging over the process is liable to make the next set of NEC elections even grumpier than usual.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The question of whether he could win is an open one; I'm much more bullish of his chances than others as he is a popular local MP & there's an ideological reason to vote him which independent candidates need (you cannot win on I will fix your bins alone)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Kidderminster_Hospital_and_Health_Concern

Well not normally.

[CumbrianLefty]

Corbyn retiring at the next GE is indeed the optimum solution to all this, but that isn't likely to happen without a carrot of some sort from the party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm slightly loath to point this out because, given my well-known views, it could be interpreted as concern trolling even though it absolutely isn't, but the part that everyone avoids pointing out for what amounts to diplomatic reasons is that the people who would benefit the most from his retirement would be his own faction. Right now (and actually this was a problem even before his suspension) his political ghost is looming over everything and they can't even move sideways, let alone forwards: which they 'need' to because the strategy that they'd worked towards for decades is dead now.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/YoungLabourUK/status/1493209454065631235
Young Labour has a great sense of timing.

[Blair]

I'm slightly loath to point this out because, given my well-known views, it could be interpreted as concern trolling even though it absolutely isn't, but the part that everyone avoids pointing out for what amounts to diplomatic reasons is that the people who would benefit the most from his retirement would be his own faction. Right now (and actually this was a problem even before his suspension) his political ghost is looming over everything and they can't even move sideways, let alone forwards: which they 'need' to because the strategy that they'd worked towards for decades is dead now.

The Labour left in the PLP are quite a lot like progress were in 2010-2015 Parliament- an odd and difficult assortment of elderly/bitter politicians waiting to retire, some over promoted local councillors and young MPs not ready for the leadership yet.

[EastAnglianLefty]

https://twitter.com/YoungLabourUK/status/1493209454065631235
Young Labour has a great sense of timing.

This statement has been criticised by Scottish Young Labour and a number of local Young Labour groups. Labour youth politics has been a binfire for as long as there has been a youth wing (and it's been shut down on several occasions because of this) and the pattern looks set to continue for the foreseeable.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/YoungLabourUK/status/1493209454065631235
Young Labour has a great sense of timing.

This statement has been criticised by Scottish Young Labour and a number of local Young Labour groups. Labour youth politics has been a binfire for as long as there has been a youth wing (and it's been shut down on several occasions because of this) and the pattern looks set to continue for the foreseeable.

Starmer should copy the stories and simply burn it to the ground. Destroying the conservative parties youth wing has greatly helped it's electability.

[CumbrianLefty]

But his wing of the party (quite possibly correctly) think they can regain control of YL before too long.

[Blair]

Yeah irrc it’s London young Labour that is the relative fortress for the left.

[Blair]

I don't get particularly angry or upset about Young Labour- despite still somehow being young enough to be in it!

All they have is 1 NEC vote & I'm cynical enough to believe the 'well they make youth politics toxic' argument applies to any faction & any model as badly designed as the Labour youth structures.

There's a very good argument for taking some of the changes floated in the Corbyn years & merging them with some others to create a new 'youth' structure.

[beesley]

I think he was one of the few mps at risk of being deselect in 2019

Yes, and relative to pretty much everyone on that wing, not entirely unsurprisingly. The person I was most surprised about being triggered was Diana Johnson, though I assume that was a local thing.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

But his wing of the party (quite possibly correctly) think they can regain control of YL before too long.

What would they even get if they retake it, youth organizations seem like the kind of thing that can only hurt the party and are best invisible.

[CumbrianLefty]

But his wing of the party (quite possibly correctly) think they can regain control of YL before too long.

What would they even get if they retake it, youth organizations seem like the kind of thing that can only hurt the party and are best invisible.

In its Labour Party Young Socialists guise, the youth wing was an embarrassment to the party - and dominated by the Militant Tendency, no less - for much of the 1970s and 80s. But that was changed under the Kinnock reforms, and its only relatively recently that its become a factional hotbed again.

[Blair]

But his wing of the party (quite possibly correctly) think they can regain control of YL before too long.

What would they even get if they retake it, youth organizations seem like the kind of thing that can only hurt the party and are best invisible.

An extra vote on the NEC and one less nuisance to deal with internally.

[Blair]

I think he was one of the few mps at risk of being deselect in 2019

Yes, and relative to pretty much everyone on that wing, not entirely unsurprisingly. The person I was most surprised about being triggered was Diana Johnson, though I assume that was a local thing.

Iirc it was local and generational; she is from right and always came across as a parliamentarian rather than a constituency MP.

Funnily enough every triggered MP was triggered because of local factors and it was just as likely to be done by the right.

There are also some like Virenda Sharma who I don’t think actually have a faction or ideology.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I think he was one of the few mps at risk of being deselect in 2019

Yes, and relative to pretty much everyone on that wing, not entirely unsurprisingly. The person I was most surprised about being triggered was Diana Johnson, though I assume that was a local thing.

Iirc it was local and generational; she is from right and always came across as a parliamentarian rather than a constituency MP.

Funnily enough every triggered MP was triggered because of local factors and it was just as likely to be done by the right.

There are also some like Virenda Sharma who I don’t think actually have a faction or ideology.

How(and also why) do you become an MP without one ?

[beesley]

I think he was one of the few mps at risk of being deselect in 2019

Yes, and relative to pretty much everyone on that wing, not entirely unsurprisingly. The person I was most surprised about being triggered was Diana Johnson, though I assume that was a local thing.

Iirc it was local and generational; she is from right and always came across as a parliamentarian rather than a constituency MP.

Funnily enough every triggered MP was triggered because of local factors and it was just as likely to be done by the right.

There are also some like Virenda Sharma who I don’t think actually have a faction or ideology.

Yes, she was a London Assembly member before becoming MP after all. Impressive in parliament, I've always thought, but the reasoning makes sense.

[Blair]

I think he was one of the few mps at risk of being deselect in 2019

Yes, and relative to pretty much everyone on that wing, not entirely unsurprisingly. The person I was most surprised about being triggered was Diana Johnson, though I assume that was a local thing.

Iirc it was local and generational; she is from right and always came across as a parliamentarian rather than a constituency MP.

Funnily enough every triggered MP was triggered because of local factors and it was just as likely to be done by the right.

There are also some like Virenda Sharma who I don’t think actually have a faction or ideology.

How(and also why) do you become an MP without one ?

I don’t know Ealing Labour politics but I’m sure that Al or others will be able to tell the story better than I can about how Virenda get selected…